Biography
Maximilian J. "Max" Obuszewski is a Baltimore-based peace activist arrested roughly seventy times — by his own estimate as of 2007 — across four decades of anti-war, anti-nuclear, draft-resistance, anti-death-penalty, Palestinian-solidarity and immigrant-rights actions. A former engineer and Peace Corps volunteer, he turned to organizing after the Kent State killings and moved to Baltimore in 1983 to work for Nuclear Free America, later joining the American Friends Service Committee, Maryland Peace Action and the Baltimore Nonviolence Center. He took part in five Plowshares-related disarmament actions, four of them alongside Philip Berrigan. Most of his arrests ended in citations, dismissals, probation or suspended sentences; his clearest jail terms were 30 days in 1995 and 10 days in 1999, both for actions at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In 2005-2006 an undercover Maryland State Police officer infiltrated his groups and logged him in a regional intelligence database under classifications including "Terrorism-Anti-War Protestors," making him a prominent example of post-September 11 surveillance treating nonviolent dissent as terrorism.
Birth-year sources
- Maryland Politics Watch, July 22, 2008 — identifies Baltimore peace activist Max Obuszewski as 63, supporting 1945 as his birth year.
- Maryland Peace Action biography — independently identifies Obuszewski and documents his peace organizing and Plowshares actions.
The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance account individually names Max Obuszewski among thirteen people arrested on the lower U.S. Capitol steps on January 12, 2016, before the State of the Union address, while seeking to deliver a petition and list of alleged U.S. war crimes to the Vice-President’s office. They were charged with incommoding and obstructing. The announced February 3 arraignment was prospective; this account supplies no individual jail admission, physical release, verdict, sentence or completed custody duration. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance report individually names Max Obuszewski among six people arrested on the U.S. Capitol steps on July 12, 2017 during the Rivers of Blood petition action against military spending. Officers processed the group at the scene without handcuffs or fingerprinting and gave release documents. Joy First’s account says that subsequent station processing established a charge of crowding, obstructing, or incommoding and a July 26 court date; no outcome is inferred from that prospective hearing. This was on-site release rather than a documented jail admission or completed day in prison. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
Joy First’s contemporary account names this participant among eight people given disorderly-conduct citations after the April 8, 2011 Pentagon peace action. Police physically moved the demonstrators and transported them to the Navy Annex for processing. The account says police did not announce an arrest; it documents physical detention and citation, without identifying a jail admission or completed detention duration. A June 3 hearing was prospective when reported. Contemporary report.
The June 29, 2013 CIA protest report individually names this participant among six people arrested after crossing the police line at the headquarters entrance in Langley, Virginia. Joy First’s reproduced July 2 first-person account confirms that all six were processed in about 45 minutes, cited for trespassing and released that day. The optional $130 forfeiture was offered as an alternative to contesting the citation, not reported as an adjudicated sentence; the August 23 preliminary hearing was still prospective. The report does not establish a jail admission or a completed jail-day total. Contemporary report.
The report individually names Maximilian J. "Max" Obuszewski 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.
The Earth Day report names Maximilian J. "Max" Obuszewski among eight people arrested at the Pentagon on April 22, 2015 after refusing to depart while seeking a meeting about military contributions to climate damage. The reported charge was failure to obey a lawful order. The June 4 appearance was prospective; the report supplies no jail-admission date, physical-release endpoint or completed detention duration.
Sources: Contemporary report.
