I've had some boo -boos, baby I've had the boo
-boo blues Yeah, I've had some boo -boos, honey
Alright Welcome back to Tell Me What Happened
the podcast that features folks from all walks
of life telling us one childhood experience and
how that event impacted who they are today. I'm
your host, Jay Rehack, and like you, I've had
my share of childhood experiences that have impacted
who I am today. Some of those experiences were
quite painful, some were pleasurable, but I like
to think that whatever happened to me back in
the day has helped make me a better person. Tell
me what happened is sponsored by Sidelining publishing
publishers of quality books including Susan Salvador's
classic one little act of kindness Tell me what
happened is also sponsored by laughsaver .com
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become an app at the first part of June, so look
for it on your Android or iOS phone. All right,
today I have as my guest a good friend of mine,
a man I've known for many years, Tom Clark. Tom
is a volunteer with the Investigative Project
on Race and Equity. A former co -host of the
weekly Live from the Heartland radio show on
Loyola's WLUW 88 .7 FM, he's also lectured on
media and American culture in UIC's corporate
MBA program, working with cohorts of Chinese
health professionals. He served on the steering
committee of Network 49, an independent political
organization of the 49th Ward in Chicago's far
north side Rogers Park neighborhood, where he
and his family have resided for over 30 years.
Lastly, for over 25 years, Tom was president
and co -founder of the Community Media Workshop,
now Public Narrative, where he helped journalists
and hundreds of NGOs annually improve media coverage
of Chicago's neighborhoods. Welcome, Tom Clark.
Tom, are you ready to tell your story? Good to
see you, Jay. Yes, indeed. When I was in high
school, I was part of Young Christian Students,
which was a Catholic youth group that would engage
in social issues at the time. And one of my dear
friends, Roland Radford, is someone who didn't
go on to college because he didn't have great
grades, in part because he kept going south to
Selma and other places for the civil rights movement.
By the time we both entered college, he was signed
up to be a Marine and I was at Loyola. Having
left the seminary, decided to take advantage
of their junior year abroad in Rome. And lo and
behold, one Thanksgiving week, who shows up at
the Rome campus? But my dear friend Roland. Roland
had been sent home early from Vietnam after being
the sole survivor of two patrols. And for several
days celebrating his 21st birthday, he urged
me to go home early from this country club, as
he saw it, and use my influence to help stop
the war. He felt as a Marine, he was limited
in what he would be able to do. But as a white
guy, I ought to be able to do a lot more than
he could. Flash forward, I got very involved.
I had been very involved with the Kent State
strike at Loyola. And that group who went on
to form a commune in Uptown is the group I kind
of came back to when I left Rome. Found out that
they had been planning to do an action on a draft
board in Evanston to try to prevent young men
from being sent over to Vietnam. A totally immoral
adventure by the U .S. government that many of
us We're spending a lot of time trying to stop
and end. In 1971, in April, we poured blood on
500 1A draft file records at the Evans Selective
Service Office and nine months later defended
ourselves in federal court during a week long
trial where we put the war on trial and the war
lost. We ended up being acquitted on three of
the four counts we've been charged with. The
conspiracy count that we ended up being convicted
of was later overturned, ironically, on a First
Amendment basis because of how we had conducted
our action in a nonviolent way. We had learned
a lot from other Catholic Left actions that had
been going on around the country, the most famous
of which probably was the Berrigan Brothers in
Cantonsville. We were part of a line of direct
action civil disobedience folks who stayed around
rather than hit and run, which was notably going
on with other left groups trying to end the war
at that time, particularly the Weather Underground.
I mention them because, famously, Bill Ayers
and I have had many public debates over the years
about the efficacy of what the Weather Underground
did, which I think was to terrorize Americans
even more, versus what we tried to do, which
was to act nonviolently. to produce an action
that would later resonate in a courtroom and
would allow us to make effective arguments against
the U .S. execution of that war. Three of the
four of us defended ourselves, which was a legal
tactic that we learned about after the Chicago
15 trial a couple of years before. It allowed
us tremendous leeway in the way we prosecuted
the war. Yes, we were being prosecuted. But by
the nature of the cross -examination we were
able to do in the early stages of the trial,
we were able to draw out a lot of the elements
that we were trying to do. Later in the trial,
our grandfatherly judge kind of cracked down
a bit, and a lot of the other testimony that
we were hoping to do using anti -war activists
and others were scuttled. But we were able, through
character witness testimony, establish the backgrounds
that we had all engaged in. using parents and
pastors in my case, as well as my friend Roland
Radford in full Marine dress as our character
witnesses. The jury made it clear in the media
discussions following our trial that because
we had acted non -violently, they felt that the
actions, while maybe not justified, certainly
did not amount to a violent disruption of the
normal functioning of the Selective Service Office.
