From the Glendale Baptist Church: “Rev. Don Beisswenger, political activist and advocate for the poor, will speak at Glendale Baptist Church on Thursday, August 18, at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

He will share his experience as a prisoner of conscience, following his arrest for nonviolent protest in dissent over U.S. military policy at The School of the Americas (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). The retired professor and director of field education at Vanderbilt University Divinity School was sentenced to six months in federal prison in Kentucky for his protest at the Fort Benning, Ga. installation that trains Latin American soldiers.

Ray Waddle, in the December 2004, Presbyterian Voice editorial, said that Beisswenger, a Presbyterian minister, went willingly to prison: “His politics and theology led him there – a commitment to make common cause with voiceless people, whether homeless people in the U.S. or citizens in Latin America who suffer, as he sees it, at the hands of U.S. foreign policy. Several SOA graduates have been implicated in killing of missionaries or torture. The Army says no courses there advocate torture or abuse.”

Glendale Baptist Church, a Welcoming and Affirming congregation, is located at 1021 Glendale Lane, between Lealand Lane and Granny White Pike.”

This post was written by Mary Mancini