Nonviolent resistance (racial relations)

SIGNIFICANCE: Nonviolence is a central method for expressing political dissent and marshaling the power necessary to bring about political change. In North American race relations, its most visible and effective proponents, including Martin Luther King, Jr., used it to advance the cause of civil rights.

Although the term “nonviolent resistance” is a 20th century concept based on an analysis of the strategies and conditions necessary for successful nonviolent action, its practice is deeply rooted in U.S. history. Religious groups from Europe such as the Amish and the Society of Friends (Quakers), who practiced a literal understanding of Jesus’s teachings forbidding the use of violence, fled to North America to escape persecution. Their continued commitment to principles of pacifism has influenced a tradition and philosophy of nonviolent protest. Additionally, the early colonists engaged in nonviolent resistance against British rule. In 1766, Britain passed an import tax, the Stamp Act. American merchants organized a boycott of goods, causing the repeal of the act. This action marked the first organized resistance to British rule and led to the establishment of the First Continental Congress in 1774. The legal basis for nonviolent action was established in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects the rights of persons to “freedom of speech,” peaceful assembly, and petitioning the government “for a redress of grievances.” History has shown citizens of the United States often express these rights.

Various Applications

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay a poll tax in protest of the Mexican-American War. In his essay “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau proclaimed the moral necessity of resistance in the face of immoral government action. Nonviolent protest has accompanied every war in which the United States has engaged, and it was so widespread during the Vietnam War that it became a central reason the United States withdrew from Vietnam in 1974. Nonviolent protest has also been central to various movements seeking to ban and limit nuclear weapons and in war tax resistance movements, in which members refuse to pay taxes to support the military budget. Strategies of nonviolent resistance were also employed by the women’s rights movement, which culminated in the right to vote (1920) and in greater social and economic equality for women. The labor movement has used nonviolent tactics in the form of strikes, labor slowdowns, and boycotts to force improvement of working conditions and income. Despite strong, often violent responses by corporate owners, the Wagner Act, passed by Congress in 1935, recognized the legal right of workers to organize and use such methods. César Chávez effectively used consumer boycotts in the 1970s and 1980s to win better conditions for farmworkers. Nonviolent strategies have been used by environmental groups to block construction of nuclear power plants, stop the cutting of forests, or alter policies considered to be ecologically hazardous. They have also been employed since the 1980s by antiabortion groups attempting to close abortion clinics.

Race Relations

The most prolonged, successful use of nonviolent resistance, however, came in the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on the work of Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi, the movement used marches, sit-ins, and boycotts to force an end to legal racial segregation in the South and informal (de facto) segregation in the North. While King and his followers practiced nonviolence, they often encountered opponents who used physical violence and assault tactics in an attempt to dissuade protestors from their cause. This campaign demonstrated the ambiguity of governmental response to such tactics. Often participants were arrested and convicted under local statutes, only to have such laws ruled invalid by higher courts; this occurred during the Montgomery bus boycott. On the other hand, King and his followers were under constant surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and were considered threats to political stability by many government officials. The debate has also focused on what constitutes “freedom of expression” and “peaceful assembly.” The “plowshares eight,” in 1980, protesting nuclear weapons, entered a General Electric plant in Pennsylvania and dented the nose cone of a warhead. They were sentenced to prison on grounds of trespass and destruction of private property.

Theory and Strategy

Nonviolent resistance has two distinct traditions. The religious tradition centers on the moral claim that it is always wrong to harm another and that only love of the “enemy” can transform persons and societies. Violence and hatred cannot solve social problems or end social conflict, for each act of violence generates new resentments. This spiral of violence can be ended only if some group absorbs the violence and returns only nonviolence and love. Central to this vision is a commitment to justice that requires adherents to engage injustice actively wherever they find it.

The political tradition focuses on strategies for organizing political and social power to force another, usually a political authority, to change policies. As Gene Sharp, a leading analyst, notes, government requires the consent of its citizens. In nonviolent resistance, dissenters organize forms of power including economic power, labor power, and the power of public opinion in order to undermine consent and force authorities to change policies.

The use of these theories and techniques remains important in stable, democratic societies as a way of resolving conflict, generating social change, and challenging power structures, especially on behalf of the powerless, whose rights are often ignored. Without the legal sanctions which permit such protest, the only recourse becomes open societal violence and conflict, even to the point of civil war.

Bibliography

Ackerman, Peter, and Christopher Kruegler. Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century. Westport: Praeger, 1994.

Barash, David P. Introduction to Peace Studies. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1991.

“Civil Rights Movement.” History.com, 14 May 2024, www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement. Accessed 13 Nov. 2024.

Conney, Robert, and Helen Michalowski, eds. The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States. Philadelphia: New Soc., 1987.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ed. James M. Washington. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.

May, Todd. Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction. Malden: Polity, 2015.

Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. 3 vols. Boston: Porter, 1973.