Carol Wells is an activist, art historian, curator, lecturer, and writer. Wells was born on February 12, 1946, in the town of Lynn, Michigan. At age 11, her family moved to California, settling in the Los Angeles area. While attending Dorsey High School from 1959 to 1963, Wells began working in support of the civil rights movement, writing articles for her school’s newspaper against the adverse impact of white flight in urban areas and participating in voter registration efforts. When attending the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a freshman, she engaged in her first sit-in protesting de-facto segregation in Los Angeles public schools. Wells would eventually graduate from UCLA with a BA in History and an MA in Art History. During her time at UCLA, Wells also became increasingly active in the anti-war movement mobilizing against US involvement in Vietnam, attending numerous teach-ins and participating in various demonstrations. While participating in a lawful anti-war demonstration against President Lyndon B. Johnson in Century City, she witnessed police physically assault peaceful protestors. For Wells, witnessing these events in Century City marked a “turning point” in her life, and confirmed her ongoing commitment to social justice activism. It was while continuing to engage in protests and other actions against the Vietnam War that Wells met Theodore Hajjar.

Theodore Hajjar is a retired educator and activist who was born in Manhattan, New York on August 10, 1942. Hajjar did not become politically active until later in his college years. Upon graduation from Massapequa High School in 1960, Hajjar pursued a BA in Sociology from Stony Brook University in 1964, and began graduate work at University of California, Berkeley in that same year. Hajjar’s entry into Berkeley coincided with the Free Speech Movement, a sizeable protest that related to student life on campus, the civil rights movement, and anti-war activism protesting US involvement in Vietnam. Hajjar would remain active in anti-war work, but would leave Berkeley in 1966 to pursue his MA in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Shortly after receiving his MA, Hajjar began teaching in the Department of Sociology at California State University Northridge (CSUN) while continuing to pursue coursework at UCSB. Hajjar would work at CSUN from approximately 1968 to 1975, beginning as an adjunct professor but eventually becoming full-time faculty. Hajjar would finish out his teaching career working at an experimental high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Wells and Hajjar met while Hajjar was still teaching at CSUN and Wells was a student at UCLA. Together, they attended a massive anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in San Francisco, California in 1969. They were married shortly thereafter on July 21, 1974.

Following US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, Wells and Hajjar remained politically active and began to focus upon political developments in Central America, paying special attention to events unfolding in Nicaragua. They joined the New American Movement (NAM) in 1978. Wells continued to engage in activism around Nicaragua as part of Nicaragua Solidarity (NICASO) after the successful Sandinista revolution in 1979 and until NICASO disbanded in 1980. Hajjar, while not involved directly in NICASO, maintained an interest in events in Nicaragua, and felt compelled to begin work actively supporting the Sandinista revolution following Ronald Reagan’s election to the office of President of the United States in 1981. For Hajjar, the broad domestic support that put Reagan in the White House was proof that Reagan could only effectively be criticized from a foreign policy perspective. He also believed that the Sandinista revolution could function as an example of successful, progressive, and democratic governance. In July of 1981, Wells and Hajjar traveled to Nicaragua with UCLA Art History professor David Kunzle to collect posters and other artwork associated with the Sandinista revolution. They would return to Nicaragua in 1983 and 1984. Both Wells and Hajjar grew more committed to work opposing US intervention in Central America, and especially in Nicaragua, as a result of their initial experiences in the country.

Wells and Hajjar would eventually leave the NAM and establish the Nicaragua Task Force (NTF). Hajjar left the NAM shortly after returning from Nicaragua in 1981. Wells would remain a member of the NAM up to and after an internal split in approximately 1980 that resulted in part of the organization’s membership merging with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (D-SOC). Some remaining members would go on to formally found Solidarity: A Socialist-Feminist Network (SOLIDARITY) in approximately 1981. Wells was a member of SOLIDARITY until roughly 1989, all the while continuing her work in a leadership position within the NTF and engaging in continued activism in support of the Sandinista revolution.

The NTF was established in 1982. For administrative reasons, the NTF was originally established as The Nicaragua Task Force of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador prior to its work as an independent organization. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is an activist organization founded in 1980 that focuses on political events in El Salvador and works in opposition to US political, economic, and military intervention in the country. It maintains close ties with both the national liberationist Frente Democratico Revolucionario (FDR) and the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN). While Wells and Hajjar remained involved in work on El Salvador and continued to collaborate with CISPES, the NTF became a distinct organization shortly after its founding so that the NTF could more fully develop its work around Nicaragua without diverting time and other resources from the work of CISPES members focusing on developments in El Salvador.

From its founding in 1982 until it ceased to operate in 1990, the NTF engaged in a variety of actions in support of the Sandinista revolution and against US political, military, and economic intervention in Nicaragua under Reagan. Along with developing ties to the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), through its work in support of the Sandinista revolution and its involvement with other activists and domestic organizations, the NTF also developed relationships with the Nicaraguan Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza (AMNLAE) and the Asociacion de Trabajodores del Campo (ATC). Much of the NTF’s work was intended to educate the general public about the state of affairs in Nicaragua and to counter the prevailing narrative of the Reagan Administration. These actions included, but were not limited to, participation in demonstrations and other protest actions, participation in local and national conferences, building broad-based Nicaraguan solidarity coalitions with religious, human rights, and other organizations, fundraising through the sale of buttons, shirts, and other merchandise, providing material and other aid to the Nicaraguan people, hosting speakers like FSLN leader Daniel Ortega and other Nicaraguan political figures, providing temporary asylum for refugees, and work in multiple campaigns to call attention to the adverse impact of US intervention in Nicaragua. Following Ortega’s statement that the FSLN had won a “strategic victory” over the Contras in 1989, and the FSLN’s defeat in the Nicaraguan general election of the following year, the NTF ceased to operate in 1990.

Currently, Carol Wells is executive director of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, which she founded in 1989. Theodore Hajjar retired from teaching at Southwest Middle College High School, where he taught History and Civics, in 2008. Both Wells and Hajjar remain politically active.

Sources:

Wells, Carol A. In discussion with the author. November 2016.

Futch, David. “85,000 of the World’s Angriest Political Posters are Sitting in Culver City.” LA Weekly. March 12, 2015. http://www.laweekly.com/arts/85-000-of-the-worlds-angriest-political-posters-are-sitting-in-culver-city-5426721.

Pool, Bob. “Protest Posters Find Asylum with Activist.” Los Angeles Times. June 5, 2001. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jun/05/local/me-6581.

Hajjar, Theodore. In discussion with the author. December 2016.

Wells, Carol and Ted Hajjar. “Political Graphics.” Works and Days. 28, no. 55/56 (2010): 296.

Aronowitz, Stanley. “The New American Movement and Why it Failed.” Works and Days. 28, no. 55/56 (2010): 25.

CISPES. “Who We Are.” CISPES: Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Nov. 21, 2016. http://cispes.org/about.

Regional Surveys of the World. South America, Central America, and the Caribbean 2002. New York: Routledge, 2010.