Honoring MLK With Action

Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is commemorated each January in the United States. In many places, he is honored with “service”. This focus, while admirable, evades the radical legacy of resistance that defined Dr. King’s use of nonviolence as a tool of social change.

To me, every person engaged in a strike, boycott, protest, act of civil disobedience, or other nonviolent action honors Dr. King’s life and legacy. Every person striving for racial justice, equality and equity, respect and dignity continues the work to which he dedicated his life. Every person who seeks out and learns more about nonviolence picks up the torch he passed on to all of us. The stories you will find in Nonviolence News this week remind us that we all stand on the shoulders of others, we walk in a lineage of courageous people who have picked up these tools and sought to construct the world anew.

It is clear that the work Dr. King gave his life for continues. We still have much to do in order to unravel what he called the “triple evils”: racism, poverty, and militarism. We must also add destruction of the Earth to that list. Millions around the globe are committed to this effort, whether they follow in the tradition of King or Gandhi, or a style of nonviolence that emerges from their own experiences and cultures. Here are a few stories in this week’s Nonviolence News that illuminate how people continue to rise up for needed change:

• Ecuador’s Medical Students Withstand Police Repression To Win Strike
• Bay Area Transit Replaces Police With People Trained In Social Work
• Community Strives To Keep Hospital Open Amidst Pandemic
• Farmers Around the World Stand In Solidarity With India’s Farmer Movement
• Utah Declares Racism A Public Health Threat & Makes Plans To End Racism
• Displaced Syrians Resist Energy Extraction In Golan Heights

Also, check out the article, What Do Clergy Think Of Nonviolent Protest? Just like the day Dr. King penned Letter From A Birmingham Jail, clergy’s views on the matter range from marching in solidarity to condemning and misunderstanding nonviolent protest entirely. The work continues.

Lastly, I am delighted to share a great, free nonviolence resource – a treasure trove of nonviolence binge-watching. Be sure to enjoy the documentaries shared by the Where Do We Go From Here? film festival for free this weekend. There are documentaries on MLK, of course, but there are also some true gems streaming about Dorothy Cotton, Ella Baker, Rev. James Lawson, Bayard Rustin, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike. Don’t miss it!

Yours in continuing the legacy of Dr. King in advancing nonviolence in a violent world,
Rivera Sun, Editor

Photo Credit: Dr. King aiming at a pool table in Chicago, 1966. Photo by Bob Fitch.

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Binge-watch Nonviolence On MLK Weekend!

“Where Do We Go From Here?” Film Festival Screens Free Films This Weekend In Honor of Dr. King

This weekend, a free, four-day film festival highlights an impressive line-up of documentaries about the American Freedom Movement of the 60s, Dr. King, and how to apply the lessons of the past to the pressing issues of the day. Gather your friends and tune in. Here’s where to find out more >>

After Going On Strike, Ecuador’s Medical Students Win Historic Victory: By walking off the job and facing down police repression, the demands by medical students in Ecuador were finally met by the government. Read more>> 

BART To Hire Social Workers To Replace Police & Security In Dealing With Social Problems: Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) plans to use nearly $2 million budgeted to fill six vacant police officer positions to hire social work-trained civilians to respond to homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction that plague the train system. The plan adds a supervisor and 20 social care professionals to the response team for the transit system. Read more>>

WNBA Protests Helped Defeat Franchise Owner Kelly Loefler’s Election: The story is by now well-known. WNBA players spent their summer and fall wearing Vote Warnock shirts, standing with his candidacy against WNBA franchise owner Kelly Loeffler. Read more>> 

Vancouver Gave 50 Unhoused Persons Nearly $5,000 Each To Get Back On Their Feet. It Worked: Seventy percent of the participants were food stable in one month’s time. They were fifty percent more likely to have stable housing than the control group. They reduced their spending on alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes by 40% and at the end of the year, participants had an average of $1,000 still in the bank. Read more>>

Leech Lake Ojibwe Win Return of 11,760 Acres Of Homelands: Nearly 12,000 acres taken from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in the 1940s and 1950s will be returned. Legislation that called for the Chippewa National Forest to transfer 11,760 acres to the Interior Department to be held in trust for the northern Minnesota tribe is now law. Read more>>  

Victories For Palestine Were Won On US Campuses In 2020: Despite the challenges of online/remote learning, campus activism has not stopped. Many student chapters have passed significant resolutions around some major issues, from censorship, to the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, to divestment and, most recently, the training of campus police by the Israeli military. Read more>>

On Anniversary of Soleimani Assassination, Thousands of Iraqis Demand US Troops Leave The Country: Thousands of Iraqi mourners have condemned the “American occupiers”, a year after a United States drone strike killed Iran’s revered general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The anniversary of their deaths was also marked in Iran and by supporters in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East. Read more>> 

Community Activists Strive To Keep Local Hospital Open: A coalition of activists are demanding elected officials maintain pressure on Mercy’s ownership to keep the hospital open or sell to someone who will. The activists held a vigil Monday, a week after a state board unanimously rejected Mercy Hospital’s request to close. Read more>>

