The Catonsville action did not come out of nowhere. Seven months earlier, on October 17, 1967, Father Philip Berrigan -- a Josephite priest -- and artist Tom Lewis had walked into the Baltimore City Custom House and poured blood on draft records. Along with David Eberhardt and James Mengel, they became known as the Baltimore Four. Berrigan and Lewis were out on bail from that action when they helped organize what would happen in Catonsville. The planning was painstaking and democratic: lengthy meetings, votes by raised hands, careful discussion of consequences. The group that assembled included Philip's brother Father Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest; Brother David Darst, a De La Salle Christian Brother; former Maryknoll missionaries Thomas and Marjorie Melville; activist George Mische; and nurse Mary Moylan. They were priests, nuns, and laypeople united by Catholic faith and moral revulsion at the war.

Baltimore County police arrested all nine at the scene. From jail, the group sent a basket of flowers and a letter to the draft board clerk they had restrained, explaining they had not intended to injure anyone. The trial, held in federal court from October 5 to 9, 1968, became a landmark in the history of American protest. The nine were defended by William Kunstler, already one of the most famous civil rights lawyers in the country. They were found guilty of destruction of U.S. property, destruction of Selective Service files, and interference with the Selective Service Act of 1967. The total sentence: eighteen years in prison and $22,000 in fines. Father Daniel Berrigan later turned the trial transcript into a play in free verse, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, which Gregory Peck produced as a film in 1972. Peck invested $300,000 and, by his own account, lost every penny.

Four of the nine -- Mary Moylan, Philip Berrigan, Daniel Berrigan, and George Mische -- refused to report for their prison sentences. Daniel Berrigan's time as a fugitive became the stuff of legend. On the day he was scheduled to begin his three-year sentence, April 9, 1970, he left his office keys on a secretary's desk at Cornell University's Anabel Taylor Hall and vanished. Cornell marked his impending imprisonment with a weekend event called "America Is Hard to Find," and the then-fugitive Berrigan appeared before a crowd of 15,000 in Barton Hall. The FBI, publicly embarrassed, intensified its search. On August 11, 1970, agents found and arrested Berrigan at the home of theologian William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne. He served his sentence at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution and was released in 1972.

The Catonsville Nine's act of burning draft files with napalm was deliberately theatrical -- designed not just to destroy records but to force Americans to confront what napalm meant when used on human beings half a world away. The action inspired a wave of similar draft board raids across the country. Tom Lewis, sentenced to six years for his prior Custom House protest with an additional three and a half years served concurrently, used his time at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary to create a portfolio of etchings depicting the psychic torment of his fellow prisoners -- suicidal thoughts, boredom, isolation, and police brutality. Some prints were made with ink scavenged from ashes, coffee grounds, and cocoa powder. Fellow Catholic activist Corita Kent printed the cover. The Catonsville Nine have since been memorialized in songs by Dar Williams, Chip Taylor, and others, and their story was fictionalized in the 2023 Showtime miniseries Fellow Travelers. The parking lot on Frederick Road is quiet now. The fire lasted only minutes. The argument it ignited has never fully burned out.