Hope over Fear ─ Bridges Toward a Better World

For those of us who lived through the Cold War years in Dallas, this

book is a sometimes-painful journey through a past we would most like

to forget. For younger people, it fills in gaps in our local history that had

national and international dimensions. At the same time, it is a reminder

of the integrity, tenacity, and courage of the few brave souls who kept

faith in the sure knowledge that right will win out and whose leadership

has led us to a new day in our city—warts and all!

This is the story of the Dallas Chapter United Nations Association, long

overdue. Norma and Bill Matthews, both of whom are past presidents

of DUNA, have done a masterful job of probing the past, ferreting out

nuggets of history tucked into boxes and stashed away in family attics,

backroom nooks, and office storerooms. For much of the time since its

founding in 1953, DUNA has had no permanent home or office, and its

records have been at the mercy of whoever was its leader, always with

the possibility that succeeding generations of its founders would not

recognize the merits of those sealed boxes and would destroy them.

Using endless newspaper files, mostly from the Dallas Morning News and

some 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 by

personal stories of individuals who kept the flame alive in good times

and bad.

Norma and Bill Matthews teamed their professional degrees in

education, communication, music, and theology to serve as volunteer

activists for human rights and peace endeavors. Married 63 years, and

retiring as teacher and minister, they committed themselves to research

and preserve the history of advocacy for support of sustainable goals of

individual and universal dignity and freedom.