Still Caring After All These Years: Peace Conference Founder Reflects on ‘Retirement’ — Interview With Vivian Castleberry of Peacemakers, Inc.

DALLAS Vivian Castleberry still has trouble standing still.

But she’d have it no other way.

Castleberry, 85, remains on the go even 23 years after retiring as the Women’s Editor of The Dallas Times Herald where she served since 1956.

While there, she became the first woman named to the paper’s editorial board, a position she earned by setting a number of precedents along the way.

One of those precedents included writing the first story on child abuse ever published in a Dallas newspaper.

And that story prompted the establishment of the city’s rape crisis center and a support group for incest victims.

Her activism on behalf of women actually expanded in her “retirement” to include peace issues.

In 1988, the native Texan founded Peacemakers Inc., a nonpartisan, nonprofit corporation that sponsored the First International Women’s Peace Conference.

The Third International Women’s Peace Conference is in fact right around the corner: July 10-15 at the Adams Mark Hotel and Conference Center in downtown Dallas.

The mission and purpose of the conference is to give women space to plan for world peace by empowering peacemakers through educational seminars on such topics as law, human rights, discrimination, exploitation, economics, and inner peace.

So far, the conference, co-sponsored by nearly 80 community organizations from around the world, will be attended by over 1,000 delegates from 43 countries and 34 U.S. states.

Participants include Nobel Peace Laureates, elected officials, and grass roots organizers from a variety of countries, faiths, philosophies, and backgrounds including Republicans.

Yes, Republicans.

To register, volunteer, and make a donation for the conference, visit its website <www.womenspeaceconference.org>.

The Iconoclast recently spoke with Castleberry to talk about the origins of the conference, her expectations for this year’s event, and how U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) got invited.

Here is that interview: