This past week I participated in a week-long, intensive exploration of Kingian Nonviolence. The concepts, philosophies, and experiences that both informed and grew out of the Civil Rights Movement, helped advance an understanding of nonviolence – an understanding very much rooted in the vision and experimentation Dr. King brought to the struggle, hence the term “Kingian Nonviolence.” After he was assassinated, those who had worked and organized alongside Dr. King set out to codify Kingian Nonviolence into a curriculum so that it could be carried on to the ensuing generations. This curriculum was developed by two prominent civil rights activists and leaders who worked alongside Dr. King in some of the movement’s most powerful nonviolent campaigns in Nashville, TN, Albany, GA, Chicago, IL and other communities across the US. These two men are Dr. David Jehnsen and Dr. Bernard Lafayette.
The description of the seminar reads:
“This advanced, five-day training is being organized for trainers in Kingian Nonviolence who are certified at least as the Level I trainer. In this training, led by Kingian Nonviolence co-author David Jehnsen, we will delve deeper into the history of this philosophy, studying the writings of Dr. King as well as the work of Richard Hauser, who’s writings heavily influenced the development of the Kingian Nonviolence training curriculum.”
This week-long seminar was organized for participants who have gone through Dr. Bernard Lafayette’s trainings in Kingian Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island and been certified atleast as level I trainers. I, unfortunately have not yet been certified, but thanks to some lobbying from my friend and colleague, Althea (who has been certified as a level I Kingian Nonviolence trainer), the group let me participate in this seminar given the intellectual background I have in nonviolence and the professional background I have in training. It was, in short, a transformative experience!
Below are my notes from the 5 days. They are literally cut and pasted from the Word doc I had going the entire week. I don’t assume that all of this will make too much sense to the random person who stumbles across this blog post, but you never know. They little acronyms before each note are the following: TA = takeaway, ID = idea for integrating something into my work, R = resource, BP = information relevant to a book project on which I am working, JLI – information relevant to an event I am helping organize with ICNC.
Monday, May 27th
TA – People got caught up memorizing the “I Have a Dream Speech” and forgot what the Civil Rights Movement was all about.
TA – Kazu refers to Hauser’s book as the sacred scrolls – the foundations and roots of Kingian Nonviolence and looking at how the Kingian Nonviolence curriculum came to be and the process of it being built.
TA – Matt shared that this seminar was looking at the “tap roots” of the Kingian Nonviolence curriculum.
TA – Globe shared with me that Diane Nash referred to nonviolence as “Agapic energy.”
R – Check out the Social Justice Training Institute (exploring the importance of allies) (MT Ashley)
TA – Globe shared with me that the Positive Peace Warrior Network was built on the idea of and culture of motorcycle clubs.
Q – How do you institutionalize Kingian Nonviolence without it being institutionalized? How do you become mainstream without being mainstreamed (Dr. Cornel West)?
TA – Ashley sees her life as an instrument and embodies the idea or servant leadership.
R – Check out the Nonviolence Institute in Romania (MT Mary Lou)
TA – David talked about ideas of peer empowerment and community education as a way to counteract and resist paternalistic/dominator models of and approaches towards education.
TA – check out the field of human computer interaction that Amy was working in.
ID – Integrating, at least, the Kingian Nonviolence 2-day core into the peace education work at AU and bringing it into DC area schools and tapping into PPWN and the DC based Kingian Nonviolence trainers – Althea, Arthur, and Brock.
ID – Should reach out to Mary Lou to learn more about the nonviolent social movements course that she teaches at Antioch. Maybe she would be interested in delivering a webinar to talk about the role of women, leadership, and structures in nonviolent movements.
Q – Ask Mary Lou about her meditative practice?
TA – Change vs. evolution.
TA – “All renewal movements need to always be renewed.” – David Jehnsen
TA/BP – Mary Lou shared that more academic work needed to do this work so people can get academic credit for studying and applying it.
TA – How to talk about spiritual grounding of this work that resonates with various peoples and their orientations.
TA/BP – How to up the rigor of your workshop and trainings in nonformal settings through learning about the rigor of this study in formal educational settings. How to up the creativity, participation, democratic processes and experiential elements of your academic courses by learning about this work in nonformal settings?
TA – Matt shared why he left one of his previous job in that he “could not see access to contribute what he wanted to contribute.”
TA/ID – David West led music and song with youth (worked with Matt Guynn’s great grandfather). West went on to found Heiffer International.
TA – Matt asks how do you have a nonviolent army because no community should or needs to lack the capacity to challenge and resistance injustice. This is connected to Dominic Barter’s story about every house having a kitchen because we know we will be hungry and need to eat or every house having rooms because we know we will need rest and sleep, but where are the spaces to address injustice and transform conflict?
TA – “When you are on the right path the universe conspires to support you.” (MT Kazu MT The Alchemist)
R – Jay Miller, Peace Education Secretary of AFSC
TA – We can all be leaders and be ready to be called into leadership
TA – Power with = leadership among equals, and being equal does mean being the same.
TA – There is difficulty articulating what nonviolence was particularly after Dr. King dies. People could only get one paragraph or two.
TA – The Kingian Nonviolence curriculum was something into which people could integrate their own stories and develop their own story of nonviolence relevant to their context.
