DON WHITE, 1937-2008Â Check out the 
Don White memorial blog here
Watch a wonderful video of Don here.
Don White, long time CISPES activist in Los Angeles, passed away at his home in Los Angeles on June 19, 2008. He will be missed, not only by his family, but by literally hundreds of friends and associates of the many organizations in which he was so passionately involved over the past three decades.
To see more pictures of Don go here
Un gran companero. He gave us, the salvadorean a great part of his life, struggling as one of us durging and after the most bitter years of our struggle here in the US and in El Salvador. May the goods of the universe keep you as one of their best champiosns.
Thanks for all your love
From long-time solidarity activist Henry Howard, in honor of Don White.
FIRST MAN TO TAKE ME TO JAIL
(FOR PEACE ACTIVIST DON WHITE, 1937-2008)
I remember the small man
With a great heart,
And a smile as bright and wide
As the sun.
When I took the faltering steps
Of my first arrest,
And stretched trembling wrists towards gleaming handcuffs,
Don White kept me from falling
And with a push as delicate as angels’ wings,
Gave me the strength to get on the prison bus.
When I fell into a black hole of uncivilized despair
After that seemingly harmless civil disobedience,
My budding career suddenly on ice,
My political courage reduced to the level of a mouse,
Don threw me a rope,
Not to hang myself with,
But to pull myself up to the level of millions
Who had made those choices of the heart before me.
Don liked to joke that he was the first man
To take me to jail,
But because of all that he was,
He was hardly the last.
I shared a cell with him many times,
And no concrete pillbox was large enough,
No cold steel bars ever thick enough,
To stifle the man’s prodigious love
For every living thing.
When workers were battered and bloodied
On picket lines near and far,
Don White was there.
When the “feet people†of Central America
Streamed north for Sanctuary
In our not-so-promised land,
Don White was there.
When our government sent its might
Against countries whose oceans of oil
We mercilessly turned to rivers of blood,
Don White was there
Amidst the people of the world,
From the Arctic to Antarctica,
Who shouted truth to power
In a global chorus ten million strong.
When I marched and sat in,
And howled with anguish,
“How many steps, how many miles
Must we crawl to break the chains
Of this fortress of injustice?â€
Don White was there
To remind me that there is no easy walk to freedom,
But the way to liberation
Can only be made by walking.
How do we say goodbye,
How can I ever say goodbye,
To a man who was always there,
First man to take me to jail,
First to teach me that love can break free
From any jail?
We cannot—we can never—say goodbye,
Because Don White is always there.
He is with us still,
And so we greet him, honor him,
Call to him,
As one who is forever there,
In our common tongue and common fire,
In eternity,
For him and for each other:
“Don White, Presente!
With you, we are truly there!â€
—
Henry Howard