14 Facts About Ira Sandperl

Ira Sandperl was an American anti-war activist and educator.

Ira Sandperl was born in St Louis, Missouri and raised in a Jewish household by Harry and Ione Ira Sandperl.

Ira Sandperl's father was a surgeon and his mother was a follower of Norman Thomas, leading Mr Sandperl early on to be exposed to both socialist and pacifist ideals.

Ira Sandperl attended Stanford University but dropped out after World War II began.

Ira Sandperl engaged customers on political topics as well as giving advice on literature, and introduced a generation of draft-age men to nonviolence during the Vietnam War.

Ira Sandperl was a longtime resident of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, where he was an oracular presence at Kepler's bookstore, Peninsula School and other venues in the Stanford area, and influenced many young people who grew up in his community in the 1950's and 1960's, including Joan Baez and John Markoff.

In 1965 they founded together the Institute for the Study of Non-violence in Carmel Valley, California with Ira Sandperl running the general operations and funding coming from Baez.

In 1966, Ira Sandperl accompanied Baez to Grenada, Mississippi to join in a campaign to help desegregate local schools with Martin Luther King Jr.

Harris, mentored by Ira Sandperl, had emerged as the national leader of student resistance to the draft, and would go to prison in 1969 for refusing induction himself.

In 1971, at the height of resistance to Nixon's continuation of the war, Ira Sandperl had just finished speaking against the war in Cambridge, MA when an unknown man approached him with questions about how to survive incarceration if one was arrested for war resistance.

Ira Sandperl, who had served 45 days for blocking the induction center in Oakland, CA, advised him that it could be managed, and it was even possible to organize among the other prisoners if one took care not to be disruptive, because the guards just didn't want any trouble.

Ira Sandperl is the author of A Little Kinder, with an Introduction by Joan Baez, a memoir of the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960's.

Ira Sandperl's book is really a series of essays, in the form of journal entries sent as letters to a young friend, on the subject of how to live, what to do, and the nature of a life of critical purpose well-lived.

Ira Sandperl's obituary was written by John Markoff, and he was later memorialized by a large group gathered at Peninsula School who claimed him as their mentor and a major influence in their lives.