Jodie Evans is an American political activist, author, and documentary film producer. She characterizes her activism as working for peace and justice, environmental causes and women's rights. She has traveled extensively promoting what she terms the conflict resolution by peaceful means—including leading "citizen diplomacy" delegations to Iran, the Gaza Strip, and Afghanistan. Evans served in California Governor Jerry Brown's cabinet and managed his 1992 campaign for the presidency. Evans is a co-founder of the women's anti-war activist organization Code Pink. She also currently serves as the board chair of the Rainforest Action Network, an organization whose mission is to preserve forests, protect the climate and uphold human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns. She was married to Max Palevsky until his death on May 5, 2010 and currently lives in Venice, California.
Early life
Evans was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. She first became interested in what she terms social justice activism when she worked as a maid in a major Las Vegas hotel as a teenager—as her coworkers organized, she marched in favor of what she termed a living wage.
Activism
Her CODEPINK protest actions include disrupting Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention in 2008, and, in 2009, leading a protest in Santa Monica against Israeli cosmetics company Ahava. Upon returning from Afghanistan, she delivered signatures from women in that country and the US to President Obama asking him to send no new troops into the conflict there.
In March, 2010, during a book signing by Karl Rove, she and other Code Pink members caused disruptions. At one point, Evans charged the stage towards Rove with a pair of handcuffs, declaring that she was making a citizen's arrest. On January 30, 2011, Evans was arrested for disruptive behavior at a Rancho Mirage hotel where she was leading a protest against David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch over their financial support of part of the Tea Party Movement. In the fall of 2019 Evans joined actress and activist Jane Fonda in a series of weekly rallies and acts of civil disobedience, called Fire Drill Fridays, at Washington DC's Capitol to highlight the global climate crisis, where Evans was arrested along with Fonda multiple times.
Controversies
In the summer of 2010, controversy arose over Evans' alleged 2008 remark to Debbie Lee, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq that "Your son deserved to die in Iraq if he was stupid enough to go over there." Republican candidate Meg Whitman repeated this charge in her 2010 California gubernatorial campaign, demanding that Jerry Brown return money from a fundraiser that Evans hosted. Later during the controversy, Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle that she could not identify Evans and was not sure who made the insulting remark.
Books
Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation
Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism
