Dave Newhouse: The ageless activist

Madeline Duckles has paid a steep price as a peace activist. She's had two knee replacements and got a new hip from all that marching, all that sign carrying. But that hasn't slowed her down as much as giving up her driver's license at 90.

She's now 92. However, if there is a cause worth protesting, particularly war and social injustice, she will be there to demonstrate. She is the female Pete Seeger.

Such commitment is why Duckles received the Enduring Visionary Award by the peacemaking-social justice promoting Agape Foundation last month in San Francisco.

"It was a great surprise," she said Monday, "and I thought it was just because I had lived so long and not because of what I had accomplished. And, also, there is no peace."

War endures in the Middle East. This frustrates Duckles, a Berkeley resident, to no end. Since World Wars I and II, the United States has been fighting wars that offer no assurance of winning, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives.

"The powers that go to war do it for property and resources like oil," Duckles says. "That's what Iraq is all about."

This kind of thinking inflames defenders of America's war policies, although these defenders do not march with the frequency and passion of the peaceniks, as Duckles' ilk is perceived.

"We're just considered demonstrators, and nobody listens to the message," she said. "(Sen. Joseph) McCarthy called us Communists. But what keeps me encouraged is that these are wonderful people working for peace and justice, and have been in it all their lives. We are serious, and it's important to make the protest visible."

Duckles has been arrested just twice in 60 years as a demonstrator. She asked to be handcuffed in front so that she could blow her nose.

Widowed in 1985, she has five sons, seven grandchildren, one great-grandchild. She has lived in the Berkeley hills since 1950. Her 99-year-old home with a panoramic view sits on a pathway that has 65 steps leading to one road and 102 steps to another. Ideal conditioning for a demonstrator.

She was born in Loomis, north of Sacramento, and became an activist at UC Berkeley in the 1930s when the campus -- believe it or not -- had no political protests. No clubs or organizations. She learned to protest at the local YWCA, attending workshops on racism.

"I don't remember having a great epiphany that this is inhuman and unjust," she said. "I just saw the light."

The internment of American Japanese, including friends, during World War II offended her deeply. "People lost everything," she recalled sadly. And any war to her is the wrong war.

"I think the thing about wars is to stop them before they get started," she said.

She fought against McCarthyism in the 1950s. She organized and participated in the 1961 Women Strike for Peace action, protesting atmospheric nuclear testing. President Kennedy credited the group for the 1963 ban on above-ground nuclear testing.

"The time was you could destroy a city," Duckles said of nuclear weapons. "Now, you can destroy a country. They're so much more powerful, and people don't take them seriously."

Her activism has taken her to Vietnam several times, the first time in 1969. Her family -- husband Vincent Duckles was head of the UC Berkeley music library -- was fully supportive of her walking picket lines. They even marched with her.

"I suppose there's always injustice as long as there is greed and people needing power," she said. "But you have to find a way to control it, and it can't be wrapped in the flag of any country."

She has a plan in place for when she finally stops demonstrating.

"Until I can't do it anymore," she said.

Dave Newhouse's columns appear Monday, Thursday and Sunday, usually on the Metro page. Know any Good Neighbors? Call 510-208- 6466 or e-mail dnewhouse@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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