TA – The manual was created because people needed to be trained in order to deliver the Kingian Nonviolence workshops.
TA – How do we move from advocates of nonviolence to organizers and mobilizers?
R – Non-killing Center
TA – There were two underground railroads in the US. One that went through Mexico and back to Cuba and the other one went up into Canada.
TA – Do people have the skill to go one way in their charismatic leader wants to go one way but justice wants to take you in another direction?
R – Pentagonism
TA – Any amount of paternalism is not good for you. It is like cancer. No amount of cancer can be good for you.
TA – Hauser was part of the Jewish underground resistance to Nazism during WWII
TA – Educate people to utilize the capacities they already have.
TA – David Jehnsen drafted the legislation that created the United States Institute of Peace.
TA – The visible school vs. the invisible school
TA – Social education is the invisible part of the movement that builds up the capacity of people (e.g. Gandhi’s ashrams) vs social planning which is the action on component to tackle the unjust system (e.g. Salt March).
TA – The Greek concept of planning is to collectively create what ought to be.
TA – There is importance of language when introducing educational ideas and concepts into structures and communities.
TA – MLK kept his terminology consistent with values and philosophy.
TA – There are two ways people relate to each other: (1) ‘Love” of people as objects (cogs in a wheel) = paternalistic/authoritarianism and (2) “Respect” – people are accountable to one another and have common purpose, which is the only foundation for the democratic way of life.
TA – Dependence on charisma can prevent the respect relationship from developing.
TA – Nonviolence as a tool for making a democratic way of life and method for its sustenance.
TA – Paternalistic = dominator = auhtoritarianTA – social education = sowing seeds; social planning = seeds sprouting; social service = change conditions, harvesting seeds.
TA – Dr. King held the Constitution in one hand and the Bible in the other and challenged people to interpret the truth in both these documents.
TA – People have to see what they are experience as an extension of what’s happening at a larger level.
TA – Kingian Nonviolence – how do you embody it personally? How do you internalize it at the individual level and externalize it at the community level?
TA – Nonviolence is about respect relationships and common purpose.
TA – Sometimes you have to differentiate before you integrate.
Tuesday, May 28th
TA – Globe referred to the personal introduction exercise as a way to gather information.
TA – A smaller, more intimate residential learning setting, as we are experiencing this week, allows everyone to contribute and feel involved.
TA – Everyone needs a stimulating context. David said he hated school and that’s why he became and educator.
TA – After being hit down by a police officer C.T. Vivian said, “You can knock me down, but you can’t knock down justice!”
TA – Self-pity is the deepest sense of blockage.
TA – Referred to my analogy to explain the difference between debate and dialogue and how our stories and opinions are swords.
TA – The circle process forces you to be Hegelian in your response to conflict. (Ashley)
TA – A genuine but unusual situation can arrest the conscious of the assailant – Bernard Lafayette story “Damnit, I forgot to buy milk for the baby” and walks right past his would-be assailants.
TA – Participants in training asked to identify a prejudice they had and then in the ensuing month they were asked to do something about that prejudice before the next meeting. David told the Spring Valley, FL story about the police officer who did something about his prejudice against West Indians, particularly Jamaicans.
TA – Lorie shared her story about diffusing a physical conflict/fight between two people by coming out of her house and starting to play her guitar and sing in the midst of their fistfight. They immediately stopped, looked at her and then walked away.
TA – “You can be armed with nonviolence naked in the shower.” –David Jehnsen
TA – We have to deal with the tensions in the majority that make them scapegoat the minority.
TA – We have to deal with the tensions in the minority that prevent solidarity and prevent self-help. So that they can defend themselves against being scapegoated by the majority.
TA – Peer empowerment and community education prepared the platform upon which the movement leadership spoke. (Highlander School, Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer)
TA – Social planning is engagement of the social structures that are unjust.
TA – Matt talks about the shift from dictatorship to genocide – scapegoating the minority (sub-culture or peer group) to them eliminating or opting out the minority.
TA – Social education as development of power (information, understanding of one’s self and community, community building, solidarity, alliance building, lens through which you view the conflict).
TA – Social education builds power. Social planning engages the unjust structures. The overall context in which they situation occurs is also referred to both processes. King with the Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other.
TA – four legs of the stool were (1) public accommodations/services (transportation, busses, trains, etc.) (2) Public accommodations (restaurants, theaters, etc.) (3) voting rights/democratic engagement, (4) economic justice
TA – Dominant (majority) group vs. subordinated (minority) group (NOT subordinate). Majority and minority is not necessarily numerical in terms of population size but rather accumulation of power.
TA – Dominant group see how far we have come, the subordinated group sees how much farther we must go.
TA – We all hold multiple group memberships and identification.
TA – Privilege you hold beyond your control (being White, educated, able-bodies, etc.) You did not ask for it but you can’t give it back (so what do you do with it)
R – “The Concept of Corporate Strategy” (MT David)
R – “Beyond a Stable State” (MT David)
TA – Social intelligence is the third factor which determines at what point aggression or conciliation is to be used and which permits even aggressive action (if it is needed) to be intelligently carried out.
TA – Aggressive Conciliation, pages 323-332 in Hauser
TA – 90% of conflicts can be solved with education and information gathering
TA – We see our adversary as a potential ally
TA – How do we turn anger into constructive energy?
