Lela Shanks
Essential to the history of Nebraskans for Peace is its motto, “There is no Peace without Justice.”
Lela Knox Shanks like her late husband, Hughes, lived that rule, and she now lives it. Beginning in Oklahoma in the ’20s, she experienced the most severe kind of segregation. She knew the price that Depression- and Dust Bowlpoverty exacted from African-American and Caucasian alike in Oklahoma, and she has never forgotten about the wretched of the earth, white or black or brown or red, gay or straight. When she went to college in Jefferson City, Missouri, she heard the myths about “the land of the free and the home of the brave” uttered by her professors as she lived in a fully segregated, caste society. She and her husband, Hughes, trained as a lawyer, married in 1947and stayed in St. Louis, hoping to avoid Oklahoma’s racism. But, in St. Louis, they met Missouri’s racism when Hughes applied for professional-level jobs, “We do not give those applications to Negroes,”
Eventually, the family moved to Denver where Hughes worked for the Social Security Administration and was told he would never receive a promotion because white women would be afraid of him when he came to the door. Then on to Kansas City in the pilgrimage for justice.
In Kansas City, the Shanks family settled in an integrated neighborhood, but was told that their children had to attend a black school. There the teacher-pupil ratio in some classrooms was 45-1 while white schools had a 20-1 ratio. During this struggle, Hughes and Lela turned to the local chapter of the Congress for Racial Equality for help and adopted the philosophy of nonviolence.
Pursuing nonviolent direct action tactics, they pulled their children out of the public schools, formed a protest school in their own home for their children and six other students where Lela was the main teacher. She picketed the federal government and the school board calling for desegregation under the Brown vs. Board of Education. Hughes picketed downtown stores demanding the hiring of African Americans. For trying to uphold the law of the land, they experienced arrest, tapped phones and death threats.
When Hughes went to the March on Washington August 28, 1963, Lela had to appear before a federal grand jury that very day to answer for having peacefully picketed the Federal Building in Kansas City, and she stated, “I did what my husband is doing right now in Washington, D.C. — marching for my freedom.” The union between nonviolence and civil rights had fully flowered.
When the Shanks’s moved to Lincoln in the mid-’60s, they again took up the struggle by forming a friendship with Tom Rehorn, one of the founders of Rural Nebraskans for Peace, supporting and working on his campaign for Congress. Rehorn ran in opposition to the Vietnam War and for justice for oppressed people of color. Later that decade, Hughes and Lela began the campaign for better and more pluralistic education in the Lincoln Public Schools. In this role, they shaped national educational policy through a committee that they selected composed of Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, poor whites and Asians, a group that demanded justice and respect for poor children and children of color. Their committee served as the model for the creation of similar parent committees all across the country in the national “Training Teachers of Teachers” educational project. This creation, in turn, modeled the birth of ‘multiculturalism’ in schools in the United States.
In Lincoln, Hughes and Lela also worked to oppose the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s threats to force African-American and poor folks in the Whittier School area to sell their homes at below replacement value. In similar actions over the next 20 years, the Shanks remained at the forefront in their advocacy for civil rights and peace.
But this story should not be seen as all struggle and gloom. Lela’s efforts to obtain a decent education for her children paid off: her oldest daughter becoming a playwright and artist; her oldest son, a law enforcement officer who’s now retired; her second daughter, a lawyer; and her youngest son, a student now seeking a Ph.D. in Political Science. And her struggle for civil rights and the pursuit of peace is by no means over — over 80, she is sought all over the state as a speaker on these topics.
One final note: in 1984, Lela’s husband Hughes was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. For the next 14 years Lela cared for him as he declined and learned what it takes to give love and care to someone suffering from the disease. In her University of Nebraska Press book distributed worldwide, Your Name is Hughes Hannibal Shanks, she documents the progress of his disability and how, despite it, she cared for him. If you wish to learn what love and nonviolence and care for the most vulnerable among us is, read that book. Lela Shanks, through her example, through her courage, through her sense of what prayer is and through her integrity, has taught me more about “true religion and undefiled,” in St. James’ phrase, than almost anyone I can remember. She has lived the story, “There is no Peace without Justice.” Lela Shanks, Peacemaker of the Year.
-- Paul Olson, NFP President
Senator Don Preister
Senator Don Preister, who for years has been one of the environment’s foremost champions in the Legislature, is being forced out by term limits. However, Senator Preister is much more than just a policymaker; he is a man of character, a man of peace and a true supporter and defender of nature and living things.
When I started thinking about what I wanted to say, there were many thoughts that came to mind and I could have written pages about him and his legislative career. I decided though that there were certain characteristics about Don Preister that provide a much better definition of the kind of person he is.
The first characteristic is courage. Don Preister has never backed away from an issue because it was unpopular. Don stands up against some of the most powerful political and financial interests in the state of Nebraska and advocates for the issues he believes in regardless of the power and the tactics that are used against him. Don also speaks for the powerless and vulnerable in the world, whether it is on behalf of children or fragile places in nature. His repeated introduction of bills seeking the address the tragedy at Whiteclay is a case in point.
The second characteristic is persistence. Many of Don’s bills were lampooned by business lobbyists and unceremoniously killed by the Legislature. Many people in that position would have given up or compromised their principles. Don would return the next year with a revised version of the same concept using each opportunity to educate doubters about the benefits of protecting the environment.
The third characteristic is vision. Now everyone is talking about renewable energy and energy efficiency. Utilities, business people, even oil companies talk about renewable energy like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, and like they have been supporting it all along. Even Governor Heinemann has suddenly discovered wind energy. But I remember not so long ago, when Don Preister and the Sierra Club were the only ones advocating sustainable energy policies in Nebraska. Don has the vision to see the need for policies that sustain the planet when others have only sought short-term profits.
The fourth characteristic is graciousness. The political process is sometimes vicious and dirty. But even when there were mean-spirited comments directed toward him or efforts he supported, Don Preister has always been gracious. A perfect example is his way of beginning every floor speech by referring to his colleagues as “friends all” even when they were doing very unfriendly things.
The final characteristic is commitment. Don lives his values. One example of his commitment to his values is the fact that he walked all the way across the United States as part of the Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament in 1986. You see it in every aspect of the way he lives his life, from the foods that he eats, to the words he uses and the way that he treats people with dignity and respect.
I am saddened that Don will no longer be our champion in the Legislature. But I am certain that Don Preister will continue to be a voice for peace and justice, a supporter and defender of the environment, a protector of the planet and its people.
-- Ken Winston, Nebraska Sierra Club lobbyist
Nebraskans for Peace
Peacemakers of the Year
Lela Shanks
Senator Don Preister
Virginia Walsh
John Krecji
Wes and June Webb
Rev. Carol Windrum
Marian Todd
Rev. Howard Osborne
Sen. Bob Kerrey
Clayton Brant
Ed Maynard
Don Reeves
Sen. Jim Exon
Charles and Ruth Moorer
Ann Coyne
Victoria Peterson
Betty Olson
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Loyal and Mary Alice Park
Frank LaMere
Sen. Ernie Chambers
Marylyn Felion
Dwight Dell
Peg Gallagher
Terry Werner
Rev. Nye Bond
Merle Hansen
Arlo “Dutch” Hoppe
Fred Schroeder
Nebraska Coalition for Peace
Central City Friends Meeting
