Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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Orange County, New York
Links
Blog Archive
Meetings
We meet every month, on the second Thursday of the month. For more information, contact Marlena, 845-342-4841.
Group History
Shortly after Judy and Howard Garrett moved to Montgomery in January, 1987 they decided to start an Amnesty International Chapter in Orange County. Howard was an active member previously for about five years going to Nassau County meetings. He contacted the Northeast Headquarters in Somerville, Ma.- outside of Boston- and learned that they would be happy to cooperate with us. Initially, for the first ten years or so they met at the Unitarian-Universalist Meeting House at Rock Tavern. There were about a dozen members in those days with Howard acting as the chairman most of the time. Richard Bennett joined a few years after it started and he was also chairman for a few years. They sponsored debates on capital punishment , whether to go to war with Iraq- the first time, etc. Congressman Maurice Hinchey was one of the debaters then. We had a huge rock concert in Chester during this period resulting in more awareness of our aims, etc. We worked to free a Russian who was in a gulag for writing anti-Soviet poetry. He was eventually freed, and correspondence was maintained with him for awhile. They sponsored a play called Hannah Sennish, a folk concert, etc.
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