James W. "Jim" Douglass (born 1937) is an American author, activist, and Christian theologian. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University. He and his wife, Shelley Douglass, founded the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in

Poulsbo, Washington Poulsbo ( ) is a city on Liberty Bay in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is the smallest of the four cities in Kitsap County. The population was 9,200 at the 2010 census and an estimated 10,927 in 2018. The area was historically i ...

, and Mary’s House, a

Catholic Worker ''Catholic Worker'' is a newspaper published seven times a year by the flagship Catholic Worker community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice. His ...

house in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

. In 1997 the Douglasses received the

Pacem in Terris Award The ''Pacem in Terris'' Peace and Freedom Award is a Catholic peace award which has been given annually since 1964, in commemoration of the 1963 encyclical letter '' Pacem in terris'' (Peace on Earth) of Pope John XXIII. It is awarded "to honor a ...

Theology of nonviolence

Douglass is an author on nonviolence and

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

theology, with many books and essays to his credit. Four of his monographs, published from 1968 to 1991, were reprinted in 2006 by theology publisher

Wipf & Stock Wipf and Stock is a publisher in Eugene, Oregon, publishing works in theology, biblical studies, history and philosophy. History Wipf and Stock was established in 1995 following a joint venture between John Wipf of the Archives Bookshop in Pasade ...

. Douglass's 2008 book, ''JFK and the Unspeakable'', discusses the

John F. Kennedy assassination John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle wi ...

as a conspiracy ordered by unknown parties and carried out by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

with help from the

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

and elements in the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

to put an end to Kennedy's effort to end the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis. ''

JFK and the Unspeakable ''JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters'' is a book by theologian and Catholic Worker James W. Douglass ( Orbis Books, 2008; Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2010) that analyzes the presidency of John F. Kenned ...

'' was first published by Orbis Books in Maryknoll, New York (2008), and reprinted by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...

's Touchstone Books (2010).

Activism

Douglass was a professor of religion at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

who first engaged in civil disobedience to protest against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

. In 1975 Jim and Shelley Douglass founded Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action to protest against the construction of a

Trident missile The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Originally developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation, the missile is armed with thermon ...

nuclear submarine base on the

Kitsap Peninsula The Kitsap Peninsula () lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kit ...

in the U.S. state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. The Douglasses, joined by other activists seeking to prevent the installation of Trident missiles, formed a small intentional community, the Pacific Life Community, near the submarine base. Their goal was

to "seek the truth of a nonviolent way of life," both personally and politically. Personally we tried to confront our racism, sexism, consumerism — all the isms that allowed us to violate others. Politically, we chose to experiment with nonviolent actions resisting Trident, a system that seemed to epitomize all the violence of our society.

This nonviolent protest later extended to protesting against the

White Train For most of the Cold War the United States Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Transport Train, known as the White Train, transported nuclear weapons from the plant where they were constructed. From 1951 to 1987 The Department of Energy's Office ...

which carried nuclear missile parts to Bangor Trident Base. The Douglasses later moved to the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama, to establish Mary's House, a "

house of hospitality A house of hospitality or hospitality house, in the United States, is an organization to provide shelter, and often food and clothing, to those who need it. Originally part of the Catholic Worker Movement, houses of hospitality have been run by ot ...

" for homeless or indigent people in need of long-term health care. Douglass has traveled to the Middle East on several peace missions. In 2003 he joined a

Christian Peacemaker Team Community Peacemaker Teams or CPT (previously called Christian Peacemaker Teams) is an international organization set up to support teams of peace workers in conflict areas around the world. The organization uses these teams to achieve its aims ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and stayed with civilians during the U.S.-led invasion. Douglass is a member, and co-founder of, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth," Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth"
/ref> an organization that questions the "official story" about the 9/11 attacks.

Works

* ''The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace''. Eugene, Oregon:

(1969). p. 320.. * "The Human Revolution: A Search for Wholeness". In O'Gorman, Ned (ed.). ''Prophetic Voices: Ideas and Words on Revolution''. New York:

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

. . * '' Resistance and Contemplation: The Way of Liberation''. Eugene, Oregon:

(1972). p. 196. . * ''Lightning East to West: Jesus, Gandhi, and the Nuclear Age''. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock (1983). p. 112. . * ''Dear Gandhi: Now What? Letters from Ground Zero'', with Shelley Douglass and Bill Livermore. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers (1988). . . * ''The Nonviolent Coming of God''. Eugene, Oregon:

(1992). p. 254. . * ''Selections from the Writings of Shelley and Jim Douglass'', with Shelley Douglass and Mary Evelyn Jegen. Erie, Pennsylvania: Pax Christi USA (1991). . * ''A Question of Being: The Integration of Resistance and Contemplation in James Douglass's Theology of Nonviolence'', with Karen Holsinger Sherman. Eugene, Oregon:

(2007). p. 128. ISBN 978-1-55635-144-0. * '' JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters''. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books (2008). pp. 544. . * ''Gandhi and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiment with Truth''. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books (2012). p. 158. .

References

External links

Interview with Jim and Shelley Douglass

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

James W. Douglass collected papers
from th
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglass, Jim Nonviolence advocates Living people American anti-war activists American Christian pacifists Catholic Workers Santa Clara University alumni Researchers of the assassination of John F. Kennedy 1937 births Catholic pacifists People from Ensley, Alabama People from Poulsbo, Washington