A three-day conference at Hope College will both highlight the life and impact of peace activist A.J. Muste (1885-1967) and honor him by exploring a variety of topics related to peace and justice in the present day.
“A.J. Muste: Peacemaker, Prophet, Pragmatist” will run from 3 p.m. on Thursday, March 21, until shortly before noon on Saturday, March 23, in the college’s Haworth Hotel. The public is invited to all of the events, and admission is free.
A.J. (Abraham Johannes) Muste, who was a 1905 Hope College graduate (and class valedictorian), was one of the most well-known and influential peace activists in the United States. He was also a prominent labor leader across much of his career and active in the civil rights movement.
In addition to presentations about Muste, the conference will include reflections on nonviolence and how he might respond to contemporary conflicts; his portrayal in the 2023 film “Rustin” and connection with civil rights activist Bayard Rustin; and the current conflict in Gaza, and activism in apartheid-era South Africa. A concurrent exhibition in the college’s Van Wylen Library will feature publications by and artifacts related to Muste. The speakers will include grandson Peter Muste and biographers Leilah Danielson and Jo Ann Ooiman Robinson, the latter of whom delivered the first address in the college’s annual A.J. Muste Memorial Lecture Series in 1985. The complete schedule is available at hope.edu/muste
The current and former Hope faculty members who are organizing the conference hope that the three-day event will not only enhance awareness and appreciation of Muste but bring attention to the issues he made his life’s work.
“We hope that this conference constitutes a new and large-scale rediscovery of A. J., and one that never again dies down,” said Dr. Kathleen Verduin, a professor of English who is a member and former chair of the college’s A.J. Muste Memorial Lecture Committee. “Especially in times like these, when nations are again raging furiously, A.J. continues to bear witness.”
Verduin credits former faculty colleague Dr. David Schock with inspiring the conference. She and Schock, an award-winning independent filmmaker who previously served on the college’s communication and English faculty, developed the four-part documentary film series “A.J. Muste: Radical for Peace,” excerpts from which will be screened during the conference. Schock, in turn, credits the experience of having met with Muste experts around the country with inspiring the vision of getting them together in one place.
“Russell Kirk writes about the illative sense, a sense of knowing. It is that sense that first gave rise to the idea of a conference about A.J. Muste,” Schock said. “Dr. Kathleen Verduin and I worked away for some six or seven years on what has become a grouping of films about A.J. when I realized that the two leading researchers about A.J. — Jo Ann Ooiman Robinson and Leilah Claire Danielson — had corresponded but never met face to face. In the instant I saw a gathering at Hope with these leading thinkers and researchers — and many others — celebrating the thought and work of A. J.”
Muste spoke out against the nation’s involvement in every war from World War I through the Vietnam War. In his quest for peace he generated controversy for being arrested for participating in protests in the U.S. and meeting with leaders like Ho Chi Minh, yet he also demonstrated in Moscow’s Red Square against nuclear testing. Muste’s involvement in labor issues included serving as general secretary of the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America and educational director of Brookwood Labor College. Serving as executive director of The Fellowship of Reconciliation from 1940 to 1953, he became active in the civil rights movement. He corresponded with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and King in his book “Stride Toward Freedom” credited Muste with introducing him to pacifism during a lecture that Muste delivered at Crozer Theological Seminary in 1949 while King was a student.
The four films comprising “A.J. Muste: Radical for Peace,” which chronicle the span of his life and work, are available for public viewing at no cost at radicalforpeace.org
Muste is remembered at Hope in a variety of ways. The A.J. Muste Memorial Lecture series, which was established in 1985 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of his birth, seeks to explore issues that would have been of interest to Muste, including topics related to labor, civil rights and peace. Since 1988, Muste has also been honored on campus with the A.J. Muste Alcove, which is a study alcove in the Van Wylen Library. A commissioned bust of Muste sculpted by Dr. Ryan Dodde, a 1989 Hope graduate who is a plastic surgeon, was added to the alcove in November 2018.
To inquire about accessibility or if you need accommodations to fully participate in the event, please email accommodations@hope.edu. Updates related to events are posted when available at hope.edu/calendar in the individual listings.
The Haworth Hotel is located at 225 College Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.