Ralph DiGia

Ralph DiGia
Born	December 13, 1914
Died	February 1, 2008 (aged 93)
Education	City College of New York
Known for	pacifism
Spouse	Karin

Ralph DiGia(December 13, 1914 – February 1, 2008) was aWorld War IIconscientious objector,lifelong pacifist and social justice activist, and staffer for 52 years at theWar Resisters League.

Born in theBronxto a family of Italian immigrants (his father was an anarchist barber) in 1914, DiGia grew up onManhattan'sUpper West Side.A 1927 rally for Italian anarchistsNicola SaccoandBartolomeo Vanzettiset him on the path he would follow for 80 years.

At theCollege of the City of New York,where he was studying bookkeeping, DiGia signed the "Oxford Pledge," refusing to participate in the coming war. In 1942, when theSelective Service Systemordered him to report for induction, he said he was aconscientious objector.But his objections to war were based on ethics, not religion, and the draft board had no category for secular COs. TheU.S. Attorney's office referred him to pacifist lawyer Julian Cornell, at theWar Resisters League;Cornell lost his case, and DiGia spent the next three years in federal prisons.

AtDanbury Federal Correctional InstitutioninConnecticut,and later atLewisburg Federal PenitentiaryinPennsylvania,he met other draft resisters, likeDave Dellinger,who some decades later would be a defendant in theChicago Sevencase, and Bill Sutherland, who would move toAfricaafter the war and eventually become a pan-Africanist advocate for nonviolence. While in prison, DiGia and other COs conducted hunger strikes to compel the prison system to integrate its dining halls. They succeeded. In 1946, along with Dellinger,Igal Roodenko,and others, DeGia helped found the radical pacifistCommittee for Nonviolent Revolution.

Opposition to the Cold War

After his release, he joined aNew Jerseycommune with Dellinger. In 1951, DiGia, Dellinger, Sutherland, and fellow CO Art Emery bicycled from Paris to Vienna, handing out antiwar leaflets as they went, urging Cold War soldiers everywhere to lay down their arms and refuse to fight.In the early 1950s, he left the commune and moved to the Manhattan area that would later be called Soho, where he lived for the rest of his life, and in 1955 he joined the War Resisters League staff as a bookkeeper. The following year he convinced the organization to help him to refuse his war taxes by not withholding federal taxes from his paycheck.In the early 1960s, he was arrested more than once for not taking shelter during the "civil defense" drills. In 1964 he served four weeks in jail in Albany, Georgia (with, among others, the late peace theoristBarbara Deming) in the Quebec-Washington-Guantánamo Peace Walk organized by theCommittee for Non-Violent Action.

Opposition to the Vietnam War

During theVietnam War,DiGia did necessary office work at WRL but also organized demonstrations and counseled draft resisters. In 1971 he was among 13,500 arrested in the May Day antiwar actions inWashington.

Anti-nuclear work

When the Vietnam War ended, WRL took onanti-nuclearwork. In 1977, he protested nuclear power at theSeabrook Nuclear Power StationinNew Hampshire.In 1978 he was arrested on theWhite Houselawn while he was demandingnuclear disarmament.He was in New York'sCentral Parkin June 1982 when a million people said, "No Nukes!" He was at dozens of demonstrations at theUnited Nations.

Later life

In the 1990s, he traveled frequently toBosniawith his wife, Karin DiGia, and worked with her relief agency Children in Crisis, which Karin created, but also continued to demonstrate for peace and justice at home. In 1996, he became a volunteer instead of a paid staffer at WRL, but continued to work there five days a week. In 1998, he was arrested in Washington at WRL's "A Day Without the Pentagon" in 1998 and at the mass protests against the acquittal of theNew York Citypolice officers who shot Guinean immigrantAmadou Dialloin 1999. He continued his work at the WRL office until his 93rd birthday, in December 2007. He often said he was even an activist at the ball park: an ardentNew York Metsfan, he remained seated, on principle, during the national anthem.

In 1996, the Peace Abbey, the multifaith retreat center inSherborn, Massachusetts,gave DiGia its Courage of Conscience award "for his example as a conscientious objector and for over forty years of dedicated service at the War Resisters League." In 2005, WRL gave the 40th annualWar Resisters League Peace Awardto DiGia and his longtime colleague, former photographerKarl Bissinger.

He continued his war opposition, including opposing theIraq War.

Death

In the winter of 2007-2008, after a fall andhip fracture,he developedpneumoniaand died February 1, 2008, at 7:22 AM (2:22 AM GMT)

Memorials

• Ralph DiGia Fund for Peace and Justice

References

• The Daily Kos,[1]
• Interview by Philip Metres,[2]
• Direct Action: Radical Pacifism From the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven,by James Tracy (1996, University of Chicago Press).
• A Few Small Candles: War Resisters of World War II Tell Their Stories,by Larry Gara (1999, Kent State University Press).
• Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963,by Scott H. Bennett (Syracuse University Press, 2003).