Sign the Nonviolence Commitment Card -- Help us reach 1,000 signatures

Alycee Lane's book, Nonviolence Now!: Living the 1963 Birmingham Campaign's Promise of Peace got me thinking about the kinds of commitments we make to nonviolence. Have a look at our interview with her here. Lane cautions against the inherently "masculine" accounts of nonviolence in which nonviolence is merely a tactic that better ensures victory for a cause in certain instances. 

But when peace is a personal commitment and a way of life, as Lane insists it should be, it will not only run much deeper within us, but it will also, as a consequence, yield a much more disciplined and ultimately effective movement. Even though it's now 50 years later, today's continuing challenges especially on violence and race in America will benefit from the kinds of cautions and counsels that Lane makes. 

So we at ACN thought it would be good to have another look at the 1963 pledge and to invite others to consider committing themselves to it. 

Even though the original Commitment Card reflected the Christian ethos of much of the movement, many others have since then found other religious and secular ways of articulating their deep concern and personal devotion to the ways of peace.

Read and consider whether you want to take the pledge!

Our goal is 1,000 signatures. Help us reach our goal!

Nonviolence Now! Author Alycee Lane discusses her book

Alycee J. Lane is a former professor who taught African American literature and culture at UC Santa Barbara. She is author of "Coming in from the Cold," a blog in which she analyzes political and social issues through the prism of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence. A student of Engaged Buddhism, Alycee in 2012 participated in the year-long Commit to Dharma course offered by the East Bay Meditation Center under the tutelage of Larry Yang. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Howard University, Doctorate of Philosophy from UCLA, and Juris Doctor from UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall). Alycee currently lives in Oakland, California. Alycee was one of the presenters at ACN's 2015 conference on "Challenges to Nonviolence."

ACN: We were so pleased to meet you when you came to Ashland earlier this year and presented a terrific paper about the ways that the language of nonviolence gets co-opted by official and governmental appeals to "peaceful protests." Now it's great to celebrate the recent publication of your book, Nonviolence Now!: Living the 1963 Birmingham Campaign's Promise of Peace. Could share with us, first of all, the reasons why you wrote this book?

AL: Nonviolence Now! was not the book that I intended to write. What I intended to write was a book on the subject of African Americans and Buddhism – a topic inspired by my participation on the East Bay Meditation Center’s year-long Commit to Dharma (C2D) Buddhism study group, facilitated by Larry Yang. In particular, I was initially interested in the growing African American Buddhist community and how it was thinking through the relationship between African American histories/cultures and Buddhist practices.