"The evils in the society today are greater than they were in 1968. I enjoy life this way, I enjoy life being in solidarity with the people who are fighting for a better world" (from 1996 interview question, on continuing his activism into his 80s).

April 2001, at age 85, David Dellinger arose at 2:45am and hitchhiked to Quebec City to join massive demonstrations against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). So continued the incredible journey of a man who spent his life confronting evil and injustice where he saw it in ways that were consistent with his pacifist beliefs.

Born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, he began life as the son of a prominent Republican lawyer and friend of then US president Calvin Coolidge. As an honors student at Yale his first arrest came at a march supporting the right of unionization at the University. His summers at school had been spent working at a factory and traveling the country with hoboes. It was at Yale that he would discover his belief in non-violence when he punched a New Haven local at a school football game. Immediately revolted by what he’d done he later wrote, "the lesson I learned was as simple, direct and unarguable as the lesson a child learns the first time it puts its hand on a red-hot stove. Don't ever do it again!"

During University travels in Europe he saw Nazi Germany and drove an ambulance during the Spanish civil war. After returning to the States he spent three years traveling before eventually enrolling at the Theological Seminary in New York. Because of his studies, he was eligible for deferment when conscription began in 1940. Refusing to register at all he spent a year at federal prison in Danbury - in solitary confinement because of his refusal to recognize racial segregation in the jail. When the US entered World War II he again opted for prison rather than violate his deep-seated belief in non-violence.

Following the war, Dellinger founded Direct Action magazine with AJ Muste and anarchist Dorothy Day. As US involvement in Vietnam grew so did Dellinger’s work to end it. He organized the 1967 protest march on the Pentagon immortalized in Norman Mailer's book, "Armies Of The Night," and stood trail as one of the Chicago 7 charged with organizing riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

After the trial Dellinger faded a bit from the limelight though his dogged activism continued long after the anti-war movement waned. He moved to Vermont where he began teaching and spent much of his time focused on his writing.

After completing his autobiography "From Yale to Jail" in 1996 he sent local activist Molly Rush a personally inscribed copy thanking her for the inspirational life she’d led.

Molly reciprocated that feeling wholeheartedly. "From the time I first got involved in the peace movement in the 1960s, David was one who helped me to see the power of non-violence in action. He played an essential role in the anti-Vietnam War movement, but more important for me was his constancy and sheer stubbornness as the movement waxed and waned."

He died May 25, 2004. Mourned by the world, he is survived by his wife, three sons and two daughters.

Image from Vermont Independent Media www.vermontindymedia.org