{"id":141606,"date":"2019-09-09T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=141606"},"modified":"2019-08-28T09:37:35","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T08:37:35","slug":"how-movements-build-strength-through-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/09\/how-movements-build-strength-through-training\/","title":{"rendered":"How Movements Build Strength through Training"},"content":{"rendered":"

Training for movements is not unlike training for athletic competition: Pain is inevitable. It\u2019s the conditioning of mind, body and heart that makes winning possible. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Agitators attack a sit-in demonstrator at Woolworth\u2019s lunch counter, February 27, 1960.
\u00a0(Nashville Public Library)<\/p><\/div>\n

22 Aug 2019 – <\/em>It\u2019s no accident that much of the leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, came from the Nashville, Tennessee sit-in campaign \u2014 and that SNCC\u2019s young people were frequently pace-setters in the civil rights movement. We can even now watch a short film documenting the process<\/a>: the careful, step-by-step training workshops led by the Rev. James Lawson for black students.<\/p>\n

A similar under-the-radar training process preceded the overthrow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986. That struggle gave us a new term for nonviolent struggle: \u201cpeople power.\u201d A violent insurgency had been going on for years in the Philippines, but Marcos \u2014 with the help of the United States \u2014 had been able to contain it. He was not, however, able to hold back a nonviolent direct action campaign and was ultimately forced to flee to the haven of the United States.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that movements can\u2019t win without building in a training dimension. The Global Nonviolent Action Database<\/a> includes successful direct action campaigns dating from times before training, as we know it, had been invented. Even then, however, innovative leaders sometimes developed an equivalent when they knew they were facing a tough opponent.<\/p>\n

One such example is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a leader from what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, who wanted to free his Pathan people from the British Empire. From watching Gandhi\u2019s \u201cexperiments with truth\u201d in the region south of him, he could see the potential of nonviolent struggle even when the British troops came down hard on Indian Hindus. He could expect that the British would be even more violent against Muslims like himself. There are, after all, shades of racism and prejudice.<\/p>\n

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Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan<\/p><\/div>\n

So he organized marching drills for his nonviolent army, who he called the Khudai Khidmatgar, or Servants of God. Although it wasn\u2019t like the role-playing that Rev. Lawson later used, it probably helped bolster their confidence and solidarity in two ways. First, the strenuous marching helped strengthen their ability to withstand violence. Second, it enabled them to practice their unity and commitment to nonviolence \u2014 which in turn would reduce, though certainly not eliminate, the level of violence levied against them.<\/p>\n

And so it proved to be. A British journalist reported harsher repression used against the Pathans than the Hindus \u2014 \u201cwholesale shootings and hangings.\u201d Nevertheless, the nonviolent movement stayed the course, and the British retreated. Gandhi later praised the Pathans\u2019 role in helping to throw out the mightiest empire the world had ever known.<\/p>\n

People of color and the choice of nonviolent struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n

One function of training is revealed by these examples: It reduces the effectiveness of violent repression from the opponent.<\/p>\n

In this article, I intentionally cite campaigns by people of color. The Global Nonviolent Action Database tells hundreds of stories of wins by peoples of color. One reason people of color so frequently choose nonviolent confrontation is that it offers that chance to win, while also lowering the amount of violence from the opponent \u2014 as compared to what happens when violent means are chosen.<\/p>\n

The database has a searchable field showing whether the opponent uses violence to try to shut down the campaign. Although there are cases in which opponents don\u2019t use violence, it does show up frequently. Training helps campaigners get ready for the possibility, and one problem that\u2019s tackled in training is the problem of fear.<\/p>\n

In struggles between people of color and white opponents, the people of color often have a history of white violence against them, giving them every reason to bring to their campaign a level of fear. The sit-in organizers of the civil rights movement had to take that into account.<\/p>\n

Danny Glover\u2019s excellent film \u201cFreedom Song\u201d shows graphically how SNCC\u2019s training worked to support young people to face the near-certainty of white violence with the expectation of winning and the ability to handle the pain that may accompany the struggle. It\u2019s not unlike people who train for athletic competition: Pain is inevitable, and it\u2019s the conditioning of mind, body and heart that makes winning possible.<\/p>\n