And they acquitted us of the three substantive
counts. that we had admitted in court. The months
between the action and the trial involved a lot
of community organizing in Evanston, street actions,
a lot of time in Fountain Square, as well as
engagement with churches and other institutions
to build up a groundswell of support for our
Defense Committee. I still remember famously
a Night of Methodist Church evening featuring
Jane Kennedy. It was part of the Beaver 55 that
erased napalm files in the Midland, Michigan,
Dow Chemical Plant. It was emceed by Studs Terkel,
who I'd grown up listening to and later became
a mentor of our organization, Community Media
Workshop. And in fact, we named a community media
award after Studs. That evening brought 500 people
into this church and was really a sign that we
had touched a nerve. and that we would go forward
with our trial with a lot of support. Indeed,
we had a week -long evening session, teachings
at Northwestern, that whole trial, bringing in
experts like, oh, Noam Chomsky, Ekbal Ahmad,
who was very involved with the Bangladesh crisis
at the moment. We were trying to establish not
just that the Vietnam War was immoral, but the
U .S. foreign policy had a lot that had... a
lot had to change in the way that we approach
the world. The Bangladesh crisis at the time
being one example of that. Most of us were involved
in community living at that time, primarily in
Uptown, later in Rogers Park. That kind of community,
I think, gave us some strength and power, along
with a whole slew of unindicted co -conspirators
that actually made this whole action more successful.
One quick example during the action, while we
waited for police to show up, we had to tell
the clerk how to call the police and assured
her we would wait to be arrested. I made a critical
call to a contact, which then kicked off another
whole series of activities outside the four of
us. There were three mail drops at different
locations around the city to about 500 supporters
with our call to action, the statement that we
presented during the draft board action itself.
and again setting up the basis for a groundswell
of support for when the future trial that we
anticipated would actually take place. Winning
that trial was not something we expected. Individual
resistors at the time were still getting five
-year sentences for tearing up their draft board.
We got one -year sentences which we never end
up serving because about two years later we went
on appeal a First Amendment case for the conspiracy
count that we had been convicted of was overturned.
That is my story, except that in the years since,
it's been amazing to see how many people's lives
we affected that we didn't even know about, including
most recently when I posted a mini documentary
about our action on Facebook, an absolutely overwhelming
response from colleagues who didn't know about
this chapter in my life. to young men who were
in that draft board and never understood why
they never heard from the draft board again.
So we are still hearing 50 years later from people
who don't believe they'd be walking this earth
much less forming their own families because
of our action back in April, 1971. I have no
doubt about that, Tom. No doubt that you saved
a lot of American lives, which is a beautiful
thing, but also a lot of Vietnamese lives, and
I think... That is also obviously a beautiful
thing. I'm hoping that you actually do wind up
writing a book about this, because I think it's
still relevant. I know it's 50 years already
on this, but looking back on it, can you tell
me, I think I have a pretty fair idea, but how
do you think that event, that trial, the experience,
the idea that you might spend a year in jail,
et cetera, how do you think that impacted who
you are today? I remember driving home with my
parents shoeless because blood had poured on
the shoes and the FBI had confiscated them. And
they're going, Tom, how could you do this? How
could you break the law? And I said, I was just
following what you taught me. They'd been involved
in fair housing work in Old Park and River Forest.
And I saw this as a natural progression. My dad
had taken me to a Martin Luther King rally at
Soldier Field and where we marched on City Hall
demanding affordable and fair housing for the
city. So I felt like I had roots that I was building
on or trying to grow from. And indeed, several
years later, when I was in a little blue streak,
my parents were right there supporting me because
even they came around to understanding that maybe
I hadn't quite ruined my life. My parents, they
felt that I had short circuited my career and
my potential to be whatever, a lawyer or something
else. I had decided not to be a priest anymore,
and they were fine with that. but you know I
was I was destined for bigger things and now
I'm a convicted felon you've ruined it all well
as I found out over time perhaps I got steered
in a little different direction because I was
convicted felon but as a middle class white guy
I was able to survive what perhaps other people
would not with that kind of record by engaging
in the non -profit community first with affordable
housing and later with city -wide organizing
and ultimately with the community media workshop
to help other groups tell their story better.
So I think that work, which was always trying
to bring underrepresented voices into play and
into public so that we weren't always just hearing
from official sources, grows out of the work
that I was doing in high school and college,
trying to directly impact the end of the war.
