Signal Through the Flames: Mitch Snyder and America's Homeless

by Victoria Rader

Signal Through the Flames is the story of the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) and their experiments with living the gospel in 20th century America. CCNV's discovery of the homeless in the early '70s has led to a 15 year commitment to become the nation's messengers, to blow the horn and alert us to the danger in our growing numbers of human beings living and dying on the streets and the loss of our deepest spiritual values. How could a small band of non-violent activists galvanize an entire society to respond to a group of people Americans didn't see and didn't want to see? How could they alert us in an historical era undergoing a powerful backlash against the activism of the '60s and concern for the poor? The Community's non-violence would have to be very creative indeed. And so it is. CCNV has developed a unique and highly effective style of prophetic politics, applying Gandhian principles of non-violence to media saturated America. In one powerful drama after another, CCNV members turn themselves inside out — and reveal the outraged hope and angry love that comes from living with the poor.

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1986