Ralph DiGia 1914-2008

Ralph DiGia died on 1 February,
2008, at the age of 93.  A Second World War conscientious objection,
Ralph had been one of the prisoners who went on hunger strike to end
racial segregation in prisons.  On his release, he was one of the
generation of radical pacifists who transformed the War Resisters
League and pioneered the use of nonviolent direct action in the USA, on
issues of war preparation (such as civil defence drills) and on racial
segregation. 

David McReynolds, former WRI chair, wrote an obituary, which has been
published on WRI's
website.

As Ralph was the US financial representative for War Resisters'
International for decades, Howard Clark, chair of WRI, wrote to him -
actually the day before his death - to thank him for his work. We
publish his letter below.



Dear Ralph



I've just heard about your illness and that you've had to hand over the
job of being WRI financial agent.  Now that I'm chair of WRI it falls
to me to thank you for your decades of work with us. 

Dear Ralph, you have been an absolute inspiration to so many people for
so many years.  I met you for the first time at the Sheffield triennial
in 1972, nearly 36 years ago, and you were already a living legend.  It
felt an incredible privilege for a young man like me to be hanging
around with such a pioneer of radical pacifism, passing the evening
singing and joking.  If Emma Goldman hadn't said "if I can't dance,
it's not my revolution", I'd believe it was you. 



You know my favourite peace movement office in the world has been 339
Lafayette Street, a place that's known it's fair share of disputes I
know, but a place whose very pores seem to breathe the joy of
commitment.  The good cheer you brought into the office, and your
talent for seeing the humour in life, always gave me a big lift when I
visited. 



To have had such a prominent activist as WRI's financial agent has been
great - a way of telling everyone, "look, book-keeping's important
too!"  I once heard that one of the reasons that Gandhi was a
successful fundraiser was that he always made sure that the
book-keeping was immaculate - I guess Narayan Desai's father Mahadev
had something to do that - and in this respect you've been a true
Gandhian for us.  When the manual is written on "revolutionary
book-keeping", you'll be in there as a shining example! 

I don't think anybody else knows how many years you've been our
financial agent.  But for all that work, and for so much more, I thank
you with all my heart.



            Yours in peace (but in struggle too!) 

          

            (chairperson, War Resisters' International)