Direct Action: Inspiration from Ammon Hennecy and Utah Phillips

Bumpersticker paying homage to a movement that often doesn't make the history books!


"An Injury To One Is An Injury To All"
--------------------IWW moto



Ammon Hennecy - Photograph by Jerry Currier 2006


Ammon Hennacy was a Catholic, anarchist, pacifist, vegetarian, draft dodger in two world wars, tax refuser, one person revolution in America - that about covers it.
--------------------U. Utah Phillips (storyteller, folk singer, activist, wobbily, former tramp)


Ammon Hennacy was a man that was often mention by the late Utah Phillips. Ammon lived from July 24, 1893 to January 14, 1970. He founded the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City, Utah. There Ammon provided services to the homeless. He named the house after song writer and labor organizer (Industrial Workers of the World aka IWW aka "Wobbiles") Joe Hill. The house remained until 1968.

Utah Phillips talks about Ammon Hennacy at 2007 Strawberry Music Festival

According to http://www.lovarchy.org this film is out. I haven't been able to find it though


Ammon was born in Ohio to quaker parents. He was raised baptist but became an athiest, a socialist and a IWW member. Ammon was spent two years in a Georgia prison for resisting draft to World War I. The only book Ammon was allowed to read was the Bible. It was during this time that he became a pacifist and began describing himself as a "Christian anarchist."


Direct Action by Utah Phillips: Recorded with Ani Difranco on the album Fellow Workers


Like Ammon I myself am a Christian. However, during his time the Salvation Army would attempt to shut down the Wobbilies. They were hired to do so. Money talks unfortunately. It's due to the communities of the Wobbilies that we have so much. I am saddened that a "Christian" organization like the Salvation Army was responsible for so much hate and violation of common rights.


"The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free..."
-----------------Utah Phillips - http://www.utahphillips.org