James Peck

Biography

Overview

James Peck (usually called "Jim") was born in Manhattan, the son of Samuel Peck, a wealthy clothing wholesaler, who died when his son was eleven years old. He attended Choate Rosemary Hall, a private boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut. Even though Peck and his family had converted from Judaism to the Episcopalian Church, Peck was still considered a social outsider at Choate. Peck preferred the fellowship of scholarly intellectuals, and in their company he developed a reputation as an independent thinker. At the same time, he adopted idealistic political doctrines. He enrolled and studied at Harvard in 1933.

While studying at Harvard, Peck polished his skills as a writer and engaged in radical acts that ended up shocking his classmates and forcing him to become the outsider once again. Peck wrote that his mother "referred to Negroes as 'coons'" and he chose to defy her and his classmates by asking a black girl to be his date at the Freshman dance. He dropped out of school at the end of his freshman year when "his alienation from his family and the American establishment was complete".

Peck was married to the former Paula Zweier for twenty-two years. She was a teacher of cooking and author of The Art of Fine Baking (1961) and Art of Good Cooking (1966). Paula Peck died in 1972. They had two sons, Charles and Samuel.

Peck was critical of both U.S. political parties throughout his life, leaning toward a radical form of democratic-socialism. He thought a Utopian world was impossible, and that there would always be a battle between what he called the "Upperdogs" and "Underdogs." He considered himself on the side of the underdogs.

Peck was a member of numerous antiwar and civil rights organizations, and spent his life as a radical journalist. He assisted the War Resisters League, and eventually became editor of WRL News until the 1980s. He also edited the Workers' Defense League News Bulletin. In the 1930s he wrote a labor column for a paper published by the WRL, The Conscientious Objector.

Beginning in 1938, he worked at Federated Press and reported on union activism and joined the American Newspaper Guild. Peck worked as editor of CORE-lator, CORE's newsletter, from the 1940s to the 1960s. Beginning in 1967, Peck became news editor of WIN magazine, a youth antiwar magazine. At times he wrote articles in numerous pacifist publications, such as Liberation magazine.

Labor Activism in the 1930s

Peck's first protest was in New York City at an anti-Nazi rally in 1934. His second protest was participating in the New York City May Day parade that year.

Peck was hired as a deck boy in 1935, and he joined in a labor strike for better food on the boat during his first voyage. Later in 1935, Peck was on a boat that anchored in Pensacola, Florida, where Peck joined the longshoremen who were on strike. Peck claimed the union hall was fully integrated at the time by the striking longshoremen. Peck remained there for two weeks before police arrested him for distributing rank-and-file literature on a boat, marking his first arrest.

Peck helped to found what later became the National Maritime Union, a radical union for sailors and other maritime workers that split from the more conservative International Seamen's Union in 1937. That union grew out of a strike of workers aboard a ship anchored in New York City led by Joseph Curran in March 1936; Peck picketed with the longshoremen for the first time on March 22, 1936, and again from November 1936 to January 1937. Peck later criticized Joseph Curran's transformation from a rank-and-file champion into an autocrat once in power in the NMU.

On May 11, 1936, Peck was arrested for the second time in his life. Police clashed with striking seamen that day, with Peck being beaten and arrested. This marked Peck's first mass arrest, as one of 221 strikers arrested that day. That night they were arraigned, making it the largest group every arraigned at the same time in that courtroom.

World War II Draft Resistance

During World War II, Peck was a conscientious objector and an anti-war activist, and consequently spent three years in jail at Danbury Correctional Institution in Connecticut (1942–1945). While in prison, he helped start a labor strike that eventually led to the desegregation of the mess hall.

During this time, he participated, as did many other conscientious objectors, in medical experiments, especially a yellow jaundice experiment which permanently damaged his liver. Peck viewed it as volunteering to help discover a cure for the disease, and for humanity.

World War II Amnesty Movement

Peck immediately joined protests to grant amnesty to WWII conscientious objectors (COs) after his release from Danbury prison in 1945. Peck worked with the Committee for Amnesty for All Objectors to War and Conscrption in organizing protests and writing press releases. Peck took part in the first amnesty protest at the White House on October 15, 1945. Peck picketed outside Danbury Prison on February 12, 1946, demanding amnesty, while prisoners were on strike inside. On May 11, 1946, Peck joined the largest amnesty protest until then of 100 people at the White House, while CO prisoners carried out hunger strikes.

