Category Archives: Events

Black Leadership in Advancing International Peace and Security

The following description is taking from the United States Institute of Peace:

“Black Leadership in Advancing International Peace and Security: How African Americans Have Impacted the Fields of Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding”

The formation of the United Nations. The crafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Responding to the Rwandan genocide. Advancing “cultural diplomacy” to thaw tensions during the Cold War. Defeating apartheid in South Africa. These are just a few of the transformative moments in history where Black voices were critically important.

As we bridge from African American History Month in February to Women’s History Month in March, USIP shines a light on the life and legacy of Black men and women who have advanced international peace and security. For generations African American men and women have been on the front lines of international conflict resolution efforts. While many of these contributions have been acknowledged, too many have been overlooked.

In conversation with Ambassador Edward Perkins and Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield – two of America’s most prominent and accomplished African American foreign policy professionals – we take a look back at the historic contributions of African Americans like Ralph Bunche, Edith Sampson, and Dizzy Gillespie and how the legacy of their work continues to influence the strategies and approaches in diplomacy, foreign policy, and international peacebuilding today.

We also take a look forward to how more African American men and women can pursue and thrive in the field of international conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

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Dialogue and Reconciliation in Nonviolent Action

Citizens around the world are using nonviolent action to push for social change. The recent anti-government protests in Iran are just one example, as are movements for peaceful and fair elections in Kenya and Honduras. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others refined and implemented these nonviolent strategies and tactics during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and they can be combined with peacebuilding approaches to transform violent conflict abroad.

To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the U.S. Institute of Peace is hosting a series of expert panels on Facebook focused on this combination of peacebuilding and nonviolent action.

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Using Negotiation in Nonviolent Action

Citizens around the world are using nonviolent action to push for social change. The recent anti-government protests in Iran are just one example, as are movements for peaceful and fair elections in Kenya and Honduras. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others refined and implemented these nonviolent strategies and tactics during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, and they can be combined with peacebuilding approaches to transform violent conflict abroad.

To commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the U.S. Institute of Peace is hosting a series of expert panels on Facebook focused on this combination of peacebuilding and nonviolent action.

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Youth and Religion: Potential Linchpins for Peace

Today I moderated a live streamed panel discussion, Youth and Religion: Potential Linchpins for Peace. The panel featured an outstanding lineup of youth and religion experts and leaders: Imrana Alhaji Buba, Founder of Youth Coalition Against Terrorism, USIP Generation Change Fellow, and Nigerian youth leader; Aubrey Cox, Senior Program Specialist on Youth at the U.S. Institute of Peace; and Melissa Nozell, Senior Program Specialist on Religion & Inclusive Societies at the U.S. Institute of Peace. The three of them authored the USIP Special Report, Implementing UNSCR 2250: Youth & Religious Actors Engaging for Peace.

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2017 Gandhi-King Conference with Kaiya

This year I returned to the wonderful city of Memphis, TN to attend and facilitate a workshop at the Gandhi-King Conference. This was my sixth time attending the conference and this year the experience was that much more special because I got to share it with my (just turned) five-year old daughter, Kaiya.

There are a number of reasons why I love this conference, which happens every year and always takes place in Memphis. This year I facilitated a workshop, “Podcasting for Peace” during which I and the participants co-created an episode of the Peace Frequency – a podcast series I host and produce at the United States Institute of Peace. The series taps into the stories of people across the globe who are making peace possible and finding ways to create a world free of violent conflict. Through the co-creation process, participants learned about how the podcast series came to be and some of the ways in which I structure the episodes and facilitate conversation with guests. That was the main reason I came to Memphis, but the day to day experience is worth documenting.

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s Path to Peace

The following description is from the United States Institute of Peace:

Dr. Martin Luther King’s Path to Peace: Reclaiming and Renewing Nonviolent Responses to ‘Globalized Crises’

Violence from global conflict is on a steady rise. War, oppression and other miseries have uprooted 60 million people, the greatest human displacement ever recorded. Foreign policy debates include calls for solving these problems with military action or other force. Dr. Martin Luther King believed that only nonviolent action can ultimately build peace and justice. But how?

On April 4, the somber anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, join a USIP forum on ways to reclaim and re-frame nonviolent action against 21st-century global conflicts, extremisms, and injustices that fuel them. Researchers and activists will discuss their recent or forthcoming books on nonviolent action and join an audience-wide conversation and poll.

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Music Plays Crucial Role in Nonviolent Civic Movements

This is another post about the Music of Nonviolent Action event that I helped organize and facilitate back in June of this year.

This post was written by Viola Granger and originally appeared on the United States Institute of Peace’s Olive Branch blog.

In Libya’s 2011 uprising, protesters pumped loud music from radios or CD players in the streets in front of government buildings, then fled from the inevitable rush of security forces. The nonviolent early days of Egypt’s revolution that same year spawned a raft of new independent music groups. In Turkey, the “Song of Pots and Pans” exhorts political leaders to stop their lies and repressive tactics.

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Rhythms at the Intersection of Peace and Conflict: The Music of Nonviolent Action

This past Tuesday, USIP and the Conflict Prevention & Resolution Forum co-hosted and event at USIP presenting an exciting new movie followed by a panel discussion on the intersection between music and nonviolent civic action.

My USIP colleague, Maria Stephan, and my Freedom Beat partner, Timothy O’Keefe envisioned  this event and over the course of several weeks we worked with our friends and USIP and with the CPRF to organize a great event that brought in over 75 people to USIP to explore an exciting topic in a creative way.

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Cultivating Peace in Our Schools Gathering


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On July 16th  and 17th, 2013 I helped organize and facilitate a 1.5 day intensive workshop for DC area teachers to learn about peace education programs and initiatives being implemented in the DC area. In this effort, I worked closely with Laurie Segel-Moss, Assistant Director of the Center for Peacebuilding and Development (CPD) and Maura Scully, Program Coordinator for the Mohammed Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace.

The purpose of the gathering was to elevate the peace education work that orgs, schools, and teachers are already doing throughout the DC area; escalate the work of peace education by integrating the skills, methods, and models developed by the featured organizations into the teachers’ educational practice, their classrooms, and schools; and spread these methods, models and programs to other teachers, classrooms and schools after experimenting with what was shared through this gathering.

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Advanced Seminar in Kingian Nonviolence

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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.

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