Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
June is PRIDE month and amidst an onslaught of anti-trans bills, homophobic book bans, and other anti-LGBTQ activities, these marches, rallies, and events showing love to LGBTQ+ individuals and culture are much needed. Unfortunately, many are facing counterprotests from homophobes and anti-trans factions, with some escalating into attacks and assaults. In several places, peace teams and violence interruption groups are coordinating their efforts to provide nonviolent protection to these events.
What does nonviolent protection look like? It’s unarmed community members using the skills of de-escalation, nonviolent intervention, and conflict transformation to walk disputes back from the brink of violence. It has been used in a bevy of places, including hot conflict zones around the world, in US public schools to stop student fights, at contentious protests with multiple opposing groups demonstrating, and more. One story you can read about in this week’s Nonviolence News is how a Brooklyn neighborhood handled its own policing for a week. In my opinion, this is a glimpse of what a nonviolent future looks like, everyday people using active nonviolence to handle our conflicts without resorting to armed authorities. It powerfully intersects issues of policing, racism, poverty and inequality, housing injustice, gun violence, and more.
It also shows what a colossal failure of vision US authorities are having as they push to build an appalling tactical urban warfare training facility known as Cop City in Atlanta, GA. What if we spent that $90 million on nonviolent alternatives that prevented violence in our communities? Imagine if the area – the nation’s largest urban forest – trained thousands of people in unarmed peacekeeping and violence interruption. Instead, Atlanta authorities ignored 1000 people who packed the meeting where the facility was approved. The struggle to #StopCopCity is far from over, however, and new mobilizations are already planned for the coming weeks and months.
In other Nonviolence News, the Gypsy Traveller League and allies opposed a discriminatory bill in the United Kingdom. In Montenegro, peace activists and villagers used direct action to keep NATO maneuvers out of their mountain region. 500,000 people in Poland rallied against their authoritarian right-wing government. The world’s biggest security firm divested from Israel after a years-long campaign by BDS and pro-Palestinian activists. The US’ west coast ports were brought to a standstill due to a ‘no show’ action by union workers after negotiations broke down. US climate activists have been ramping up their efforts on a range of related targets (politicians, pipelines, financing, insurance, divestment, and more). One group, Youth vs. Apocalypse (pictured), has been racking up urban-based, racial justice informed victories for years; many of them started as small children are now teen leaders. This is just the start of the interesting stories this week … be sure to check them all out. Don’t miss how climate activists spray painted a private jet “warning” orange to call out its fossil fuel use!
A favorite story this week? It’s an interesting form of nonviolence in action: musician and neuroscientist Clara Takaraba has identified what kind of music scientifically makes us feel safe – offering a creative way to heal trauma, de-stress, and find solace in these challenging times. Could listening to this be a way of practicing nonviolence toward yourself?
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun
Photo Credit: Youth vs. Apocalypse at a climate action.
