The Practice of Nonviolent Direct Action

Whether your work is around climate justice, racial justice, defending elections, or some other concern, this experiential workshop will teach you the theory and practice of nonviolent direct action, drawing on the experience of earlier Quakers, the Civil Rights Movement, and Earth Quaker Action Team. This workshop will teach Friends how to use spiritually grounded…

Workshop Description

Whether your work is around climate justice, racial justice, defending elections, or some other concern, this experiential workshop will teach you the theory and practice of nonviolent direct action, drawing on the experience of earlier Quakers, the Civil Rights Movement, and Earth Quaker Action Team.

This workshop will teach Friends how to use spiritually grounded nonviolent direct action as a method of making change. Sometimes described as “people power,” “disruptive action,” or “peace force,” nonviolent direct action exerts pressure on decision makers directly and nonviolently. It is a strategy Friends have used in many eras, even before the term was coined, as when early Friends refused to pay tithes, even at the risk of imprisonment.

To ground us in what makes this kind of approach effective, we will share social change theories, illustrated by stories from a variety of nonviolent struggles. The facilitator will also share her own experiences and learnings from working with Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) on three campaigns, including our current effort to pressure Vanguard to stop investing in climate destruction. Participant discussion, both in small groups and with the larger group, will be a vital part of this experience, as will participatory exercises.

Each session will begin with at least 20 minutes of worship. (We may hold additional worship in a public place to give participants an experience of staying grounded in worship outside of the meetinghouse, worship being something EQAT has done many times in bank lobbies, shareholder meetings, and most recently in front of the Vanguard CEO’s home). We will discuss the advantages of an ongoing campaign that builds pressure over time and conduct role plays and participatory exercises to teach specific skills, like dealing with the police or an angry bystander. We will also discuss how race and other identities affect people’s experiences playing these roles, and how BIPOC-led movements have addressed these issues.

Our goal is to empower participants to bring greater courage and skill home to their ongoing work, whether it is for climate justice, racial justice, queer rights, election protection, or some other concern. Complementary reading will be suggested but not required. All you need to bring is an open heart.

Although not at all required, participants will have a special opportunity to practice the skills taught in the workshop on Wednesday afternoon when EQAT will be coordinating a field trip to Vanguard’s global headquarters, 13 miles from the Gathering. EQAT is part of a global campaign to pressure the world’s #1 investor in fossil fuels to change course, and we are hoping to make our action during the Gathering our largest yet!

Leader Experience

Eileen Flanagan has led interactive workshops for over thirty years, including at the Gathering, Pendle Hill, several yearly meetings, for many non-Quaker organizations, and in her own online courses. She was the Trainings Coordinator for Choose Democracy, which trained 10,000 people in nonviolent strategies to stop a coup prior to the 2020 election. As clerk of Earth Quaker Action Team for five years and then as one of its co-directors, Eileen has taught the material in this workshop many times, including for multi-racial groups.