We learned a lot about media relations, about
public speaking, about engaging the skeptics
and bringing them around. Not always a hundred
percent, but a lot of them. And I learned the
importance of presence and speaking one's mind,
whatever the particular situation might be. I
love it, man. And I got to tell you real fast,
because we're almost running out of time, but
I did have Bill Ayers on this show a few episodes
ago, maybe. And the contrast that you're talking
about is a profound one, because I do believe
that everybody's trying to figure out a way to
end the war that they thought was unjust. But
you and your cohorts definitely went the Martin
Luther King way, which was nonviolent and it
was not, it wasn't a secret mission. Like you
said, it was very public, very civil disobedience
oriented where you stood around and waited to
get arrested for your actions. And I've always
been, I was a big fan of Martin Luther King,
of course still am. And consider anybody who
can go through nonviolence, be nonviolent to
be heroic. When's the last time you talked to
Bill Ayers? It's been a couple of years, although
we engage occasionally on Facebook when he does
one of his treatises. We've agreed that we're
in different spots and I'll leave it at that
because a lot of our action and the framing of
it and how we did it was a direct reaction to
hit and run. kind of activity that wasn't just
weather underground. There are other people even
in the Catholic left that were doing some of
that. But I discovered the power of nonviolent
civil disobedience. The ability to speak truth
to power is tremendously enhanced when one puts
oneself in jeopardy because you're already throwing
off the opposition. You're doing what? You're
going to do what to your life? And it kind of
levels the playing field so that you can engage
in a different level on a moral level rather
than a practical, pragmatic level, which was
the argument at the time through all the presidents
that waged that war was that, you know, we had
to be practical here about what's happening over
there and stop it. Well, it was a moral what
they were trying to do, particularly the way
they tried to do it. And we can see how that
region of the world is today without our presence
as it was for 15 or 20 years. I do think one
of my struggles in doing the book is trying to
figure out how to speak to the importance of
nonviolent disobedience in this time and era.
The tools are different. With social media, one
would think you have a far better chance of communication,
but there's so much clatter out there, it's really
hard to break through. And I think that we were
very deliberate in what materials we brought
into the draft board that we can later use during
the trial, what we said during the action itself,
how we engaged the police. One of the two cops
who reported walked in holding up a peace sign.
And when we asked if we could pray, he said,
as long as you don't destroy any more property,
you can do whatever we want, but you are gonna
be arrested. So even in that engagement, We were
breaking down barriers in a way that, of course,
a lot of people in a police situation like that
would be just far too nervous about stepping
out the wrong way or worse. We used our privilege,
as I look back on it, to speak firmly and strongly
to the powers that be. And yeah, we saved some
lives, not only American lives, but I believe
a lot of Indo -Chinese area lives as well. Your
soldier friend, have you run into him? Is he
still alive? He is alive. And we have talked
briefly, but not the interview I've been hoping
for. I tracked him down. He was a DCFS caseworker.
He came back from his four years and went to
UIC and got a degree. And then we were pretty
much out of touch for many years, but I tracked
him down and discovered he had been a father
of the year in the South suburban area that he
worked in. and discovered ironically that he's
living in countryside hills. Great, great. What's
his name again? Roland Radford. He was a big
influence in my life. Well, this is a big shout
out to Roland Radford. I'd like to thank my guest,
Tom Clark, for telling that powerful story. Thank
Roland Radford for motivating it in some ways
by asking Tom to leave Rome and go back and try
to stop the war. So thank you for coming on the
show, Tom. It's great to see you again, Jay,
and I appreciate the time. All right. Well, that's
our show. I'd like to thank Tom, of course, but
also our sponsors, Sidelining Publishing, publishers
of quality books, including I've Got Peace in
My Fingers by Susan Salador, and of course, LaughSaver
.com. Look for that app coming out in June. That's
LaughSaver .com. LaughSaver .com. So I'm gonna
end this show, certainly in Tom's honor. with
Susan Sauer's classic, I've Got Peace in My Fingers.
Until next time, this is Jay Rehack asking you
all to please stay safe out there and try not
to hurt anybody. I've got peace, peace, peace
in my fingers. Watch what I can do. I've got
peace, peace, peace in my fingers. I'm gonna
shake hands with you. I've got peace, peace.
I've got peace, peace, peace in my fingers Watch
what I can do I've got peace, peace, peace in
my fingers I'm gonna shake hands with you I've
got words, words, words in my head Watch what
I can do I've got words, words, words in my head
I'm gonna talk things over with you I've got
words, words, words in my head Watch what I can
do I've got words, words, words in my head I'm
gonna talk things over with you I've got love,
love, love in my heart Watch what I can do I've
got love, love, love in my heart I'm gonna give
some to you I've got love, love, love in my heart
Watch what I can do I've got love, love, love
in my heart I'm gonna give song to you I've got
peace, peace, peace in my fingers Words, words,
words in my head I've got love, love, love in
my heart I'm gonna give song to you