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Profiles of Featured Voices from the Film
Biographies of Featured Voices
Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler's ministry is one of Word and deed. In 1980, he founded a
congregation in Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1991 ran for Mayor of that city. During his 12
years as a pastor in Boston, a racially charged setting, Reverend Hagler's work was one of
empowerment and opposition to racism. He campaigned to protect citizens from
unconstitutional and illegal police practices and to safeguard democratic participation in the
selection and election of political leadership. He also led the Free South Africa Movement to
force divestiture of dollars from the suppor of the apartheid system.
In 1992, Reverend Hagler moved to Washington, D.C., where today he is the Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ and continues to preach and organize. He has fought the proliferation of liquor stores in the Black community and has insisted on community participation in development issues. In 1993 he opposed the EXXON Corporation’s plans to build a ‘super gas station’ in the neighborhood where he lives and where his Church is located. In 2003, Reverend Hagler broke ground on that same EXXON site after acquiring the property. Instead of a ‘super station,’ 69 units of subsidized apartments for the elderly opened in February 2005. Reverend Hagler worked to preserve the only publicly funded hospital in the District of Columbia, organized a successful effort to oppose the death penalty from being instituted by Congress on the District, and continues the fight against public school vouchers, which he sees as a plan to divert funds from public education to private schools.
The U.S. and international media have interviewed Reverend Hagler countless times. His writings have appeared on Tompaine.com, an online magazine of thought and opinion. Reverend Hagler is on the Steering and Administrative Committee of United for Peace and Justice, a national coalition working to oppose aspects of U.S. foreign policy that the group believes contribute to war and aggression. Reverend Hagler is the Development Director of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), the largest neighborhood stabilization organization in the United States, which helps working class people become homeowners. Reverend Hagler is chaplain to Local 25, Washington, D.C. of the Hotel Employees, Restaurant Employees/UNITE. He believes in the dignity and worth of workers and continually strives to support that principle.
Reverend Hagler was born on March 1, 1954 in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended public schools in Baltimore and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1976. Three years later, he graduated from The Chicago Theological Seminary with a Master’s Degree in Divinity. On February 3rd., 1980 Reverend Hagler was ordained into the United Church of Christ (UCC), where he is currently National President of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice, a national clergy organization within the UCC. In 1981, Reverend Hagler was also recognized with full standing in The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
John Brady Kiesling was a
diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service for twenty
years prior to his resignation in protest over
the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq. At the time,
Kiesling was Political Counselor in the U.S.
Embassy in Athens. After
resigning, Kiesling wrote a book entitled Diplomacy
Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower
(Potomac Books 2006).
Prior to his
assignment in Greece, Kiesling was Deputy
Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh,
1999-2000; Political/Economic Counselor, at the
U.S. Embassy Yerevan, Armenia from 1997-99;
India Desk Officer, U.S. Department of State
from 1994-96; Romania Desk Officer, U.S.
Department of State from 1992-94; Political
Officer, U.S. Embassy Athens, Greece, 1988-92;
Economic Officer, U.S. Consulate General
Casablanca, Morocco, 1985-87; and Vice Consul
and Ambassador’s Staff Aide, U.S. Embassy Tel
Aviv, Israel, 1983-85. In 1994 Kiesling
received the Rivkin Award, given by the
American Foreign Service Association for
constructive dissent, as one of twelve State
Department officials who pushed for U.S.
intervention in Bosnia on humanitarian
grounds.
He won State Department meritorious
honor awards and language awards for Greek and
Armenian.
Kiesling holds a master’s degree
in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archeology
from the University of California Berkeley. He
is an honorary Doctor of Laws (Grinnell
College, Iowa), a member of Phi Beta Kappa and
National Merit Scholar. Following his
resignation from the Foreign Service, Kiesling
spent the 2003-4 academic year as visiting
fellow and lecturer at Princeton University’s
Woodrow Wilson School and the Hellenic Studies
Program. He has spoken at college
campuses around the country. During the
2004 elections, he campaigned with Diplomats
and Military Commanders for
Change.
Kiesling lives in Athens, Greece with his partner Regina Tassitano and is researching a book on the 17 November terrorist group. He writes a monthly column for the Athens News, and has published numerous articles and op-ed pieces. He has a grown daughter.
Camilo Mejía was born in 1975, the son of prominent Sandinista revolutionaries. He grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica before moving to the United States with his family in 1994. Mejía served as an infantryman in the active-duty army from 1995 to 1998 before transferring to the Florida National Guard. His contract with the National Guard was to end in May 2003, but he was stop-lossed and sent to The Middle East. He spent five months in combat in Iraq before refusing to return after a two week furlough in Miami. On May 21, 2004 he was sentenced to one year in prison for refusing to return to the fighting.
Mejía is a vegetarian and the proud father of a seven-year-old daughter. He currently lives in Miami.
Congressman Jim Moran was
re-elected November 2006 to his ninth term
serving Northern Virginia in the U.S. House of
Representatives. He is a member of
the Appropriations Committee where he
serves on the Defense Subcommittee
and Interior
Subcommittee.
An early and outspoken opponent
of the war, Congressman Moran was coauthor of
the resolution that would have required the
U.S. to fully exhaust U.N. diplomatic options
before invading Iraq. Over the course of his
career he has demonstrated vigorous leadership
in support of the environment, women's issues,
gay rights, stricter gun laws, technology, fair
and open trade, and fiscal discipline.
Representing a district that is part of the Washington Metropolitan Region, he is also well known for his efforts to promote public transportation and protect federal employees and military retirees. The congressman also co-chairs the Congressional Prevention Coalition Caucus, Task Force on Sovereign Wealth Funds and is active on human rights issues, particularly involving women in the developing world.
Active
in the peace and justice movement, Ms. Murphy
serves on the executive committee of CODEPINK:
Women for a Peace. She is a member of the Board
of Directors of the International Occupation
Watch Center and a steering committee member of
United for Peace and Justice.
Sue Niederer is a high school substitute teacher who lives in Pennington, New Jersey. Prior to the war she, like many Americans, was not particularly active in political issues. Her life was focused on her work and the role she considered most important… being Seth Dvorin’s mother. Only with her son’s involvement in the war did Sue become an activist. Now, both tragically and passionately, she is an outspoken advocate for Gold Star Families Speak Out an organization of people who have lost family members in the war. Sue has turned her grief into action speaking in colleges, high schools and to the media against the deceptive practices of military recruiters. She tries to warn impressionable young people and their families that promises of bonuses, health care and college expenses are not what they seem, in hopes that they will be spared the fate of her son for whom she continues to work as…. a mom.
Adele Welty lives in
Queens, NY and is a retired social worker who
currently serves on Peaceful Tomorrows’
steering committee. She has worked for the New
York City Department for the Aging in the
Elderly Crime Victims Resource Center, which
provides services to victims of
domestic
elder abuse as well as to victims of crime. She
previously worked for the Brookdale Center on
Aging of Hunter College, in the Institute on
Law and Rights of Older Adults. She has four
children and seven grandchildren, and lives in
the same house she resided in when her
son,
Firefighter Timothy Welty, was born. He was
lost in the line of duty at the World Trade
Center on 9/11 and left a young son and
daughter. In 2004, Adele traveled to
Afghanistan to meet with civilian families
affected by the military campaign there. She
also participated
in a delegation to Amman,
Jordan, in 2005, bringing humanitarian supplies
to Iraqi refugees from Falluja. She has been
active in calling attention to challenges faced
by underrepresented minorities affected by
9/11, and has worked to remove negative
provisions from proposed
immigration
legislation.