TA – There is a way to be assertive – putting forth what your needs are without being aggressive to another person. Not being passive, aggressive, but assertive. Connection to the conflict exercise with Middle School students.
ID/FSI – Tolstoy pre-reading.
TA/R – Daniel O’Connor – Nonviolence as a force to engage the other 92%
TA – Generalists as an antedote to specialists and academics that tend to keep people down and feeling inferior.
TA – Jazz and symphony as an analogy for a movement (not a band or an orchestra). Nonviolence is like jazz.
TA – Top Down/Bottom Up
TA – Social Action Research lets you know what you need to gather information about.
TA – Top Down/Bottom Up mobilization through hopeful action creates a web of concern around a particular issue. Breaks down the fence between majority (dominator) and minority (subordinated).
TA – All vertical groups (sanctioned institutions – churches, media, education, security forces, business sector, “pillars,” etc.) have their grassroots counterparts that have bottom up power.
TA – The framing of an issue is what determines to what you will apply the six steps.
TA – The six principles and steps of Kingian Nonviolence are not linear but coterminous.
TA – Dr. King could talk to the No Ds and PhDs.
TA – What are the intelligences that are within reach of everybody without going to school? The Highlander School explored and tapped into this question.
TA – Four intelligences (1) Intellectual = articulation, (2) Technical = data and information (1 & 2 are disciplines and specifically designed to fit the status quo). If you have a revolution those first two intelligences are going to have to change. (3) Social = the ability to look at your interests in the context of the whole people (we) (4) Creative = ability to ask questions why and why not?
TA – Mississippi Child Development Group (MCDG) went on to create the concept of Head Start.
R – Howard Gardner – Project Zero (9 original multiple intelligences
TA – Catalyzing the life force
TA – Without new concepts all you do is repeat your history.
TA – An untapped intelligence is an unlived life.
R – Strengths finder (Strengths test) (MT Ashley)
TA – creative and social intelligences are innate that need to be uncovered.
TA – (1) Total apathy (fear of life), (2) breakdown of life, (3) severe apathy with short spells of self-assertion, (4) apathy as an answer to social and personal inadequacy, (5) apathy as a form of irreality, (6) minimum participation, (7) partial activation, (8) false activity/the compulsive doer, (9) apathy overlaid with willingness to assume only minor or partial social responsibility, (10) curiosity and doubt.
TA – (1) Frozen violence (fear of death), (2) anonymous violence, (3) short outbursts of violence, (4) violence as an answer to social and personal inadequacy, (5&6) active and passive violence as an accepted social outlet, (7&8) violence in defiance of authority, (9) violence as class preservation, (10) indignation.
ID – bringing in questions about violence AND apathy about ways to approach and respond to conflict.
TA – with curiosity and doubt it’s like the barrel of a gun with no bullet. With indignation it’s like having a bunch of exploding bullets with no gun barrel.
TA – Utilize the Socratic process to catalyze the will to live.
TA – Rational solidarity makes possible a “we” rather than a “me.”
R – Primal therapy (MT Lorie)
TA – “We learned a lot through experience and experiment.” –Doc Lafayette
BP – Interview Doc Lafayette and David Jehnsen on formal, nonformal, and online components of teaching civil resistance.
TA – Highlander Folk School and James Lawson laid the groundwork for the Kingian Nonviolence curriculum.
TA – Martin Luther King’s last request for Bernard Lafayette was to “institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence.”
TA – Alternatives to Violence programs are now in 50 countries across the world and in 30 states in America.
TA – College students train high school students, and high school students train middle school students.
TA – Nonviolence training is also community building.
TA/ID/AU – Global certificate in nonviolence and peace education.
TA – It is important to reverse the jail trail. 5 out of 7 children who have had a parent in jail will end up in jail themselves. (MT Bernard Lafayette)
TA – There needs to be more courses on nonviolence in schools of education across the country and the world.
TA – Important to train law enforcement in nonviolence and nonviolent ways to address conflict.
TA/BP – Bernard Lafayette wants to create a television show on nonviolence. He can speak to the value of informal education as well.
TA – The nine of us should map out a plan to get 900 people to be nonviolence educators and trainers.
TA – Lafayette would like the US Department of Education to adopt this nonviolence training as a method of violence reduction.
TA – Teaching history as a way to talk about what we can do in the future.
Wednesday, May 29
ID – Connecting the Kingian Nonviolence trainers and the curriculum with the National Peace Academy and connecting them with the NPA certificate program.
TA – Relationships is the context that make visions possible (MT Matt)
TA – The goals of the Socratic probing with groups to explore violence and apathy is to get groups to the state of curiosity and doubt and indignation. All groups are experiencing or participating in some form of violence. For example an environmental group/campaign, which on the surface may seem like they do not experience or promote violence, but they may be engage in violence as a method of class preservation because there are only Middle class people on their board or the perspectives that frame the environmental issues are only representative of middle and upper class experiences.
TA – The story of Rosa Parks and her Highlander School experience is an example of that process where by the end of the workshop she slammed her fist on the table and said, “I don’t what I am going to do, but damnit, I am going to do something!”
TA – helping the behavior of the group to reach a new level
TA – There are patterns that reflect an individual’s or group’s level of apathy and violence.
TA – “Indignation is a hurt sense of justice and a will to fight.” –David Jehnsen
TA – People are open to new things when they are angry at the things they are facing.
TA – Joseph Steiglitz coined the 99% term that the Occupy movement adopted.
TA – Lawson’s principles of revolution (secular/spiritual) = community/congregation, suffering/the cross, values/faith, love/love
TA – You need to be in top physical condition to practice nonviolence, not just mental condition.
TA – You have credibility through what you say or what you do. Those are the only two ways that people can decide whether or not to grant you credibility.
TA – There can be positive or negative tension between groups.
TA – Levels of tensions are various ages (page 97 in Hauser) – (1) Child = its all about me, (2) Teen = all I want to do is fight, (3) Adult = no skin off my nose, I don’t care, I am above this, self-righteous posture, (4) Common Sense and Dialogue.
TA – Most people want to start at stage 4 and not take groups through the first three. Resist trying to start things at the dialogue stage.
TA – A way to probe into these levels and get through this process is to use profiles. Asking question that uncover the profile groups have of one another and then asking question that uncover the profile of the profile and then the profile of the profile of the profile. Looking at these different levels of profile uncovers all the crap groups are thinking about each other at the different ages/stages. All that needs to be probed and worked out before we can get to the common sense/dialogue level.
R – The Man Box (MT Ashley)
TA – Indirect approach – what do your peers think or feel about X or Y? Direct approach – what do you think and feel about X or Y?
TA – Ubuntu – total humanness
TA – Where are the spaces for us to deal with our conflict and seek justice (a community response to conflict)?
TA – What are the elements of community? Communities have common taboos and stereotypes and habits. Communities have a set of shared values. Communities have intensity of family life (very significant in many communities. Communities have intensity of community life. Communities also have “welfare & care” and “law & order.”
TA – Cul-de-sac community (MT Lorie)
TA – Danish tradition of putting boxes of flowers in the front of their house in order for the community to enjoy and their vegetable garden in the back. This is an example of the intensity of community life.
TA – The assassination of MLK broke up the Civil Rights Movement community. People experienced and dealt with the trauma is different ways.
TA – Commune vs. communal relationship
TA – How do we intensify these community patterns? This is the role of community education.
TA – Healthy communities have a balance between welfare/care and law/order.
TA – Welfare and care as purpose to intensify community vs. dependency state and “safety net.”
ID – Do more research into Danish folk schools.
ID – Lack of intensity of elements of community is unlived life.
R – George Bellamy’s concept of community.
ID/BP – Television programming as informal community education, particularly when coupled with social media participation.
R – Seasons of peace and nonviolence (MT Ashley)
TA – We have to learn how to organize patterns and systems. We need to know how to organize new technologies in service of beloved community.
TA – Helping people lift themselves up from either their positive or negative experiences.
TA – “Welfare” could be perhaps switched with “wellness”
TA – Too often law and order is clumped together with welfare and care as a way to lift up community, but when they are seen as two distinct approaches to supporting community and both approaches are important in order to be balanced in how a community is supported and built up then this is why doubling down on law and order (security, curfew, video cameras, security guards, etc.) do not work to uplift school communities.
TA – Pax vs Shalom – Pax is a top-down approach to peace enforcement and shalom is peace that grows from the community. (MT David)
TA – There are two basic structures in society (p.167 in Hauser): (1) Rights & Duties – what you take from society; and (2) Responsibility – what you give to society; self-chosen, non-compensated.
TA – The responsibility culture will give their life to what should be done. They won’t wait for someone to tell them to move in that direction, they are already moving in that direction.
TA – What is done today out of responsibility by a group of people raises the level of rights and duties in the status quo. David provided the example of the responsibility that fueled Selma and the creation of the Voting Rights Act and then Reagan no longer being able to repeal that Act 20 years later.
TA – Rights and duties look at what society is (status quo). Responsibility looks at what society ought to be (progress, evolution, movement).
TA – Social movements are really movements about social responsibility regarding a specific set of conditions.
TA – Rights & duties are a quid pro quo with the status quo.
TA – The responsibility culture is connected to principle 4 because do act without concern for compensation is a form of “suffering.”
TA – The responsibility structure and culture is how we differentiate from somebody who is just protesting in the street.
TA – Accepting suffering is part of the responsibility culture.
TA – Values are what it is important to us in life and principles are those things that come first in order for us to pursue and live those values.
TA – Our values are the top of the mountain and principles are what guide us on our journey to reach the top.
TA – Values are what rest atop our life’s mountain. Principles are what guide our life’s journey to the top of that mountain.
TA – Groups need structures imposed on them but they also need structures from the bottom up that are based on their own norms.
TA – Top down structure, bottom up structure, and unexpected surprise.
TA/ID – Groups fall asleep “every 15 minutes” which is why unexpected surprise should be brought into the process and structure.
TA – Patterns are important for people to participate, but surprise is also important
TA – (1) Top down structure (non-negotiables), (2) Bottom up structure (group agreements), (3) Rhythm (daily acts of living), and (4) Unexpected surprise (warm-ups, icebreakers, spontaneous shared experience).
TA – Rhythm creates a flow within the ways of being (MT Ashley)
TA – Nonviolence is cultivating the life force in ways that create and nurture the beloved community.
TA – Social Personality (Page 66 in Hauser) is the result of the responsibility activity.