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What Happened When a Brooklyn Neighborhood Policed Itself for Five Days: On a two-block stretch of Brownsville in April, the police stepped aside and let residents respond to 911 calls. It was a bold experiment that some believe could redefine law enforcement in New York City. Read more>>
Major BDS Victory At World’s Biggest Security Company: The world’s biggest private and corporate security company, G4S, announced that they will divest from Israel after years-long campaign by Palestinian BDS activists and others. The divestment comes after more than a decade-long campaign by the BDS against the company which resulted in several high-profile investors selling their stakes. Read more>>
Shell’s ‘Green’ Ad Campaign Banned In UK For Being “Likely To Mislead”: An ad campaign by Shell promoting its green initiatives has been banned for not telling consumers that most of its business is based on environmentally damaging fossil fuels such as petrol. Advertising Standards Authority says ads do not make clear company’s business is mostly based on fossil fuels. Read more>>
Youth Climate Suit In Oregon Survives Order To Dismiss: A federal judge agreed to let youth climate activists continue a 2015 suit that accuses the government of subjecting them and future generations to the devastating effects of climate change. Read more>>
‘Victory for Free Speech’ – Federal Judge Strikes Down Tennessee Anti-Drag Law as Unconstitutional: “Similar to the countless battles the LGBTQ+ community has faced over the last several decades, our collective success relies upon everyone speaking out and taking a stand against bigotry,” said the group who challenged the statute. Read more>>
Group Announces Pennsylvania General Energy To Plug Controversial Well: A community has been fighting in state and federal court for a decade over whether a well owned by PGE could be converted into an injection well to dispose of oil and gas wastewater. An environmental group has announced that PGE has informed the Department of Environmental Protection of its intent to plug the subject well. According to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, “not a single drop of frack waste has been injected within the township due to hard work, resistance and resilience.” Read more>>
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Industry Challenge to California Offshore Fracking Ban: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the fossil fuel industry’s challenge to a 2018 court-ordered moratorium on offshore fracking in federal Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of California, a rare victory for environmental groups and coastal conservationists who say producing oil and gas from under the seafloor poses a serious threat to ocean ecosystems and the climate. Read more>>
Hundreds of Thousands Rally Against Poland’s Authoritarian Right-Wing Government: “We are now at a crossroads between being an authoritarian and a democratic country,” said one activist. 500,000 took to the streets in Poland. Read more>>
From Stone Mountain to the Stonewall Inn, the #TeachTruth National Day of Action Fights Back Against Anti-History Legislation: History Is a human right. With almost half of all students in the United States attending a school whose educators have been given educational gag orders to prohibit them from teaching honestly about the history of systemic racism, a grassroots network of educators, parents, and students across the country are organizing a #TeachTruth National Day of Action on June 10, 2023, to fight back. Read more>>
Georgian Government Criticized Over Brazen Crackdown On Freedom Of Expression: Fears of a crackdown are rising in Georgia following a series of instances of extraordinary restriction of the freedoms of assembly and expression. The arrest of protesters for holding placards, including blank ones, struck many as eerily reminiscent of similar practices in Russia (and other countries.) Read more>>
Gannett Journalists Walk Out, Accusing CEO of Decimating Local Newsrooms: “It’s become apparent that no corporation or CEO is going to save local news, it’s up to journalists to preserve our industry and our democracy,” said unionized journalists at The Arizona Republic. Read more>>
Chicago’s ‘Wear Orange Peace March’ Honors National Gun Violence Awareness: Day. Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed by gang members in 2013. Her death led Gun Violence Awareness Day to become a national event. Read more>>
Director’s Guild Cuts Deal While Writers Guild Stay on Strike: The leaders of the 19,000-member Director’s Guild have announced that they have reached a tentative agreement. “We have concluded a truly historic deal,” said Jon Avnet, chair of the DGA’s Negotiations Committee said in a statement. “It provides significant improvements for every Director, Assistant Director, Unit Production Manager, Associate Director and Stage Manager in our Guild. In these negotiations we made advances on wages, streaming residuals, safety, creative rights and diversity, as well as securing essential protections for our members on new key issues like artificial intelligence – ensuring DGA members will not be replaced by technological advances”. Read more>>
