Michael G. Long, "We the Resistance" & Michael Walzer, "Political Action"

This invaluable anthology collects the voices of nonviolent American resistance that standard histories have mostly omitted. Starting with Edward Hart’s 1657 declaration of support for Quakers, it continues with testimonials against slavery and on behalf of Native Americans, then moves on through the nineteenth- and twentieth-century struggles for workers’ and women’s rights, the many anti-war protests, and today’s Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, charting a long and venerable tradition that stands in sharp counterpoint to the official record. Long, an associate professor of religious studies and peace and conflict studies at Elizabethtown College, has gathered first-person stories that make the issues, challenges, and strategies of resistance immediate and urgent, especially as they are being put into practice today.

And

Walzer’s classic handbook is as relevant—even essential—today as it was when it was first published in 1971. Written out of the author’s experience in the 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements, the book isn’t theory, or even a how-to for taking action, but a focused, practical manual describing exactly what movement politics is, what it can and can’t do, how activists can join together in common cause, and when it might be better not to join coalitions. Walzer, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and longtime co-editor of Dissent, addresses a wide range of questions, from the problems that arise when people come together out of a shared sense of outrage and how to decide which and how many issues to address, to the perennial challenges of raising money and providing effective leadership.

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Produced by Tom Warren