Working from the cramped upstairs bedroom of her home in the tiny town of Alexander City, Alabama (population 15,000), 16-year-old peace activist Ava Lowery is reaching millions with her Web site PeaceTakesCourage.com. "My original purpose in starting the site was just to express my opinions about the war without being persecuted for them," Lowery explained. "But as the Web site grew, my passion for the anti-war movement also grew."
The two-year-old site — which has grown from 100 hits a day to 50,000 hits a day — includes homemade videos about the war (including the clip "Bring 'Em On Home," posted last week); a public forum on various political and war-related issues (readers take on controversial conservative author Ann Coulter in the recent post "Coulter Rides Again!"); and a blog (with posts noting opportunities for activism and highlighting other political sites). At the top of the site's homepage is an ongoing tally of American troops killed in Iraq under the heading "Honor the Fallen — Demand the Truth."
(Watch Ava Lowery talk about her PeaceTakesCourage work.)
The fact that Lowery has several military-veteran family members — a grandfather who served in Vietnam and two uncles who have served in Iraq — has only emboldened her in her mission. "It's important to me to demand that the troops be brought home," Lowery explained, "because I don't want to see one of my uncles die in a war based on George W. Bush's lies." Lowery said that while her uncles don't necessarily share her views on the war, both support the fact that she is speaking her mind.
She's speaking her mind — and people are listening. Lowery has been interviewed on CNN and featured in Rolling Stone and political magazine Mother Jones. "The publicity I've gotten through the Web site has been cool," she said, "but at the same time I hope that people don't get distracted by the fact that I'm 16 and instead focus on my message of peace."
But the response to PeaceTakesCourage.com hasn't been all positive. "I got a lot of hate mail," she explained, "but it comes with the territory. I think people are just outraged that I'm out there telling the truth, and I'm doing it in an effective way that gets their attention." The hate mail — which she posts on the Web site to expose the offenders — contains graphic, violent and, in some cases, threatening language. But Lowery hasn't been deterred. "I realized that if I shut my Web site down because of the death threats, I would just be proving that they could shut me down."
Many of the threats Lowery has received have come in response to her homemade videos — cinematic op-ed pieces that artfully incorporate her own video footage, photos culled from news sites and a moving soundtrack — which she edits together on her home computer. She posts the videos on her site, as well as on YouTube and MySpace.
Lowery's videos emphasize the emotional experience of war — particularly from the soldiers' standpoint, as seen in her video "How This Must End," which cross-cuts footage of American troops in Iraq with snapshots of grieving family members back home. Lowery said the video is one of her favorites because "it's about supporting our military by bringing them back home."
Lowery's Christian upbringing figures prominently in "What Would Jesus Do," a video that uses a photo-montage of infant victims of war to illustrate "the contrast between what George W. Bush does while claiming to be a Christian and what Jesus Christ himself actually taught." The popular hymn "Jesus Loves Me" is the soundtrack to the video. "Every child in Sunday school sings that song," Lowery explained. "I remember singing it myself in church."
(See excerpts from Lowery's videos along with her own commentary.)
Lowery is taking the message of PeaceTakesCourage.com out on the road by joining peace protests and anti-war rallies from Washington, D.C., to President Bush's hometown of Crawford, Texas. She celebrated her 16th birthday by staging a peaceful rally on the steps of the Alabama state Capitol. When Lowery told her parents her idea for the rally — which she dubbed "Sixteen Candles for Soldiers" — they were initially skeptical. "They were like: 'Why does a 16-year-old want to have a political rally or an anti-war protest on their birthday?' But they know that's the type of person I am so they're like, 'OK, cool.' "
