Biography
Kathy Kelly is an American peace activist nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize and one of the most arrested anti-war organizers of her generation. Raised on Chicago's South Side and trained at Loyola University Chicago and the Chicago Theological Seminary, she became active in Catholic Worker circles in the 1970s and built her organizing around tax resistance, the Plowshares movement, and direct intervention in war zones.
In 1988 she and others planted corn on the silo of a Minuteman II nuclear missile in Missouri as an act of symbolic disarmament. She was sentenced to one year in federal prison and served nine months at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky (the women's facility). In 2004 she was sentenced to three months at FCI Pekin for crossing the line at the U.S. Army School of the Americas / WHINSEC at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 2014 she was sentenced to three months at FMC Lexington for crossing the line at Whiteman Air Force Base in protest of U.S. drone warfare.
In 1996 she co-founded Voices in the Wilderness, which over the next seven years organized roughly seventy delegations to bring medicine to Iraqi children in open defiance of UN/U.S. economic sanctions. She traveled to Iraq more than 26 times, including remaining in Baghdad during the opening days of the 1991 and 2003 U.S. bombing campaigns. After Voices in the Wilderness was fined $20,000 by the U.S. Treasury Department for sanctions violations, the campaign closed in 2003 and was succeeded by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has been arrested more than 60 times.
2014–2015 custody episode verified October 12, 2026: Kelly's original sentencing account documents June 1, 2014 arrest and December 10 sentencing. Medea Benjamin's January 26 interview report confirms the sentence began January 23, 2015. In her later first-person interview, read in the browser, Kelly explicitly identifies April 21 as the day she walked out of Lexington's prison. This actual endpoint is distinguished from the anticipated April 23 date. The separate episode replaces neither the earlier prosecutions nor the later case; the false uninterrupted aggregate duration was removed.
Correction of an unsupported death entry
The former January 9, 2025 death date and matching biography sentence were incorrect and have been removed. World BEYOND War’s February 28, 2026 account of its conversation with Kathy Kelly explicitly dates the interview to February 27, 2026 and identifies her as the organization’s board president. DePaul University’s March 31, 2026 announcement independently identifies the same Chicago peace activist and Voices in the Wilderness co-founder as its 2026 Berrigan-McAlister Award recipient. These are activities after the falsely stored death date, not an obituary. Her birth date is unchanged.
The January 2015 Gangjeong Village Story newsletter, page 2 photo caption, also corroborates that Kelly began her three-month sentence at FMC Lexington on January 23, 2015. That admission date is already correctly recorded; the caption supplies no release date and does not alter other custody periods.
The November 9, 1988 Missouri Peace Planting participants’ letter individually states Kathy Kelly completed thirty days in Cass County Jail and then bonded out. A distinct initial pretrial row records this completed actual interval, with admission and bond release known only to 1988 YEAR precision. The legacy row combines1988,2004and2014prosecutions; it remains unmeasured and may overlap this1988 campaign. Its old arrest date is not silently transplanted into the new row. The new thirty-day value is this documented initial stay only, not a complete lifetime or campaign imprisonment total; later bond freedom and sentence imprisonment remain separate.
The Nuclear Resister reports that Kathy Kelly, the Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence peacemaker who gave the Ground Zero keynote, participated in the May 11, 2019 Bangor protest. The same report lists her as Kathleen Kelly of Chicago among eight activists removed from the roadway and cited by the Washington State Patrol. It does not identify a statutory charge, jail admission, physical release date, or measured custody duration for her.
The January 14, 2019 Nuclear Resister account names Kathy Kelly among eleven people arrested while blocking the U.S. Mission to the United Nations on January 2 during the Fast for Yemen. It reports processing at One Police Plaza, disorderly-conduct charges and release at 5:30 that afternoon. The February 25 court appearance was prospective; the account supplies no later verdict or jail admission.
The April 28, 2015 Beale Air Force Base report individually names Kathy Kelly among sixteen anti-drone demonstrators arrested at the main gate. It reports that all were released and faced misdemeanor trespassing charges. The dated contemporary report supports same-day release, but supplies no actual jail admission, imposed sentence or complete served duration. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
Joy First’s firsthand account, corroborated by the separate Hoyer-office report, individually names Kathy Kelly among seven people arrested in Representative Steny Hoyer’s office on January 11, 2018. Police took them to Capitol Police Headquarters for custody and processing, and they were charged with unlawful entry. First reports release around midnight; the precise calendar release day is left unknown. The announced January 31 hearing is not a disposition or evidence of later imprisonment.
The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 303; corroborating Hoyer-office report.
The February 25, 2016 Voices for Creative Nonviolence report individually identifies Kathy Kelly as arrested at Volk Field on February 23 while attempting to deliver bread and a letter to drone operators. Kelly and Terrell were held overnight in Juneau County Jail, appeared by video before Judge Curran on February 24 and were released on personal-recognizance bonds. Documents charged trespass at a dwelling. Their wishes to plead no contest were not accepted pleas. At a February 25 informal conference, District Attorney Michael Solovey anticipated a lesser forfeiture allegation, but an additional disorderly-conduct charge requested by the Air Force had not been confirmed. The report establishes an overnight stay, not a separately specified completed-day total. Contemporary participant report, The Nuclear Resister.
The January 27, 2011 account and reproduced Las Vegas Sun report individually identify this participant among the Creech 14 arrested on April 9, 2009. Judge William Jansen found all fourteen guilty of trespass and imposed time served on January 27, 2011. The statements below the article carry an inconsistent July 27, 2010 heading; the dated report and reproduced contemporary news account establish the January 2011 disposition. Time served is the imposed disposition, without a measured number of days or a claim of continuous custody from arrest to sentencing. Contemporary source.
The sheriff’s roster reproduced with the April 22, 2011 Hancock Field protest report individually named Kathy Kelly among the people arrested outside the base in the anti-drone demonstration. The article reports trespassing and obstruction-of-justice charges. It describes handcuffs, a wait, and boarding a bus intended for Justice Center processing; it does not establish an individual jail-admission or release time.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister, report 893.
The January 2017 report includes this activist in the combined sixteen-person arrest roster for January 11 protests at the Hart Senate Office Building and cabinet-confirmation hearings. The combined roster does not identify every individual’s precise location, charge, detention interval or case outcome. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The report individually names Kathy Kelly among fifteen people arrested at the White House on September 22, 2015. Joy First’s participant account describes arrest at about 2:15 p.m. and release at 9 p.m. that day. Her account distinguishes a blocking-passage charge form from others described as disorderly conduct, and says no actual citation was supplied. The intended future not-guilty response is not a recorded accepted plea; the several-hour detention is not counted as a whole prison day.
Sources: Contemporary report.
Kelly’s first-person report of the October 7, 2014 Whiteman hearing names Judge Matt Whitworth and Captain Daniel Saunders for the prosecution. It describes rejected proposals of one month or three months with a $500 fine and her attempt to plead no contest, followed by a requested December 10 trial. These proposals were not an accepted plea or completed imprisonment; the account does not establish a new physical-custody endpoint.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister report 529.
The April 18, 2014 Beale Air Force Base report individually names Kathy Kelly among eleven anti-drone activists detained during the Good Friday action. It reports neither individual release endpoints nor a measured jail duration. A separate March 5 action involving some participants is not allocated to every member of the April roster.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister report 572.