TA – We take from our surrounding environment and our heredity and our social personality is when we give back.
TA – Nonviolence moves the conflict resolution/peer mediation field (e.g. Alternatives to Violence program) beyond the interpersonal realm and into the social movement/social justice realm.
ID – View the classroom and learning experience as a social movement. How does this impact how educators and teachers view the participants/students, facilitate learning and work towards a purpose?
R – National Conference for a New Politics (MT Mary Lou)
R – The True Believer by Eric Hoffer (MT David)
TA – Groups have their own personality and if I am a part of that group it influences my personality as it exists in that group.
R – The Woodlawn Organization (MT David)
R – Industrial Areas Foundation (MT Matt)
TA – Five basic human needs understood through nonviolence lens: (1) Health, (2) Food and Shelter, (3) Learning, (4) Income, (5) Economy
TA – Single issue organizing vs. Organizing around conditions that bring about those issues.
TA – In a nonviolence context organizing is very different from we vs. they.
TA – Nonviolent campaigns address people’s basic human needs.
TA – Internal (immediate, personal grievance) vs. external concern (broader, communal/social conditions that brought about that grievance.
TA – Event based activism vs. steps based activism (MT Matt)
TA – We want people to work within the broader conditions in addition to the specific incident or issue that is a example of the broader conditions.
TA – Framing an issue should have a connection to a local community issue in a way that is connected to basic needs and the broader context.
TA – Six categories of leadership –
ID/JLI – The three basic stages of a movement or group and the survey
ID/JLI – Majority/Minority – social education work followed by social planning to address the injustices and connecting it to pillars of support.
ID/JLI – Top down/bottom up approach to organizing for hopeful action and strategy and analytical tool for figuring out who and how to bring folks together.
ID/JLI – Media and framing of issues and bringing in the five basic human needs and connections to the broader social context. The seven framing the issue question for nonviolent analysis.
ID/JLI – Six steps in nonviolent action
ID/JLI – Responsibility culture conversation – taking rights and duties or giving back and doing what you know is right.
TA – Framing the Issue – to address the denial of civic, political and economic rights of former felons in order to promote their full democratic participation in the life of the whole community.
TA – Framing the issue questions (page 52 in leadership workbook)
TA – Jim Bevel asking the congregation, “what is a slum?” and an 11-year-old girl saying, “It’s a place that nobody cares about.” He asks, “What else is a slum?” She answers, “a place where the money leaves.” (MT David)
TA – The money has to exchange hands five times before it leaves the community.
TA – How do we turn a negative force into a positive force?
ID – Series of essays and postings that connect ideas to the analogy of the garden (classrooms and learning, social movements, seeds of change, etc.)
ID/JLI – How do we set up the first “listening” day for us to gather information and o build the container that will allow for learning?
ID/JLI – Conflict/Dynamics (aggressive conciliation, principles), Mobilization (top down/bottom up + majority/minority, rights & duties + responsibility, apathy + violence), media framing (nonviolence analysis), coalition building (nonviolent analysis + majority/minority), group dynamics (social personality), pillars of support (majority/minority + fence, categories of the profile), strategic planning (six steps)
ID/JLI – A session on where these theories, analytical tools, and ideas are coming from – the specific people, campaigns, experiences, etc. Why did were they chosen? (Kingian Nonviolence, Sharp/Helvey, Smart Meme, Ganz, Ackerman/Kruegler, Moyer?, Hauser, etc.)
TA – Four levels of top-down/bottom up process – (1) top-down, bottom up, third force (concerned group); (2) framed issue that will stimulate top and bottom; (3) six steps in that pattern used by third force; (4) post crisis (social drama) bringing together vertical and horizontal sub groups of each of the power groups in top down, bottom up (sanctioned by society and trusted with leadership).
TA – The profile of the social project.
TA – Cabinet that is brought together as result of td/bu process to direct self-help. Focus efforts on (1) direct authorities – officials/government, (2) indirect authorities, (3) broader community.
ID – Categories of the profile connected to pillars of support and who makes up the institutions. A way to get specific about who to pull towards the movement.
TA – By informing the cabinet you are also training them.
R – Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (MT Matt)
Thursday, May 30th
TA – Tomorrow (Friday) is the first day of the next phase (MT David)
TA – Parking lot vs. bike rack
TA – Japanese businessman story and the 300-year business plan (MT David telling Matt’s story)
TA – For MLK a lot of these concepts did not make full sense until he put them into practice. (MT Kazu)
TA – It is healthy to unlearn and learn at the same time. (MT David)
R – What we can learn from Japanese management by Peter Rucker (MT David)
R – Nancy Wilson, “Is that all there is?” song (MT David)
TA – “People Get Ready” song was about the Chicago movement. (MT David)
TA – Social Action Research
TA – Organizing and mobilizing doesn’t just happen. It requires planning and that planning requires skills. (MT David)
ID – Kingian Nonviolence workshops for Democracy Matters students – either on campuses or at the summit.
ID – Kingian Nonviolence workshops/presentations for teacher groups participating in the Close Up Program. Connected those who are trained with the teachers who work in their city, state, and/or region.
ID – Connecting Kingian Nonviolence trainers with Teaching for Change (“Putting the Movement back into Civil Rights Teaching) and the Zinn Education Project.
