[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 11, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1375-E1376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WAR RESISTER NORMA BECKER FOUGHT FOR PEACE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 11, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a truly 
outstanding woman, Ms. Norma Becker. A teacher, civil rights activist, 
and promoter of peace, Norma touched the lives of everyone who came in 
contact with her. On June 17, 2006, at the age of 76, we lost Ms. 
Becker to lung cancer.
  Norma Becker started out her tremendous career as a schoolteacher in 
New York City. However, she soon moved to the South to teach, after 
hearing about Birmingham, AL, Sheriff ``Bull'' Connor's use of dogs 
against civil rights protesters. During that time, Norma could not help 
but feel the growing anti-Vietnam war sentiment that surrounded her. 
But instead of idly watching others, Ms. Becker took some of the 
biggest steps a single person could. She helped to start the Peace 
Parade Committee, a peace protesting movement in New York City.
  Norma's efforts did not die with the Vietnam war, but rather her 
energy and intensity rose. In 1977, she helped create the Mobilization 
for Survival, which helped to bridge the broad antiwar movement with 
the intensifying anti-nuclear power sentiment.
  However, Norma's favorite endeavor was the War Resisters League, of 
which she served as chairwoman from 1977 to 1983. Staff members of the 
league have praised Ms. Becker for her outstanding leadership. Others 
commended her always present energy. She had an innate ability to work 
well with everyone.
  Peace activists across the country are devastated by this loss. But 
Norma's spirit remains with us and encourages us to continue the fight 
for peace. I enter into the Record with pleasure a piece by the War 
Resisters League as a reminder of the tremendous impact Norma Becker 
has had on our country. It is critical that we keep her memory alive so 
that many generations to come will know who Ms. Becker was as well as 
all the great things she accomplished. She set an example that we 
should all be proud to mimic.

                    Antiwar Leader Norma Becker Dies

       Norma Becker, teacher, civil rights activist, and towering 
     figure of the peace movement during the Vietnam War, died of 
     lung cancer in her New York City home June 17. She was 76.
       A founder of the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade 
     Committee, which drew tens of thousands to protest the 
     Vietnam War, and a founder of the Mobilization for Survival 
     coalition, she was crucial to the antiwar movement. She 
     served as chair of the pacifist War Resisters League from 
     1977 to 1983.
       ``One of the truly great has passed,'' said longtime War 
     Resisters League staffer David McReynolds on hearing of her 
     death. ``As much as any, and more than most, she provided 
     leadership in hard times and for the long and horrific years 
     of [the Vietnam] conflict.''
       Becker was a New York City schoolteacher in 1963, when, as 
     she said later, she was ``recruited into the civil rights 
     movement by Sheriff `Bull' Connor of Birmingham [AL].'' 
     Appalled by media accounts of Connor's use of dogs to 
     subdue civil rights demonstrators, Becker went South to 
     teach in the summer Freedom Schools.
       Over the next couple of years, Becker--and the burgeoning 
     movement against the war in Vietnam--found that she was as 
     gifted an organizer as she was a teacher. In 1965, she helped 
     to start the Peace Parade Committee, which organized massive 
     antiwar protests in New York City. Wendy Schwartz, a younger 
     WRL activist who came to the antiwar movement during those 
     years, adds, ``It was Norma's energy, intelligence, and charm 
     that helped make those demonstrations so large and so 
     peaceful. She worked as well with the disparate peace 
     movement factions as she did with the police.''
       In 1977, after the Vietnam War had ended, Becker helped 
     create the Mobilization for Survival, which linked the 
     emerging movement against nuclear power to opponents of 
     nuclear weapons and the wider antiwar movement.
       But whatever other organizations she worked with, Becker 
     also remained involved with the War Resisters League. Only a 
     week

[[Page E1376]]

     before she died, at the annual WRL dinner, the organization 
     paid tribute to Becker's profound influence on the struggle 
     for peace. WRL and peace activists across the country mourn 
     her loss and send condolences to her daughter and son-in-law, 
     Diane and Stephen Tosh, her daughter-in-law Anita Becker, and 
     her four grandchildren, Sarah, Nicholas, and Katrina Tosh and 
     Alicia Becker.

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