nonviolence - lesson plan
Major Points
Use power (10)
- Voting marches and rallies
- Sit-Ins
- Boycotts / Non-Payment / Non-Taxes
- Strikes
- Disruption / Sabotage
Clear Goals (5)
You need an end goal that people in power can respond to. Rosa Parks was meant to create a court case. Selma was a voting march.
Build Community (10)
- Communities can act together (i.e. Unions)
- Visibility does help (though social media isn’t necessarily the best place for it)
- You need supporters
- to gather information
- talk to folks on the ground
- pay bail funds
- give out food
- to add mass to protests
- be connected to those in power (when the cops don’t shoot)
- to make it harder to target individuals
- Be careful who you trust.
- It takes time to build communities.
Non-Violence over violence (5)
- Non violent campaigns get more participants
- those who aren’t physically able
- those who are risk averse
- Non violent campaigns get more sympathy - both from fellow citizens, and people outside your country
- Non violent campaigns are hard to put down, reaction can often backfire
- Non violent campaigns lead to better outcomes, e.g. democracy
- Watch out, those in power will try to paint non violent campaigns as violent ones.
Ultimately
They want you to think you can’t do anything, because they want you to stay home depressed.
At the same time, don’t think you can do everything, because then you’ll burn yourself out.
Class structure:
- What do you know about the history of civil rights and Gandhi?
- Let’s work backwards from the core thesis:
- No group in history has ever gotten rights because they asked nicely. In every case, the people who could make change were afraid of the people protesting.
- What are the top three most important things you learned in this class?
Serbs Otpor as an example
Suffragettes MLK Gandhi
You only need 3.5% of a population
Trump 2019 Government Shutdown Flight attendants strike
Agent provocateur
Community support
Striking
Specific demands
https://theradicalfederalist.substack.com/p/the-protest-playbook-how-to-win-real
Be organized
It takes time, to coalition build.
https://commonslibrary.org/how-to-make-sure-your-disruptive-protest-helps-your-cause/
MLK Political cartoon https://www.truthorfiction.com/ezoimgfmt/dn.truthorfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/04124000/mlk_birmingham_news_cartoon1.jpg?ezimgfmt=ng:webp/ngcb14
General methods:
- Sit-In
- March
- Voting Drive
- Boycott
- Strike
- General strike
Civil Rights:
- Rosa Parks was intended to create a court case, also it was accompanied by a bus boycott
- Selma was a voting rights march
- The Deacons, armed defenders of MLK
- Chicago Freedom Movement: Tenants strikes
Gandhi:
- Non cooperation with taxes
Suffragettes
Militant suffragettes destroyed contents of letterboxes and smashed the windows of thousands of shops and offices. They cut telephone wires, burned down the houses of politicians and prominent members of society, set cricket pavilions alight and carved slogans into golf courses. They slashed paintings in art galleries, destroyed exhibitions at the British Museum and planted bombs in St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and near the Bank of England.
“freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
You can’t do everything
TODO:
- What are examples of protest in the past?
- What are my main points?
- How can we make this active?
- Slides
