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US Peace Memorial Foundation |
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Michael D. Knox, Ph.D.
Chair and Founder, US Peace Memorial Foundation
Author: ENDING U.S. WARS by Honoring Americans Who Work for Peace
Michael D. Knox
grew up on Grosse Ile, Michigan, and earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the
University of Michigan in 1974. Dr. Knox is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Department
of Behavioral Health Science & Practice at the University of South
Florida (USF) in Tampa, Florida. He is Chair of the US Peace
Memorial Foundation and
Editor of the US Peace Registry.
Dr. Knox joined the USF faculty in 1986 as Chair of the
Department of Community Mental Health and was named Distinguished Professor in 1997, holding that rank in Mental Health Law and
Policy, Internal Medicine (until 2025), and Public
Health (until 2024), with previous joint appointments in Psychology and Aging
Studies. For 50 years, his academic career has focused on peace, ethics, disease
prevention, death, and mental health issues. He was elected to leadership
positions nationwide and has authored over 125 scholarly publications, including HIV and Community Mental Healthcare, The Johns
Hopkins University Press. Knox is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association “in
recognition of outstanding and distinguished contributions to the science and
profession of psychology.” He was inducted into Sigma Xi, the
international honor society of research scientists and engineers.
Knox
was responsible for more than $50 million in grants to USF. He founded and
directed the Florida/Caribbean
AIDS Education and Training Center, was a Visiting
Scholar at the University of Oxford in England, and represented USF at ceremonies in India. He also served as
President of the USF Faculty Senate and Chair of the Florida Advisory Council of Faculty
Senates.
For decades, his biography was included in Who’s Who in the World and Who’s
Who in America. Before joining the USF faculty, he was Director of the
Western Tidewater Mental Health Center and on the faculty of Eastern Virginia
Medical School. In 2012, he retired his clinical psychologist license to
volunteer for antiwar efforts.
His
peace and antiwar activities began in 1965 in opposition to the war against
Vietnam. As a delegate to the 20th National Student Congress, he
introduced a successful resolution to hold an antiwar demonstration in 1967 in
front of the White House. In 1970, Knox co-founded a draft counseling
center, and in 1971, he blew the whistle on prohibited classified research at the University of Michigan. He provided evidence that university researchers were
perfecting weapon systems used by the military to kill. Since then, he has continued to engage in speeches, writing, protests, interviews, and other actions advocating
for peace. He is an invited nationwide speaker on “building a culture of
peace” and “honoring peace leadership.”
In 2005, Knox
founded the US Peace Memorial Foundation. He directs its nationwide effort
to recognize hundreds of Americans’ antiwar actions by publishing
the US
Peace Registry, awarding the annual US Peace Prize,
and raising funds to build a national monument - the US Peace Memorial - in Washington, DC. Knox says, “Ending the U.S. war culture begins with honoring those
who dare speak out against it. The US Peace Memorial Foundation is the
only organization dedicated exclusively to celebrating antiwar heroes—leaders
and activists whose example inspires others to work to end U.S. war and
militarism.”
In
2022, Professor Knox received the Ralph K. White Lifetime Achievement
Award from
the Peace Psychology Division, American Psychological Association, “For his
lifetime of service and achievement on behalf of mental health and well-being
in the face of social inequities and injustice through ground-breaking
theoretical and applied research which has led to new directions in developing
cultures of peace including establishing and leading the non-profit US Peace
Memorial Foundation.” He was awarded the 2007 Anthony
J. Marsella Prize for
the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice “for more
than four decades of outstanding contributions to peace and humanitarian
assistance.”
He is the
author of many peace-related articles including: “A Cultural Shift
toward Peace: The Need for a National Symbol,” Peace
and Conflict, 2009; “Honoring Peace and Antiwar Behavior: The US Peace
Registry,” Peace Psychology, 2009; “World
Peace: A First Step,”
Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 2011; “US Peace Registry:
From psychologists to comedians,” The
Peace Psychologist, 2019; “It’s time to
memorialize peace in our public spaces,” Beyond Nuclear International, 2019; “As Monuments to War Generals Come Down, Let’s Replace Them
with Monuments to Peace,” CounterPunch, 2020; “Militarism and COVID-19,” CounterPunch, 2020; “After Nagasaki, The
U.S. Did Not Choose Peace,” CounterPunch, 2020; “American Pop Culture Feeds the War on Peace,” Truthout,
2021; “Imagine a Culture
of Peace,” CounterPunch, 2021; and “Let’s create a memorial to peace,
not war,” OpEd, Tampa
Bay Times, 2021. Some of his recent presentations and interviews are at www.youtube.com/@uspeace.
Knox is the
author of the book ENDING U.S. WARS by Honoring Americans Who Work for Peace, published in 2021. His work advocates cultural change, raising our awareness
of efforts toward peace and increasing opportunities to challenge the promotion
of war and militarism.
You can
read more about Michael Knox's antiwar activities in the US Peace Registry and on Wikipedia. Dr. Knox currently lives in the
Tampa Bay area. John, his eldest son, is a computer and electrical
engineer in Minneapolis. His son James is a civil/structural engineer
working in Orlando.
NOTE: The ideas expressed on
this website are the views of the Foundation or Michael Knox and do not
represent the views of any university.
US Peace Memorial Foundation is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity.
Donations
to the Foundation are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.
Copyright 2005-2025, US Peace Memorial Foundation, Inc.