ABSTRACT
The inability of an organization to usefully engage its workers in realizing its peace vision frustrates persisters. Persisters maintained a measured sense of urgency and need as they carried on their peace efforts. Persisters shared a common vision of a peaceful world, agreed that the obstacles to realizing that vision were violence, war, and social injustice, and embraced a notion of peace activism as total and continuing commitment to the cause. After joining a peace organization, persistere bonded to it in various ways, thereby ensuring their long-term commitment. Other influences also served to strengthen that commitment— their shared vision of social change, perceptions about movement effectiveness, and feelings about the urgency for peace action. Persistent activists viewed their work as unending. In other words, peace action was not a task that was accomplished, but an endless working toward social change.