On December 22, 1946, Peck was one of 15 activists outside the White House, who managed to get press attention because they all wore black-and-white prison outfits to represent WWII COs remaining in prison. In June 1947, Peck attended another theatrical amnesty rally. A small group staged a "mock funeral" in front of the White House. Pallbearers dressed in formal attire and carried a coffin marked "justice." On September 25, 1947, Peck joined 40 amnesty demonstrators, at the NYC station for the "Freedom Train" - a patriotic train filled with U.S. declarations and documents that ran through 48 states in two years beginning in 1947. Demonstrators once again wore prison outfits, which gained the attention of thousands of bystanders and reporters at the station. Police ordered them to move, but 19 activists, including Peck, refused to move and were arrested. Those arrested won in court, and years later the police chief was ordered to issue a public apology.

On Christmas Day, 1947, Peck joined 15 activists outside the White House, two days after President Truman granted amnesty on solely religious grounds to 1,523 COs out of more than 15,000. This meant Peck's sentence was not removed from his record. In January 1948, Peck wrote in a letter to the editor in the New York Times, stating that 16 other countries granted amnesty to all WWII COs, and the refusal to do so by the U.S. "seriously belies our professions of democracy."

WWII Amnesty protests continued into the 1950s, but without successfully changing any laws. On December 10, 1955, Peck led a picket of 40 people wearing his Uncle Sam outfit, demanding a Christmas amnesty.

Anti-draft Activism in the 1940s

Peck and a small handful of WWII COs led the protests against the military draft in the 1940s. On March 25, 1946, Peck was among nine activists arrested for picketing outside a D.C. hotel that hosted a dinner for U.N. Security Council delegates. Peck handed out literature encouraging people not to sign up for military service.

In 1947, President Truman introduced a peacetime draft in Congress, which Peck protested. Peck worked with Bayard Rustin and A.J. Muste to organize a nationwide protest against the draft on February 12, 1947. More than 500 demonstrators burnt their draft cards in more than 30 states. Peck led the most popular action that day, when 15 people burned their draft cards at the White House without any arrests.

Peck worked with A. Philip Randolph, a Black union leader, after President Truman proposed the Universal Military Training Act (UMT), which continued segregation in the military. In April 1948, the WRL assigned Peck to head the Committee on Publicity, which was tasked with printing letters of support for Randolph's call of nonviolent resistance to the draft. The peacetime draft passed on June 19, 1948. Continued protests by Randolph and pacifists led to Truman passing Executive Order 9981, which abolished segregation in the military. This brought an end to Peck working with Randolph.

On June 5, 1948, Peck joined 75 demonstrators in a creative picket outside the White House against UMT. Peck and seven other demonstrators wore red, white and blue Uncle Sam outfits, as they goose-stepped in circles. After the passage of UMT, Peck took on an individual protest at the White House on June 22, 1948. Peck entered the White House in a public tour and quickly chained himself to a banister, and then removed his jacket to reveal a shirt with the hand-painted slogan: "Veto the Draft." This became one of his most famous protests at the time, and it garnered the attention of most news stations. He was interrogated and accused of being a Communist after being removed from the White House, but was let go without charges.

Protests broke out in several cities on August 30, 1948, the first day to register for the peacetime draft. Peck joined Bayard Rustin at a rally in New York City without arrests. Peck and Rustin were arrested on September 3, 1948, at an anti-draft picket in New York City. Both Peck and Rustin received 15 days in Rikers Island, after the judge yelled racial slurs at Rustin. Peck protested outside a New York City courthouse on October 15, 1948, in support of Stuart Perkoff, who was the first person in New York City to defy the Selective Service Act. Two weeks later Perkoff changed his mind, fearing a long sentence.

Anti-Nuclear Movement

In 1946, Peck was arrested in New York City for being involved in the "first nonviolent direct action against nuclear tests." On July 24, 1946, Peck and 35 demonstrators pulled around a stuffed goat rented from a taxidermist in New York City, representing the actual goats left on the Marshall Islands, where the U.S. conducted the Bikini atom bomb experiment that day. Peck was arrested that day and received a $10 fine. A few weeks later Peck and a similar size group marched from the Pentagon down Pennsylvania Avenue, and were arrested for marching without a permit.

Peck and a small group of pacifists protested at the Easter Parade in New York City on May 27, 1947, passing out antinuclear literature. Peck and nine other activists were arrested while marching along the side of the parade. Peck refused to pay the $10 fine, and served 15 days in Rikers Island.

Peck marched in the Easter Parade against nuclear weapons on April 17, 1949, along with eight other activists. Police ordered the group to disperse, but Peck and Mat Kauten refused, and were both arrested. Peck was carried to the police squad by four cops, and his arrest landed in the New York Times. Peck served five days in jail. Peck was arrested again at the Easter Parade with three other people in 1952.

In April 1950, Peck joined the peace vigil at the Maryland office of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to protest the atomic bomb. Peck was briefly arrested for passing out literature in New York City during an air raid drill on September 25, 1953, but was released with no charges. In 1955 and 1956, he was arrested for refusing to take cover during the simulated air raid drills in New York City, which were brought to an end in the early 1960s due to massive civil disobedience. On June 15, 1955, Peck was one of 28 people arrested for standing in New York City Hall Park during the first major protest against the nationwide air raid drills. Peck was arrested with other pacifists such as A.J. Muste, Bayard Rustin and Ralph DiGia, as well as Catholic Worker members Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy.

Peck was arrested with 17 other people in Washington Square Park on July 20, 1956, during the second major protest against the air raid drills. He was arrested again with Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy, and was joined by George Willoughby and Quaker Robert Gilmore, who later became a leader for the anti-nuclear organization, SANE. In May 1960, Peck refused to take shelter during the New York City air raid drill along with 500 other persons, marking the largest act of civil disobedience against the program.

Civil Rights Movement: 1940s-1950s

After the war he became a "radical journalist". Peck joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1946, where he worked as the publicity officer, and later as the editor for the "CORE-lator". CORE was a tiny organization with only a handful of members throughout the 1950s, providing Peck the opportunity to take a leading role in the organization as the head editor, until CORE grew dramatically in the 1960s. Peck was removed from this position in 1965 when the organization ousted white leaders.

Peck was arrested with Bayard Rustin in Durham, North Carolina, during the Journey of Reconciliation in April 1947, which was an interstate integrated bus journey through the South, and acted as a precursor to the later Freedom Rides of 1961. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, during the Journey, Peck was attacked by an angry white mob, with one mob member punching him in the side of the head, but Peck remained nonviolent and safely walked away. Peck was arrested a second time during the Journey for sitting in an integrated group on the bus in Asheville, North Carolina.

In the summer of 1947, Peck was beaten and arrested two times during a CORE campaign that aimed to integrate Palisades Park in New Jersey, which directly led to the passage of the New Jersey 1949 Freeman Bill. He was first arrested with six other people on August 3, 1947, for picketing in front of the pool ticket booth. On August 31, 1947, Peck was one of 28 people were arrested outside the park, and he claimed a police officer knocked him unconscious.

Peck endorsed Martin Luther King Jr.'s Montgomery Campaign, while debating Roy Wilkins of the NAACP about how direct action was just as critically needed as legal procedures in winning civil rights. During the southern sit-in movement in 1960, Peck and other CORE members performed weekly pickets outside Woolworth stores for 15 months straight in New York City.

Peck was also the leading civil rights activist in the "Proxies Campaign," a method where Peck protested segregated businesses stockholder meetings. From 1948 to 1955, Peck attended the stockholder meetings for Greyhound Company, usually holding one share of stock in the company or representing others who held stock. He was joined by Bayard Rustin a few times, and CORE members protested outside the building during the meetings. From the floor, Peck argued that the company should enforce integration in the south.

Freedom Rides and Civil Rights Activism: 1960s-1970s

In 1961, Peck and 15 other volunteers traveled South in the famous Freedom Rides. Peck was arrested on May 10 in Winnsboro, South Carolina, for sitting in an integrated group at a lunch counter. On May 14, Peck was on the second Trailways bus leaving Atlanta, Georgia for Birmingham, Alabama. The first bus, a Greyhound, left an hour earlier and was burned in a firebombing in Anniston, Alabama, seriously injuring the passengers. An hour later, the Trailways bus pulled in at the terminal in Anniston. Eight Klansmen boarded and assaulted the Freedom Riders. Peck, a frail, middle-aged man at the time, was severely injured in the beating and required fifty stitches.

Later, in Birmingham, Peck and Charles Person, a black student from Atlanta, were the first to descend from the bus, into a crowd of Klansmen who, with the organizational help of Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor, were waiting for the Freedom Riders. Howard K. Smith, reporting on-the-scene for CBS, described the ensuing violence on the radio, in words cited by John Lewis in his 1998 autobiography, Walking with the Wind: "Toughs grabbed the passengers into alleys and corridors, pounding them with pipes, with key rings, and with fists. One passenger was knocked down at my feet by twelve of the hoodlums, and his face was beaten and kicked until it was a bloody pulp." Lewis adds, "That was Jim Peck's face."

