Synopsis "Hope Over Fear: Bridges Toward a Better World"
For those of us who lived through the Cold War years in Dallas, thisbook is a sometimes-painful journey through a past we would most liketo forget. For younger people, it fills in gaps in our local history that hadnational and international dimensions. At the same time, it is a reminderof the integrity, tenacity, and courage of the few brave souls who keptfaith in the sure knowledge that right will win out and whose leadershiphas led us to a new day in our city--warts and all!This is the story of the Dallas Chapter United Nations Association, longoverdue. Norma and Bill Matthews, both of whom are past presidentsof DUNA, have done a masterful job of probing the past, ferreting outnuggets of history tucked into boxes and stashed away in family attics, backroom nooks, and office storerooms. For much of the time since itsfounding in 1953, DUNA has had no permanent home or office, and itsrecords have been at the mercy of whoever was its leader, always withthe possibility that succeeding generations of its founders would notrecognize the merits of those sealed boxes and would destroy them.Using endless newspaper files, mostly from the Dallas Morning News andsome from the late Dallas Times Herald and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Matthews writing team has been able to follow the founding, development, and leadership of DUNA, vastly enriched bypersonal stories of individuals who kept the flame alive in good timesand bad. Norma and Bill Matthews teamed their professional degrees ineducation, communication, music, and theology to serve as volunteeractivists for human rights and peace endeavors. Married 63 years, andretiring as teacher and minister, they committed themselves to researchand preserve the history of advocacy for support of sustainable goals ofindividual and universal dignity and freedom.