WGA Urges Apple To Settle As It Details Protest Plans Against Tech Giant: The WGA has detailed its plans to target Apple to coincide with its Worldwide Developers Conference. “Let’s send a message that Apple TV+ is nothing without writers and urge Apple to come back to the table and help end this strike,” the union added. Read more>>
Trapped At Work: Immigrant Health Care Workers Face Harsh Conditions And $100,000 Lawsuits For Quitting: Hospitals and nursing homes have filled thousands of vacant positions with nurses and other health care workers recruited from abroad, who say they are bound in some instances by contracts that impose tens of thousands of dollars in penalties for leaving and threats of lawsuits for not paying. Read more>>
Ford Parts Workers Strike Over Money, Safety, DisciplineThe top three issues on strikers’ minds are money, safety, and discipline policies. To support them, the United Auto Workers has raised strike pay from $250 per week to $500, and started it on the strike’s first day instead of its eighth. Read more>>
French Protests Make Last Ditch Effort To Stop Pension Reform: French anti-pension reform protesters stormed the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Tuesday as trade unions made a last-gasp attempt to pressure lawmakers into reversing President Emmanuel Macron’s raising of the retirement age. Read more>>
West Coast Ports Shut Down As Union Workers ‘No Show’ After Breakdown In Wage Negotiations: In an ILWU press release, International President Willie Adams said talks have “not broken down” and added “we aren’t going to settle for an economic package that doesn’t recognize the heroic efforts and personal sacrifices of the ILWU workforce that lifted the shipping industry to record profits.” Read more>>
Nonprofit Takes A Big-Picture Approach To Playspace Inequity: Cities around the country are recognizing the importance of playspace inequity as a public health issue, particularly as families emerge from a pandemic with wide-ranging physical and mental health impacts. In 25 years, KABOOM! has built or improved more than 17,000 playspaces, bringing healthy outdoor activity to children in need. The organization recently changed that model, introducing an ambitious five-year plan to end playspace inequity in 25 cities as the starting point to solve for playspace inequity everywhere across the country. Read more>>
Fired for Unionizing: A Starbucks Worker on How the Coffee Giant Betrayed Its ‘Partners’: Alexis Rizzo was one of the first members of Starbucks Workers United; she was recently fired in retaliation, but her fight isn’t over yet. Read more>>
The Revolution Against Shady Landlords Has Begun: In New York, the real estate industry and the politicians in its pocket both reign supreme. These tenants have a plan to change that forever. Read more>>
A NY Law Puts A Steep Price On ‘Serious’ Building Disrepair. These Tenants Are Fighting To Use It. Brooklyn tenants are trying to dismantle barriers around a seldom-used 1960s-era law that can prohibit landlords from collecting rent when they fail to fix dangerous building conditions for months on end. The campaign just had its first breakthrough. Read more>>
Mobile Home Park Residents Form Co-ops To Save Their Homes: With rents rising at mobile home parks nationwide, advocates tout the cooperative model as a way to preserve one of the last affordable housing options. So far these resident-owned communities are proving to be a reliable option. None of the more than 300 in the network of nonprofit ROC USA have defaulted or closed. One decided to sell back to the county housing authority it originally purchased from. Read more>>
Last Generation Climate Activists Mark Private Jet With Orange Paint: Supporters of the last generation have just marked a private jet with orange warning paint at Sylt Airport. The protesters with prepared fire extinguishers ran directly to the parked private jets to make the climate-damaging effects of private flights clear in bright colors. Banners were unfurled on the wings: “Your luxury = our drought” and “Your luxury = our crop failures”. Read more>>
Youth vs. Apocalypse Puts Working-Class Young People of Color at the Heart of the Climate Fight: YVA is a youth-led, Bay Area-based collective of young climate justice activists. Ibarra says she and many of her peers were compelled to join the climate justice movement because of YVA’s ability to connect the lived-daily experiences of pollution, poverty, and racism to accelerating climate chaos. Read more>>
ClimateDefiance Shuts Down Senator Joe Manchin’s Keynote Address: Climate activists disrupted and ultimately ended Sen. Joe Machin’s keynote speech. His policies are shoving through a 2,000,000,000 cubic-foot-per-day fracked gas pipeline that they oppose. Read more>>
