On November 23, CFS Director Dr. Katherine Borland and folklore graduate student Stephanie Aubry traveled to Fort Benning, just outside Columbus, Georgia to document and participate in the 14th annual School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) Vigil.  SOAW asserts that US military training  for soldiers from authoritarian countries only works to victimize citizens, particularly those who advocate for human rights and democratic reform in those countries. Creatively combining elements of Catholic liturgy with Latin American and North American traditions of protest, the vigil mourns and remembers victims of state violence throughout the Americas.  According Judy Litke, a long-time activist whose husband was one of the founders of the vigil, this annual event grew from just a few people in 1990 to a substantial presence a little over a decade later, provoking Fort Benning authorities to erect a barbed-wire topped hurricane fence to dissuade protesters from entering the base and becoming prisoners of conscience.  More recently, Litke says, the numbers of protesters have declined; nevertheless, even during a downpour, protesters from as far away as San Francisco and Toronto joined invited guests from Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and the NAACP to stand in solidarity with those who resist state violence. Ohio was well represented with delegations from Cleveland and Cincinnati, in addition to two damp but intrepid Columbus folklorists.

First-timer, Stephanie Aubry remarks, "The vigil was all the more significant this year, given that it was the 25th anniversary of the Jesuit massacres in El Salvador, and because the vigil took place just two days before the Ferguson verdict. I witnessed the ways in which the movement works to generate consciousness of militarization, and the ways in which the group and individuals declare their dissent. For me, the presence of police surveillance in the background of the vigil formed a striking contrast to the creativity and nonviolent ethics of vigil participants."