Peck was severely beaten and needed 53 stitches to his head. Peck was taken to Carraway Methodist Medical Center, a segregated hospital, which refused to treat him. He was later treated at Jefferson Hillman Hospital.

The Freedom Ride was Peck's most famous action, resulting in him gaining popularity as a white civil rights hero. He traveled around the nation representing CORE in speeches, and gained even more attention for the Movement on June 5, when he confronted former President Truman about his recent remarks denouncing the Freedom Riders, making Truman seem behind the times in racial justice. At Peck's suggestion, a Route 40 Freedom Ride project was launched by CORE in December 1961, resulting in half the restaurants desegregating along Route 40 in Baltimore. Peck was arrested along with 14 others after attempting to integrate a restaurant.

In May 1962, after he published his book "Freedom Ride," Peck was one of the main leaders for the Project Baltimore campaign, which led to more restaurants desegregating. That summer, Peck was one of the leaders of the Freedom Highways campaign, which sought to integrate highway restaurants in North Carolina.

Vietnam War Protests

Peck continued his activism by demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Peck began demonstrating against the Vietnam War in 1963 through the WRL-initiated Committee of Public Conscience and the Crisis Subcommittee, which quickly organized demonstrations in crisis situations. In October 1964 he helped launch the weekly Times Square Vigil against the war, which he participated in nearly every week for 8 1/3 years, from October 1964, to January 1973. Between 1965 and 1975, Peck attended every major rally in Washington, D.C., and was arrested 12 times for protesting the war. On February 19, 1965, when demonstrations against the war occurred in 30 cities nationwide, Peck was one of 14 people arrested in New York City for conducting a sit-down at the US Mission to the UN.

On August 9, 1965, Peck was one of 356 demonstrators arrested outside the Capitol Building during the Assembly of Unrepresented People for taking part in a massive sit-in against the war, marking the largest amount of arrests at the Capitol up to that time. Starting in October 1965, Peck took part in the massive New York demonstrations coordinated by the single largest city coalition - the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee - which organized the nation's largest demonstrations on international days of peace. Peck openly advocated for coalition building, along with civil disobedience. In November 1965, Peck joined 25,000 demonstrators in D.C. for a rally organized by SANE.

In 1966, Peck signed two tax resistance declarations and began advising young people to avoid the draft. On February 23, 1966, Peck attended a dinner that honored President Johnson with a "Peace Award" at the Wardolf-Astoria hotel in New York City. Peck painted on the front and back of his shirt, "Peace in Vietnam," but was covered by his coat. When Johnson was about begin his speech, Peck took off his coat, stood on his chair and yelled: "Mr. President, Peace In Vietnam!" He was dragged out of the room, but he managed to repeat his plea three more times. He later served 60 days in jail.

In April 1967, Peck marched with hundreds of thousands of people in New York City, as Martin Luther King Jr. led the antiwar rally. On April 28, Peck attempted to crash the 1967 Montreal Expo by performing a sit-in on stage to protest the war, but he failed in his attempt to get arrested. In October 1967, Peck took part in the famous "Stop the Draft Week" as a speaker in New York City who introduced draft-card burner David Miller on stage, while also demonstrating in support of hundreds of youths as they burned their draft cards. On October 21, Peck was one of 683 demonstrators arrested for performing civil disobedience at the famous March on the Pentagon. In jail that night he spoke with fellow inmates linguist Noam Chomsky and author Norman Mailer. Peck appeared in Mailer's 1968 award-winning book on the protest, The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as a History.

Anti-Nuclear Movement: 1970s-80s

Following the Vietnam demonstrations in the 1970s, there was a revival in the anti-nuclear movement, which Peck took a major part in. In 1973 and 1974, Peck was part of several smaller demonstrations against nuclear testing by France. In 1974 and 1975, he joined Japanese delegates in NYC in protesting nuclear weapons. In 1975, he attended the first two organized demonstrations against the government's first strike nuclear policy. Throughout 1976, Peck was heavily involved in the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice, a nine-month march with 20 routes covering 34 states. Peck joined the Southern leg of the march that launched from New Orleans on April 4.