Climate Activists Decry Pipeline ‘Deal With the Devil’ at Protest Outside Schumer’s Home: “We’re taking the streets to shut it down and send the message to Sen. Schumer that he must STOP the #DirtyDeal being included in the debt ceiling bill!” Read more>>
Climate Coalition Demands Biden End Carbon Capture Pipeline ‘Pipe Dream’: More than 150 climate and other advocacy groups on Tuesday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to block authorization of all new carbon dioxide pipelines—which experts say increase emissions while posing serious safety risks due largely to underregulation—until adequate safety rules are enacted. Read more>>
World Environment Day Protests Demand Urgent Action On Climate, Scrap Anti-Protest Laws: More than 400 people marched in Gadi/Sydney on World Environment Day on June 5, chanting “No new coal and gas” and “Repeal the anti-protest laws”. The protest, organized by the Sydney Climate Coalition (SCC), was endorsed by more than 50 unions, environmental and political groups. Read more>>
New Energy Battleground: Insurance For LNG Terminals: Environmentalists have been pushing insurance companies for years to stop writing policies for fossil fuel companies. Now, they’re opening a new front in their fight — natural gas exports. Read more>>
#NotMyBill Solidarity Rally For Gypsy Traveller League: On Saturday, a wide range of campaign and direct action groups supported the Gypsy Traveller League under the banner #NotMyBill, as they handed a letter in to the UK prime minister calling for an end to discrimination. Black Lives Matter pledged support for the Gypsy and Traveller community alongside disabled activists, republicans, animal rights and climate protesters, Just Stop Oil, fuel poverty campaigners, and many others, all pledging to ‘Unite To Defy’ and fight back against this authoritarian and anti-democratic power grab. Read more>>
‘The Whole World Is Watching’: Atlanta City Council Defies 1000 People To Approve Cop City Funding: “We’re here pleading our case to a government that has been unresponsive, if not hostile, to an unprecedented movement in our City Council’s history,” one opponent of the police training facility said. Read more>>
‘Rhythms of the Land’ Preserves the Untold Stories of Black Farmers: Filmmaker and cultural anthropologist Gail Myers discusses the making of her documentary, the oppressive history of sharecropping, and power of seed saving for Black farmers. Read more>>
13 Best Places to Celebrate Juneteenth in 2023: On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger delivered General Order No. 3 to the enslaved people and residents of Galveston, Texas, ending slavery in the state, the last place to formally end slavery in the US. Whether it’s a music festival, a parade, a cookout or a march, there are plenty of ways to honor Juneteenth across the country. U.S. News compiled a list of the top destinations to celebrate Juneteenth in 2023. Read more>>
France’s Pension Protests Are a Feminist Reckoning: As France heads into its eleventh general strike in three months, one thing is clear: this is not just a retirees’ uprising. “This reform is going to hurt women — women in precarious situations, who do many part-time jobs, who are in single-parent families,” Cosset says. Read more>>
Extremists Attack LGBTQ+ Supporters At School Board Meeting Over Pride Month: ‘Extremists attacked LGBTQ+ parents’. Footage and images shared on social media showed hundreds of people from both sides outside the school district headquarters on North Jackson Street in the city. Read more>>
Alabama Teens On A Mission To Provide Menstrual Products To People In Need: Twin sisters Brooke and Breanna Bennett about their nonprofit organization which advocates for an end to period poverty everywhere. In the United States, 1 in 5 girls have missed school because of a lack of access to period products, a disturbing statistic that puts both their confidence and their education at risk. Read more>>
Churches Targeted By Hateful Fliers Fight Back With Rainbow-Colored Messages Of Love: A mayor at the 300-person vigil said that the community must unite against people who dehumanize and spread fear about others. Read more>>
Millions of US Women at Risk After ‘Regressive’ Attack on Abortion Rights by Supreme Court: UN Experts. Abortion bans in 14 U.S. states since the 2022 Dobbs decision “have made abortion services largely inaccessible and denied women and girls their fundamental human rights to comprehensive healthcare including sexual and reproductive health.” Read more>>
How An Indiana High School Play Resisted LGBTQ Censorship: Students in Fort Wayne, Ind., weren’t going to give up after their school canceled an LGBTQ play. But could they figure out how to put on the show themselves? Watch here>>
