Mark was a member of the 24/7 activists at the Tracks. When Mark became Nuremberg Actions Media Person, he turned down an offer for $1000 salary, asked for only $300 and gave most of it to Michael Kerr, the new volunteer Peace House manager, to help with house and food costs. Mark would use the small basement room at the Peace House as his photography darkroom. The Nuremberg Actions Spokes Group had only allocated $600 toward the Peace House costs ($300 for food and $300 for House), so Mark’s extra money was most appreciated. MEK Comment
Starting in late March 1988, Diane, Mark Coplan and Michael Kerr created a three-person intentional community at the tracks to guarantee food and a 24/7 presence at the Tracks. It was a rotating system where one-person prepared breakfast at the Peace House & delivered it to the Track community. They then took the dirty dishes back to Peace House to clean. That person would then made sure the Peace House was occupied & cleaned. Later they would prepare dinner, often comprising of bread, juice and a large pot of hot vegetarian soup. After they delivered dinner to the tracks which often fed 10-20 people. That person would then guarantee that they would occupy the vigil site at the tracks over night and until dinner time the next day. Meanwhile another person took dinner dishes back to Peace House to clean. They would spend the night at Peace House and prepare breakfast for the next morning. Don’t dare forgot coffee! With this rotation system, each of us had a free day of responsibility every 3 days. It was hard to get anyone else to take on this responsibility. The system started to breakdown when Mark moved to Nicaragua, then Diane went to jail and eventually Michael went on the Caravan to El Salvador in late March 1989. MEK Comment
Mark Coplan‘s This is Nicaragua 1989 “This is Nicaragua” is one of my “Lost Videos”; a few of the 32 documentaries I produced in my three years living in Nicaragua, copies of the originals recently discovered in a box of old tapes. I produced this video for Carol A. Katonik (the only producer I ever had) to use in the states to do fundraising for my work. I had the good fortune to work in virtually every corner of Nicaragua; a few projects took me into the surrounding countries, and in my last year I did a lot of work with the Salvadorian refugee community. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RCXlqKCQOc
Honoring Berkeley School District Spokesman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_4Jd2rSduM
Videos – Mark Coplan https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Mark+Coplan&qpvt=Mark+Coplan&FORM=VDRE
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