Biography
Michele Naar-Obed is associated with Catholic pacifist direct action against nuclear weapons and militarism, particularly actions that target the infrastructure of submarine- and missile-based deterrence. In August 1995, she was among activists who entered Newport News Shipbuilding and boarded the USS Greenville while it was in dry dock, pouring blood and hammering on areas associated with cruise-missile capability as a symbolic attempt to “disarm” the weapon system. She was arrested and prosecuted following the action.
Her subsequent activism is also described as involving repeated civil-disobedience arrests and post-release supervision constraints that treated peace-community ties as suspect. Across these episodes, Naar-Obed’s public profile is rooted in a pattern of nonviolent but illegal-entry protests paired with willingness to accept incarceration as part of antiwar witness. On August 6, 1995 (Hiroshima Day) Michele Naar-Obed and Brennan Plowshares partners boarded a U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine in port and used hammers and blood to symbolically disarm it as part of the "Jubilee Plowshares/East" action. She received 12 months in federal prison. Her probation was later revoked and she was returned to federal custody in July 1999.
