Thom Clark, Co-founder of the Community Media Workshop, recalls his arrest and trial for destroying draft cards during the Vietnam War.

Thom Clark, peace activist and media specialist, recalls being motivated by his friend, Roland Radford, a military veteran, to try and stop the Vietnam War.

Thom Clark is a volunteer with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. A former co-host of the weekly Live from the Heartland radio show on Loyola’s WLUW 88.7 FM, he’s also lectured on media and American Culture in UIC ‘s Corporate MBA program, working with cohorts of Chinese health professionals. He served on the steering committee of Network 49, an independent political organization of the 49th Ward in Chicago’s Far North Side Rogers Park neighborhood, where he and his family have resided for over 30 years.

For over 25 years, Thom was president & co-founder of the Community Media Workshop (now Public Narrative) where he helped journalists and hundreds of NGOs annually improve media coverage of Chicago’s neighborhoods. He also taught in the graduate journalism program at Columbia College Chicago.

Thom hosted a weekly Community Media & You CAN TV cable show for eight years and co-hosted the weekly WNUA radio show City Voices for 15 years. In addition to a comprehensive annual media guide to hundreds of outlets and thousands of journalists, under his direction the Workshop orchestrated major media campaigns around the 1996 Democratic Convention, Local School Councils, the 2013 NATO Summit and ethnic media. He co-authored three seminal reports for the Chicago Community Trust on The NEWnews: Journalism We Want & Need.

During his 40 years as an editor, photojournalist and social enterprise entrepreneur in Chicago’s nonprofit sector, Thom developed affordable housing for Voice of the People in Uptown; co-founded and directed the Chicago Rehab Network; served as editor of award-winning monthly, The Neighborhood Works published by the Center for Neighborhood Technology; co-authored a weekly photo column for The Chicago Reader; and worked as a newsletter editor and photojournalist, before co-founding the Workshop in 1989.

Thom was one of Business and Professional People’s “40 Who’ve Made a Difference;” he’s received the Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor Award; and he gained a Studs Terkel Community Media Award from the Workshop for his journalistic leadership.

On April 29, 1971, Thom & three colleagues poured blood on 500 draft board records in Evanston, Illinois, used in recruiting soldiers to fight in Vietnam. Later, The Four of Us, successfully defended themselves in federal court, gaining acquittals from a jury on three counts and later winning the fourth conspiracy count on appeal.

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