Nonviolence before King

Many books have been written about the roots of the American civil rights movement, some general and inclusive, others describing separate pieces of the puzzle: legal or government action, civil rights or labor organizations, preachers, political ideologies, grassroots activism. Nonviolence before King elucidates one idea key to understanding Black civil rights workers' will to act, or refrain from acting, during confrontations with white power. Nonviolent direct action enabled activists not only because it shamed the white establishment with its civility and moral steadiness but also because it became a way of being that empowered its believers. This “politics of being” transformed demeaned Black men and women into Christian soldiers; it made them whole, confident, and able. Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolence profoundly inspired American passivists and pastors such as the members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the American passivist organization that dates from World War I. But Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent resistance was not entirely passive; it was also confrontational: nonviolent direct action challenged southern officialdom to counter or capitulate. Gandhi's influence, Anthony C. Siracusa asserts, “is but a partial explanation of how and why nonviolence emerged as a revolutionary political philosophy in the United States” (p. 10). This book is about the African American roots of King's philosophy

Affirmative action · Black Power · Civility · Direct action · Grassroots · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · White (mutation · Gender Studies · Indian History and Philosophy · Law