, 1943 During
World War II, Dellinger was an imprisoned
conscientious objector and anti-war agitator. In federal prison, he and fellow conscientious objectors, including
Ralph DiGia and Bill Sutherland, protested racial segregation in the dining halls, which were ultimately integrated because of the protests. He was a member of the executive committee of the
Socialist Party of America and the
Young People's Socialist League, its youth section, until he left in 1943. In February 1946, Dellinger helped to found the radical pacifist
Committee for Nonviolent Revolution. In 1948, he co-founded the
Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. In July–November 1951, Dellinger participated in the Paris-to-Moscow bicycle trip for disarmament with Ralph DiGia, Bill Sutherland, and Art Emery and sponsored by the
Peacemakers; cyclists got as far as the headquarters of the Soviet Army in Vienna. “We were warned not to go to the Soviet zone. People who went to the army headquarters were sometimes never seen again. But we didn’t think that would happen to us. The worst that would happen was jail, and I already knew I could stand that. I was only worried about what I was putting my family through back in the States.” The Paris-to-Moscow Bicycle Trip for Disarmament was a key inspiration for the
San Francisco to Moscow Walk for Peace in 1960–1961. He was also a long-time member of the
War Resisters League, joining the staff in March 1955. In the 1950s and the 1960s, Dellinger joined freedom marches in the
South and led many hunger strikes in jail. In 1956, he,
Dorothy Day, and
A. J. Muste founded the magazine
Liberation as a forum for the pacifist, non-Marxist
left. In 1961 Dellinger joined the newly founded
Fair Play for Cuba Committee and by late 1961 he had joined the executive of the organization. Dellinger had contacts and friendships with such diverse individuals as
Eleanor Roosevelt,
Ho Chi Minh,
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Abbie Hoffman,
A.J. Muste,
Greg Calvert,
James Bevel,
David McReynolds, and numerous
Black Panthers such as
Fred Hampton, whom he greatly admired. As chair of the
Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, Dellinger worked with many antiwar organizations and helped bring King and Bevel into leadership positions in the 1960s antiwar movement. In 1966 he traveled to both
North and
South Vietnam to learn first-hand the impact of American bombing. He later recalled that critics ignored his trip to
Saigon and focused solely on his visit to
Hanoi. In 1968, he signed the "
Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments to protest the Vietnam War, and later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated
tax resistance as a form of protest against the war.
Chicago Seven trial at a planning meeting for the
Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, October 8, 1969 As US involvement in Vietnam grew, Dellinger applied
Mahatma Gandhi's principles of
nonviolence to his activism within the growing antiwar movement. One of the high points of this was the
Chicago Seven trial over allegations that Dellinger and several others had conspired to cross state lines with the intention of inciting a riot, after
antiwar protesters had interrupted the
1968 Democratic National Convention in
Chicago. The ensuing court case was turned by Dellinger and his co-defendants into a nationally publicized platform for putting the Vietnam War on trial. On February 18, 1970, they were acquitted of the conspiracy charge, but five defendants, including Dellinger, were convicted of crossing state lines to incite a riot. All of the defendants, along with their two lawyers, were given sentences for contempt of court; Dellinger was sentenced to 29 months and 16 days on 32 contempt counts. Judge
Julius Hoffman's handling of the trial, along with the
FBI's
bugging of the defense lawyers, resulted, with the help of the
Center for Constitutional Rights, in the convictions being overturned by the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals two years later. The appeals court remanded the contempt citations for trial before a judge other than Julius Hoffman. Dellinger was eventually convicted on five contempt counts, but was sentenced to time already served.
Subsequent activities symposium at the
University of Vermont, November 11, 1982 Dellinger spoke at the December 1971
John Sinclair Freedom Rally in
Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the late 1970s, Dellinger spent two years teaching at
Goddard College's Adult Degree Program and
Vermont College. In 2001, he was invited back to give the
commencement address to the graduating class of Goddard's Residential Undergraduate Program. Dellinger also was a founder of
Seven Days, an American
alternative news magazine written from a leftist or
anti-establishment perspective. Dellinger obtained the subscription list of
Ramparts magazine, which ceased publication in October 1975.
Seven Days began preview editions in 1975, published regularly starting in 1977 but ceased publication in 1980. In 1986, when his Yale class of 1936 held its 50th reunion, Dellinger wrote in the reunion book: "Lest my way of life sounds puritanical or austere, I always emphasize that in the long run one can't satisfactorily say no to war, violence, and injustice unless one is simultaneously saying yes to life, love, and laughter." For his lifelong commitment to pacifist values and for serving as a spokesperson for the peace movement, Dellinger was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award on September 26, 1992. In 1996, during the
first Democratic convention held in Chicago since 1968, Dellinger and his grandson were arrested along with nine others, including Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn,
Bradford Lyttle, and
Abbie Hoffman's son Andrew, during a
sit-in at Chicago's Federal Building. In 2001, Dellinger led a group of young activists from
Montpelier, Vermont, to
Quebec City to protest a conference that planned to create a
free trade zone. == Death ==