Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Why We Can't Wait"

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals."

"Why We Can’t Wait" is a document of the African American struggle in 1964 to gain equality and social justice in a country that promised these gains 100 years prior according to the Emancipation Proclamation. The focus of the book is on Birmingham, Alabama: a city that epitomized the discrimination, segregation, and brutality of racism, as well as the silent indifference of the well-meaning majority. King describes the deliberate strategizing that went into the struggle, of marches and songs of freedom, of sit-ins at various institutions and of boycotts to local businesses. While the opposition in Birmingham violently beat, overpowered with fire hoses, released dogs upon, bombed homes of, and overfilled jails to quell the nonviolent resisters, they did not succumb to the violence perpetrated upon them. The effect of this key moment in a growing movement of discontent was that it reopened old and unhealthy wounds for a renewed healing process in the United States. White America was confronted with an ugly area of its own civil life and needed to answer not only for the overt brutality of fellow citizens, but also for the apathetic negligence of abhorrent social wrongs. King’s descriptions of these events and their rationale display his uncompromising and inspired leadership in a strategic struggle for a future of equality and kinship between all Americans, regardless of differences on the surface of our shared humanity.

Links:
The King Center
MLK Online
Video Footage of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Citation Information:
King, M. L. (1968). Why we can't wait. New York: New American Library.

See Also:
King, M. L., & Carson, C. (1998). The autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Intellectual Properties Management in association with Warner Books.

King, M. L., & Washington, J. M. (1986). A testament of hope: The essential writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Michael Nagler, "The Search for a Nonviolent Future"

"The task is to create loving community, and the way to understand and address that is through nonviolence. Whoever we are, there is a way to do this."

"The Search for a Nonviolent Future" provides a very deep exploration of nonviolence and its utility for healing and humanizing our modern and violent world. Michael Nagler, a long-time peace scholar and nonviolent activist, reveals stories, incidents and acts of nonviolence that are both constructive (e.g. community building) and obstructive (i.e. nonviolent resistance) in order to show his audience that while nonviolence may not always "work" to produce immediate or expected results, it always works, having "a long-term positive effect on the whole system." The author conceives nonviolence not as an abstract concept, but as an active agent to produce a paradigm shift to replace nonviolence with our very violent, but altogether man-made, present. Such a big idea would seem daunting if it weren't for the action guide provided for the reader to begin on an individual level. The steps recommended include avoiding mass media and replacing its alternatives, taking "care of yourself spiritually," rebuilding kind human relationships, nonviolence education, and actively building peace. This book provides excellent insight for anyone grappling with various aspects of nonviolence, or doubt its simple but powerful meaning.

Links:
PACS 164A: Introduction to Nonviolence - Fall 2006 (Thank you Mike)

Citation Information:
Nagler, M. N. (2004). The search for a nonviolent future: A promise of peace for ourselves, our families, and our world. Maui, Hawai'i: Inner Ocean Publishing.

Barbara Deming, "Prisons That Could Not Hold"

"If we seek a world in which men do the least possible violence to each other (which is to state just the negative of it), then we are committed not simply to avoid violence ourselves, but to try and destroy patterns of violence that already exist."

"Prisons That Could Not Hold" contains writings from two experiences separated by 20 years of experiences, but brought together through Barbara Deming's life as an nonviolent activist for human rights. The first part of the book contains the contemplative writings of Deming while fasting in a jail cell for 27 days in Albany, Georgia with several other like minded people for participating in the Canada-to-Cuba Peace Walk of 1964. Deming's experience in jail, while filled with dirty mattresses, drunken, angry and distressed inmates, and oppressive authority figures, is one of unity, freedom, and love. And not just love for her fellow marchers, but a love for all of humanity, including her immediate oppressors on the other side of her cell's bars. Her noncooperation was not driven by spite, but rather by love and compassion that would not allow her to complacently accept violence, whether through racism, discrimination, or war. The second part of the book describes her experiences during a march of women, from the Seneca Women's Peace Encampment to a missile base in New York, in the form of a letter to a friend. Here we see a bond of women, not to alienate the male gender, but to celebrate a bond that is often neglected in our patriarchal society. What becomes clear in her account is that through nonviolence and loving, cooperative community building, these women were not symbolically marching for peace, they were demonstrating their love and compassion for humanity and the knowledge that violence aided by war and massive death dealing weapons hold the key to humanity's demise.

Citation Information:
Deming, B. (1995). Prisons that could not hold. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

See Also:
Deming, B. (1971). Revolution & equilibrium. New York: Grossman.

