The Mother’s Day Peace Proclamation

/ | Leave a Comment

Every year in May, peace activists circulate Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Peace Proclamation. But, Howe did not commemorate Mother’s Day in May . . . for thirty years Americans celebrated Mother’s Day for Peace on June 2nd. It was Julia Ward Howe’s contemporary, Anna Jarvis, who established the May celebration of mothers, and even […]

Read more »

May Day and Mother Jones

/ | Leave a Comment

“In all my career I have never advocated violence. I want to give the nation a more highly developed citizenship.” – Mother Jones This week commemorates the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair, International Workers’ Day, and the claimed birthday of Mother Mary Harris Jones.  While the United States’ official Labor Day falls in September, the […]

Read more »

Ordinary Insurrections

| Leave a Comment

Consider this post an act of rebellion . . . a nonviolent action against the tide of business as usual. It’s just another Sunday at my house, but after over a decade of thinking, reflecting, learning, and changing, Sunday afternoons involve dozens of constructive actions that remove my consent from destructive systems and place my […]

Read more »

Living Life Unusual

| Leave a Comment

The crises of our current human predicament offer us the thin silver lining of opportunity . . . we can – and must – live life differently, defying old beliefs, redefining what it means to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. We are being called to question everything. The entire structure of society, civilization, economy, […]

Read more »

Salt Thoughts . . .

| Leave a Comment

Whenever someone asks me, “What is our salt? What is the US equivalent of Gandhi’s constructive program?” I tell them that I think it’s local food and gardening, seed saving, and caring for the Earth. Whether we’re planting in pots or urban community gardens, or we’re on a small farm, or, like me, you lovingly […]

Read more »

From One Human Heart To Another . . .

| Leave a Comment

To everyone who is heartbroken, tired, sick, worried: you’re not crazy. You’re persevering remarkably. The systems of our juggernaut world are cruel, crushing, and insane. You’ve been strong. You’ve been courageous, whether you’ve been protesting on the front lines or managing to stay alive one more day through intense pain. And you’re loved. From one […]

Read more »

Teach-Ins and Nonviolent Movements

| Leave a Comment

This week in nonviolent history, we celebrate the effective and versatile tactic of the teach-in. One of the largest teach-ins during the Vietnam War, for example, was held on May 21st-23rd, 1965 at UC Berkeley with 10-30,000 students attending. The State Department was invited to send a representative, but declined. An empty chair was set […]

Read more »

Remembering Nonviolent History: Blue Revolution – Kuwaiti Women Gain Suffrage

/ | Leave a Comment

The successful conclusion of Kuwait’s Blue Revolution came on May 17th, 2005 when Kuwaiti women gained suffrage after more than 40 years of struggle. The women used a wide variety of approaches to achieve their goals, including lobbying, introducing repeated legislation, protests and demonstration, marches, rallies, and mock elections. Like many women’s suffrage movements around […]

Read more »

Yes to Assertive, No to Aggressive by Tom Hastings

/ | Leave a Comment

I teach and write in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies, with a special focus on strategic nonviolence. It is a rich field, growing in its scholarship and its widespread usage. I’m so enthused by this—the more we wage our conflicts with nonviolence the lower the costs. Counting the costs of conflict, we normally […]

Read more »

Remembering Nonviolent History: Freedom Rides

/ | Leave a Comment

By May 1961, federal law had already ruled that segregation on interstate, public buses was illegal. Southern states, however, maintained segregation in seating, and at bus station bathrooms, waiting rooms and drinking fountains. The Interstate Commerce Commission refused to take action to enforce federal law. To change this, the Civil Rights Movement (CORE, SNCC, NAACP) […]

Read more »

Mother’s Day Poems

| Leave a Comment

Happy Mother’s Day to my incredible, artistic, courageous, wonderful mother, Kate Simonds! Bouquets of Mother by Rivera Sun My mother, Kathryn, a name standing tall on two feet strong like the black coffee she drank. My mother drove tractors and wrangled five children through chores last minute homework breakfast cereal dish duty and onto the […]

Read more »

Teach-Ins and Nonviolent Movements

/ | Leave a Comment

We should celebrate the effective and versatile tactic of the teach-in. One of the largest teach-ins during the Vietnam War, for example, was held on May 21st-23rd, 1965 at UC Berkeley with 10-30,000 students attending. The State Department was invited to send a representative, but declined. An empty chair was set on the stage during […]

Read more »

“Midwife to Change” from The Dandelion Insurrection

| Leave a Comment

This is an excerpt from Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection, featuring a moment when Zadie Byrd Gray commits to being a love-motivated changemaker and living up to her inner potential. Find the whole novel here. “There are three hundred million people in this country and someone has to pull their love from the womb […]

Read more »

Mother Jones and May Day

/ | Leave a Comment

“In all my career I have never advocated violence. I want to give the nation a more highly developed citizenship.” – Mother Jones This week commemorates the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair, International Workers’ Day, and the claimed birthday of Mother Mary Harris Jones.  While the United States’ official Labor Day falls in September, the […]

Read more »
To top