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DU Home > News & Events > Media Releases > September 2007 > Kathy Kelly awarded 2007 Bradford-O'Neill Medal

MEDIA RELEASES

Contact
Jessica Mackinnon, director of public relations
jmack@dom.edu
(708) 524-6289

Kathy Kelly awarded 2007 Bradford-O'Neill Medal

River Forest, IL - Dominican University will present its 2007 Bradford-O’Neill Medallion for Social Justice to Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, during the university’s convocation on Tuesday, September 4 at 4:00 p.m. in Lund Auditorium, 7900 W. Division Street, River Forest. Kelly will also serve as convocation speaker.

A nationally recognized peace activist, Kelly has been nominated three times since 2000 for the Nobel Peace Prize. She co-founded Voices in the Wilderness in 1996 in an effort to end US/United Nations economic sanctions against Iraq. In defiance of these sanctions, she and other members of the organization publicly delivered medical supplies to civilian families in Iraq and sent delegations to live alongside Iraqi civilians during the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

Kelly has been arrested more than 60 times at home and abroad. She was sentenced in 1988 to a year in prison for planting corn on nuclear missile sites in Missouri and in 2004 she served three months in the federal prison in Pekin, IL for protesting the US military training school at Fort Benning, GA.

During the first two weeks of the Gulf War, Kelly was part of a peace encampment on the Iraqi-Saudi border. Following evacuation to Amman, Jordan in February 1991, team members stayed in the region for six months to coordinate medical relief convoys. She has also organized and participated in nonviolent direct action teams in Bosnia in December 1992 and August 1993, in Haiti during the summer of 1994, and at the Jenin camp in the West Bank in April 2002.

Kelly has not paid federal income taxes since 1982, refusing to contribute to the US military budget. All money that she makes above the taxable level of $3,000 is turned over to Voices. She does not own a house or a car, does not have a personal bank account and buys her clothes at the Salvation Army.

In his latest book, Studs Terkel describes Kelly’s numerous pilgrimages around the world as having one purpose, “to reveal the lives of war’s innocent victims.”

A resident of Chicago, Kelly grew up on the city’s South Side and attended St. Paul-Kennedy High School. She received her bachelor’s degree from Loyola University Chicago and a master’s degree in religious education from Chicago Theological Seminary.

Dominican University’s Bradford-O’Neill Medallion for Social Justice was named in honor of Sister Vincent Ferrer Bradford and Sister Thomas Aquinas O’Neill, two pioneering Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. The award is presented annually to an individual or organization whose work reflects and embraces the university’s core mission to create a just and humane society.

Founded in 1901, Dominican University is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic institution offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In the 2007 issue of America’s Best Colleges, U.S. News & World Report ranked Dominican University in the top tier of Midwest master’s level universities and as a “best value” for the ninth consecutive year.