ID – Contact Guntram Herb to explore opportunity to teach a J-Term course on Nonviolence with Mary Lou, Jim Ralph, etc.
ID – Bring out the Great American Cities (GAC) curriculum and make connections to Kingian Nonviolence
TA – Phases of Group Development for Action (page 111 in leadership manual). Objective is to develop into higher phases: (1) Paternalistic, (2) Respect, (3) Solidarity, (4) Activation, (5) Vitalization (Page 424 in Hauser)
TA – This is the social drama that makes people stand up.
TA – Use the fact that you don’t know much about the issue or community as a tool.
TA – Gandhi would intentionally break down his charisma by expressing his ignorance of a community’s own situation.
TA – Important to get people to proclaim their own condition – not proclaim it for them.
TA – 90% of our presence is our job and only 10% is our personality. Our job is not to give ourselves a job so that people can do their own work.
TA – Story about Miles Horton speaking with a women who was going to start a citizenship education school in her church basement. He listened to her for over an hour express her ideas and not once did he ever mention that he started such a school 30 years prior and that that idea has travelled to her. 90% job, 10% personality. (MT David)
TA – Four Types of Leadership (p 34-25 in Hauser): (1) Power Leader, (2) Establishment Power Leader (3) Establishment Expert of Public Relations Person, (4) Influence Leader
TA – Power Leader is typical of the group and the group is typical of him or her. The group can take the power away from that person. Flying geese example – that kind of process goes on in healthy groups all the time. Responsible for internal maintenance of the group’s affairs. Helps to nurture the capacities of everyone in the group. Real representatives of the people and in contemporary culture are oftentimes the least recognized leaders.
TA – Establishment Power Leader – sits on the group as is sent to a group by the establishment to be its leader. Social embalmers.
TA – Establishment Experts or Public Relations Person – not independent from establishment.
TA – Influence Leader – this is what we are aspiring to be. Power leader and influence leader should be a team in order to protect the group from these other leadership types.
TA – If Malcolm X had not been shot in 1965 he would have been in Congress by 1968.
TA – “I worked too long against segregation to segregate my conscience.” – Dr. King
TA – I am called a number of things. It’s what I answer to that matters. (MT David)
TA – The term “power” has been bastardized as it grew out of a power politics (us vs. them) orientation.
R – The Tyranny of Structurelessness – Jo Freeman (MT Mary Lou)
TA – Howard Thurman’s experience in India and working with Gandhi
TA – The leadership types speak more to your personality rather than your job title. (MT Kazu)
TA – “What questions did you ask today in school?”
TA – Appreciation impacts how you show up in the world (MT Ashley)
TA – A leadership pattern is something that is organic, not static.
TA – Take a 500 yard radius around the school and have students conduct research on how to end “man’s inhumanity to man” in the zone.
TA – Social Action Research Methodology (p. 73 in Workbook) – (1) First Statement of Concern, (2) Pre-Survey, (3) Second Statement of Concern, (4) Main Survey.
TA – First statement of concern – half page statement of what you think is wrong and what might be done about it (very similar to GAC curriculum)
TA – Reach out to community to see if you are on the right track.
TA – Have a concern that is on the level that you can deal with. Connection to SMART goal setting.
TA – Pre-survey involves speaking to “experts” and “non-expert experts (regular and informal)
TA – “I’m old and I repeat myself. I just use different words.” –David Jehnsen
TA – 5:1 ratio of interviewing “non-expert experts” (quantitative) : “experts” (qualitative).
TA – Seven Questions for interviews (p. 72 in manual) – (1) what are the facts, (2) what do people feel about this situation, (3) what might be done to address the facts, (4) what might be done to address the feelings (5) who else needs to be involved, (6) is there more serious problem that needs attention, (7) are they going to get involved to help?
TA – We are interested in knowing how people feel because we want to know if people are mad enough to fight and if your facts are emotional?
ID/JLI – Connect this to Sharp’s mechanisms of change – conversion, accommodation, coercion, and disintegration.
TA – The power of the pre-survey is that you get to test out how in tune and in sync with the community presented with the issue.
TA – Second statement of concern should only be written up if you sense there is sufficient indignation to do something.
TA – “You can pull the rock out of the water, but that’s not going to stop the ripples.” –David Jehnsen
TA – This Social Action Research process can also be applied at the interpersonal, familial level and the issues that are present. (MT Amy)
TA – It is not until after the main survey has been completed that you start training people in the principles and cultivating them for hopeful action.
TA – Be wary of influence leaders who want you to move even if you and the group are not ready (MT Globe)
TA – Intimate Relationships (page 279 – 291 in Hauser)
TA – First common denominator is the nest – your cave, your space, the context in which you can raise children
TA – Second denominator is partnership – what you share and how you share things like decisions. How decisions are made in the relationship.
TA – Third denominator is tenderness – creating a context of kindness in the relationship. Regardless of all the crap that happens out there, at least we still go each other.
TA – Fourth denominator is shared values – internal between partners and external linking up with other groups
TA – Fifth denominator is sex in both recreation and procreation.
TA – To be equal / to be boss / to be bossed. I would change it to “in agreement” and “not in agreement” about how that aspect of the relationship is handled.
TA – This is important to social movements because some people can become more intimately in relationship with the movement that with their partner and there is a lot of destructive fallout that can come out of this.
