David Eberhardt

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David Eberhardt
Born (1941-03-26) March 26, 1941 (age 83)
Teaneck, New Jersey, United States
Alma materOberlin College
Occupation(s)Poet, musician, author, peace activist
Known forThe Baltimore Four
Children1, Christopher

David Mack Eberhardt (born March 26, 1941), is an American peace activist and poet. He is best known for his participation, with Philip Berrigan and two others, in the antiwar action known as the Baltimore Four, an immediate precursor to the Catonsville Nine.[1]

Early life

His father, Charles R. Eberhardt, S.T.M., Ph.D., was an Episcopal minister, as well as chair of the Department of Philosophy at

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Eberhardt is a graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon School (1958), and Oberlin College (1962). He played varsity lacrosse at both schools.[4]

Although he grew up Episcopalian on what he called "the hard pews of the church," he does not practice it in adulthood, saying he comes closest spiritually to Zen and Sufism, and the Catholic Worker Movement.[5]

His influences include the hymn

Walsham How, making it the title of one of his books.[7] He additionally cites the unofficial national anthem of England, "Jerusalem" (And did those feet in ancient time), a choral song by Sir Hubert Parry.[8]

Peace activism

He taught for several years at the Boys' Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore, then began a life of activism, first in the civil rights movement with Baltimore's renowned civil rights leader Walter P. Carter as a mentor. With CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, he authored The Soul Book, with photographs by Carl X. Eberhardt began in the peace movement in 1964, and was a draft counselor for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Father Philip Berrigan became Eberhardt's mentor as they engaged in more and more assertive actions against the Vietnam War. Father Berrigan celebrated Eberhardt's marriage to Louise Yolton on October 16, 1967, the night before the actions of The Baltimore Four.[9]

The Baltimore Four

As a peace protester, on October 17, 1967, Eberhardt entered the Selective Service Board at Baltimore's Customs House with Father

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, there were riots in Baltimore and other cities, and the trial was postponed.[14]

This action predated

The Catonsville Nine by six months. While they were out on bond, Berrigan invited Eberhardt to participate in that action, but he declined, as did Jesuit priest Richard McSorley SJ.[15] Eberhardt and Berrigan, along with Mary Moylan and George Mische of The Catonsville Nine, broke bond and went underground.[16] None of them responded to prosecutor Stephen Sach's letter advising them to turn themselves in. The FBI captured Berrigan and Eberhardt on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on April 21, 1970, when they raided St. Gregory the Great Church's parish rectory and found them hidden in a pastoral closet. They had publicly announced an appearance that evening, but the FBI staged the raid to pre-empt the public event.[17]

Incarceration

After an appeal was denied by the

Tony Provenzano and Carmine Galante
, who expressed the same sentiments.

After prison

Eberhardt liked to joke that he was one of the few inmates who was actually "corrected" in the correctional system, in that it gave him a career in criminal justice.[21] He worked at the Baltimore City Detention Center, (the jail), assisted at the beginning by then-warden Gordon Kamka and Charles Benton, Finance Director for Mayor William Donald Schaefer.[22] At the jail he was Director of the Baltimore Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR), which he founded along with Marjorie Scott, Administrator of the Baltimore AFSC Office.[23] One of OAR's notable projects was its Bail Fund, one of the first of its kind, designed to help reduce overcrowding and meet a federal overcrowding mandate. OAR's original mission was to match volunteers with inmates and to initiate criminal justice reforms. His title at the BCDC was Social Program Administrator, and he brought many groups to the jail, such as Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, yoga, writing classes, life skills classes, and more. After 33 years working for the city and then the state, he retired in 2010.[24]

After prison he also worked along with George Mische of The Catonsville Nine as a newsletter editor for the National Coordinating Committee for Justice under Law on prison reform issues.[25] He also worked for the National Moratorium on Prison Construction, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee along with Brian Willson, on alternatives to prison.[26]

Other peace actions

As Vice Chair of his CORE chapter, he was again arrested several times, once for trying to integrate the Chartley Apartment Complex. During the 1960s he was a journalist for several underground newspapers. He was military editor for 'Harry', which he began while in prison, and also 'Dragonseed'.[27]

He never stopped getting arrested (although for less serious offenses), for example protests at the Pentagon and NRA headquarters. Along with peace movement work, he is active on gun control issues and Baltimore's gun violence. He assisted the Baltimore Non Violence Center and as well the SPARK's campaigns for a Workers Party.[28]

Pardon by President Reagan

On December 23, 1982, he received a full and unconditional pardon from President Ronald Reagan, although he quipped that Reaganites needed a pardon from him.[29]

References

  1. ISBN 9780199942756
    .
  2. ^ College, Towson State (1970). Towson State College Bulletin Graduate Studies. Towson, Maryland: Towson State College. p. 88.
  3. ^ Eberhardt, Charles R. (1949). The Bible in the Making of Ministers. New York: The International Committee of Young Men's Christian Association, Association Press.
  4. ^ "Class Notes 2020". NMH Magazine. Gill, Massachusetts: Northfield Mount Hermon. May 22, 2020.
  5. ^ "Blood Against the Draft & A Protest Primer". Spirit in Action. Northern Spirit Radio. December 24, 2022.
  6. ISBN 9780615623955
    .
  7. ^ Heid, Rosalind Ellis (January 1, 2017). "Dave Eberhardt, For All the Saints: A Protest Primer, review". The Loch Raven Review. Baltimore, Maryland: Loch Raven Press.
  8. ^ "Article". Katallagete. 6 (3). Committee of Southern Churchmen: 16. August 12, 2009.
  9. ^ Gray, Francine du Plessix (March 14, 1970). "Profiles: Acts of Witness". The New Yorker. p. 110.
  10. OCLC 34547152
    .
  11. ISBN 9780030845130
    .
  12. ISBN 9780521717670
    .
  13. ^ Byrne, Jr., Richard (January 29, 1993). "Revolution 9". Baltimore City Paper. Baltimore, Maryland.
  14. ^ United States v. Eberhardt, 417 F.2d 1009 (4th Cir. 1969).
  15. ISBN 9781879175198
    .
  16. ^ Nobile, Philip (June 28, 1970). "The Priest Who Stayed Out in the Cold". The New York Times.
  17. ISBN 9780199781386
    .
  18. ^ Nobile, Philip; Casey, William Van Etten (1971). The Berrigans. New York: Praeger. p. 122.
  19. ISBN 9780429980602
    .
  20. ISBN 9780199942756
    .
  21. ISBN 9780814637463
    .
  22. ^ Eberhardt, David (August 5, 2015). "Good riddance to the Baltimore City Detention Center". The Washington Post.
  23. ^ "Poetry and Conversation: Kathi Wolfe, David Eberhardt, and Gregg Mosson". Enoch Pratt Free Library. October 7, 2015.
  24. ISBN 9780615623955
    .
  25. ^ Heikkila, Kim (September 28, 2018). George Mische (PDF) (Report). Minnesota in the Vietnam War Era Oral History Project, Minnesota Historical Society. p. 72.
  26. ^ Board of Public Works Meeting Minutes (PDF) (Report). Governor's Conference Room, State House, Annapolis, Maryland: State of Maryland. October 1, 1975. p. 56.
  27. ^ Eberhardt, David (1970). "NO COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: The saga of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention by David Walley". GI Press Collection, 1964-1977. Wisconsin Historical Society.
  28. ^ Eberhardt, David (November 16, 2022). "Opinion/Letter: Report gun source in UVa shooting". Charlottesville, Virginia: The Daily Progress.
  29. ^ "Pardons Granted by President Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989". The United States Department of Justice. September 2017.

External links

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