{{short description|American activist}} '''Molly Rush''' is an American Catholic anti-war, civil and women's rights activist born in 1935. She co-founded the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with Larry Kessler in 1972, She was one of the Plowshares eight defendants. They faced trial after an anti-nuclear weapons symbolic action at a nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.<ref name="Sisterhood interview">{{Cite web |url=http://www.insisterhood.info/historical-library/activist-histories/leaders/molly-rush/ |title=In Sisterhood Project | Molly Rush |access-date=2017-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171009041523/http://www.insisterhood.info/historical-library/activist-histories/leaders/molly-rush/ |archive-date=2017-10-09 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=":1" />
== Life and activism == Rush grew up in Pittsburgh and has been a member of civil rights organizations including the Catholic Interracial Council, Allegheny County Council on Civil Rights and National Organization for Women.<ref name=":1" /> She co-founded the Thomas Merton Peace & Justice Center in 1972. She participated in the first local ''Take Back the Night'' march to protest violence against women in 1976.<ref>{{Cite book|title=In our time : memoir of a revolution|last=Brownmiller, Susan.|date=1999|publisher=Dial Press|isbn=0385314868|location=New York|oclc=41885669}}</ref> Rush was a delegate to the National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977.<ref name="Sisterhood interview" />
=== ''Plowshares action'' === In 1980 Rush, with seven others, Daniel Berrigan, Phillip Berrigan, Carl Kabat, Elmer Maas, Anne Montgomery, John Schuchardt and Dean Hammer entered a GE plant that manufactured delivery systems for hydrogen bombs in King of Prussia, PA.<ref name="Sisterhood interview" /> The protesters then pounded on the cone of an Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead to protest the nuclear arms race. Rush and the other seven were arrested. Rush was in jail for 11 weeks until two Pittsburgh religious orders, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sister of St. Joseph, provided security for her bail.<ref name=":1" /> Convicted on all counts by the jury, she was sentenced to 2 to 5 years' imprisonment. Following a decade of appeals, in which the convictions were narrowly upheld but the sentences were overturned,<ref>''Commonwealth v. Berrigan'', {{report|535|A.2d|91|1987}}(Pa.Super.Ct. 1987)</ref> Rush was re-sentenced to time served.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue42/articles/a_history_of_direct_disarmament.htm|title=A History of Direct Disarmament Actions The Ploughshares movement originated in the North American faith|access-date=May 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616182821/http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue42/articles/a_history_of_direct_disarmament.htm|archive-date=June 16, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> In a film on the trial, In the King of Prussia, the defendants played themselves, while Martin Sheen portrayed the judge.
== Awards and recognition == She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 2011 by Governor Tom Corbett.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=https://patch.com/pennsylvania/dormont-brookline/patchpeople-activist-molly-rush-wins-governor-s-award|title=PatchPeople: Activist Molly Rush Wins Governor's Award|last1=Faulk|first1=Erin|website=Dormont Patch|access-date=8 October 2017|date=2011-11-28}}</ref> and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Coalition Award in 1990,<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and the plowshares eight.|last=Norman|first=Liane Ellison|date=2016|publisher=WIPF & STOCK Publishers|isbn=978-1532607646|oclc=959034499}}</ref> Fannie Lou Hamer Award from Women for Racial & Economic Equality in 1994, the Mother Jones Award from the PA Labor History Society in 2003, the YWCA Tribute to Women award in 2003 and the Just Harvest Award in 2004.<ref name=":0" />
=== Play === A play about her life, ''Molly's Hammer'' was written by Tammy Ryan and is based on the book ''Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and Plowshares Eight''<ref name=":1" /> by Liane Ellison Norman. Depicted in the play are the actions leading up to the 78 days Rush spent in Pennsylvania jails in 1980 as a result of her involvement in the Plowshares Eight's assault of a missile at General Electric Co. plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Friswold|first1=Paul|title=Molly's Hammer is a Triumph at the Rep|url=https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/mollys-hammer-is-a-triumph-at-the-rep/Content?oid=3064556|access-date=8 October 2017|publisher=Riverfront News|date=2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Pittsburgh's Molly Rush is honored on anniversary of her nuclear warfare protest|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2016/09/10/Pittsburgh-s-Molly-Rush-is-honored-on-anniversary-of-her-nuclear-warfare-protest/stories/201609100022|access-date=8 October 2017|publisher=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=September 10, 2016}}</ref> She shared a story from ''Hammer of Justice'' in the book ''ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance,'' published in 2024.<ref>{{Cite book |title=ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance |date=15 September 2024 |publisher=New Academia/SCARITH |isbn=979-8-9900542-4-0 |editor-last=Laffin |editor-first=Arthur |location=Washington, DC |editor-last2=Sargent |editor-first2=Carole}}</ref>
=== Film === Emile de Antonio's 1982 film ''In the King of Prussia,'' which starred Martin Sheen and Molly Rush appeared as herself.<ref>{{Citation|last=de Antonio|first=Emile|title=In the King of Prussia|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084130/|year=1983|access-date=2019-11-10}}</ref> Rush was featured in the documentaries ''The Pursuit of Happiness''<ref>{{cite web | url=https://mediaburn.org/video/pursuit-of-happiness/ | title=The Pursuit of Happiness }}</ref> and ''The Trial of the AVCO Plowshares'',<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.eai.org/titles/the-trial-of-the-avco-plowshares | title=Electronic Arts Intermix: The Trial of the AVCO Plowshares, John Reilly and Julie Gustafson }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://mediaburn.org/video/trial-of-the-avco-plowshares/ | title=The Trial of the Avco Plowshares }}</ref> by Global Village Video.
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rush, Molly}} Category:Living people Category:American women's rights activists Category:Activists from Pittsburgh Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists Category:American Christian pacifists Category:Christian radicals Category:Peace movements Category:American anti–nuclear weapons activists Category:American nonviolence advocates Category:20th-century American women Category:21st-century American women Category:Catholics from Pennsylvania Category:American women human rights activists