Honoring Linda Thurston

For this week's A Peace of History, we are sharing this memorial post honoring Linda Thurston, who unexpectedly passed away last weekend. Linda was a dedicated police & prison abolitionist and Operations Coordinator for our friends at War Resisters League. As a WRL staffperson, Linda stayed at VPT numerous times for retreats, national committee meetings, and more. As an historical archivist, Linda also advised us invaluably on what to keep and preserve from the many documents of Marj Swann. As we share some staff with WRL, Linda's passing comes as a shock to many in our community who worked closely with her for many years. Please be patient with us as we at VPT process this tragedy and work through how to move forward.

Linda's family has organized a HomeGoing fundraiser to cover the funerary expenses. If you can give to ease some of the financial burden for the family of this amazing woman who gave so much of herself to social justice causes, please visit the following address: https://www.gofundme.com/f/homegoing-for-linda-m-thurston...

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To our dear community,

We are grieved to be sharing with you all devastating news: Linda Thurston, War Resisters League's Operations Coordinator passed away unexpectedly this weekend.

Linda first organized with WRL for the Day Without the Pentagon action in 1998 and later joined the national staff collective in 2007 where she was responsible for maintaining daily operations, our office space, the website, technology, and was known to geek out about tech things. She held much WRL history and institutional knowledge. Linda leaves a big void in our hearts.

Linda dedicated her life to movement and radical antiwar politics, particularly prison and police abolition ("before it was cool," she would often say ❤️). She fought tirelessly to end the death penalty and wrote to many political prisoners over the decades.

In addition to being an abolitionist, Linda was many things: archivist, historian, radio host, Star Trek nerd. As we organize in memory of Linda, we want to invite you to share the memories of the Linda you knew and the pictures you have of her. Leave them publicly in the comments here, or reply back to this email.

There will be more information regarding a memorial, which we will share with you soon.

In grief and love and solidarity,
​
War Resisters League