The southern leg members, consisting mostly of Japanese Monks and poor blacks, were arrested six different times while marching through the south. Peck was present and arrested at four of these: Birmingham, Alabama; Rocky Mount, NC; New Bern, NC; and Ahoskie, NC. The last day of the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice was in Washington, D.C., on October 18, attended by 700 people. Peck joined the "Procession of Death" to the Pentagon, where he and 52 other people were arrested for laying coffins on the steps of the building.

On October 12 and November 17, 1976, Peck joined in protesting China's resumption of nuclear tests. In the summer of 1977, Peck and American poet Millen Brand traveled to Japan and joined the march from Nagasaki to Hiroshima, the most famous feeder route of the thirteen involved in the Japanese Peace Walk. Peck and Brand attended numerous meetings with a variety of groups, spoke with government officials, and were the leading speakers at every event for the 30-day march. When Peck returned home from the Japanese Walk, he shared his experiences in a tour through the U.S., sponsored by the WRL and the Mobilization for Survival, one of the largest coalitions of antinuclear groups.

His tour concluded in Colorado, where he joined a meeting hosted by Rocky Flats National Action Committee (RFNAC), an anti-nuclear group opposed to the major nuclear bomb plant in Rocky Flats, CO. At the meeting Peck was the first out-of-state person to endorse the RFNAC's rally at Rocky Flats for April 29, 1978. Peck was one of 6,000 people demonstrating at Rocky Flats. After the rally, he was one of 150 people who launched a 14-hour sit-down on the railroad tracks leading to the plant. Although Peck was only on the tracks for the first day, the sit-down was sustained for several months.

Prison Movement of the 1970s

The Prison Movement, stemming from the radical protests of the 1960s, was crystallized by the Attica Prison riot in September 1971. It ended with New York state officials sending in reinforcements to crush the riot, resulting in dozens of deaths. On October 2, 1971, in memory of the deaths from Attica, protests were held at nearly 20 prisons nationwide. Peck attended the largest protest that day at Danbury, Connecticut, Prison, where he had been held during WWII. Peck rallied with 2,500 people at Kenosia Park, before hundreds rallied at the prison. On October 24, Peck joined a thousand people, 1971, protesting an award dinner for Governor Rockefeller, who was responsible for the decision to move in on Attica prison.

A wave of prison strikes swept the nation in 1972. Prisoners at Danbury prison went on strike due to poor working conditions and slave wages. On March 2, 1972, Peck joined activists in picketing outside Danbury prison. On October 7, 1974, Peck joined 800 people outside Cooper Union to protest Gov. Rockefeller's planned speech, over his orders during the Attica riot. Peck criticized the young people at the rally who later broke the windows at Chase Manhattan Bank, which became a big part of the story the following day in the New York Post.

Peck revealed the pop-culture of the prison movement found in movies and books. Peck wrote a review in WIN magazine in 1972, covering Leon Dash's book, The Shame of the Prisons. He also enjoyed the 1970 publication of An Eye for an Eye, and the 1972 pamphlet by draft resister John Bach and Mitch Snyder (reprinted by the War Resisters League from the May 1972 issue of Liberation magazine), Danbury: Anatomy of a Prison Strike because it showed how the Vietnam protests were intertwined in the prison strikes.

Peck wrote in the 1974 WIN magazine that his two favorite prison plays were The Jail and Attica. Peck became involved in the case of former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was sentenced to prison in the 1960s, after reading his 1974 book, The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472. On February 1, 1975, Peck joined a march from the Trenton, New Jersey State House to the Trenton Prison in support of Carter, hosted by the NJ Workers Committee Against Police Repression.

Death Penalty Movement: 1970s

From 1972 to 1976, the U.S. had a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, but in 1976 it became legal again after Gregg v. Georgia. Peck took part in one of the dozen southern vigils held on Christmas Eve, 1976, against the death penalty. Peck joined the candlelight vigil in New Orleans, one of the dozen cities to hold vigils orchestrated by the Southern Coalition on Jail & Prisons. Peck joined the national "Easter Witness Against Executions" protests in April 1977, organized by the Southern Coalition on Jail & Prisons. On April 9, Peck marched with 3,000 activists in Atlanta, Georgia, to end the death penalty and protect the "Dawson 5." On April 10, Peck attended a similar rally in New York City, where he heard famed activist attorney William Kuntsler.

On March 9, 1977, Peck protested North Carolina Governor James Hunt at a New York City Symphony Orchestra performance because the Governor refused to intervene in the notorious international case of the Wilmington 10. On March 18, 1978, Peck joined 8,000 people in a march on the White House to free the Wilmington 10. On April 5, 1979, Peck joined a night vigil against the scheduled Alabama execution of John Louis Evans, which ended in celebration when the judge granted a last minute reprieve.