TA – Five kinds of marriages that require re-examination of the five different relationships: (1) marriage before children are present, (2) children introduced into marriage requires whole new re-examination of the diagram, (3) children get older and are not around as much and do require as much attention and the marriage is left alone once again, (4) empty nest and kids have really left the home, (5) grandparents stage.
TA – You explore these stages with different peer groups, building up an organic constructive educational process.
TA – The Affinity Family (Page 291 in Hauser) this is what kids are inclined to do in order to have a sense of being close to family. Surround the family with 2-4 sets up non-biological “Aunts” and “Uncles” and sets of cousins.
R – Green Gecko program in Cambodia (MT Amy)
R – The Bruderhof Order (MT Matt)
TA – Planned Social Parenthood – organize the peer groups, 2 rooms of common space, coordinating association structure, interest groups
TA – Nonviolence wants to organically build up a way for people to belong.
TA – It’s important for people to see where they are in the history of an idea. (MT David)
TA – informed identification with a peer group that has spread across America and it increasingly international helps people think more long term.
TA – “What we want is the maximum development of each person.” –Bernard Lafayette
ID – Let’s set up a weeklong level I training in Washington, DC area.
R – Center for Global Nonviolence in Hawaii (MT David)
TA – The shaking hand applause is a tradition of Kingian Nonviolence.
TA – All politics starts in the bedroom (MT Althea)
TA – Its not a coincidence that segregated spaces were spaces where people sat down next to each other, as opposed to elevators or other places where we stand. When we sit next down to someone we are more likely to engage in conversation with that person and get to know them as a human. (MT Althea MT Bernard)
Friday, May 31st
TA – Bill Moyer was Chicago organizer, quaker, and friend of Bernard. Founded the Movement for a New Society in Philadelphia and set up the Life Center.
TA – Movement Action Plan (MAP) – model helping activists see their work in a longer ranger perspective.
R – Clamshell Alliance – Anti-Nuclear Movement (MT Mary Lou)
TA – It is important for movements to know what stage they are in. If a first grader is not reading at a sixth grade level, you do not call that first grader a failure, you recognize what one can expect developmentally at that stage.
TA – There are two main elements of a nonviolent social movement: (1) Constructive Program/Parallel Institutions, (2) Nonviolent Action. The Women’s Movement is a good example of a movement that engaged in a lot of constructive programs. The voter registration campaign during the Civil Rights movement is another example.
TA – Community building as ongoing constructive program. Kingian Nonviolece gives us a framework for doing and understanding that process.
TA – Figure 2 is connected to the social action research (statement of concern – pre-survery, second statement of concern, main survey, hopeful action)
TA – Barbara Deming – there are two hands to nonviolence – one hand says no to the injustice and the other that says yes to reconciliation with one’s adversary.
TA – Really important to frame issues around widely held values. LGBT made a good framing move when they moved from talking about gay marriage to marriage equality.
TA – We have societal myths and secrets and the movement wants to bring those secrets out into the open. Connected to truth reconfiguration/readjustment and the YES men.
TA – The People Power paradigm – power resides with the people in their decision to cooperate or not cooperate with the system of those in perceived positions of power.
TA – The legitimacy of the rulers rests in the hands of the people.
TA – 8 Stages of Social Movements: (1) Normal times, (2) Proving failures of existing conditions, (3) Ripening conditions, (4) Take-off, (5) Experience of failure, (6) Building majority support, (7) Success, (8) Continuing the struggle.
TA – Facilitating 2-days for the DC Peace Team and the skill shares.
TA – The myth is that movements start at stage 4. The secret is that they actually start during stage 1.
ID/JLI – Mary Lou facilitating session at MAP
R – Daughters of Bilitis (MT Mary Lou)
R – Mitch Snyder – anti-homelessness movement (MT Mary Lou)
ID – Mary Lou presenting a webinar on MAP and Movement for New Society.
TA – Movement adversaries also benefit from having
TA/JLI – Connection of media to MAP and the how they impact part 2 of alert, educate, inspire, and involve.
TA – A movement can take off but did the engine get enough fuel prior to taking off in order to do more than sputter and then crash back to the ground? Does the movement have a plan on how to re-fuel once the engine starts to run low on fuel.
TA/ID/JLI – When movements start to experience failure that’s when the comments about, “we should be more militant and more violent and that’s why we have failed.” This can be connected to radical flank research.
TA – Bill McKibben and the environmental movement could learn from Gandhi’s strategy during the Salt Satyagraha of sending a page ahead of the march to gather information about the next village where he would be to recruit people to the struggle. All that information would be used to cater his message to connect the local grievances with the larger shared values that the movement represented. Is 350.org sending folks ahead the listen to the audience to whom is about to speak?
R – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) – clear marketing strategy (MT Amy)
ID/JLI – Ivan Marovic, “Fear and apathy are the biggest threat to the movement and the biggest ally of the opponent.” Connected to the FUD concept.
ID/R/JLI – Bovine University example from the Simpsons. Social movement ideas through the Simpsons. Lisa the vegetarian
ID – Blog entries looking at lessons from Simpsons on exploring nonviolent action.
