The Secret To Making A Non-Violent Revoluton
This Facebook Memory From A Year Ago Brought Back Several More--Some Reflections On Non-Violence, Revolutions, And What The Future Holds--
November 2, 2021
I wrote the Facebook post shared below one year ago today, the day before the election. I wrote it because I was sure that Biden would win but not by the landslide that was needed, and I fully expected the worst from Trump and his fascist followers in response. I had been writing for two years prior, warning of what he would do. Unfortunately I was right.
[[["The arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends toward Justice". (MLK)
Stay true to yourselves, and we can't lose. The biggest question will be how long will it take, and at what cost. How do I know this? Because we worked with some of the people in this picture, just like we worked with people in Eastern Europe, students from China, and leaders of Third World countries. We know that there are ideas and principles which are far more powerful than AR-15's, Confederate Flags and Swastikas, or Secret Police, Walls and prison camps. The fact that we are here to talk about this is a Testament to that inexorable truth. So, stay in control of your thoughts and emotions. Don't let the fear of the coming ugliness steal or demean your personhood, or define you as a victim of hatred. Hatred burns bright and hot, but burns out quickly.
We are all living through big history now. Be a teacher, companion, friend, a source of reason. Don't engage with people who are beyond listening. Now is the very best time to be with young people, and take everything that happens and use it to teach in real time. The good thing about all of this is that so many more people are engaged in real world events, and open, and prepared to listen and learn.
Teaching, educating, motivating. In a time of crisis, that's what an actual revolution is. Nothing else. "]]]
The young man in the picture closest to the camera was Rev James Bevel. He was a leader of SNCC, the Direct Action Coordinator for SCLC for Martin Luther King, the man who organized the Children's March in Birmingham, and a leader of the Selma campaign. He and his wife Diane Nash had a personal working relationship with President Kennedy. Martha and I worked with him before he became mentally ill late in life and did some bad things for which he went to jail where he died. Nevertheless, he made his mark in this world, and it was a big one.
Bevel stayed overnight with us at our house near Philly after speaking at our meeting in our office, and told Martha and I some anecdotes. He elaborated a bit on some themes from his earlier talk on the subject of non-violence. He had shared with us that he wanted to pick up a gun and start shooting White people on the day Dr. King was shot. He was standing in the Lorraine Hotel parking lot on that day,, April 4th, 1968, and about to go into a meeting with King to give him an organizing report on the day's activity in support of the Sanitation workers in Memphis. He was standing there when the shot rang out over his head, and he and his companion Rev James Orange hit the ground. He expected more shots from multiple shooters and was prepared to die.
Afterwards he said that he was considering throwing away his commitment to non-violence, and to literally start arming his people to create a Militia to hunt down and shoot Klansman. He had a serious struggle with himself and others and they talked each other down.
His point to us was that the urge to do violence came from lust, the same wild animal like emotions which flowed from an out of control male specific mating drive, and that it was not our true human nature. He knew because he personally struggled with this part of himself as well.
His advice was that in a crisis, (and he went through many, the jailing of King in Birmingham, the mass arrests of the Children, the Selma "Bloody Sunday", etc) was to not trust your emotions in these situations, and never act on them, unless they impel you to help a person in need. Always to put yourself in the future and the past to see yourself in history at that moment when you are carried away by your emotions, and to remember that we are not animals. (He had a much earthier expression for it that I won't use but I remember with laughter) He believed that living only in the moment, to react with rage and the desire to "strike back" was the animalistic/mating lust at work, and part of our particularly male bestial nature, though not limited only to men. This he believed (after a lifetime of fighting violence and advancing non-violence as a revolutionary strategy) was the ultimate source of both violence and wars. That it was the opposite of connecting our intellect to the Creator of our natural world, in whose image and likeness we are made, and was the ultimate abnegation of our truly human nature.
I learned a lot about violence, and how to overcome it from Rev. Bevel, when he was himself. He understood it from a perspective unlike anyone I've ever known. I needed to learn this, because for three plus decades of political activity, including street organizing, I faced threats of arrest and violence constantly, and was assaulted on several occasions. When the threat of going to jail or the ER everyday hangs over you, you need perspective in your life to manage your emotions and retain your identity, to not cave in to rage or despair, or react out of reflex to provocations, which are flip sides of the same emotion.
The majority of training for the SNCC activists and the Freedom Riders who traveled throughout the South was mastering this discipline and internalizing that sense of identity. This is how they handled suffering, beatings, jailings and humiliation when they went into segregated luncheonettes, bathrooms, and other hostile environments. Not everyone could do it. SNCC training workshops were like CIA training at "The Farm" for surviving captivity, torture and enhanced interrogations. There are documentaries on this on YouTube available for those interested.
In the course of doing a research project and spending time in both Philly and Houston with Rev. Bevel, I was fortunate to be able to draw upon his experiences as "living history" that I could not learn from just reading about him and what he experienced.
And because I learned from him and others, I saw clearly the raw hate driven violence and the racism associated with it in Donald Trump and his movement from its inception. I knew that anything he ever said on so-called issues was merely a fig leaf to cover his true intentions, those of a political arsonist intent on burning the Nation to the ground. I foresaw what he would unleash after he lost the election because I "read" him like a book. I saw him through the eyes of people like Rev Bevel who understood the personality type as well as anyone, having gone head to head with J. Edgar Hoover, and the KKK, with which Trump's daddy was affiliated and sympathetic. Therefore when friends, family and associates became seduced by his campaign in 2015, I began organizing again, albeit without an organization.
Rev. Bevel would have sized up Trump quickly. I can just imagine him speaking behind the podium, saying, "that man is a moral criminal and lives a life of crime, and commits acts of violence in his head every day. You know how I know? I look at his marriage. That's a 'Pimp and a Whore relationship right there', one that is not fully human or sanctified in truth. Their marriage is a lie, and so is his life and everything that comes out of that man's mouth, so help me God". Those who knew him well could imagine the same sermon, complete with F bombs, which is why as a Minister, he could rarely preach in the same Church twice. He didn't have his own church (A note, because Rev. Bevel was married to the immortal Civil Rights heroine Diane Nash, who herself was at the center of action throughout the entire struggle, and whose life has been commemorated in books and film, you could say that for as long as it lasted, that was a real marriage!)
I'm convinced we are headed for the most crisis ridden times, and will need to keep this kind of advice in mind. It's why I know that Trump's hard core movement of so-called Christians are actual barbarians, because everything out of Trump's mouth is a dogwhistle type of incitement to violence, which is incompatible with and exclusive of Christian belief. Their concept of freedom is perverse since it is symbiotic with their obsession with weaponry and the hoarding of wealth.
Look at the Evangelists and Megachurch leaders. Look at their marriages and fake veneer. Their Christianity and piety is as phoney as they look, with their Piano key sized capped teeth, fake smiles, obscene "helmet hair", and ability to cry on demand, especially while fundraising. They are not a church, a denomination or a ministry. They are a Tribe. A gang without "colors". They have armed themselves, their congregations and their neighborhoods. For what, self-defense? No. They are armed for a so-called prophesied final conflict for which they are preparing, which they believe has arrived.
It's there for all to see, that is if we aren't intentionally blind to it.
