“GET ON YOUR FEET” a workshop for organizing peaceful protest with George Lakey

When: Thursday, 2/26, 7 p.m.

Where: Lang Center/Keith Room

George Lakey’s workshop is the final event in the RADICAL DEMOCRACY AND HUMANISM residency sponsored by the William J. Cooper Foundation. The workshop will offer attendees some models for organizing and information regarding preparation for peaceful protest. What questions is it important to answer, individually and as a group, regarding purpose and practice? What tools for action are useful to groups in differing situations? What models from past and current movements can be adapted to a variety of purposes? In this session, George Lakey will show that you *can* go beyond the boring limits of choosing between a march or a rally by coming to this workshop and learning about:
– action logic
– edgy actions
– using actions leadership development
– maximizing the empowerment potential of the actions you design
– one-offs vs. campaigns.

The workshop includes question time on the use of nonviolent direct action compared with other techniques for social change.

George Lakey’s first arrest was in the ‘sixties for a civil rights sit-in; in 2013 he was arrested in a protest against mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. He co-founded a number of social change groups including Movement for a New Society, the Pennsylvania Jobs with Peace Campaign, Men Against Patriarchy, Training for Change, and Earth Quaker Action Team. He has led over 1500 social change workshops on five continents, for a wide variety of groups including homeless people, prisoners, Russian lesbians and gays, Sri Lankan monks, Burmese guerrilla soldiers, striking steel workers, South African activists, Canadian academics, and leaders of indigenous peoples brought together by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in Geneva.