![[Some of the Boston 18 outside the J.W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse in Post Office Square, Boston, 15 February 1983, the day they surrendered to begin serving 30-day prison sentences for blocking the entrance to the Post Office in that same building where men were being registered for the draft on 5 January 1981 during the mass Selective Service registration week for men born in 1962. Photo by Ellen Shub from the Harvard University archives on the history of women in America .]](/images/Enroutetojail.jpg "[Some of the Boston 18 outside the J.W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse in Post Office Square, Boston, 15 February 1983, the day they surrendered to begin serving 30-day prison sentences for blocking the entrance to the Post Office in that same building where men were being registered for the draft on 5 January 1981 during the mass Selective Service registration week for men born in 1962. Photo by Ellen Shub from the Harvard University archives on the history of women in America .]")
November 26, 2023 / Edward Hasbrouck / Draft Resistance News - Hundreds of people were arrested in sit-ins and other direct actions against draft registration in the 1980s, particularly at Post Offices during the mass registration weeks in July-August 1980 for men born in 1960 and 1961 and in January 1981 for men born in 1962.
Additional mass arrests took place outside court hearings in the cases of several of the 20 men eventually singled out for prosecution for publicly refusing to register, and during a blockade of Selective Service headquarters in Washington, DC, on 18 October 1982. (See these posters for some of these sit-ins and blockades.)
The consequences of these arrests were varied, but in some cases — particularly when arrests occurred inside Post Office buildings, which are generally areas of exclusive Federal jurisdiction, rather than outside on streets or sidewalks subject to state and local jurisdiction — included Federal charges.
The “Boston 18” were arrested inside the Post Office and courthouse in downtown Boston during the January 1981 registration week. The Post Office counters where draft registrations were being accepted by postal clerks were located on the second floor, inside the building, which also housed the offices of the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, the U.S. Attorney, and the courtrooms and judges’ chambers of both the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The fact that the sit-in took place in the same building as their offices may have led them to take it more personally and respond with more severity than they might have to an action elsewhere, but there’s no hard evidence of that.
The Boston 18 included Mark Bader, Elisa Barbour, Bill Beck, Carol Bellin, Chris Cutelis, Elizabeth Davidson, Mary Dore, Diane Dunfey, Ed Feigen, Carl Gerds, Sean Herlihy, Chuck Hughes, Gary Sachs, Rich Schreuer, Barry Shea, Anne Shumway, and Cynthia Waillette
November 23, 2023 / Nick Thompson / 
