Suzanne Schell Pearce, a peace activist who was introduced to world federalism in the mid-1950s , and played a crucial role in the Boston area World Federalists, passed away April 14, 2016.
Suzy Pearce was warm, intelligent, democratic, and valued both process and getting things done. I enjoyed working with her immensely. We were instantly friends on meeting in March 2013 in a phone call related to our work on the World Federalist Insitute.
Her ability to think across disciplines and subject areas was and is rare. Also rare was her ability to think about a far range goals like nuclear disarmament, a global parliament and constitution, and create doable short term goals that created a bridge towards that future.
She seemed to know everyone in the peace movement, and got along with everyone, even those noted for strong personalities.
Born in New York City, she attended the Brearley School there and then the at the Putney School in Vermont, where she encountered world federalism. She attended Radcliffe University, graduating in 1960, and then headed to France for a few years. She attended Columbia Teacher’s College in the mid-1960s.
Married to psychiatrist John Pearce, she moved to Cambridge, MA, just a few blocks from where she went to college, a few blocks from Fresh Pond. She there raised her two daughters, Miranda and Sarah.
She became involved in the anti-nuclear movement in the mid-eighties, as her brother Jonathan’s book The Fate of the Earth both gave voice to, and inspired, the Nuclear Freeze movement. One of her favorite projects in this time was setting up a peace section in the library of the Central Square Branch of the Cambridge Public Library. During this time she also volunteered on the board of Gene Sharp’s nonprofit on civilian-based defense. She later served as the first executive director of the Middle Powers Initiative.
Twenty years ago, given an award by the Cambridge Peace and Social Justice Commission in 1996, the citation read:
“From Nuclear Freeze Voter days through today, Suzy has always been in the forefront for peace. Cambridge Peace Action, Massachusetts State Peace Action, working with Lawyers Alliance for World Security (LAWS), and all her Sister City work.
Filled with a contagious energy and spirit, Suzy brings an intelligent, informed background into all the areas of global and local peace work which she touches. Conversant in issues ranging from the Test Ban to Armenian independence, Suzy has been a leader, a collaborator and a listener. Hostess for peace camp picnic, and all the big and little places she can be useful to peace-there she is!”
In the last years of her life, in addition to spending time with her daughters and grandchildren, she devoted time to three groups:
1- The Cambridge-Yerevan (Armenia) Sister City Association, which she was involved with for decades, traveling there at least once.
2- The World Federalist Institute (WFI) of Citizens for Global Solutions, the world federalist organization originally founded in 1947. For a few months in 2014, she served on the board as an alternate representative of the WFI.
3- The Foundation for Democratic World Federation, a successor to the World Federalist Association of New England & the Massachusetts World Citizen’s Party.
Suzy grew up in an activist family. Their names were known to me when I met her.
Her father Orville Schell, Jr., co-founder of Human Rights Watch, was a Wall Street lawyer, whose opposition to the Vietnam War is chronicled in Paul Hoffman’s 1973 book Lions in the Street. Her mother was active in the peace movement, and her late brother Jonathan Schell was one of the most important voices on the planet for nuclear disarmament. Her brother Orville Schell III, still living, co-founded the Pacific News Service and has served as the dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Suzy would want you to mourn, because she knew how important that is. And then she’d probably like to you to fight like hell for the living.
Sincerely,
Jim Barton
Asheville, NC
smithmillcreek@gmail.com
A memorial service will be held and we will announce the date.