Citizen of the World

Far From Home

When he was 26 years old in 1948, Garry Davis did something that would make the rest of his life really complicated.

Over the next six decades, he’d be detained and imprisoned 34 times in 9 countries, dragged off the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, and gain millions of followers, all while confronting countless bureaucrats who had absolutely no idea what to do with him.

What set this chain of events into motion was his decision to stand before a guy in a gray suit at the US Embassy in Paris, put his hand on a bible, and read a couple of lines off a sheet of paper renouncing his American citizenship. And he'd never become a citizen of any other country, instead navigating the world as a stateless person without any sort of road map or instruction manual. Garry would go on to found the World Government of World Citizens and issue birth certificates, passports, and other identity documents, all in his quest for unity and peace.

If you're interested in learning more about Garry Davis, check out this video of him crossing the US-Canadian border with his world passport and also this documentary that was made about him a number of years ago: https://www.theworldismycountry.com/

On Far From Home, award-winning public radio journalist Scott Gurian reports fascinating stories from faraway places like Iran, Chernobyl, and Mongolia. For more info, visit farfromhomepodcast.org