War Resisters League

The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States.

Founded in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I, it is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International. It continues to be one of the leading radical voices in the anti-war movement.

Many of the organization's founders had been jailed during World War I for refusing military service. From the Fellowship of Reconciliation many Jews, suffragists, socialists, and anarchists separated to form this more secular organization.

Although the WRL was opposed to US participation in World War II, it did not protest against it; the WRL complied with the Espionage Act, ceased public protests, and did not solicit new members during this period. During World War II, many members were imprisoned as conscientious objectors. In the 1950s, WRL members worked in the civil rights movement and organized protests against nuclear weapons testing and civil defense drills.

In the 1960s, WRL was the first pacifist organization to call for an end to the Vietnam War. WRL also organized the first demonstration against the war with a September 21, 1963 vigil at the U.S. Mission to the UN, followed by an October 9, 1963 picket of Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu speaking at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. WRL was among the primary groups (along with Committee for Nonviolent Action, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Socialist Party, and the Student Peace Union) to organize coordinated nationwide protests against the Vietnam War on December 19, 1964.

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