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Tax Strike Tactics

Visit Imprisoned Resisters

It can be of great comfort to a prisoner to see a friendly face. If a campaign can facilitate visits to imprisoned tax resisters, this boosts their morale. Anything that makes life easier for imprisoned resisters helps to bolster the determination of other resisters who are risking imprisonment.

Example Poll Tax Resistance

Some families could not afford to travel to visit their imprisoned family members during the poll tax rebellion in Thatcher’s Britain. They were able to get financial help from the Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign. “Supporters of the campaign believed that those who were imprisoned were in prison on behalf of those who were outside,” a campaign veteran remembers, “and it was the responsibility of the movement to take care of them.”

Example Thomas Story

Thomas Story, an English Quaker visiting the American colonies, was able to meet with two Quakers from Rhode Island who were in prison for not paying a militia exemption tax. Story visited several times, on one occasion staying with the prisoners almost all day. He helped them hold a Quaker meeting (religious service) in the prison. He also (having some legal experience) tried to assist them in court. It has been a great comfort to imprisoned Quaker tax resisters like these to maintain their bonds of community while behind bars.

Example Zerah C. Whipple

When Zerah C. Whipple was imprisoned for failing to pay a war tax in 1874, it was a comfort to him to have friends on the outside trying to get in. He wrote: “Our friend John J. Copp, proved himself a true friend indeed. Knowing that I would be lonely in the jail, he visited me every day after he learned that I was there, and when the keeper refused him admission, he demanded it as his right to visit his client, and claimed the right to see me alone too, which was granted.”

Notes and Citations
  • Burns, Danny Poll Tax Rebellion AK Press (1992), p. 126
  • Story, Thomas “Being Only a Case of Conscience with Us” American Quaker War Tax Resistance (2nd ed., 2011) pp. 11–14.
  • Whipple, Z.C. “Account of Zerah C. Whipple’s Imprisonment. (Continued.)” The Voice of Peace, Vol. I, December 1874, p. 144