Carmen Trotta

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Carmen Trotta is an American peace activist and a longtime member of the Catholic Worker Movement. He has spoken out against war, including the Iraq War, and has written for The Catholic Worker and helped lead anti-war groups like the War Resisters League. He was a founding member of Witness Against Torture.

In 2018, Trotta was one of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, a group that protested at the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia by entering the base, laying out tape, and hammering on weapons to symbolize turning swords into plowshares. He served part of a 14‑month prison sentence for his involvement.

Trotta has spent more than 30 years living in Catholic Worker communities in Manhattan’s East Village, including Maryhouse and St. Joseph’s House, which were started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1936.

Education and early life: He graduated from Grinnell College in 1984 with a major in religious studies and played football there, earning a college athletic award.

Key organizing and protest actions: He helped organize the April 20, 2002 March on Washington to oppose the war on terror. On May 30, 2008, he received a ten-day jail sentence for protesting abuses at Guantánamo in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also the first person arrested in the White House’s 100 Days Campaign against Guantánamo.

Reason for his activism: Trotta and other Plowshares activists believe that going to prison is an important part of bearing witness against state violence and war, a stance that emphasizes personal conscience and moral action.