Ted Glick has devoted 56 years of his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison and took part in five “ultra resistance” actions as part of the Vietnam War era Catholic Left. In 1973 he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August, 1974 resignation.

Since late 2003 Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a renewable energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May, 2006 he began working with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was CCAN National Campaign Coordinator until his retirement in October, 2015. In retirement he has continued his climate and other activism with a number of local, state and national groups (see below)

Since the 1970’s Ted has been actively involved in community organizing efforts around environmental, tenant rights, community development and racial justice issues in Brooklyn, N.Y. and northern New Jersey. On a national level he has been a leader in coalition-building and independent politics efforts. From 1995 to 2005, he was the National Coordinator of the Independent Progressive Politics Network.

He has participated in, sometimes leading, many hundreds of actions. He has been arrested 31 times for acts of nonviolent direct action, including 17 times since 2006 on climate and climate justice issues.

As the national coordinator of the People’s Alliance, he helped to organize the 1980 People’s Convention of several thousand people on the devastated Charlotte St. area in the South Bronx and a march of 15,000 people to Madison Square Garden just before the Democratic Convention. In 2002 he was a primary organizer of the April 20th, 80,000-person march in Washington, D.C. against the militaristic and repressive response of the Bush administration to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also in 2002, he was a Green Party of New Jersey candidate for U.S. Senate.

Over the years, Ted’s commitment to social justice has led him to partake in 20 extended fasts, six of which were for more than a month, including two water-only fasts of 40 and 42 days in 1972 and 1992. In 2020, at the age of 71, he did a 26 day, water only Fast to Defeat Trump. During a Climate Emergency Fast in 2007 he ate no solid food for 107 days as part of an effort to get Congress to pass strong climate legislation.

For 25 years he has been a prolific writer on behalf of the movement to which he devotes his life. Since 2000 he has been writing and distributing a regular column of political, social and cultural commentary, “Future Hope.” In August 2020 PM Press released “Burglar for Peace: Lessons Learned in the Catholic Left’s Resistance to the Vietnam War,” a semi-autobiographical account of the draft resistance movement, particularly the Catholic Left component of it, between 1968 and 1973. In 2021 he self-published “21st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation.” He published a book in 2000, “Future Hope: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society.”  In 2009 he finished a book manuscript, “Love Refuses to Quit: Climate Change and Social Change in the 21st Century,” which is posted elsewhere on this website.

His organizational involvements as of 2024 include:

-a leader of Beyond Extreme Energy
-co-planner of Climate Reality Check national calls
-on Coordination Team of Radical Elders
-active participant in People Vs. Fossil Fuels
-author since 2000 of twice-monthly Future Hope columns
-President of 350NJ-Rockland
-activist with Divest NJ
-member of Solidarity Singers of the NJ Industrial Union Council
-activist with Empower New Jersey climate action coalition
-member of People’s Organization for Progress
-leader of Bloomfield Citizens Solar Campaign
-regular participant in Brookdale Reformed Church
-member of Don’t Gas the Meadowlands