Bobbie Stewart

Bobbie Stewart (born 1943) is an American Christian pacifist and the founder of the Washington, DC chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Biography

Bobbie Stewart was born in 1943 in upstate New York, but grew up outside Knoxville, TN. She grew up in an average American family with two brothers and a sister. Her father did not serve in WWII, as he was working on his doctorate to become a professor. Also, his father was from Germany, which may or may not have affected him.

Bobbie Stewart earned her bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in German from the University of Tennessee. Later, she earned a masters degree in an alternative program on volunteering from Lindenwood University, a Missouri school which then had a branch in DC.

Bobbie Stewart married John Stewart, a pacifist and antiwar activist, in 1970, and in 1971 signed the FOR statement of purpose, which was an important moment in her life. Her pacifism was somewhat influenced by her religious beliefs. She said, “I very much believe in God and always think that God is there in each person.”

Fellowship of Reconciliation

In 1978, she and her husband lived in Boston while he completed his master’s degree at MIT, and it was in Boston that Bobbie Stewart became an active FOR member. In this time, she served a year on the national council of FOR. She also traveled to Germany with FOR, and upon returning to the United States, decided she wanted there to be a DC chapter of FOR.

In 1981, with the help of friends, she contacted about 200 people and started the DC chapter of FOR, of which she said, “Probably, it is the most important thing in my life.”

In 1985, the DC chapter of FOR and the Center for a New Creation organized a project to wrap the Pentagon in ribbon, in protest of the prospects of nuclear war. There was one ribbon per person, and each person wrote something that they would not want to see realized in a nuclear war. In the end, they gathered approximately 15 miles of ribbons and covered the distance from the Pentagon to the Capitol and back.

After this project, the DC chapter of FOR and the Center for a New Creation organized a trip to Russia. In 1987, Bobbie Stewart was one of a group of 250 people to travel to Russia. They met with 250 Russians and together walked (20 miles a day) and road buses, from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) to Moscow.

Bobbie Stewart has been involved in other peace organizations, but FOR has been the most important to her.

Steward currently lives in northwest Washington, DC.

References

Content based on an interview conducted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007.

External links

* [http://users.erols.com/thestewarts/index.html John & Bobbie Stewart]