The Realm of Struggle Nonviolence
In the embedded circles of our research template for nonviolence research, struggle is the outermost realm. Dates such as 1492 or 1619 invite us to inquire into overarching, secular, or structural trends. In nonviolence research, we inquire into the injustice of such trends; however, we also look for resilience and resistance.
Resilience and resistance that persists in support of struggle might be termed “infrastructual nonviolence.”
“The land now known as Central Texas was traditional territory to peoples including but not limited to the Tankawa, Apache, and Maikan-Garza Tribe of the Coahuiltecan People.” (Alejandro, Fong, and De La Rosa)
Addams: Democracy and Social Ethics
Jane Addams founded Hull House as a social-service “settlement home” within a thriving immigrant community in Chicago. Services included women’s apartments, child care, education, recreation, legal assistance, etc. As a leader of the “settlement home” movement in the US, Addams traveled and spoke on a variety of social issues. Her 1902 collection of essays, Democracy and Social Ethics, collects insights from the first decade of her public work. In the fourth paragraph of the “Introduction,” we find the thesis of her turn to “social ethics”: “To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one’s self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation.”
Dr. Bethune’s “Last Will and Testament”
Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune “made a way out of no way” when she opened a boarding school for Black girls in 1904. Today, Bethune-Cookman University proudly posts Dr. Bethune’s widely revered “Last Will and Testament. (Bethune-Cookman U)
The National Women’s History Museum reports that “In 1924, she was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and in 1935, she became the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women.” Dr. Bethune’s work reminds us that resilience in the realm of struggle requires vibrant community stewardship.
King’s ‘Triple Evils’
In this 1967 speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. analyzes terms of struggle as the “triple evils” of “racism, poverty, and war.”
A transcript of the speech is available via Scribd (subscription required).
“the messages from organizers in the South are to double down on services, education and resistance” – Nick Fulton (emphasis added)
Compare the top three sources for infrastructural nonviolence above: Addams (service), Bethune (education), and King (resistance).
Davis: “Freedom is a Constant Struggle”
In this transcript of a 2013 speech, Dr. Angela Y. Davis focuses attention on traditions of resistance. (CLT: Critical Legal Thinking)
Angela Davis Speaks on ‘Strength in Struggle’
In this short interview, Dr. Davis speaks of life’s meaning in a context of struggle.
Community Autonomy in the DRC
Mabele na biso (Our Land)
How villages in the Congo built a community radio project that runs on homegrown Palm oil.
Further Inquiry
What are your keywords for struggle and resilience?
What are your touchstone sources?
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