To my surprise I got a personal glimpse of this on a trolley ride in downtown Philadelphia many years ago, when my son was 12 years old. I started a conversation with a man on the seat beside us. He, warming to my black son, said, \u201cYou know, when I was your age I did the best thing I ever did in my life!\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter leaned in, his eyes intent on the man\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from Birmingham,\u201d he continued, \u201cand I was in the children\u2019s march with Dr. King! That was some heavy shit, man. One day firefighters came along with the police and got out their hoses and shot water at us to stop our march.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man chuckled when he saw Peter hold his breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, they got me. That water just knocked me off my feet. You\u2019ve never seen anything like it. All of us just got knocked over. Well, the hoses didn\u2019t get everybody<\/em> \u2014 they started singing \u2018Ain\u2019t gonna let nobody turn us around!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut some of us were hurting and most of us were soaked. So you know what? The next day we did come back \u2014 even more of us kids, and some grown-ups there, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter looked at me to see if he should believe this fantastical tale. I nodded, realizing that we were hearing one of the most dramatic stories of the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWere you hurt?\u201d Peter asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNah, just some bruises,\u201d the man said. \u201cWe just came back the next day, even though now we knew what was goin\u2019 down, and some of our parents said no but we did anyway. You know, going down singing that song about not being turned around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you get any training before you started your day\u2019s march?\u201d I asked the man.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we had to have that, because we met first at the Baptist church, and Jim Bevel and other grown-ups trained us to be nonviolent no matter what happens \u2014 police dogs or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled proudly. \u201cWe were brave, man, and I\u2019ll remember those songs forever. Shit, we won that battle!\u201d<\/p>\n

Glancing up, the man saw his stop was coming, jumped up, gave my son another smile, and gave us a wave as he got off the trolley.<\/p>\n

I finished the story for Peter: The young people won that particular battle in the 1963 Birmingham campaign because the day came when police commissioner \u201dBull\u201d Connor ordered the firefighters to turn on the hoses \u2014 and the men refused.<\/p>\n

The white economic elite began to negotiate with the campaign leadership and forced politicians to make an agreement. Birmingham, Alabama, in the heart of the confederacy, began to desegregate.<\/p>\n

A new training workshop for this political moment<\/strong><\/p>\n

The struggles for justice in many countries are facing critical political situations that require additional skills \u2014 more than just the kind of tactical<\/em> training discussed here so far. Those struggles also need organizational<\/em> training, which shows how to build effective, diverse, leaderful groups and grow the kinds networks and coalitions that can scale up. In societies that are polarizing, such as the United States and Britain, these skills are especially useful because movements can grow rapidly under these circumstances. One organizing resource in this area is something I co-authored with Berit Lakey and others, called \u201cGrassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide to Organizations in Changing Times<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with organizing skills and tactical strength, we need the ability to strategize for nonviolent direct action campaigning. After all, successful nonviolent movements generally use campaign technology to win. The Global Nonviolent Action Database is based on campaigns, along with books like \u201cThis Is an Uprising<\/a>\u201d by Mark Engler and Paul Engler, and \u201cWhy Civil Resistance Works<\/a>\u201d by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan.<\/p>\n

Many well-informed people who participate in protests, however, have no idea that there is such a thing as direct action campaign technology \u2014 let alone that winning depends on understanding and using that technology well. This means vast reservoirs of energy and talent aren\u2019t being fully used.<\/p>\n

When I woke up to this realization, I invented a new, brief training that introduces people to campaign technology. I\u2019ve tested it 15 times, on both coasts and the Midwest, with people active in racial and economic justice, climate, immigrant rights, affordable housing, indigenous rights, healthcare and other issues.<\/p>\n

People reported more clarity and increased ability to see the possibility of positive change. They especially appreciated the easy-to-remember framework for formulating a winning campaign, and that it made strategizing more accessible. Some found that the workshop put them more fully in touch with their own strength and power.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve decided to turn this training over to those who can help spread it further. Two educational centers \u2014 Pendle Hill<\/a> (near Philadelphia) and The Resource Center for Nonviolence<\/a> (in Santa Cruz, California) \u2014 are now sponsoring workshops that train other experienced facilitators to lead my training.<\/p>\n

Successful movements have a learning curve<\/strong><\/p>\n

As far as I can tell from six decades of studying and participating in movements, the most successful ones excel in learning from their unfolding experience. Those that value empowerment of their participants like to find ways to build the learning curve of the \u201ctroops on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1930s, training resources in the United States included the Brookwood Labor College. The Highlander Research and Education Center came along around that time and continues today. In the \u201860s new ones appeared, including the Martin Luther King School for Social Change, where I once taught. Now there are still more, including Momentum, Wildfire and Training for Change. At a time when even movement media soak us in bad news, it\u2019s all the more important that we remember to build our resilience and keep on learning.<\/p>\n

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