Image: Remix by Nonviolence News from photos by Andrew McMurtrie on Pexels and Andrea on Pixabay
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
Nonviolence isn’t just about protests. Nonviolence is the persistent, undaunted pursuit of justice and healing. One story in this week’s collection exemplifies that over a century of dedication toward racial justice. Tulsa, Oklahoma, was once home to the “Black Wall Street”, a thriving 37-block commercial and residential area in the Greenwood District. In 1921, a white mob – deputized by the mayor – bombed, burned, beat, and kidnapped the residents, and razed the buildings to the ground. Three thousand Black residents were displaced, 300 killed or injured, 1000 homes destroyed, and 200 businesses ruined.
Now, 104 years later, Tulsa has elected their first Black mayor – and he’s pursing tangible steps toward reparations. First, he’s making the 45,000 documents related to the massacre available to the public. Second, he’s establishing a $105 million reparations fund to address racial disparities impacting massacre survivors, descendants, and the majority-Black residents of north Tulsa. Black community members are directly responsible for this achievement, putting in decades of organizing. Indeed, the campaigns for justice started 3 days after the massacre in the tents of the refugee camp when a Black lawyer successfully sued to stop the City of Tulsa from seizing their land. Black organizers rebuilt, preserved history, and brought the massacre back into public consciousness in recent years. Just a few weeks ago, they also achieved something remarkable amidst the current backlash against DEI policies: they got the US Senate to pass a bipartisan bill designating Black Wall Street a national monument. (It now heads to the House, then to the president’s desk.)
Nonviolent action is present at every step of this century of organizing – from reclaiming the land to rebuilding the district to preserving history to uplifting the hard truths that white supremacy hoped to bury to pursuing reparations to redress the historic and ongoing harms. This saga continues through the implementation of reparations onward into dealing with long-term racial inequality. It’s a reminder of how we inherit the efforts of those who came before, strive to do what we can in our lifetimes, and support the next wave of struggle by the future generations. Nonviolence is a lineage that stretches around the globe and through the millennia. Our task is to use it and pass it on.
Across this beautiful and imperiled Earth, people are using nonviolent action to stand up for justice. Banana workers in Panama refused to dismantle the roadblocks they set up for their strike, maintaining them amidst national protests. Australians are campaigning to stop the destruction of public housing. In Brazil, the Homeless Workers Movement held a direct action to clean up a vacant lot where they plan to set up housing and a community kitchen. In Taiwan, citizen organizing has led to an unprecedented 31 recall votes on legislators who have pandered to Chinese officials, backed indiscriminate budget cuts, and voted in their self-interest at the expense of the people. Deliveristas in New York City are protesting police harassment and a recent law change that targets ebike riders with criminal citations and court cases versus the usual fines. June is PRIDE Month and despite a surge of anti-queer policies and sentiments, LGBTQ+ communities are steadfastly celebrating, affirming, protesting, and continue to push for LGBTQ+ rights. For example, Trans women in Scotland held a boldly defiant topless protest against a recent Supreme Court ruling on biological sex. We’ll have more stories and reports for you next week as PRIDE Month picks up steam.
Healthcare and labor justice for health workers is a shared theme across the continents. An emergency room physician held a 25-hr sit-in on the steps of Congress to warn of the harm being done to his patients by funding cuts and attacks on healthcare. Also in the US, people in 31 states rallied to demand universal, single-payer healthcare on a national day of action. Across the world, chronically-ill and disabled Australians are organizing digital protests and online resistance over cuts to services. Women health workers in India continue to protest and strike for wages, retirement benefits, and a reasonable workload. They’d have much to commiserate about with the Wisconsin nurses who held a synchronized, dance-like, sign-waving picket line while on strike for similar demands.
As global CO2 emissions hit 430 ppm – a peak not seen for 30 million years – weather and climate scientists are hosting livestreams to break through the maddening situation of the White House’s stance of climate denialism in a time of climate emergency. A group of 22 youth are suing the US federal government for violating their rights to health, safety, and life; and also for engaging in executive overreach by canceling climate measures. Big Oil is facing a historic lawsuit from a woman whose mother died in a fossil-fuel caused heatwave. 2,000 people rallied to stop bauxite mining in Australia. Global protests targeted Glencore, one of the world’s largest mining conglomerates, for its destructive environmental and labor practices in South Africa, DR Congo, Peru, Colombia, South Africa, as well as its role in supplying Israel with coal.
The billion-person Catholic Church received an invitation toward nonviolence when Pope Leo called upon them to embrace nonviolence in an official papal speech. His statements build on Pope Francis’ support for nonviolence, and many hope Pope Leo will continue this legacy, as well as advance church views on other social justice issues. In “An Indigenous Eulogy for Pope Francis“, two Haudenosaunee writers point out Pope Francis’ halting, but significant steps toward acknowledging the role of the Catholic Church in genocide in North America and call upon Pope Leo to continue this work. While the current pope’s stance on LGBTQ+ and women’s rights have drawn criticism, his outspoken calls for peace have given millions worldwide inspiration to continue to push for ceasefires in Gaza, Ukraine, and beyond.
