View Online Film Launch with Dan Ellsberg, Joan Baez, David Harris and others

We publicly launched the film online in October 2021, including a 90 minute livestream online discussion with Joan Baez, Daniel Ellsberg, David Harris, Mandy Carter, Mac Hamilton, and film director Judith Ehrlich. View the discussion below, along with bios and other resources.

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PANELIST BIOS

JOAN BAEZ

Joan Baez, folksinger and nonviolent activist, made her major music debut at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. From the beginning, her life’s work was mirrored in her music, influenced by her Quaker upbringing. When it was neither safe nor fashionable, she put herself on the line for civil and human rights, opposing war, supporting farmworkers, and the abolition of capital punishment, among other causes. Recent honors include the 43rd Kennedy Center Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2020), induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ( 2017), Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award (2015), and the NARAS (Grammy®) Lifetime Achievement Award (2007). She is the author of two autobiographical books: Daybreak (1968) and And A Voice To Sing With (1987). Recently “retired” from touring, she is enjoying painting and preparing for more art gallery shows. • www.facebook.com/OfficialJoanBaez

DAVID HARRIS

Born in Fresno, California, David Harris entered Stanford University in 1963 and was elected student body president in 1966. In his sophomore year he left for a month to help conduct a voter registration drive in Mississippi with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Harris later became an organizer in the anti-war and draft resistance movements, forming an group called The Resistance, giving more than a thousand speeches across the country urging young men to refuse military service. When he was ordered to report for duty in January, 1968, he publicly refused induction and was indicted on felony charges. He served for 20 months in federal prison from 1969-1971. Joan Baez, his wife at the time, had their son, Gabriel, while he was behind bars. Harris went on to become a journalist and author, including contributing editor at The New York Times Magazine and Rolling Stone, and the author of ten nonfiction books and one novel. He lives in northern California with his wife Cheri Forrester. • davidharriswriter.com/

DANIEL ELLSBERG

Ellsberg was a Pentagon insider who in 1971 released the top-secret Pentagon Papers which exposed decades of US government deception about the Vietnam war. He was inspired to do so, risking life in prison, after a speech he attended given by draft resister Randy Kehler. Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has been a lecturer, scholar, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful U.S. interventions and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing. He was awarded the 2006 Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm, Sweden “for putting peace and truth first, at considerable personal risk, and dedicating his life to inspiring others to follow his example.” His latest book, The Doomsday Machine, highlights the grave dangers of nuclear weapons. He is an activist proud of his more-than-85 arrests for civil disobedience actions against war and for other causes. • www.ellsberg.net

MANDY CARTER

Mandy is seen in the film as the only African American woman jailed for an anti-draft sit-in at the Oakland Induction Center in 1967, her first ever civil disobedience action. That, along with her next civil disobedience action during Dr. King’s 1968 Poor Peoples Campaign, sparked her life-long peace and social justice activism. She was hired in 1969 to run the War Resisters League/West office in San Francisco. Carter has since become a much-honored Black lesbian activist in the South, where she helped co-found two ground-breaking social justice organizations: Southerners On New Ground (SONG) and the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC). She was honored with the 2006 Spirit of Justice Award from Boston's Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) for her work on LGBTQ civil rights. She was inducted into the International Federation of Black Prides' LGBT Hall of Fame in 2012. • www.poorpeoplescampaign.org

MAC HAMILTON

Mac (she/her) is the Advocacy Director at Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND), where she works to advance efforts to reduce military spending, promote nuclear disarmament, and advance peaceful conflict resolution. Previously, Mac served as Executive Manager of STAND: The Student-Led Movement to End Mass Atrocities, where she collaborated with youth leaders in the U.S., U.K., France, and Rwanda to work to end and prevent genocide and mass atrocities around the world. Mac holds a Bachelor’s degree in Government and African Studies from Smith College and is currently completing a Master’s degree in Security, Intelligence, and Strategic Studies through the University of Glasgow, Dublin City University, and Charles University Prague. • www.wand.org/

JUDITH EHRLICH

Judith is Director and Co-Producer of The Boys Who Said NO!. She co-produced / co-directed Oscar and Emmy nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The film was also honored with a prestigous Peabody Award, won more than a dozen film festival awards and was sold to 20 international broadcasters. Her earlier film about World War II resisters and conscientious objectors, The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, was broadcast on PBS. She is the only US director to twice win the major history documentary film awards. She is currently working on a new film, The Mouse That Roared. • www.judithehrlich.com

STEVE LADD

Steve is a founding adviser of the film who brings over 35 years of experience helping filmmakers develop and distribute documentaries, including Oscar and Emmy winning programs. After hearing David Harris, Joan Baez and Ira Sandperl speak on the UC Berkeley campus in 1969, Steve turned in his draft card but was never indicted. He organized a peace group at UC Berkeley that collected several thousand draft cards and he later served as Field Director for War Resisters League/West. In the early 1980’s, he was a founding member of the National Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. He currently is an independent media consultant and producer of a new Vietnam era film, The Movement and the Madman.