Public Invited to AWTT Book Launch

Join the Blue Hill community October 9th at 7:00 pm in Emlen Hall at the Bay School to celebrate the launch of Portraits of Peacemakers, the third book in the series featuring Americans Who Tell the Truth (AWTT) portrait subjects. Highlights of the night will include a reading by founding artist Robert Shetterly and a panel discussion with World Peace Game creator and educator John Hunter and Zoe Weil, director and founder of the Institute for Humane Education.

Portraits of Peacemakers

A vivid portrayal of past and present Americans speaking truth to power, Portraits of Peacemakers highlights Robert Shetterly’s remarkable color portraits and profiles of fifty peace activists with essays by Chris Hedges, Kali Rubaii, Paul K. Chappell, Medea Benjamin, Alice Rothchild, and David Swenson. The people honored in this book approach peacemaking in manifold ways. They have told the truth about the lies enabling war, they have protested, they have gone to jail for peace, made art imbued with the suffering of war, the stupidity of war and its cruelty, taught the curricula of peace, exposed the unspeakable wounds and trauma visited on children in war, and shown how environmentally, historically, and psychologically wars never end. They have also shown how warmongers promote and profit obscenely from the business of industrial killing, how atrocity is celebrated as heroic. They resist, resist, resist. They act with love. This book celebrates the heroism of those refusing to participate in the atrocity of war making and celebrates the teachings of the peacemakers. 

John Hunter / World Peace Game

Educator John Hunter is best known for his creation of the World Peace Game. The game is a hands-on political simulation that gives players the opportunity to explore the connectedness of the global community through the lens of the economic, social, and environmental crises and the imminent threat of war. The goal of the game is to extricate each country from dangerous circumstances and achieve global prosperity with the least amount of military intervention. As “nation teams,” students gain greater understanding of the critical impact of information and how it is used as they learn to negotiate for the common good without military intervention. Watch John Hunter’s TED Talk

For a more in-depth dive into the World Peace Game, sign up for Hunter’s workshop at 3:30 p.m. on the same day, October 9 – also at the Bay School in Blue Hill, ME.

More Book Details

PORTRAITS: Betty Burkes • Major General Smedley Butler • Paul K. Chappell • Ramsey Clark • Charlie Clements • William Sloane Coffin • Rachel Corrie • Frances Crowe • Dorothy Day • Daniel Ellsberg • Bruce Gagnon • Emma Goldman • Amy Goodman • Doris “Granny D” Haddock • Daniel Hale • Jim Harney • Chris Hedges • Pat Humphries • John Hunter • Dahr Jamail • Joyce and Nelson Johnson • Maja Kazazic • Kathy Kelly • Channapha Khamvongsa • Ron Kovic • Dennis Kucinich • Dr. Bernard Lown • Colman McCarthy • Ray McGovern • Camilo Mejía • Jeannette Rankin • Alice Rothchild • Kali Rubaii • Ben Salmon • Cindy Sheehan • Samantha Smith • David Swanson • V (Eve Ensler) • Alice Walker • Henry A. Wallace • Shannon Watts • Craig Williams • Jody Williams • Ann Wright • Howard Zinn 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Shetterly is a visual artist, social activist, and writer. For the past twenty years, he has painted over 275 portraits of citizens who address issues of social, environmental, and economic fairness in the series Americans Who Tell the Truth. Shetterly’s portrait project is also recorded in a multi-volume book series that includes Portraits of Racial Justice, Portraits of Earth Justice, and Portraits of Peacemakers. Since 1990, Shetterly has been a producer of the Maine Masters Project and has served as president of the Union of Maine Visual Artists. Shetterly lives and works in Brooksville, Maine. 

More about Americans Who Tell the Truth

AWTT presents a growing body of portraits and profiles of Americans who have struggled for racial, social, gender, economic, and environmental justice—people who have worked to close the gap between what we say as a country and what we do. A nonprofit educational organization, AWTT teaches the history and the necessity of activism. As Colman McCarthy points out in this book, “Give peace a chance, yes, but why not get serious and give it a place in the curriculum: peace courses in every school, every grade, every nation. Unless we teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence.” 

Robert Shetterly and Americans Who Tell the Truth are the subject of the feature-length documentary film, Truth Tellers, directed by Richard Kane and currently airing on American Public Television.

AWTT has a wide range of educational and community offerings. From elementary schools to graduate programs, AWTT’s mission is to use its more than 275 portraits of courageous activists as learning opportunities that encourage everyone to become engaged citizens as they address issues of social, environmental, and economic justice. AWTT offers workshops, speaking engagements, and lesson plans, and encourages schools, universities, and communities to host portrait exhibits and to engage in its education programs. AWTT offers lessons and themed exhibits around environmental justice, civil rights, the media, indigenous issues, women’s rights, and much more.

The AWTT project was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2004. With the platform provided by the organization, the portraits and Robert Shetterly have participated in hundreds of events, presentations and exhibitions. To date, Shetterly and his portraits have been invited into grammar schools, high schools and colleges in 35 states and Washington, D.C.  In addition, AWTT has collaborated with a number of organizations working to promote engaged citizenship through education and action.