Speaking of Gaza, people around the world are watching anxiously as the Freedom Flotilla ship, the Madleen, tries to defy Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid. With activist Greta Thunberg and others aboard, they’re calling attention to the inhumane plight of Palestinians being forcibly starved by Israel. A second campaign has brought together citizens from 32 countries to try to break the blockade on foot by marching to Gaza carrying supplies. A 40-day fast of veterans and peace activists in the United States is attempting to bring the Gazans’ situation to wider attention. Meanwhile, protests are taking place around the world with thousands dressed in red encircling the UK parliament building in a “Red Line For Palestine” action, Italian and French dockworkers refusing to load ammunitions shipments, Parisians turning a fountain’s waters red to symbolize the ‘blood of innocents’, mass demonstrations in Australia, and Brazilian oil unions demanding an embargo on Israel.
In the United States, people are watching the implosion of Trump and Musk’s relationship as the two meltdown into retaliatory threats and insults online. Cause for deeper celebration is that the 9th Circuit District Court upheld a ruling that Trump’s mass firings of federal workers are illegal and violated the Constitution. Judges also temporarily blocked Trump’s cuts to Job Corps and AmeriCorps. As Musk’s exit from DOGE removes the most notorious figurehead behind these cuts, the rulings are particularly significant in creating a legal stopgap against the continued effort to slash and burn public services and federal institutions. They are paired with other rulings arguing that DOGE’s activities far exceeded the purview of the executive branch, usurped congressional authority, and must be halted indefinitely. And lest the history books (or any of us) forget, the major bulwark against all of this was swift, immediate, and widespread public protest in opposition. It was the hue and cry of the people that galvanized the legal cases and put pressure on the courts to act immediately. Popular protest is also responsible for Musk’s retreat, the fractures between him and Trump, and the inability (so far) of the administration to codify its authoritarian slide.
As we all know, the struggle for democracy in the United States is just getting started. Recently, hundreds of high school students walked out of class in a nonpartisan protest against attacks on democracy under Trump. The nonpartisan approach is a powerful framework – and one worth replicating nationwide. Even the Brennan Center for Justice (liberal) and the Cato Institute (libertarian) have teamed up with the ACLU on a brief against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for deportations. This kind of bipartisan, nonpartisan, and multi-partisan organizing in support of basic constitutional laws and civil liberties will be critically important in stopping the authoritarian slide. To meet this moment, we’re going to need a really big, broad movement standing up for democracy.
One of the frontlines of the rising authoritarianism and lawlessness is the immigrant crackdown by ICE. In an immense about-face, the Trump administration finally complied with Supreme Court orders and brought back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a prison in El Salvador. He faces charges of transporting illegal immigrants that his lawyer calls ‘fantastical’ and are so trumped up that they’ve already prompted a protest resignation in the prosecutor’s office. The Milford, Massachusetts teenager who was arrested by ICE while driving his friends to sports practice has now been released, thanks to mass mobilization by his community. He is one of thousands of people swept up as immigration agents – often masked, unidentified, and armed – snatch people off the street, at workplaces, schools, hospitals, churches, and even outside their lawful immigration hearings and routine check-ins. Without due process, access to lawyers, or contact with their families, they are then often held for days, weeks, or months at detention centers. Others are being summarily deported to unsafe home countries or to foreign countries they have no connection to at all.
With the federal government and ICE engaged in egregious violations of the rule of law, human rights, civil liberties, and due process; citizens are taking direct action to thwart ICE from arresting people. In Los Angeles, a series of ICE raids and the violent arrest of the SEIU-California president led to a standoff between protesters and agents with the LAPD firing flash-bangs and tear gas to try to disperse them. In San Diego, a raid on a restaurant galvanized a spontaneous response from neighbors who fiercely protested and blocked ICE vehicles. In Minneapolis, people similarly challenged ICE and the local police’s involvement with ICE activities. In Somerville, Massachusetts, the community turned out en masse to halt a raid at the high school, successfully protecting students and parents. Will these actions spread into a nationwide movement to use disciplined, trained responses to protect our fellow human beings? Time will tell – and Nonviolence News can be counted on to share their stories.
There are 82 stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive this week, including a giant RESIST human banner spelled out on a beach under an iconic rollercoaster, a guide on how to de-escalate conflict, a look at how the FBI labeled animal rights activists ‘bioterrorists’, and a collection of heartening solidarity messages from the Global South to US citizens.
Explore these stories and many more in the Nonviolence News Research Archive>>
In some good news, Chicago is adding 1,700 audible crosswalks to keep visually impaired pedestrians safe while crossing streets. France banned smoking in public places where kids are present. A woman who stood up to an industry giant to shut down a toxic plant has been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. A local campaign saved four 150-year-old bur oak trees from being chopped down to build a parking lot in Minnesota. And a man climbed Mount Everest just to install a defibrillator – an act that saved a woman’s life three weeks later.
Hold those and other successes close to your heart as you persevere in your efforts toward social change in a world desperately longing for nonviolence in every way, shape, and form.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun
Nonviolence News covers the long arc of change, lifting up historic struggles, current movements, and the vision of the future as its seeds are planted in these times. Want to help us? Donate>>