A Look At Restrictions On LGBTQ+ People In the US, And the Pushback: A Florida law banning transgender youth from getting medical treatment is temporarily on hold after a surprise decision Tuesday by a federal judge. The ruling comes amid a bevy of legislation sweeping state houses this year restricting gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Meanwhile LGBTQ+ communities and their allies are organizing Pride events and calling for pushback against what they say are discriminatory laws. Read more>>
The People Kept NATO Off Their Mountain (Again): The U.S. military had threatened to use the mountains of Sinjajevina as a training ground between May 22nd and June 2nd, together with other troops under the banner of NATO. Instead, the troops went to other locations in Montenegro but never to the mountains of Sinjajevina. Read more>>
Growing Solidarity Movement Demands End To US War on Cuba: This May Day, youth activists from the United States traveled to Cuba to learn about the revolution and to show their solidarity with the struggle against US imperialism. Clearing the FOG spoke with Calla Walsh of the US-based National Network on Cuba about the trip and about the campaign to remove Cuba from the ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ list, which President Biden recently renewed. Read more>>
Fighting For Peace: Russians Use Faith To Protest Invasion Of Ukraine Despite Risks: Small numbers of Russians continue to express their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on grounds of faith or with the use of religious imagery and quotations — and continue to be detained and fined under Russia’s wartime laws punishing “discrediting” the armed forces. Read more>>
Creative Wildfire Summit: How can we use art to respond, adapt, and heal from the climate crisis? How can art be used to help us move away from an extractive economy and toward the just transition? That’s what Creative Wildfire—an organizing project supporting artists, cultural workers, and organizations—seeks to do. Read more>>
Music Scientifically Designed to Make You Feel Safe: In this cultural offering from musician and neuroscientist Clara Takarabe, we learn about a type of “clinical music” she helped develop, designed to cue the body to recognize that it is safe – and the personal experiences that inspired her to create this tool. Read more>>
Utah District Bans Bible In Elementary And Middle Schools ‘Due To Vulgarity Or Violence’: The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children. Read more>>
Pride in Pictures: Pride In Bloom. This gem of an image is a throwback from a collection of PRIDE pics sent in by readers. In San Francisco, one group declared they were “Gay in America” and proud to be pansies. Read more>>
How Subaltern Studies Changed Our Understanding of Resistance Struggles: We sought to highlight a range of social, political, economic, and cultural forms of oppression that braided together in different ways in different historical situations, and which provided the focus for action by subaltern groups. Read more>>
South Korean Truckers Provide a Model for Labor Organizing Among Independent Contractors: In December 2022, TruckSol, a trade union of South Korean truck drivers, waged a massive 16-day strike that cost employers over $2 billion. The union’s history and organizing strategy have lessons for precariously employed workers around the world. Read more>>
This Week in People’s History: Looking At May 30th Through The Centuries: On this day through history, social justice actions abounded. A union organizer fired for insubordination. Sojourner Truth took her new name. “No nukes” action on Long Island. Boston said NO! to slave-catchers. And an anti-slavery novel became a best-seller. Read more>>
International Day of Peasant Struggle: April 17th marked the International Day of Peasant Struggle, commemorating the 1996 Eldorado do Carajás massacre where 19 landless workers were killed by Brazilian military police. From Brazil to Mali to Mexico, we celebrate struggles for food and land sovereignty, and ongoing resistance against the criminalization and oppression of peasants, workers, and Indigenous communities. Hear reflections from leaders of La Via Campesina about their 30-year-long struggle for food sovereignty. Read more>>
The Civil Rights Movement Fought for Environmental Justice Long Before Earth Day: The term “environmental justice” would not be coined for at least a decade, but visionaries such as the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King Jr. were already confronting environmental racism in the streets. Read more>>
Scientists Warn That We’ve Passed Safe Earth Boundaries: Earth has been pushed past its safe limits for humans, scientists say. Humans have sent almost all planetary boundaries into risk zones, research finds. The earth is already past safe limits for humans as temperature rise, water system disruption and destruction of natural habitats have reached boundaries, a study by a group of the world’s foremost scientists has found. Read more>>
