Sr. Anne Montgomery (left) with her Christian Peacemaker Team in Bethlehem.

David McReynolds presented the League’s award at a dinner in New York City in June.

In the interest of justice and peace, Christian Peacemakers has sent delegations to many war-torn area, including Haiti, Iraq and the West Bank. Sister Montgomery, along with other Christian Peacemakers, has spent much of the last seven years in Hebron, a war-torn city in the West Bank. In a “ministry of presence,” Peacemakers serve as international observers in the interest of justice and peace.

(For more information on Sister Montgomery’s ministry in Hebron, click on Spotlight, then Archives.)

At the award ceremony, Sister Montgomery’s longtime friend Liz McAlister praised her spunk, her discipline and her commitment. McAlister is a fellow peace activist who was jailed with Montgomery in West Virginia in the 1980s after the two participated in demonstrations against the U.S. military.

Reflecting on those days in prison, McAlister said:

“One night Anne knocked on my door to share the news she’d just heard on her radio: that the United States had bombed Libyan President Moammar Kadhafi’s home and killed one of his children. We shared the shock and grief of that moment and, in our own fashion, we prayed. Prison is a hard place to hear such news; one feels so helpless. Praying with Anne made it bearable. Being with Anne made it bearable. And, if I had had eyes to see, her present commitment to Hebron might have been visible at that moment.”

The War Resisters League advocates nonviolence as the method for creating a democratic society free of war, racism, sexism and human exploitation. The League was founded in 1923.