Peter Irons was sitting in prison.

I started serving my sentence on New Year's Eve in 1966,

and I was released in February of 1969.

It was 26 months between two different prisons,

one in Michigan, one in Connecticut.

Peter was 26 years old.

He had grown up in the Northeast and in the Midwest, but he'd ended up in the South in the 1960s because of the civil rights movement.

I first started working with the student on Violent Coordinating Committee in 1960.

When the sit-ins began, and I went down to the first

meeting of SNCC in Atlanta. And while I was there, I heard a speech by a minister named James

Lawson. It struck me as he spoke. He said, we have to stand up against the system that oppresses

anyone.

And the best way to do that is to cut your ties with the government as much as you can.

And I started thinking, what are my ties to the government?

One of them was my draft card.

And so I wrote a very lengthy letter to my draft board in Cincinnati saying, you know, I can't bear arms for a country that still requires segregation.

It's not something that I feel I could take up arms to defend.

When the U.S. ramped up its involvement in Vietnam, Peter Irons stuck to his pledge.

When he received his draft summons, he refused to obey it.

And so he was indicted.

I had a trial in Cincinnati before a judge.

He had a son serving in Vietnam at the time.

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