Named after the noted socialist, union activist, and war resister, Abraham Johannes Muste, the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute (AJMMI) was founded in 1974 by a group of pacifists who sought to “carry forward A.J.’s commitment to nonviolent radical change by providing the movement for peace and justice with practical, concrete support.” In its early years, AJMMI was run entirely by volunteers who worked at a borrowed desk in the New York City office of the War Resisters League (WRL). In 1978 the Institute purchased, from WRL, a three-story office building — dubbed “The Peace Pentagon” — at 339 Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan to serve as its permanent base of operations.
For many years, AJMMI rented out office space in this building to likeminded organizations. The Institute subsidized the rental fees for these tenants, using income derived from several commercial storefront rentals. Among the tenant groups based in the Peace Pentagon at various points in time were:
In 2016, however, AJMMI sold its “Peace Pentagon” building to developer Aby Rosen for $20.75 million, and all of the organizations with offices therein relocated to a 6,000-square-foot space on Canal Street in Lower Manhattan.
On December 20, 2014 — the very day that NYPD officers Rafial Ramos and Wenjin Liu were murdered, execution-style, by a gang member from Baltimore — AJMMI chose to decorate its building in downtown Manhattan with banners, bunting, and graphics celebrating the infamous cop-killer and leftist icon Mumia Abu-Jamal. In a fundraising campaign the following year, the Institute used a funding appeal written by the same Mumia Abu-Jamal.
In 2015, AJMMI hired a new executive director, Heidi Boghosian, who previously had served as executive director of the National Lawyers Guild and had a clear record of support for Fidel Castro‘s Communist regime in Cuba.
In 1981, AJMMI launched its Essay Series on Nonviolence with a pamphlet containing numerous speeches and letters of Martin Luther King, Jr. Since then, it has continued to publish many pamphlets “featuring classical and contemporary writings on nonviolence.”
Also throughout the course of its history, AJMMI has awarded grants and sponsorships to hundreds of grassroots projects around the world which identify one or more of the following as their objectives: “end war and expose the military-industrial complex”; “oppose nuclear power and halt environmental racism”; “stop the death penalty and curb the prison industry”; “defend labor rights and build economic justice”; “fight for racial and sexual equality [and] immigrant rights”; and “promote the use of nonviolent action.” These grants have been awarded under the rubric of AJMMI’s 5 major philanthropic programs:
1) The Social Justice Fund (SJF) makes grants to “grassroots activist projects in the U.S. and around the world” that fund efforts to:
The SJF gives priority to projects “with small budgets and little access to more mainstream funding sources.”
2) The Counter-Recruitment Fund — which was active from 2006-2010 — awarded from 12-to-30 grants (of up to $1,500 apiece) annually “to support grassroots efforts in the United States to inform young people about the realities of war and military service and alternative non-military work and study options.”
3) The International Nonviolence Training Fund makes grants (of up to $4,000 apiece) to teach people outside the United States (or “within Native nations in the U.S.”) how to “collectively use the theory and practice of nonviolent action as part of ongoing campaigns or programs for social justice.”
4) The NOVA Fund — originally called Sheilah’s Fund East — has supported “active nonviolence work” in Latin America since 1999.
5) The Adalys Vázquez Solidarity Travel Fund — which was active from 2007-2011 — made grants (of up to $1,500 apiece) to “help base-level activists from Latin America and the Caribbean attend regional conferences and meetings.
In addition to the foregoing grant programs, AJMMI administers:
Among the many recipients of AJMMI grants have been organizations like Deep Dish TV, Iraq Veterans Against the War, the Holy Land Trust, Kairos/Plowshares New York, the National Lawyers Guild, the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, Peace Action-New Mexico, the California Prison Moratorium Project, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Sojourners Neighborhood Center, Philadelphia SUSTAIN, the War Resisters League, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
A member organization of the Peace and Security Funders Group alliance, AJMMI has used its own tax-exempt status to serve as the fiscal sponsor of a number of likeminded organizations that are not tax-exempt, thereby enabling the latter to receive tax-deductible contributions from the public. The Institute has extended its fiscal sponsorship to such groups as the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants, the International Solidarity Movement, Kairos/Plowshares, the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, School of the Americas Watch, United For Peace and Justice, the War Resisters League, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (NY Metro branch).
AJMMI occasionally receives grants from foundations that share its major agendas. The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation and the Samuel Rubin Foundation have been among its benefactors.
(Information on grantees and monetary amounts courtesy of The Foundation Center, GuideStar, ActivistCash, the Capital Research Center and Undue Influence)