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On May 17th, 1968, nine Catholic peace activists entered a draft board office in suburban Baltimore, stole hundreds of Selective Service records, and burned the documents in a fire fueled by homemade napalm. The bold actions of the group, dubbed the ”Catonsville Nine” in the press, quickly captured headlines for taking a principled stand against the Vietnam War. Among them was a De La Salle Christian Brother, David Darst, featured in the photograph to the left, in whose memory we are named.

To honor their legacy, the Br. David Darst Center will

Click the link below to check out some of the pictures from our amazing night of fun and friendship!

A Night at the Races 2017

1905-1990

“Education leads to action. If you advocate just one action, you’re an organizer. We teach leadership here. Then people go out and do what they want.”

 Born in Savannah, Tennessee on July 5, 1905, Myles Horton believed that if everyday people could come together to discuss problems and share their experiences they could solve their problems. He strongly believed in peer education, in people becoming their own experts, doing their own research, testing their ideas by taking action, analyzing their actions, and learning from their experiences

In

“Peace needs no contemplators, it needs actors, people who are willing to get their hands dirty, to get up and do something. The same is true for justice.”

Elias Chacour was born in the Palestinian village of Biram in upper Galilee in 1939. In 1948, after a United Nations resolution, his country of Palestine became the sovereign state of Israel. Three years later, his own village of Biram would be changed forever. In 1951, Israeli soldiers marched into Biram and told the inhabitants that they would have to leave

“If I achieved anything it was because I was not afraid to talk about God.”

“We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form, saying, ‘We need bread.’ We were just sitting there talking and people moved in on us. We were just sitting there talking and someone said, ‘Let’s all go live on a farm.’ It was as simple as that, I sometimes think.”

“The most significant thing about the Catholic Worker is poverty, some say. The most significant thing is community, others say. We are not

Koinonia Farm began in 1942 when Clarence and Florence Jordan and Mabel and Martin England came to Sumter County, Georgia to live out the teachings of Jesus amidst the poverty and racism of the rural South. They envisioned forming an interracial community where blacks and whites could live and work together in a spirit of partnership. Based on a radical call to discipleship, Koinonia’s very presence confronted racism, militarism, and materialism with their commitment to treating all human beings with dignity and justice, choose love over violence, share all

Cesar Estrada Chavez was born March 31, 1927 near Yuma, Arizona. In 1937, Chavez and his family packed their belongings and headed to California in search of work. The Chavez family became part of the migrant community, traveling from farm to farm to pick fruits and vegetables during the harvest. They lived in numerous migrant camps, and Chavez often encountered cruel discrimination at school.

In 1952, Chavez joined a group called the Community Service Organization (CSO), formed by Saul Alinsky. Chavez, as part of the CSO, began urging Mexican-Americans to register

Over the years, the Darst Center has had the pleasure of having a myriad of people on staff who have been willing to share their gifts with those entrusted to their care.  In addition to paid staff, the Center relies on long-term volunteers and interns to facilitate our retreats.  Two years ago, we had an intern with us for the year who was completing his Masters of Divinity with Catholic Theological Union.  Ed Tverdek, a Franciscan, embodies the Mission of the Darst Center in his pursuit of creating a more

Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the world’s most famous political prisoners, was born in 1945 in Rangoon, Burma. Her father was the military general and political leader Aung San, who is regarded as the founder of modern Burma. General Aung San was assassinated in 1947. Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother was a diplomat who was named ambassador to India 1961.

Suu Kyi had spent most of her adult life outside of Burma, only making short trips to her homeland to visit her mother. The turning point in her

Born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer was the granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children. Her parents were sharecroppers.

At age six, Fannie Lou began helping her parents in the cotton fields. By the time she was twelve, she was forced to drop out of school and work full time to help support her family. Once grown, she married another sharecropper named Perry “Pap” Hamer.

On August 31, 1962, Mrs. Hamer decided she had had enough of sharecropping. Leaving her house in Ruleville, MS