North Alabama

Committee for

Nonviolent

Action

NACNVA

“…nonviolence has absolutely nothing to do with passive acceptance or acquiescence to evil done to a person or nation. I, for example, am a pacifist, but it makes me ill to have the word associated with passivity. The fact is that nonviolence can be considered as the art of seeking alternatives to violence in conflict, for conflict is inevitable in life.”

– “How Nonviolence Works” by Glenn Smiley, p. 54, from Peace is the Way, 2000

North Alabama Committee for Nonviolent Action (NACNVA)

Quote of the Day:

“…nonviolence has absolutely nothing to do with passive acceptance or acquiescence to evil done to a person or nation. I, for example, am a pacifist, but it makes me ill to have the word associated with passivity. The fact is that nonviolence can be considered as the art of seeking alternatives to violence in conflict, for conflict is inevitable in life.”

– (“How Nonviolence Works” by Glenn Smiley, p. 54, from Peace is the Way, 2000)

History:

Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) brought together in the 1950’s, representatives of all the major pacifist groups. Its purpose was to conduct nonviolent direct action campaigns. It began, under the leadership of a Quaker activist, Lawrence Scott, as an ad-hoc committee called Nonviolent Action Against Nuclear Weapons, which conducted a civil disobedience demonstration during a nuclear bomb test at the atomic proving grounds in Nevada. On August 6, 1957, eleven pacifists crossed over into a prohibited area and were arrested. In 1958, CNVA became a permanent committee dedicated to civil disobedience actions against nuclear weapons. (p. 129, The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States, 1977)

The North Alabama CNVA is modeled on the original national organization principles founded on the power and value of nonviolence actions to effect change.

People of Nonviolence:

M.K. Gandhi, M.L. King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, Jane Addams, Bayard Rustin.

Barbara Deming, A.J. Muste, Shelley Douglass, James W. Douglass, Gene Sharp, Howard Zinn, Brian Willson, David Dellinger, Adin Ballou, Elihu Burritt, Bradford Lyttle, Jeannette Rankin, etc.

Organizations:

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) (1917)

Catholic Worker (1933)

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) (1984)

Code Pink (2002)

Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) (1915)

Pax Christi (1945)

Voices in the Wilderness (1996)

War Resisters League (1923)

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (1915)

Actions:

Boycott (Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dec., 1955)

Civil Disobedience

Fasts

Sit-Ins

Sit Down Strikes

Vigils

Walks

Writing Letters

Withholding of War Taxes

Earliest Recorded case of persecution for a pacifist stance: 1658 when Richard Keene, a Maryland Quaker, refused to be trained as a soldier. He was fined. The sheriff said: “You dog, I could find it in my heart to split your brains,” drew his cutlass and struck him on the shoulder.

(p. 19. The Power of the People)

Suggested Readings:

Peace is the Way: Writing on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Edited by Walter Wink. Maryknoll, NY; Orbis Books, 2000.

Nonviolence in America: a Documentary History. Edited by Staughton Lynd and

Alice Lynd. (1^st ed.: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1966) Revised edition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995.

The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States. Edited by and

produced by Robert Cooney and Helen Michalowski. Culver City, CA: Peace Press, Inc., 1977.

In celebration of the lives of Tom Foxx and Rachel Corrie