A Call to Peace - Civic Enterprises

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APPENDIX: VOICES OF THE FIRST RETURNED PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERSFor the three-day Citizens in a Time of Changeconference the weekend of March 5-7, 1965, some1,000 Returned Volunteers with 250 leaders of ournational life made their way to Washington, D.C. Atthe opening plenary, in a packed State DepartmentAuditorium, Sargent Shriver began: “Who would havethought three years ago that the Peace Corps wasgoing to take over the State Department?”“We all know that when John Glenn came back fromouter space, the Congress and the people of the UnitedStates listened to him very attentively, because he’dbeen out there. All of you have been out there, in therest of the world. And we need to hear from you. …The real question I think is: What kind of citizens do wewant to have in the United States between 1965 andthe year 2,000? And what specifically are you going tobe able to do about it?”Briefly, Shriver talked about the War on Poverty hewas organizing for the President, and told of anextraordinary experience he had just had in themountains of Maryland near Camp David, visitingwith the first thirty Job Corps Volunteers—poor, outof school, out of work, and, as one seventeen-yearold said, “I thought this was my last chance to makeanything out of my life.”To the Peace Corps conferees, Sarge said: “Theseyoungsters to me are very much like you. As volunteersfrom the disadvantaged part of our society they canunite with you from the advantaged part of our society.Together the two of you can become a giant pincersmovement in a war, converging in the great centerwhich is smug and self-satisfied and complacent.”Then Ethiopia Volunteer Gary Bergthold took thepodium to report answers to questions sent to all ofthe first 3,000 RPCVs. “With the possible exception ofthe astronauts, Peace Corps Volunteers are probablythe most questionnaired group in the United States,”he began. A surprising 2,300 had responded. Ninetypercent said they wanted to attend the Conference.About half wanted to know how they might contributeto the War on Poverty. One of the questions askedhow their resources could be harnessed. The mostcommon reply was that harnessing was the last thingthey wanted. Only six of the total number of thoseresponding said they wanted to enter politics. Formany, a homecoming frustration was that their friendsand family seemed to look upon the world with solittle genuine concern and understanding. When oneVolunteer told a friend he’d been in Ethiopia for twoyears, the response was: “Well, thank goodness youweren’t in Africa!”Next came the first keynoter chosen by the RPCVcommittee organizing the conference, Nigerian RPCVRoger Landrum. “We are sons and daughters ofAmerica but we are in a sense also sons and daughtersof 1,000 towns and villages scattered around theworld,” he said. “I know Nigeria better than I knowKansas, better than my father knows California. TheVolunteers in this room are personally concerned withthe vital interests of the people of 46 nations withwhich our country has had little contact – except for afew economic interests or where Communism scaredus in. The return home faces one with the questionwhether these other interests, so enlarged by ourservice overseas, have any real meaning in America,and for a new career at home.”After other RPCVs also spoke eloquently, therewere talks by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Secretary ofDefense Robert McNamara, and Vice President HubertHumphrey. McNamara was very brief: “We havethree and three-quarter million people in the DefenseDepartment today but I doubt very much that we haveinfluenced the peace of the world as much as the smallhandful of you in this room and your colleagues have.”The Vice President challenged those who said they didnot want to go into politics. “If you think politics is alittle dirty, why don’t you get yourself a bar of IvorySoap and get in and clean it up?” He added: “Youhave lived a richer life… You have had experiencesthat are beyond the imagination of most of yourcontemporaries, and in the main you are better becauseof it and you know it. You have lived a richer life andhave tasted many cultures. You know what John Adamsonce characterized as “the spirit of public happiness.”He quoted President Johnson’s letter asking him toconvene this conference: “The Great Society requiresfirst of all Great Citizens, and the Peace Corps is aworld-wide training school for Great Citizens.”“By 1970,” Humphrey said, “we hope that there willbe about 50,000 back here in the United States.”In a sweeping assessment of the problems needingtheir engagement, he talked of the struggle ahead thatyear to enact a voting rights act as the next stage ofthe civil rights movement, and called on the Volunteersto join also in helping to fulfill the promise of theEconomic Opportunity Act as the opening gun in thewar against poverty.Then, for most of the next two days, the conferencedivided into 24 different discussion groups, eachco-led by a leader in one of our society’s key sectors—including education, business, labor, government, theprofessions—to discuss what they could do for the| 34A CALL TO PEACE SEPTEMBER 2011