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) To Celebrate Juneteenth With a Shutdown: Many ILWU locals are following the call by Locals 10 and 52 to shut down all West Coast ports on June 19 — Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when news about the emancipation from slavery finally reached the last workers in Texas. Prawl added, “It is a day for workers to protest conditions rising out of slavery that are currently getting worse — homelessness, child labor, hunger. … The ILWU needs to celebrate Juneteenth with a shutdown to show the PMA that they are a strong and angry workforce.” Learn more>>
Media & Journalism Webinars: Media and Journalism Webinars is a virtual certificate program that emphasizes experiential and hands-on learning through intensive workshops, webinars, mentorship, and interactive discussions with professional journalists for hands-on field experience. (June 27 – July 11) Learn more>>
Fund Healthcare Not Warfare – Second Annual Forum: The tragic death toll from the COVID-9 pandemic reveled the deep malfunctions of the nation’s healthcare system. One of the sources, inadequately reported, has been the diversion of our tax dollars to military programs and foreign wars – over half of Congressional discretionary funding. Learn more>>
Stop Cop City: After a 16+ hour Atlanta City Council meeting, with over 1,000 Atlanta residents speaking out against Cop City, the City Council ignored their constituents and voted to approve millions in funding for Cop City with a 11-4 vote. Organizers in Atlanta are calling on groups across the country to join a Week of Action from June 24–July 1 to take a stand against Cop City and defend Weelaunee forest. This is an open format event, meaning folks can organize any type of event during this time, whether it’s a protest, BBQ, or concert. Check out the #StopCopCity Toolkit and learn more>>
Making Food Systems Work For People of Color – 6 Action Steps: How do you support development across the food system in a way that builds community ownership and power for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities? This is a question that a group of food system activists of color have come together to address. And in so doing we are challenging the community development field to do better—by creating new tools to support truly equitable food-oriented development. If you want to learn how to make food systems work for people of color, take these six action steps. Learn more>>
The Power of Listening Circles For Racial Healing: Listening Circles play a vital role in racial reconciliation. Listening Circles offer allies and directly impacted communities the opportunity to openly share their experiences and perspectives without judgment. Our session will begin with the exploration of the historical background of talk/listening circles and drumming circles and why Indigenous and African cultures created them. (June 24) Learn more>>
Gender Justice and Nonviolence: As more and more people are targeted in our society because of their gender, faithful and strategic nonviolence is needed. Trainers Rev. Lauren Grubaugh-Thomas and Rev. Jerry Monroe Maynard will lead the group in exploring nonviolence as a powerful lens for gender justice in our churches, social circles, and global human family. You’ll come away with practical tools rooted in proven strategies and informed by lived experiences. (June 27) Learn more>>
Leaving World War II Behind: The purpose of the course is to inform the participant and enable them to inform others of why World War II is not a good justification for military spending and war planning, both because WWII happened in a very different world from today’s, and because common beliefs about the nature of and justifications for WWII are false. By debunking myths about WWII having been necessary, justifiable, and beneficial, we can strengthen arguments for moving to a world beyond war. (July 3 – August 13) Learn more>>
Power In Protest: Preparing For Street Demonstrations: Contrary to popular belief, protesting is not simply about creating pretty signs, marching down a street, and singing “feel good” songs. Various strategies, tactics, and tools have been developed over the decades to aid in the work of global transformation. In this training, organizers and activists will learn how they can empower themselves in preparation for public demonstrations within their local communities. (July 6) Learn more>>
A World of Change: Summer Film & Discussion Series: Films. Friends. Fantastic stories. Fascinating conversations. Join Pace e Bene’s six-week summer film series featuring A Force More Powerful on the power of nonviolent action in South Africa, Poland, Chile, India, Denmark, and the US. In each of these six sessions, we will watch and discuss one of the incredible 30-minute documentary video segments on a classic nonviolent struggle for change. (July 27-Aug 31) Learn more>>
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