Deming, B., & Meyerding, J. (1984). We are all part of one another: A Barbara Deming reader. Philadelphia, PA: New Society.

E. F. Schumacher, "SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: Economics as if People Mattered"

"Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful."

"Small Is Beautiful" looks deeply into current economics and large-scale development, focusing on the deterioration and wholesale waste of human and ecological resources that it causes. According to Schumacher, developed countries are driven by a materialistic cycle of limitless greed and unquenchable envy. The inevitable result is alienation, urban decay, empty rural lands, stagnant masses of poor people, and ecological devastation. In order to address these modern problems, Schumacher seeks practical solutions via metaphysical, Buddhist, Christian, and Gandhian principles. He unfolds a qualitative and humane economic point of view that defies current quantitative economic theories based solely on mass production and consumption. His ideas and solutions are both inspiring and practical. Schumacher focuses on the real need to "reconstruct rural culture," promote education that envelopes metaphysics into its curriculum and seeks to clarify our "central convictions," sustain our natural resources, aid developing countries with intermediate technologies to increase local self reliance, and balance small scale freedom in organizations with large scale orderliness. Summarily speaking, this work is about shifting our current economic "emphasis from goods to people," making "peace and permanence" a realizable goal for the future.

Citation Information:
Schumacher, E. F. (1975). Small is beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. New York: Harper & Row.

Links:
E.F. Schumacher Foundation
Practical Action (formerly the Intermediate Technology Development Group)

See Also:
Schumacher, E. F. (1979). Good work. New York: Harper & Row.

Dorothy Day, "Loaves and Fishes"

"We were trying to overcome hatred with love, to understand the forces that made men what they are, to learn something of their backgrounds, their education to change them, if possible, from lions into lambs. It was a practice in loving, a learning to love, a paying of the cost of love."

"Loaves and Fishes" is Dorothy Day's account of the origins and growth of the Catholic Worker; a movement, a way of life, and a radical newspaper which she helped found along with Peter Maurin, whose ideologies, teachings, and livelihood she recounts as integral to the Workers' inspiration. The community, or rather the "slipshod group of individuals" as Day described the Workers to a future associate, came together for various individual reasons but stayed together to bring works of mercy to all of those in need. Some would stay for only a short period of time, while others would stay for the duration of their lives, all of whom were given the opportunity to commit their lives to a cause greater than themselves and be surrounded by a community full of faith and love. Day recounts myriad stories from hospitality houses and communal farms in New York, time spent prison for her public refusal to participate in mandatory air raid drills, and her day to day experiences with fellow Workers, patrons, poets, and priests. This work is a document, told in the most humble of voices, of voluntary poverty, pacifism, and endless love for her fellow man, founded in an unshakable faith.

Citation Information:
Day, D. (1997). Loaves and fishes. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Links:
The Catholic Worker

See Also:
Day, D. (1981). The long loneliness: The autobiography of Dorothy Day. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Day, D., & Sicius, F. J. (2004). Peter Maurin: Apostle to the world. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.

Mahatma Gandhi, "All Men Are Brothers"

"Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable."

Originally published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), "All Men Are Brothers" is a compilation of Gandhi's writings that attempt to illuminate his lifelong experiment in seeking out truth and practicing it through nonviolence (or more specifically, ahimsa. The book contains Gandhi's autobiographical accounts and views regarding various temporal topics, all of which come under the auspices of Ghandi's philosophy and acts of ahimsa. One of the major strengths of this particular compilation is that it does not delve too deeply, providing an unfamiliar reader with a brief and broad foundation into Ghandi's life. What becomes clear from reading his excerpts and quotes is that Gandhi’s life was his message. Through discipline and faith in ahimsa, Gandhi was able to actively oppose oppressive forces while at the same time loving the humanity of the actors behind the oppression. Although much of his work was aimed at nonviolent resistance, his lifelong experiment in practicing ahimsa was also a constructive force for the loving community that he hoped one day to help build. "All Men Are Brothers" provides a brief glimpse into the life of an extraordinary man and acts as a call to action for those seeking community built on a foundation of love, truth, and nonviolence.

Citation Information:
Gandhi, M. K. (2005). All men are brothers: Life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: Continuum.

Links:
Complete Information on Gandhi
Tolstoy Farm

See Also:
Gandhi, M. K. (1957). An autobiography; The story of my experiments with truth. Boston: Beacon Press.

Gandhi, M. K. (1958). Collected works. Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India.