Molly Rush

Molly Rush is an American Catholic anti-war, civil and women's rights activist born in 1935. She co-founded the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with Larry Kessler in 1972, She was one of the Plowshares eight defendants. They faced trial after an anti-nuclear weapons symbolic action at a nuclear missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Rush was a delegate to the National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977. Rush was re-sentenced to time served. In a film on the trial, In the King of Prussia, the defendants played themselves, while Martin Sheen portrayed the judge.

Awards and recognition She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 2011 by Governor Tom Corbett. and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Coalition Award in 1990, Fannie Lou Hamer Award from Women for Racial & Economic Equality in 1994, the Mother Jones Award from the PA Labor History Society in 2003, the YWCA Tribute to Women award in 2003 and the Just Harvest Award in 2004. She shared a story from Hammer of Justice in the book ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance, published in 2024.

Film Emile de Antonio's 1982 film In the King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen and Molly Rush appeared as herself. Rush was featured in the documentaries The Pursuit of Happiness and The Trial of the AVCO Plowshares, by Global Village Video.