In a climate of violence, how effective is a
peaceful protest?
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Video Text: I've been involved in peaceful protests going back to
the civil rights movement in the South. To me, it's very effective, but
even if it's ineffective sometimes, I would still recommend it for
anyone. It's a way of affirming yourself as a human being, it's a way of
living with dignity and consistent with your own values. It has
tremendous value whether it's effective.
Sometimes we have limited power and we can do the best we can, and we
still can't be effective in a big way. That's why people become
demoralized. Sometimes what you're effective in doing is changing
relations in your family, or with your friends, or at your university,
or in your community, and you can do that even if you can't be effective
in changing, say, what President Bush, Vice President Cheney or people
in Congress feel.
So, I think my view of history is that peace protests are extremely
effective. The history books don't give us credit. Gandhi often says
that history books are false--they just present the kings, the
conquerors, who won the battles--and that's only a small part of how
human beings have lived in this world. And it's even a false view of how
history changes. All of the great changes in the United States that I
value, whether it had to do with the abolition of slavery, the abolition
of child labor, women's right to vote, environmental progress--all of
these different things I could cite--all of these things came because
people organized for peace and justice, independent of the power
structure that always opposed it. And then, in fact, when people
organized successfully, they became a force, they had a voice of their
own that people with power finally had to listen to and respond to. So,
I'm a big advocate of peace protests.