TA – “I love (“respect”) you even though we are different.” –Ashley
TA/ID/JLI – Connecting preparing people for the specific action (e.g. this is what is going to happen and how are we going to respond before we do it for real) with preparing people for the larger, long-term movement (e.g. this is how establishment leaders and wider community will react and what are we going to do and how are we going to deal with that?) So, connecting the Nashville story with the MAP model and FUD, public opinion, co-optation, ease of allowing protest, ad campaigns, etc.) and that’s when movements need to study the strategies of their adversaries (be they corporate or political).
R – When Everything Changed by Gayle Collins (NY Times Columnist)
TA – Change can come but if the establishment power holders don’t admit that it was the movement that created that change the movement can still feel defeated.
TA – Sometimes successes can be quiet successes, but that does not make the success any less and in fact a quiet success may be a better way to handle the success.
TA – Continuing the struggle – we got a law past, but is the law actually being enforced? Are we preventing backsliding (e.g. into authoritarian)?
R – “Lean In” by Marissa Meyer (MT Mary Lou)
TA – Each issue moves through this cycle and not just the larger movements overall. For example, the LGBT movement has many issues (marriage equality, transgender rights, anti-bullying, etc.)
TA – Connecting “Continuing the Struggle” (stage 8) to the “rights & duties” / responsibility concept.
TA – Four Roles of Activists: (1) Rebel, (2) Citizen, (3) Reformer, (4) Social Change Agent.
TA – Common Cause is a good example of playing the reformer role.
TA – Activists should think about learning how to play all these roles.
TA – Citizen role carries out the movement goals in the everyday life.
TA – Social change agent tries to play all these roles and help people find their role.
ID/TA – Group work participants into the various roles, provide a case example, and ask them to think about what those roles would propose as a strategy.
TA – The beloved community when we all reach our full human potential. We are able to uncover, and active the aspects of life that had one time been unlived.
TA – “How do we strike chords of indignation across different groups?” (MT Ashley)
TA – World Shift and The Great Turning
TA – Wagon wheel to web analogy on movements across lines of different but also all moving toward that larger center goal of the beloved community (MT Ashley)
TA – Nonviolent Army Workout – Jumping jacks (stretching your boundaries, pushing out against oppression, expanding comfort zone), Aggressive conciliation hug (squat lunge with hug and peace sign, Crunches (strengthen core to enhance balance in your life OR top-down/bottom up), 1 minute silent meditation (centering and reflection on nonviolence) (MT Matt)
TA – 6 aspects of ongoing nonviolent struggle: (1) “Somebodyness,” (2) Activating group identities for justice, peace, nonviolence and democracy, (3) Full and constructive use of the freedom we already have, (4) Powerful action program – both NO and the YES!, (5) Continuing organizing/mobilizing, (6) Giving society a new set of value (MT Matt)
TA – “It is important to organize, not just moralize.” –Matt Guynn
TA – Movements can struggle to articulate their cause in profoundest values in society. (MT Matt)
R – OnEarthPeace.org (MT Matt)
ID – Matt writes discussion documents that he uses in his interaction with his clients and what he thinks they could do with them
ID – There are strategic elements and traditions of nonviolence and there are principled/spiritual elements and traditions of nonviolence. Movements are made of people that pick up a mixture of those elements. Some movements are filled with grounded and weighted with spiritual elements. Some movements are filled and grounded and weighted with strategic elements.
ID – It’s not a spectrum but choices people make in terms of how they understand and practice nonviolence.
ID – sales vs marketing. I am not trying to create a need for you, but rather I have a sense of what you actually need and then I respond to that.
TA – The mission of the Positive Peace Warrior Network is for youth to feel peaceful and powerful at the same time. (MT Globe)
TA – PPWN is building a nonviolent army that is equipped with the principles of Kingian Nonviolence.
TA – Documenting the nonviolence work we are doing is important.
R – North Lawndale College Prep in Chicago, IL (MT Globe, Tiffany Childress)
TA – Investing in peace. What you invest in is going to impact the returns that come back to you.
TA – Stand up to the pain, the violence, the hate and the cycle by not letting it continue, by ending it and transforming it. That is courageous
R – Rethinking School article on PPWN and North Lawndale (MT Kazu)
TA – Goal exercise (MT Lorie) – Interpersonal goals – bringing intentionality around nonviolence to creating a stronger community in my family, conversation around tenderness and intimate relationship grid, active, visual and vocal recognition and integration of shared values (Yoga, peace, and nonviolence)
TA – Goals for specific peer group – integrating Kingian nonviolence into Peace Ed in Res position and youth inclusion developments in DCPS. Getting trained in level I. New ways to explore civil resistance ideas
TA – Goals for this group – Conference calls and exciting updates on the work we are doing. Kingian nonviolence workshops and trainings in DCPS. Integration of ideas or people into JLI. One question we have from each book.
TA – small group size was good because from day one I had no choice but to jump right in and really develop connections vs. a larger group you know you can keep a distance a bit because you can realistically get to know people at a deep level.
TA – Residential experience is key. It adds a whole dynamic. Its tough to be away from our homes and friends but its like a pre-season training camp for sports.
TA – Let’s play around with the drawings as an exercise or group activity. That could be a good way to process the information and get a better understanding. Taking the surveys and tests in pairs.
TA – Let’s play around with how to communicate these ideas (language, visuals, and activity)
Daryn R. Cambridge 