March 16, 2003: Rachel Corrie Killed

On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, 23-year-old U.S. peace activist, was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer while undertaking nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.

Since her death, solidarity activities have been carried out in her name around the world. Hear Alice Walker read Corrie’s letter from Palestine. Hear Cindy Corrie talk about her daughter at a Zinn Education Project event.

Painting of Rachel Corrie by Robert Shetterly of Americans Who Tell the Truth.

The painting to the right (available as a poster) is by Robert Shetterly of Americans Who Tell the Truth. The quote reads:

The international media and our government are not going to tell us that we are effective, important, justified in our work, courageous, intelligent, valuable. We have to do that for each other, and one way we can do that is by continuing our work, visibly. People without privilege will be doing this work no matter what, because they are working for their lives. We can work with them, and they know that we work with them, or we can leave them to do this work themselves and curse us for our complicity in killing them.