Gandhi Peace Award

The award is also intended to recognize individuals for having made significant contributions, through cooperative and non-violent means in the spirit of Gandhi, to the struggle to achieve a sustainable world civilization founded on enduring international peace.

In the 21st century the award is especially intended by its presenters to honor those whose lives and works exemplify the principle that international peace, universal socioeconomic justice, and planetary environmental harmony are interdependent and inseparable, and all three are essential to the survival of civilization.

Davis first proposed the award to the board of Promoting Enduring Peace on 13 March 1959, with the name intended to pay tribute to the modern era's foremost advocate of nonviolent resistance, and partly to help rectify the failure of the Nobel Committee to award its Peace Prize to Gandhi before his death in 1948.

He researched Gandhi at the library of the India House in New York City and by 1960 had carved a striking bas-relief portrait in wood of the founder of the century’s international movement for nonviolent change.

He wrote of the medallion he also created, “I carved the Gujarati word for peace on one side, and on the other a symbolic plowshare and pruning hook inspired by Isaiah 2:4...″ Since 2011 the award has included a cash prize.

A book about the award from its inception through 1997, In Gandhi's Footsteps: The First Half Century of Promoting Enduring Peace, was written and published by James Clement van Pelt.

An activist and journalist, his work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, Mother Jones, and Rolling Stone.

Shortly thereafter he made remarks critical of Israeli treatment of Palestinians that led to a proposal by a PEP member that the award to Fr.