On September 22, Celebrate the 1961 Signing of the Peace Corps Act
This year we mark 60 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the legislation creating the Peace Corps. Celebrate the moment in the morning. Take part in special advocacy programs throughout the day. And stay tuned for special news and commemorations from Capitol Hill. By Jonathan Pearson PHOTO: President John F. Kennedy signs the Peace Corps Act on September 22, 1961. Courtesy JFK Presidential Library and Museum LISTEN on Spotify to the converation with Bill Josephson, Bill Moyers, Joe Kennedy III, and Marieme Foote from September 22, 2021. As you prepare to join National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) for...
Now Is the Time: From the Editor of WorldView Magazine
An invitation to listen, learn — and roll up our sleeves. By Steven Boyd Saum Let’s start with a story about an invitation. There’s that historic letter from JFK below, sent to the first would-be Volunteers. And let me tell you about Laurel Hunt, a recent engineering grad from University of Minnesota, and the years of Peace Corps service she has yet to undertake in Peru, working with a community on health and sanitation. Return to March 2020: “Friday the 13th was my last day at work,” Hunt writes. “As I packed up my desk that afternoon, I got a...
1961: Towering Task Edition
A look at the year in which the Peace Corps was founded with great aspirations — and the troubled world into which it emerged. Research and editing by Jake Arce, Orrin Luc, and Steven Boyd Saum Map images throughout from 1966 map of Peace Corps in the World. Courtesy Library of Congress. For the Peace Corps community, 1961 is a year that holds singular significance. It is the year in which the agency was created by executive order; legislation was signed creating congressional authorization and funding for the Peace Corps; and, most important, that the first Volunteers trained and began...
Annotation: “Ask not what your country can do for you …”
How do the words President John F. Kennedy spoke on January 20, 1961 resonate across the decades? On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address. The conclusion of that speech inspired a generation — and profoundly shaped the launch of the Peace Corps in 1961. Here are the last three paragraphs. For the 60th anniversary of this speech, we asked returned Volunteers and members of the Peace Corps community from around the world to share how these words resonate across the years. Read the entire address below. And tell us what these words mean to you. Use the comments form or email us....
Letters Winter 2021: WorldView Readers Write
Letters, emails, Facebook posts, tweets, Instagram comments: Readers respond to the stories in words and images in our fall 2020 edition. We’re happy to continue the conversation.Write us: [email protected] Renew, retool, return? I suspect the Peace Corps will see a renewal following the Biden administration. Service to our country and promoting peace, prosperity, and democracy will take on new importance. It should be a promising future for the Peace Corps. Ben Kasper Somalia 1964–66 I struggle to see how it is ethical to send PCVs into different countries considering that America has no control over the virus right now, a huge number of...
Peace Corps 60th Anniversary
We’re marking the events in 1960 and 1961 that led to the creation of the Peace Corps. And we seek inspiration in how we can reimagine Peace Corps for a changed world. By WorldView Staff At 2 a.m. on October 14 the Peace Corps community kicked off 60th anniversary celebrations with a once-a-decade gathering: We returned (virtually) to the steps of the student union at University of Michigan to commemorate the impromptu speech by John F. Kennedy that helped launch the Peace Corps. The questions that caught the zeitgeist: “How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana?...
JFK at the Union: The Impromptu Campaign Speech that Launched the Peace Corps
Well after midnight on October 14, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy arrived at the steps of the Michigan Union. Legend has it that he first proposed the idea of the Peace Corps here. The truth is a little more complex, but far more interesting. By James Tobin Senator John F. Kennedy’s motorcade rolled into Ann Arbor very early on the morning of Friday, October 14, 1960. The election was three and a half weeks away. The Democratic nominee for president and his staff had just flown into Willow Run Airport. A few hours earlier, in New York, Kennedy had fought Vice...
Be an Advocate for Racial Justice
As we celebrate an anniversary, renew a commitment to building peace and friendship here are home by taking a stand for equity and justice under the law. By Jonathan Pearson We are just days away from the 60th anniversary of a moment that jump-started the establishment of the Peace Corps. At 2 a.m. on October 14, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave an impromptu speech outside the University of Michigan’s student union. After a day of campaigning, he didn’t expect a crowd of thousands to be waitinig, but there they were. Those familiar with the speech recall these words: "How many of you...
One Idea a Minute: A Remembrance of Bill Haddad
He shaped the beginnings of the Peace Corps — and so much more. By William Josephson William F. (Bill) Haddad died on April 30. He was 91. He was the subject of long obituaries in both the Washington Post and New York Times. Bill was an extremely important early Peace Corps person. He created the inspector general position long before inspector generals became ubiquitous in every federal and many state agencies. Bill’s work gave birth to Charlie Peters and his unique Peace Corps evaluation office. Instead of “bean counters,” it employed journalists and lawyers to write down-to-earth evaluations of how well or...
Man of Peace and Justice: John Lewis
In these most challenging times for our nation, we have lost an icon in the struggle for racial justice in America. By Jonathan Pearson Photo of John Lewis in 1965 by Stanley Wolfson, World Telegram staff photographer / Public domain The Peace Corps community mourns the loss of Congressman John Lewis, who died today. As a very young man in the early 1960s, Lewis pushed the boundaries and fought against power used unjustly. He never, ever stepped away from speaking truth to power. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of how the “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends...