AMP Advisory Council
Colman McCarthy (born March 24, 1938 in Glen Head, New York), an American journalist, teacher, lecturer, pacifist, progressive, a self-proclaimed anarchist and long-time peace activist, directs the Center for Teaching Peace in Washington, D.C. From 1969 to 1997, he wrote columns for The Washington Post. His topics ranged from politics, religion, health, and sports to education, poverty, and peacemaking. Washingtonian magazine called him “the liberal conscience of The Washington Post.” Smithsonian magazine said he is “a man of profound spiritual awareness.” He has written for The New Yorker, The Nation, The Progressive, The Atlantic, and Reader’s Digest. Since 1999, he has written biweekly columns for National Catholic Reporter.
Since 1982, he has been teaching courses on nonviolence and the literature of peace. In the fall semester of 2006, he taught at seven schools: Georgetown University Law Center, American University, the University of Maryland, The Washington Center for Internships, Wilson High School, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and School Without Walls. In 25 years, he has had more than 7,000 students in his classes. In 1985, he founded the Center for Teaching Peace, a nonprofit that helps schools begin or expand academic programs in Peace studies. He is a regular speaker at U.S. colleges, prep schools, high schools, and peace conferences, and gives an average of 50 lectures a year. The titles of his lectures range from “How To Be a Peacemaker” to “Nonviolence In a Time of War.”
Colman McCarthy graduated with a B.S. from Spring Hill College, and holds five additional honorary degrees from St. John’s University, Wheeling Jesuit College, Belmont College, Walsh University, and Spring Hill College.
Pacifist, journalist and ethical vegetarian for his nationally syndicated column in The Washington Post. He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in Sherborn, Massachusetts.
McCarthy also won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1998 to research and write about mentoring, tutoring, and literacy at Garrison elementary school in Washington, DC.
In 2010 he was awarded the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize.
For his courses on nonviolence and the literature of peace, McCarthy’s course texts include “Solutions To Violence” and “Strength Through Peace: the Ideas and People of Nonviolence.” Both books are anthologies of peace essays edited by McCarthy and published by the Center for Teaching Peace. He has also developed an eight session course of 48 essays, The Class of NonViolence and forwarded its Facilitator’s Manual. The purpose of the courses is to expose students to the philosophy of pacifism and the methods of nonviolent conflict resolution. His former students include Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), one of the most liberal members of Congress; Mark Gearan, president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and former director of the Peace Corps; John McCarthy, director and founder of Elementary Baseball; Anthony Shriver, director and founder of Best Buddies International.
McCarthy’s educational philosophy has attracted some controversy in the past, with two Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School students calling in 2006 for a more balanced presentation of the issues covered by the class. McCarthy’s classes are discussion-based and well known for lively debates and challenges that McCarthy issues to his students. An avid teetotaler, McCarthy often challenges his students to stop drinking alcohol for the semester and document their experiences and observations of those around them. He also lectures at many universities and institutes. In October 2009, McCarthy lectured – The Politics of Peace at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. His December 30, 2010, op-ed in The Washington Post titled “‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ has been repealed. ROTC still shouldn’t be on campus”, from which the Taliban quote below was taken, attracted over 1000 reader comments, most strongly opposed to his position and the logic with which he constructed his argument. His statement that “ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school …” drew especially heavy scorn, with many of those commenting taking pains to identify themselves as being of liberal persuasion.
Over the years, hundreds of guest speakers have spoken in his classes. They have included Nobel Peace Prize winners, Peace Corps volunteers, Sufi mystics, Army psychiatrists, members of Congress, school custodial workers, former death row inmates, murder victims’ families, social workers, corporate executives, rabbis, priests, Special Olympics athletes, Olympians, former political prisoners, parents, homeless individuals, folk singers, presidential candidates, and activists for human rights, civil rights, gay and lesbian rights, victims’ rights, prisoners’ rights, Native Americans’ rights and animal rights.
In 2009, McCarthy wrote A Vigil for Life While We Celebrate Death, an article in The Washington Post about the life of William Thomas, a peace activist, who undertook a 27-year anti-nuclear vigil in front of the White House.*
January 19, 2011 Colman McCarthy wrote Sargent Shriver: A Life of Grace for the Washington Post.
Many of Colman McCarthy’s books are available at Amazon.com, including I’d Rather Teach Peace and All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence.