The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute is a grantmaking and sponsorship organization that supports left-wing activist groups, both in the United States and internationally. Founded by members of the War Resisters League, it is named for Abraham Johannes Muste, an early 20th century pacifist, labor organizer, and civil rights activist. ¹

The Muste Institute retains close ties to the War Resisters League, providing the group with $66,255 in its 2017 fiscal year. ²

History

The organization is named for Abraham Johannes Muste, an early 20th century labor organizer and civil rights activist. The organization claims that Muste introduced Martin Luther King Jr. to the notion of nonviolent activism when King was a seminarian, although the organization says Muste and King had a “pretty heated argument” before King agreed. In addition, the Muste Institute claims, it was A.J. Muste that introduced King to non-violent protest rather than Gandhi. ¹

A.J. Muste was born in 1885 in Holland, brought to the United States at the age of six, and raised by a Republican family. He became a Dutch Reformed minister. He voted for socialist Eugene Debs in the 1912 presidential election. After this, he switched to the more left-of-center Congregational Church and became a pacifist over World War I. In the 1920s, he became the director of the Brookwood Labor College in Katonah, New. York. ¹

He allegedly helped found the Conference for Progressive Labor Action 1929, which helped form the American Workers Party in 1933. He eventually identified an “avowed Marxist-Leninist,” according to the organization’s website. The website also claims he was also involved in founding the Trotskyist Workers Party of America. However, it further alleges after he met with Trotsky in Norway, he returned to the United States while abandoning Marxist-Leninism and taking up Christianity again. ¹

In 1940, he became executive secretary of the religious pacifists’ organization, and held the post until 1953. He opposed U.S. intervention in World War II. In 1966, he led a group of pacifists to Vietnam to Saigon, who were arrested and threatened with deportation. Later that same year, he traveled to Hanoi and visited with Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. He died in 1967 during the Vietnam War. ¹

Background

Among the organizations it has housed are the Socialist Party USA, Occupy Wall Street, and Granny Peace Brigade. ³

Members of the War Resisters League founded the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute “to offer safe space to radical organizations threatened by government surveillance and harassment.” Its organizing occurred during the movement against the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The institute gained tax-exempt status in 1974. ¹

The group claims to advocate for exposing the “military industrial complex,” seeking a “halt to environmental racism,” stopping the death penalty, reducing or ending incarceration, defending labor unions, promoting immigration, and fighting for racial and sexual equality. ⁴

Grantmaking

The Social Justice grants targets helping groups around the U.S. and the world that have small budgets and little access to mainstream funding avenues. ⁵ The International Nonviolence Training Fund provides up to $4,000 to projects outside the United States. ⁵ The institute further sponsors “Collaborative Workspace” for what it calls “activist tenants” to conduct meetings, training, events and organizing projects. ⁵

The Muste Institute also serves as a “Fiscal Sponsor” to various projects, helping groups get tax-deductible contributions. This assistance is aimed at smaller groups lacking the time, staff and financial resources to maintain a tax-exempt status. ⁵

The organization publishes the activist newsletter Muste Notes, and also publishes a pamphlet series of historical and contemporary essays about social change. The organization counts among its grantees named on its website are Chiapas to Palestine, an Uruguayan human rights activist, the Parole Preparation Project, the War Resisters League, and Code Pink. ⁶

Activities

On March 30, 2025, former Wall Street Journal journalist Asra Nomani posted a thread on her X (formerly Twitter) profile which listed Rise and Resist Inc., a fiscal project of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and the sister 501(c)(3) charitable group of 501(c)(4) charity organization Rise and Resist, ⁷ among several nonprofit organizations and activist groups that were allegedly involved with planning and taking part in #TeslaTakedown, a series of nationwide protests targeting car company Tesla over its CEO Elon Musk‘s ties to the Second Trump Administration. ⁸

People

Heidi Boghosian is the executive director of the A.J Muste Institute. She joined the staff in August 2014. She is a former executive director of the National Lawyers Guild and is the co-host of a radio show, Law and Disorder. She is also the author of the 2013 book Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power, and Public Resistance. ⁹

Peter Muste is the grandson of A.J. Muste, and is a board member of the institute. ⁹

Funding

According to its 2023 990 form, the A.J Muste Foundation reported a r

1. Why Get Involved. Accessed August 22, 2019.  https://www.ajmuste.org/why-get-involved
2. A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2017, Schedule I
3. Moynihan, Colin. “The Peace Pentagon, an Activist Office in NoHo, Is Forced to Move.” The New York Times. Accessed August 22, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/realestate/commercial/the-peace-pentagon-an-activist-office-in-noho-is-forced-to-move.html
4. Charity Navigator. Accessed August 22, 2019. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6096
5. How We Do It. Accessed August 22, 2019.  https://www.ajmuste.org/how-we-do-it
6. What We Do. Accessed August 22, 2019.  https://www.ajmuste.org/what-we-do
7. IRS Form 990. AJ Muste Memorial Institute. 2023. Schedule I, Part II, Line (2). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237379088/202443209349302894/IRS990ScheduleI.
8. Nomani, Asra (@AsraNomani). “Hello @ElonMusk and Friends, You asked who is funding and organizing the #TeslaTakedown protests. I’ve got answers for you, after going onto the streets of northern Virginia for the local protests here, seeing familiar faces from the Virginia Democratic political machine and then following the money — and the data.” X, March 30, 2025. https://x.com/AsraNomani/status/1906281197430329459
9. Staff and Board. Accessed August 22, 2019. https://www.ajmuste.org/staff-and-board