#DontRentDC Trends As Effort To Stop Inauguration Clashes Asks Short-Term Rentals To Stay Vacant: More right-wing demonstrations are planned in the nation’s capital, and District residents are urging short-term rental hosts to keep their properties vacant in an attempt to limit the damage. The hashtag #DontRentDC is trending online following news that far-right activists are organizing more gatherings starting Jan. 16 in opposition to Joe Biden’s inauguration. Read more>>

India’s Farmers Prepare To Crash Republic Day Parade, Marching On New Delhi: With a tractor protest and mass march, India’s farmers are prepared to disrupt the Republic Day Parade – a ceremonial celebration marked by military displays. Read more>>

Farmers Around The World Are Standing In Solidarity With India: Farmers are taking actions to support the Indian farmers’ campaign for justice. Here’s some of those solidarity actions. Read more>>

Indigenous Nations’ COVID-19 Responses Were Often More Effective Than Surrounding States: Tribal nations have implemented guidelines and policies that appear to be far more effective than those used by the states they are in. These responses include locking down roads and implementing guidelines earlier and more carefully than others and developing relevant modes of delivery of supplies. Their response shows that Indigenous nations and communities know what they need; they are the directors of their own protective measures. Read more>>  

Hundreds Protest Security Law In France: Clashes erupted in Nantes, France on Tuesday after hundreds took to streets to protest against the government’s controversial security law. Police fired water canons and tear gas at groups of protesters. Read more>>

40% Of Chicago Teachers & Staff Refuse To Return To Unsafe School Conditions: About 40% of Chicago Public Schools teachers and staff who were expected to report to schools Monday for the first time during the pandemic didn’t show up for in-person work, officials said Tuesday, accusing the Chicago Teachers Union of pressuring its members to defy the district’s orders. Read more>> 

Peaceful Protesters For Social Justice Are Routinely Arrested By Capitol Police. What Happened On Jan 6th? From peace activists to climate justice celebrities, everything from Disability Rights to  racial justice is repressively policed in DC. Why not the MAGA mob? Read more>>

Hunger Strikes Launch At 3 New Jersey Detention Centers: The filthy conditions, indefinite incarceration and escalating COVID infections have touched off desperate hunger strikes at three New Jersey county jails. Each  jail operates as a prison-for-profit, renting space at $120 a day for ICE to jail out-of-state migrant detainees. Read more>>

Prayer Walk Demands Justice For Native Man Assaulted By US Feds: Native groups have taken to Petroglyphs National Monument in Tiwa Territory, commonly known as Albuquerque, New Mexico, to demand justice for Darrell House, a native man who was brutally tasered by rangers of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), while he offered prayers on a hike with his sister and dog one week ago. A prayer walk from Ogahpogeh (Santa Fe) arrived to the site on Saturday afternoon. Read more>>  

Utah Declares Systemic Racism A Public Health Threat: In addition to the declaration, Utah health care leaders are also overhauling patient practices, hospital policies, and hiring and training programs to be more inclusive and racially just. In making this decision, they cited both the pandemic disparities and the murders of Black people by the police. Read more>>

Minnesota Updates Social Studies Curriculum: Minnesota’s K-12 social studies standards are undergoing extensive revisions in search of a more inclusive approach that teaches about people previously left out of the discussion. A diverse committee’s first draft, now open for public comment, gives greater consideration to the Dakota and Anishinaabe tribes and covers for the first time the civil rights struggles of LGBTQ people. Read more>> 

The Activist History of Black Feminist Theory: Much of Black Feminist Theory can be directly traced to activists in groups including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Third World Women’s Alliance, and the Combahee River Collective. Read more>>

The Economics of Abolition: How can the growing abolition movement sparked by Black Lives Matter uprisings in 2020 succeed in transforming the way we invest public resources? What are the economic underpinnings of the system this movement aims to change? Laura Flanders investigates the economics of abolition in conversation with historian Vijay Prashad, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder Dr. Melina Abdullah, Los Angeles City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, and prison abolitionist Andrea James. Listen here>>

How Activists Shut Down Key Pipeline Projects In New York: Developers did not anticipate landowners, neighborhood residents, community leaders, and anti-fracking activists statewide forging a coalition to kill the pipeline. Read more>>

Two Native Americans Arrested Over Keystone XL Protests: Two young Native Americans from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota have been arrested and charged for peacefully protesting construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline (KXL). Read more>>

Energix Faces Opposition In Syria And In the US: In early December, hundreds of Syrians gathered to protest the Israeli company Energix as it began construction of massive wind turbines in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Energix is also facing growing community opposition across Virginia as it lobbies to secure permits to build solar energy utilities on mostly agricultural parcels with cultural, forest and natural land designations. Read more>>

The Island Where Everyone Owns The Wind Power: This community in Denmark has a community renewable wind power grid. This means, as renewable energy becomes more widely used, everyone benefits. Read more>>