On August 11, 1979, Peck was one of 66 demonstrators arrested for violating a court order by attempting to cross a bridge in Reidsville, Georgia, in order to reach Georgia State Prison on the other side. Peck was arrested there along with Dick Gregory to show support for the "Reidsville Six," who were accused of starting a prison riot the year before.

On November 23, 1979, Peck was one of 24 persons arrested at a protest against capital punishment at the Supreme Court building in D.C., sponsored by People Against Execution (PAX). The rally was called "Florida Day" to represent the more than 100 prisoners facing the death penalty in the state. A series of "mock executions" were conducted upon the 24 people risking arrest, who sat in a hand-made electric chair and pretended to be executed. The 24 bodies were carried across the street and placed on the steps of the Supreme Court, where they performed die-ins until their arrests.

Labor activism in the 1970s

Peck continued his 1930s labor activism in the 1970s. On October 25, 1972, he protested alongside a dozen Asian-American organizations against employment discrimination, outside the headquarters for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, for running advertisements that promoted the idea the idea that Japanese imports threatened American jobs. Peck openly supported more radical rank-and-file unions because they could win victories in wildcat strikes, but he protested what he considered to be a more conservative union, the United Steelworkers.

Peck joined 200 people in protesting the United Steelworkers convention in Atlantic City, NJ, on September 23, 1974, over the union's "experimental negotiating agreement" with U.S. Steel Corporation, which prohibited any type of strike. Peck took part in the first international demonstration against multinational corporations on Earth Day, March 21, 1975. Launched by the Coalition Against Global Enterprises (CAGE), half a dozen protests were held within the U.S., and protests were held internationally in Brussels, Norway, Stockholm and Tokyo. Peck protested in New York City outside the ITT building, where he held signs quoting Anthony Sampson's 1973 book, The Sovereign State of ITT.

On June 4, 1975, Peck went to what he said was the largest Wall Street protest he attended up to that time of 12,000 union demonstrators. The Municipal Labor Committee, representing the major municipal unions, organized the rally against the 1975 crisis budget proposed by the Mayor of New York City, which threatened thousands of municipal jobs. The demonstration was associated with an economic attack by the union, which threatened to withdraw millions of dollars from First City National Bank if the crisis budget went through.

Peck protested J.P. Stevens in the 1970s, an anti-union company that paid significantly lower wages than most factory jobs. On September 12, 1978, four men were arrested inside a J.P. Stevens store for standing in front of scab products and wearing shirts that read: "Boycott J.P. Stevens." This was noted as the first "T-In." On November 17, another dozen people, including Peck and David McReynolds, were arrested inside the New York City J.P. Stevens location. Peck's group had all their charges dropped December 7.

By the early 1970s, Peck considered Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers (UFW) to be one of the greatest leaders in nonviolent resistance. Peck joined weekly pickets for six years in support of UFW's grape and lettuce boycotts. Peck met Caesar Chavez and spoke with him at length in May 1970, during a mass march from Baltimore to D.C. to protest The Pentagon's purchases of scab grapes to export to troops in Vietnam. The Baltimore-to-Washington march marked the first one of its kind on the east coast.

FBI Court Case

In 1975, Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. testified that he was a paid FBI informant in the Klan, and that on May 14, 1961, the KKK had been given 15 to 20 minutes to attack Freedom Riders without interference by the police. Peck filed a lawsuit against the FBI in 1976, seeking $100,000 in damages. In 1983, he was awarded $25,000, and by this time was paralyzed on one side after a stroke. Peck had been working for Amnesty International until his stroke.

Death

In 1985, Peck moved into a nursing home in Minneapolis. He died there on July 12, 1993, at age 78.

Selected works

Peck, James, "The Ship That Never Hits Port", in Cantine, Holly R.; Rainer, Dachine, Prison etiquette: a guide for incarcerated individuals, Bearsville, N.Y. : Retort Press, 1950. (reprinted 2001, Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press). Cf. pp. 46–71.

Peck, James (1958). We Who Would Not Kill. L. Stuart.

James Peck, ed. (1960). Sit Ins: The Students Report (PDF). CORE. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 5, 2010. Retrieved April 10, 2010.

Peck, James (1962). Freedom Ride. New York: Simon & Schuster. OCLC 890013.

Peck, James (1969). Underdogs vs. Upperdogs. Canterbury, NH: Greenleaf Books.