Barbara Deming

Barbara Deming was born in New York City during 1917. She was a feminist and a nonviolent political activist. She earned a B.A. from Bennington College in 1938 and a Master’s degree in 1941 from Case Western Reserve University. She began her career as a film analyst for the Library of Congress, writing film criticism and her own fictional work. She then became a professional writer, contributing to cultural and political journals.

During the1960’s Deming found herself protesting many issues she felt unjust. During 1960 she joined demonstrations against Polaris submarines, which carried nuclear warheads. In 1961 she walked with the San Francisco to Moscow walk for peace and attended the International Peace Brigade in Europe. In 1962 she protested atomic bomb testing at the Atomic Energy Commission building in New York City and in that same year she joined the Nashville to DC bi-racial walk for peace. In 1963 Deming joins black demonstrators in Birmingham, Georgia who were acting for the collective right to be treated like human beings. That same year she attended the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, which was a committee in the federal House of Representatives that conducted ‘witch hunts’ for communists in peace and leftist organizations during the early sixties. In 1964 she joined the 2800 mile, Quebec-Guantanamo walk for peace and freedom, a racially integrated protest over U.S. actions in Cuba. In 1965-1967, Deming traveled to North and South Vietnam to protest the war.

Deming spent her life empowering people through her writing and nonviolent activism. She fought for social equality and basic human rights through nonviolent forms of protest. Her leadership can be found in her tenacity and motivational spirit.

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