Santa Cruz Activists Gain One-Week Halt Of Raid On Homeless Encampment: Local advocacy groups turned to the federal court system this week in the latest effort to prevent dispersal of a homeless encampment that swelled to an estimated 150 people this month. Read more>>

US Eviction Moratorium Extended: It didn’t make a lot of headlines, but in the recent stimulus and government funding deal, Congress extended what is probably the most significant federal housing policy in a generation: the nationwide eviction moratorium. Read more>> 

Police Are 3 Times More Likely To Use Force Against The Left: Anecdotal stories are backed up by hard data, proving that police have a disproportionate use of force in dealing with protests on the political left vs. right. Read more>>

What Makes a Successful Protest? Throughout 2020, pandemic lockdowns have been punctuated by mass movements calling for political change. What characteristics allow such protests to make an impact? Read more>>

Building Power By Fighting For The Common Good: As activists orient to the post-election landscape, we’re having lots of conversations about building power for the long term. We’re taking stock of the types of power we need and how they can reinforce each other – narrative, organizing, mobilizing, and electoral power, to name a few. Read more>> 

The Assault On the Capitol Was Horrific. But Occupying a Legislature Can Be a Legitimate Act of Protest: Studying resistance movements around the world reminds us that occupying a legislative building is a common tactic … but the attack on the US Capitol Building was something else entirely. Read more>>

What Do Clergy Think Of Nonviolent Protest? This report shares multiple reactions from clergy members of different denominations. Read more>> 

Nonviolent Campaigns 101, 6-Week Course W/ Rivera Sun: More approachable than launching a whole movement, but more powerful than organizing a single protest, nonviolent campaigns are how people like you chip away at injustice. Henry Cervantes and Rivera Sun are offering this fun, welcoming, and powerful 6-week course on how ordinary people have used nonviolent campaigns to make extraordinary change. You’ll learn skills and gain tools that you and your community can use.  We’ll examine concrete strategies . . . and we’ll also reconnect to the heart and soul of why we work for change. Bring your love. Bring your hope. Bring your creativity. We need them all to organize and win. (Starts Thurs, Jan 21.) Learn more and register here>>

#CagingCOVID Campaign Organizes Online Petition: You can take action to build pressure for mass clemency. Here’s the petition for individuals to sign. Learn more>> 

#CagingCOVID Campaign’s Clemency Caravan: Take action for prisoner releases on February 1st with the Clemency Caravan.  Learn more>>

Stop Excluding Military Polluters From Climate Agreements: As a result of final hour demands made by the United States during negotiation of the 1997 Kyoto treaty, military carbon emissions are exempted from climate negotiations. But the U.S. military is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world and a key contributor to climate collapse! Sign this petition. Learn more>>

Say NO To War In Yemen; Day of Action Anti-war, Yemeni and humanitarian organizations from across the world are coming together to call an international day of action on January 25^th,  2021. They are asking organizations to call protests in towns and cities around the world. (Jan 25) Learn more>>

Nukes Are About To Become Illegal: On Jan 22, 2021, ICAN’s hard won “UN Treaty On the Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons” goes into effect, making nuclear weapons illegal around the world. The 9 nuclear nations will be maintaining their arsenals in violations of international law. Find out what comes next. Learn more>>

Support The Black Latina Girls and Women Fund: This fund was created by Black Alliance For Peace member organization AfroResistance, a Black Latina women-led organization in the service of Black Latinx women in the Americas. This fund offers financial support by giving money directly to Black Latin womxn, girls and femmes who are experiencing severe financial need across the region, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether in Brazil, Colombia, United States or Panama, Black Latina girls, women, and femmes are organizing in their local communities in the fight against several forms of state violence. You can donate here and people are encouraged to use the hashtag #BlackLatinaGWFund. Learn more>>

Stay Informed About AFRICOM Resistance: Sign up to join Black Alliance For Peace’s “U.S. Out of Africa Network” to receive the bi-weekly AFRICOM Watch Bulletin in your inbox. Learn more>> 

Stand With Families In Takeover Houses: Families have been occupying vacant houses all year, countering evictions and houselessness with bold direct action. You can support them. Sign the “Housing is a Human Right Petition” here>>  

Tell Alabama Prisons “No Retaliation Against Hunger Strikers”: Alabama incarcerated persons are on strike against inhumane conditions. They risk retaliation from prison authorities and guards. You can sign this petition to send a clear message that retaliation is unacceptable. Learn more >>

Neoliberal Dems, White Nationalists & How We Resist the Status Quo of US Imperialism:
Join Dissenters alongside Robin D.G. Kelley, Noura Erakat & other special guest speakers for this urgent conversation about the various forces upholding U.S. imperialism and how we resist the wars waged by elites on Black, indigenous and communities of color around the world. (Online – Jan 21) Learn more>>

How to Start a Climate Assembly: In this People Powered Hub course, leading practitioners and advocates will share best practices and help participants identify next steps to advocate for and start a climate assembly in their home city or country. (Online – Feb 18) Learn more>>