News that someone was getting a ticket for sitting on a chair playing the fiddle traveled fast up and down Telegraph. A reporter snapped pictures for the paper. A Channel Two news crew began filming. Officer Cole kept insisting that other people had no right to be on the sidewalk, either.

What all the vigilers shared was a love of peace and a distrust of war. In lieu of violent intervention, the vigilers would like to see the United States rely more on diplomacy, sanctions, and peaceful aid to achieve its international aims. Many of them have spent their lives working towards this goal.

This disease is a killer. And now it was coming after the ones closest to me. So many great people have been lost. Most never even knew they had the disease. But now, at last, it looks like they have this monster on the ropes and there is tremendous reason for celebration.

“As people who have suffered under such a brutal, diabolical system, we realize that it is our responsibility to help change the course of violent prison systems that have made their way to our communities... We called for an end to hostilities to eliminate giving prison guards an excuse to kill prisoners.”

This peaceful protest was a tremendously courageous effort to overcome the injustice of solitary confinement. The hunger strike is historic on many levels: the number of prisoners who went without food; the international media attention; and the impressive mobilization of groups on the outside who organized demonstrations, and promoted the prisoners' demands.