Thomas

Who is Thomas?

William Thomas Hallenback Jr. was an American anti-nuclear activist and simple living adherent who undertook a 27-year peace vigil in front of the White House.

Thomas was born in Tarrytown, New York. He was a truck driver, jewelry maker and carpenter. Having been inspired by the Sermon on the Mount, he became a pilgrim and traveled the world in the interests of world peace.

He spent eight months in an Egyptian prison in 1978 for trying to swim across the Suez Canal on his way to Israel. In London, Great Britain, in response to US government foreign policy he tried to renounce his American citizenship by destroying his passport. British authorities deported him back to the United States in 1980.

He traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1981, spending several months with Mitch Snyder's Community for Creative Non-Violence before launching the White House Peace Vigil in Lafayette Square on June 3, 1981. He was later joined by Concepcion Picciotto in August 1981 and Ellen Benjamin in April 1984. In his first three years of protesting Thomas was arrested 16 times by the Park Police on charges ranging from illegal camping to disorderly conduct.