country and how to apply their overseas experiencecreatively and successfully in the careers ahead ofthem. Before the conference, more than fifty separatepapers were written and circulated on the workshopsubjects or general questions. Each workshopdeveloped findings and recommendations for actionthat were combined for each major field and reportedin the closing plenary.Large press coverage, including the account ofparticipating media leaders, carried the conferencestory far and wide. In The New Yorker Richard Roveresaid it was “the most informal as well as the liveliestgathering ever to have taken place in that ungainly pileof concrete in the heart of Foggy Bottom.” The SaturdayReview emphasized the Volunteers’ “verve, confidenceand high good humor.”Loud applause by the conferees greeted theannouncement that hundreds of Volunteers werewanted as teachers in Philadelphia, Syracuse, andWashington, D.C. The principal of the CardozoHigh School in the Washington slums, Dr. BennettaWashington, who had enlisted 26 RPCVs to teach there,said, “We are searching for great teachers and we thinkyou are a reservoir of great teachers.” She added, “I donot believe that they themselves know what a catalystfor change they were. They really made education comealive.” Work should be “love made visible,” and theVolunteers “made their love visible.”Afterward, RPCV conference planner Gary Bertholdsaid: “This Conference did a lot more to disturb someof us, to shake us up, than two years in the PeaceCorps.” In planning the Conference, one Volunteerhad asked: “How do we get visions–not just details?”The Conference got both. Planner Roger Landrumconcluded that the whole Peace Corps experience,including the Conference, “is prophetic of institutionsand interactions to come.”Excerpts from the Peace Corps’ report Citizens in aTime of Change, 1965.METHODOLOGYOn behalf of Civic Enterprises and The National PeaceCorps Association, Peter D. Hart Research Associatesconducted 11,138 online interviews among ReturnedPeace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) between March 31and April 4, 2011. RPCVs were asked to participatein the survey through e-mail invitations sent to allmembers of the National Peace Corps Association andthrough notices in online newsletters published by theNational Peace Corps Association. The survey resultswere weighted, based on data provided by the PeaceCorps through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)request, to be representative of the more than 200,000volunteers who have served from 1961 to 2011.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND NOTESThe authors would like to give special thanks to MeganHoot, Frederic Brizzi, Molly Farren, Crystal Anguay,Aaron Gold, and Avery Newton of Civic Enterprises;Erica Burman, Molly Mattessich, and Jonathan Pearsonof the National Peace Corps Association; and GeoffGarin, Leslie Rathjens, and Dan Atkins of Peter D. HartResearch Associates for the creative and cooperativeeffort that led to this report. We would also like tothank Don Gura Graphic Design for designing this report.The authors also would like to thank the members ofthe ServiceWorld coalition, including David Caprara andLex Rieffel of the Brookings Institution, Steve Rosenthalof the Building Bridges Coalition, and Stan Litow, EricMlyn, Phil Noble, Michelle Nunn, Charles Phillips,Jack Sibley, Tim Shriver, Jim Swiderski, officials at theUniversity of Michigan who hosted a 50th Anniversarycelebration of President Kennedy’s announcementthat included ServiceWorld, and the more than 300organizations that helped develop and supportServiceWorld.A CALL TO PEACE SEPTEMBER 2011In addition, we would like to thank the John F. KennedyPresidential Library and Museum for their researchassistance, the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute forthe photos of Shriver, and Cross-Cultural Solutions forour cover photo.This report would not be possible without our leadfunder, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and the generoussupport we received from AARP, the Case Foundation,the Heller School for Social Policy and Management atBrandeis University, the MCJ Amelior Foundation, theSanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, andour partner America’s Promise Alliance.The views reflected in this document are those of theauthors and do not necessarily reflect the views of anyof the above-mentioned individuals or organizations.We also would especially like to thank the more than11,000 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers for theirservice to our nation and world and for sharing theirperspectives through the survey for this report.35|
Page 1 and 2: A Call to PeacePerspectives of Volu
Page 3 and 4: TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction . . .
Page 5: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYTHE PEACE CORPS EX
Page 9 and 10: WAYS FORWARDIn anticipation of the
Page 11 and 12: A CALL TO PEACEThis report is not a
Page 13 and 14: KEY MOMENTS: PEACE CORPS FOUNDINGOC
Page 15 and 16: Those serving in predominantly Musl
Page 17 and 18: Peace Corps to set the goals of the
Page 19 and 20: TODAY, 22 PERCENT OF ALL PEACE CORP
Page 21 and 22: A TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCEThe over
Page 23 and 24: Figure 15: Regions by Decade of Ser
Page 25 and 26: Confidential. Embargoed until Septe
Page 27 and 28: women who reported feeling unsafe a
Page 29 and 30: While RPCVs recognized the need for
Page 31 and 32: Below are core principles and propo
Page 33 and 34: The Peace Corps, Volunteers for Pro
Page 35: CONCLUSIONThe Peace Corps was a bol
Page 39 and 40: Schwarz, K. (1991). What You Can Do

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