NONVIOLENCE TOOLKIT
Nonviolent Direct Action
All life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
The death of George Floyd has stirred the conscience of this nation and world. It mobilized many into daily, nonviolent, multiracial and multigenerational protests against the inequities of institutional racism. But if we are to have community and not chaos as the movement for racial, economic and social justice moves forward, protests must be transformed into policies.
Nonviolent practitioners recognize that the government uses force to preserve the status quo, which serves to benefit only those in power, and that the police are the extension and reflection of the culture and politics of a city’s history. Nonviolent practitioners recognize that they are controlled by the government to the degree that they cooperate with the government. They recognize that their true power lies in:
noncooperation with an unjust system
numbers—there are always more people than there are police
self-discipline to remain nonviolent
DIRECT ACTIONS
Direct actions are nonviolent tactics, methods and strategies that force the opponent to dialogue with you in order to resolve the injustice. There are many forms of direct action available to use in a nonviolent campaign, including methods of protest (rallies, marches), persuasion (speaking out on social media), noncooperation (boycotts, taking a knee) and intervention (parallel schools, sit-ins).
Nonviolent direct actions work in situations where major reforms are needed, and the traditional power structures are invested in the status quo. It works well in times of polarization, as has been proven by the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s.
The point of nonviolent action is to make an injustice visible and to resist it with love. It absorbs hatred into a greater love, knowing the hater is more than their hatred and may even be converted to our side. The cycle of hatred and violence ends with us.
Some people adopt nonviolent action on moral grounds, because they have adopted nonviolence as a way of life. Others choose nonviolence strictly as a method for resisting evil, or as a strategy during a campaign. Whichever you choose, the nonviolent resister recognizes that whatever violence they use cannot match the equipment and power available to the government, and so forgoes violence altogether.
There are some direct actions that are also acts of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience, as taught by Dr. King and John Lewis, is the act of breaking a law for a cause and accepting the consequences. It can mean openly disobeying a just law used unjustly, or openly disobeying an unjust, immoral or unconstitutional law. Either way, nonviolent activists accept the consequences, whether that means being arrested, jailed or fined. “Accepting the consequences” can actually be a tactic itself, as in packing the jails to deadlock the system. Acts of civil disobedience need to be very carefully planned since arrest, imprisonment, fines and a police record are very serious consequences.
In his book, How We Win, George Lakey clarifies the terms used to describe types of actions helpful for planning a campaign:
A direct action campaign includes many protests. It is not a one-time event.
A protest expresses rage, grief or opposition but rarely changes policy. It is one event in a longer campaign.
A nonviolent campaign is carefully designed and built for sustainability and escalation.
Nonviolent campaigns plan from the start to do a series of nonviolent actions, or protests, continuing momentum and increasing capacity until the goal is reached.
It takes constant, ongoing pressure to force a real shift in power.
Each protest provides feedback so organizers can refine tactics.
Nonviolent campaigns that inspire other campaigns become a movement.
In 1968, the day before he died, Martin Luther King said these words at a packed church in Memphis: “It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world, it is nonviolence or nonexistence. This is where we are today.”
This is still where we are today. Our hope is to encourage activists to use and develop the tools of nonviolent direct action as they build this current movement.
The following is a brief list of recommended resources for planning nonviolent actions. Also see our extended RESOURCES page for more in-depth readings about the philosophy of nonviolence.
George Lakey, How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning
Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists, 4th Edition
Si Kahn, Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble Rousers, Activists and Quiet Lovers of Justice
Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow: An Organizing Guide
Gene Sharp, 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action
NV 365 The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change / For Training