We exist to offer Contra Costa County residents a choice – a choice in how to view the world through peaceful eyes, to view Contra Costa County as part of the global family. Showing support for community programs allows the Center to work towards engendering new ways of thinking in every citizen. That choice includes how we spend our time and money, and the picture of what peace looks like gets clearer as we take actions that reflect our resolve to be the change we want to see.

Our vision is a world community with peace, justice and freedom for all. It is a revolutionary vision of a beloved community where differences are respected, conflicts are addressed nonviolently, oppressive structures are dismantled, and people live in harmony with the earth.  As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.” (1967, A Christmas Sermon.)

Our purpose is to work for a culture of peace through education, advocacy and community building. We are creating an organizing force that takes unfocused dissatisfaction with war and injustice and provides a more peaceful, sustainable and co-operative way to take that energy and create a better world. Our challenge is to identify the tasks where people can make a difference and match the people to those tasks.
1.3. Values

The values that are bedrock for developing the programs in alignment with our intentions are as follows:

• Life is sacred.
• We are all connected.
• We are individually and collectively powerful by our thoughts and actions.
• We treat the Earth with utmost respect to ensure sustainability.
• All beings deserve respect, liberty, and education.
• Employ non-violence as an operating principle.
• We must resolve conflicts non- violently.
• We are one people.

History

The Mt. Diablo Peace & Justice Center was founded in 1969 by Andy Baltzo and Arne Westerback. It was first housed in a tiny residence on Sharpe Avenue in Walnut Creek, simply known as the “Peace Center.” Initially started for the purpose of counseling draft resisters in the escalating war in Indochina, the Center quickly developed into a focal point in the community where East Bay residents found a voice against the war. Programs included counseling on avoiding the draft, venues for educational programs and forums/lectures concentrating on the goal of ending the war. A newsletter was developed and the first “Peace Gazette” was published that year and continues today.

Although the troops eventually returned from Indochina, the members recognized that the quest for peace and justice never ends. The Center turned its focus to issues of nuclear arms reduction and disarmament. Protests were directed against nuclear weapons at the local level, with attention aimed towards stopping weapons development at Livermore Labs and the Concord Naval Weapons Station. The frightening reality of having ammunition trains pass through the East Bay was successfully brought to the attention of the local community.

Over the decades, members of the Center worked tirelessly towards changing U.S. war policies abroad. Protests were organized against entanglement in El Salvador, the bombing of Bosnia, the Persian Gulf War, and the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions.

The Center moved its offices several times over the years, eventually settling into its current location at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (aka Creekside Commons) in Lafayette, where it rents office space. Through those years it benefitted from the executive directorships of Andy Baltzo, Gary Dobson, Chuck Goodmacher, Carol “Bhavia” Wagner, Jeanelyse Doran, Mary Alice O’Connor, Crystallee Crain, Margli Auclair and Andrew Kodama, its current director.

Recently, the Center has been focusing on education and positively influencing the hearts and minds of the youth in our community. Educational programs addressing peace and justice have been developed for children of all ages, pre-school through high-school. Students, parents and teachers have access to programs such as the Dennis Thomas Art and Writing Challenge for Middle and High School students.  In years past it organized volunteers for Youth and the Military, a counseling service for young people on national service alternatives to the military.  Up until the COVID-19 pandemic we were organizing an annual conference for teachers entitled Creating a Peaceful School to deal with bullying and violence prevention in all its forms.  The Center has developed a dedicated website with relevant educational materials, making it even more useful to the public. (www.creatingpeacefulschools.weebly.com)

The Center remains dedicated to providing the larger community with a voice for Peace and Social Justice. We continue to focus on peace-building and preventive measures to conflict while keeping attention on the current wars in the Middle East and past wars with visible war memorials such as the  Lafayette Hillside Memorial (previously Crosses of Lafayette). We seek to bring awareness to the relationship between climate change and conflict over dwindling resources and destabilization.  The recent financial crisis prompted the Center to address the problems resulting from increasing poverty and homelessness in our local community.

Through the years the Center has benefitted the larger community through inspirational classes in non-violence. Currently we are holding monthly discussion groups on various topics of interest,  most recently one promoting anti-racism efforts in our local community. We have had nationally known speakers, educational forums and film series addressing issues of the budget and spending, prison reform, health care reform and the environment. Each tax season, the Center distributes information on federal spending on defense and the military through leafleting to the public.

We seek to build a community within which we can all make a difference.