In 1984, Berea resident and New Jersey native Craig Williams attended his first public forum where he and a crowd of about 1,000 locals learned that weapons of mass destruction were being stored in Madison County at the Blue Grass Army Depot.
Williams told this story Wednesday to Eastern Kentucky University professor Alan Banks’ Appalachian studies class, which focuses on the importance of citizen activism.
“One day, the Army came to town and told us: ‘We have chemical weapons and we’re going to incinerate them. Any questions?,’” Williams said.
“I raised my hand and it’s still raised today. On the way home that night, my wife looked at me and said, ‘Craig, you have to do something.’ And since I always do what my wife tells me, here I am more than 20 years later.”
Williams is just one of several speaking during the third-annual Citizen Activism in Appalachia series that ends April 22.
So why did Banks call on Williams to be Wednesday’s guest speaker?
“I want the students to meet someone who has been successful and is respected in their community as an activist,” said Banks, who serves as director of EKU’s Center for Appalachian studies.
The Vietnam veteran and internationally renowned activist was given the honor of being North America’s 2006 Goldman Environmental Prize recipient.
The award is given to one person from each continent based on their work to preserve the natural environment.
The Goldman Prize organization recognized him for the work he has done to convince the Pentagon to stop plans to incinerate old chemical weapons stockpiled at the Blue Grass Army Depot and around the United States.
He has worked to create a nationwide grassroots coalition, the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), to lobby for safe disposal solutions and co-founded the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its international campaign to ban land mines.
“He is a hero and he’s done a lot of work for people in this area,” Banks said.
Before Williams spoke to the class, Banks explained to the students why he considered the CWWG a notable organization and a good example of community activism.
“This is not an environmental group that’s just a group of young people out picketing,” Banks said. “This is an environmental group that formed over time and involves groups of people from all walks of life.”
The Appalachian studies class places a strong emphasis on activism in the region and understanding how communities face and solve problems, Banks said.
Williams took the class on a journey that began in the early 1980s and is ongoing today.
For more than 20 years, Williams has encouraged community, national and international activism and spoke Wednesday about how to become a successful activist.
“People need to know that it can be done,” he said. “I think that people can do a lot of things if they decide what it is they want to do and are strategic in the way they go about it. Once we educated ourselves on the issue (of chemical weapons storage and destruction), we decided it was something we were not going to tolerate.”
Williams eventually sold his cabinet-making business so that he could devote his life to activism.
The CWWG, based in Berea, began on a local level, eventually grew to a national level and now is an internationally known non-profit organization.
“We realized that in order to be effective, we had to get real,” Williams said. “We had to get serious.”
One of the group’s first steps was to explore the topic of chemical weapons disposal and working methods that could substitute for incineration.
“We had to create an alternative solution to what we were opposed to,” he said.
The CWWG eventually advocated the disposal method of neutralization and supercritical water oxidation that instead of fire, uses water, heat and intense pressure to break down the nerve agent into a non-lethal, disposable waste.
The Pentagon finally approved this method in 2002, which led to the ongoing construction of the weapons disposal facility at the Blue Grass Army Depot.
“Madison County Kentucky turned around a Pentagon decision,” Williams said. “That shows that when people gather with a common objective, they can have an impact. I don’t think that people really grasp the level of accomplishment. It’s quite remarkable.”
Recent communication between U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates resulted in a 2017 chemical weapons destruction deadline, which means the weapons would be gone six years before the deadline last set, which was 2023.
The result of the provision was two-fold in that the Department of Defense was legally obligated to complete disposal by 2017 and had to obtain the appropriate amount of funding to meet the deadline.
“This is a direct result of the people’s engagement in this issue,” Williams said. “It’s remarkable.”
Visit www.cwwg.org for more information about the Chemical Weapons Working Group.
Call 622-1622, 622-3065 or visit www.appalachianstudies.eku.edu/events for more information about for more information about EKU’s Center for Appalachian Studies.
Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 623-1669, Ext. 234.
IF YOU GO ...
The “Citizen Activism in Appalachia” events will continue throughout April.
• March 19
3:30 - 4:45 p.m., “County Judge,” filmmaker Robert Salyer, Crabbe Library Room 128
• April 2
3:30 - 4:45 p.m., “Unions and Activism: Hospital Workers on Strike,” Morehead State University History Professor John Hennen, Crabbe Library Room 128
• April 9
6-7:30 p.m., “Mountain Women Rising,” Ferrell Auditorium, Combs Building
• April 16
3:30 - 4:45 p.m., “Fossil Fools: Art, Activism and Appalachia,” Kristen Baumlier of the Cleveland Art Institute, composer and sound artist Brian Harnetty and filmmaker Tom Hansell, Crabbe Library Room 128
* April 22
6:30 p.m., Public presentation by Ann Pancake, the author of “Strange as This Weather Has Been, Grand Reading Room of the Crabbe Library
All events are free and open to the public.
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