Peggy LawPlace of birth: Mt Kisco, NY, 1936 I met Peggy in 1998 when she brought together a group of women to discuss starting a Women’s Desk for Making Contact, an international public affairs radio program produced by the National Radio Project. She soon after hired me as a contractor to launch the production and training hub for women that we envisioned. I was an activist, a manager and a media producer. Peggy mentored me in fundraising, administration…and patience. Peggy was one of three founders of the International Media Project/ National Radio Project, founded in 1994, and one of its stalwart supporters. For the first nine of the past 15 years, she was the executive director, and continues to be an ambassador and fundraiser for the organization. Her success in magnetizing resources is just one example of her knack for getting people to step up to the plate, whether to make donations or pitch in to get something done. Peggy is a born organizer who worked in more traditional community causes until her social-political worldview began expanding in the early to mid ‘70s. She and her husband, John, helped organize voluntary elementary and high school desegregation programs, in which all four of their daughters participated. Their eldest, Linda, took time out of her high school and college education to work in paramedic programs in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. Disturbed by the poverty and injustices she encountered living in a Third World country, she challenged her parents to see firsthand how people lived there... and learn how those injustices were fueled by US political and economic policies. Peggy and John took up that challenge, visited Guatemala with Linda and returned home to work in the sanctuary movement and other social justice causes.... each one further deepening their social-political education and resolve. Before long, Peggy and John, the products of economic and educational privilege, were traveling into international conflict zones with groups like Witness for Peace, writing articles and talking to groups in the Bay Area and around the country to educate them about what they had learned and what folks could do to press for change. A natural educator, Peggy discovered that she could take complicated and disturbing topics and make them intelligible and compelling to just about any audience. She was challenged to do just that by many of the women she met in areas of conflict. They thanked her for coming to work with them and asked her to tell what she learned to her people at home. She continues to travel to international trouble spots, report back to community groups, and work to promote the types of independent media that raise voices and issues seldom reflected in corporate media. Currently, she serves on the boards of the Institute for Public Accuracy and IF, a social change organization, and is an active Founding Director of the National Radio Project. I am grateful to Peggy for all that she has done for and with so many. For me she is a model of diligence, generosity, and hopefulness.
Honored by Lisa Rudman |
