Category: Love-In-Action

Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Resistance is a continuum. Nonviolent movements arise amidst the efforts of many other struggles. The knowledge of how to organize for change is a global legacy passed between movements and generations of activists through lineages of inspiration that stretch through hundreds of years. (The first recorded strike happened in […]

by Rivera Sun, Editor of Nonviolence News In times like this, many of us feel powerless to do anything about the political, social, and environmental injustices we face. But, power is everywhere. Like sunlight and solar panels, it’s a question of tapping into it. Accustomed to the top-down power of presidents and CEOs, most of […]

From Qatar to Honduras, People Take Action.Nonviolence News: Aug 10th, 2019 Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun: In Nonviolence News this week, you’ll find some powerful stories.  Thirteen victories, large and small, show how change is being made step-by-step. Georgians, Russians, Hondurans, migrant workers in Qatar, and Irish and British airport workers are all striving for […]

by Rivera Sun, Editor of Nonviolence News If you want to make change, think outside the protest box. It’s easy to get hung up on protests. We’ve heard about them, they’re highly visible, and they’re relatively easy to pull off. The problem with protests is that – all too often – they’re easily ignored. Creativity […]

May 11-18, 2019 Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun: By the numbers, Nonviolence News covers stories that involve millions of people. Civil disobedience arrests are happening by the dozens. Demonstrations involve thousands. Strikes include hundreds of thousands. This week alone, Nonviolence News is covering stories about 100-200,000 French protesters, 300,000 teachers on strike in Poland, thousands […]

“The Revolutionary Table” Chapter Fourteen of Steam Drills by Rivera Sun Patrick, Louisa, Hank, Wanda, and Ford all crowded around the kitchen table in Henrietta’s two-room cabin. Old Moses Nelson’s mother gave birth to him on that table. Strong and sturdy, rugged as the ancient oak that formed its boards; the table’s grains held a […]

  The Earth is crying out for our love, for humanity to return to loving the contours, complexity, and exquisite beauty of our world. We have forgotten, turned away, hardened our hearts, and closed our ears. We have fallen into the terrible habit of thinking of this Earth as an object, a resource, or the […]

by Rivera Sun for Campaign Nonviolence and Peace Voice Many people in the United States are expressing concern over the rise of hatred, hate crimes, bigotry, racism, sexism, and Islamophobia. At the same time, a number of creative nonviolent responses have arisen for addressing discrimination and hatred on the ground. Here are a few stories […]

Recently, I traveled by train across the US in a swaying, creeping journey that took me through the backyards and forgotten corners of our country. Here, you see the America that doesn’t make it into the slogans of presidential campaigns. These back alleys are not evoked by the statistics and demographical jargon politicians use to […]

by Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection The word you’re looking for is swarming. The people are rising, resisting, changing, growing, evolving . . . and as they do, they’re swarming like bees or birds in the hundreds, thousands, millions. They’re coming together to stop pipelines, then dispersing and reassembling in a different configuration […]

[ Photo Credit: By Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report Magazine; Restored by Adam Cuerden – Public Domain[/caption] Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer was born on October 6th, 1917, in Mississippi, and lived under the harsh reality of the Jim Crow South. Through years of courage and challenge, she became a legendary […]

On August 23rd, 1989, two million people joined hands to form a human chain crossing the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, in protest against the Soviet Union, and in support of each nation’s independence. The Baltic Way, as the human chain was called, spanned 420 miles, engaging people of all ages in […]

During election years, pent-up frustrations, simmering animosities, and the toxic legacy of countless hours of hate talk radio erupt from the seething volcano of the American public. Injustice left festering explodes into anger and hatred. Defensive arrogance and condescension drips down the pyramid of privilege. What should – and perhaps someday could – be a […]

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” ~ Dr. King From the left and the right, policy proposals are flying fast and furious. It is an election year, after all.  But one topic is completely off the agenda […]

“A voice of one is better than the voice of none.”  This sentence sums up much of my approach to speaking truth, demonstrating, and showing up. I’m not waiting for the crowd, for the great leader, or for the glorious revolution. I want to speak up, show up, stand up. I don’t care if I’m the […]

It takes more than a single action to make a movement. And, who’s to say YOU won’t launch, organize, and carry out a series of effective nonviolent actions that build into a set of powerful campaigns that form the arc of a world-changing movement? Find a couple friends, dust off your strategic thinking caps, and […]

There are over two hundred methods of nonviolent action. Gene Sharp categorized them into three major groups: acts of protest and persuasion, acts of noncooperation, and acts of intervention. Acts of intervention literally interrupt business-as-usual and disrupt the functioning of systems. Usually (though not always) these types of nonviolent actions involve people physically putting their […]

Grand Strategy is a plan of action to achieve the major or overall goals of your movement. It’s different than campaign-level strategy, or strategy for specific nonviolent actions (which should include dates, times, location, weather, people, contingency plans, signage, etc. and so forth.) Grand Strategy is a broad view of the arc of the movement. […]

Too often, our movements find themselves reacting instead of initiating the dynamic events of the struggle. Take back the escalation curve by engaging in strategic thinking, foresight, and planning. Don’t wait for your opposition to attack you . . . organize and mobilize in advance of the crisis. Easier said than done, right? We often […]

Many of us know about protests and marches, there is also a whole other side to nonviolence: constructive program. The phrase was coined by Gandhi whose famous salt and spinning campaigns combined both direct action and constructive program into powerful forces for change. A constructive program is more than a positive project; it should have […]

Acts of concentration are those that assemble human bodies in geographic areas together. Acts of dispersion are nonviolent actions that do not bring bodies into the same space. Why is this important? Because when violent repression is likely to occur, using acts of dispersion can keep people safe while still carrying out effective action. Think […]

Civil disobedience is an art … and there’s more to it than simply “getting arrested.” The term comes from an essay by Henry David Thoreau, whose classic, “On Civil Disobedience” was written in relation to slavery and the Mexican-American war. Thoreau felt it was the duty of citizens to resist through noncooperation and disobedience the […]

On June 15th, 1955, Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day joined a group of pacifists in refusing to participate in the civilian defense drills scheduled on that day. These drills were to prepare the citizenry in the event of a nuclear attack, and involved evacuations of city centers, taking shelter in subway tunnels, and, for schoolchildren, […]

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 […]