I've decided to name this list the Awesome List. Why? Because.
The Awesome List
Done: Anabaptism, The Schleitheim Confession, Islamic Monasticism
Added: Petr Chelcicky, A. Phillip Randolph, Stonewall, William Lloyd Garrison
Vaclav Havel
A.J. Muste
James Farmer
Bayard Rustin
Trappist Monks
Thomas Merton
Origen
Tertullian
Rene McGraw
Ronald Neihbur
Vinoba Bhave
Jayaprakash Narayan
Fred Hampton
William Langland
John Gower
The Gospel of Matthew
The Sermon on the Mount
Bodhisattvacharyavatara
"Moral Man and Immoral Society"
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
"Piers Plowman"
"The Lover's Confession"
Islamic Monasticism
Petr Chelcicky
A. Phillip Randolph
Stonewall
William Lloyd Garrison
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I had "Islamic Monasticism" on the list because I heard the term used and found it strange. My curiosity was mostly about whether or not there actually was such a thing. I like monks and ascetics in general, so I thought I would have heard about Islamic Monasticism before then. It turns out I was essentially correct. Since it's pretty short, I'll just copy and paste what Wikipedia had to say on the subject:
While most Muslims do not believe in monasticism (emphasizing the Qur'anic injunction [Qur'an 57:27] in which Allah says that monasticism is a man-made practice that is not divinely prescribed), various Muslim Sufi orders, or "tariqas" encourage practices that resemble those of monastic brotherhoods in other faiths.
Dervishes—initiates of Sufi orders—believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. Many of the dervishes are mendicant ascetics who have taken the vow of poverty. Though some of them are beggars by choice, others work in common professions; many Egyptian Qadirites, for example, are fishermen.
All genuine dervish brotherhoods trace their origins from two of the close companions of Muhammad, Ali ibn Abu Talib and Abu Bakr. They differ from spiritual brotherhoods of Christianity in that they usually do not live together in a 'monastery' setting; it is actually a stipulation that they have families, and earn an ethical living.
Whirling dance, practiced by the Mevlevi order in Turkey, is just one of the physical methods to try to reach religious ecstasy (majdhb) and connection with Allah. Rif'ai, in their mystical states, apparently skewer themselves without engendering any harm. Other groups include the Shadhili, a gnosis based order who practice the 'hadra' or 'presence', a dance-like breathing exercise involving the repetition of divine names. All genuine brotherhoods and subgroups chant verses of Qur'an, and must follow their form of sharia, or sacred law.
Traditionally monks in Sufism have been known as fakirs. This term has also been applied to Hindu monks.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
American Revolution Thoughts, List Item 1a
A related list item to Anabaptism that I forgot last time: The Schleitheim Confession was a declaration of Swiss Anabaptist belief in 1527. That Baptism should only be administered to adults who could understand what they were undertaking was the main tenet, with non-violence and refusal to take oaths also being included.
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I just recently finished Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington "His Excellency", and I really liked it. Ellis really brought the man alive for me. This was read in a continuation of a general revival of interest in the Revolutionary Generation. When returning "His Excellency" I checked out the McCullough biography of John Adams, as well as a recent biography of Abigail Adams. In line with all of this, it just seems proper that I post a list!
Top 5 Founding Fathers
5. Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Ellis is almost solely responsible for turning my opinion about Jefferson. A couple of years ago, he might have been at the top of my list instead of the bottom. His radical, revolutionary rhetoric is right up my alley, and judging him just by the Declaration of Independence, his theories of the earth belonging to the living, and how a government should be overturned about once a generation he's my kind of guy. His duplicitous nature and his role in bringing about the Party Wars, the way he betrayed Washington and Adams (and then refused to acknowledge doing so), really turned my opinion of him.
4. Alexander Hamilton - Likewise. I can respect him for his genius (arguably the most genius of all the Founders) and his pragmatic nature. But his part in the Party Wars and his...well...his insanity and his insatiable ambition and appetite for power were his downfall. He ranks slightly above Jefferson because he never made any attempt to hide his nature nor made any apologies for it, but the potential he wasted away is mind boggling. Imagine how much could have been accomplished had he and Jefferson put their heads together instead of butted them constantly.
3. George Washington - What is there to say about Washington? He made a career of giving up power when no one expected him to do so. He could have been the American Napoleon at the end of the Revolution, he could have been King for life after having been elected, but he wisely realized that relinquishing power would set him apart from almost all other men in his position throughout history. And he was right. He is third because I have an affinity for philosophical men rather than military men, but my respect for the man is not slight.
2. John Adams - I'm just another part of the John Adams revival that we're in the middle of going through. Adams' learning, his philosophy, his relationship with his life, his revolutionary virtues...I love it all. It was unfair that history focused so much on people like Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington because their personalities and places in the Revolution were easier to pigeonhole, and it's especially unfair that Adams recognized while he was still alive that that was the way it was going to go down. Thankfully that's being remedied.
1. Benjamin Franklin - Ben Franklin was simply a pimp. The ultimate self-made man, anything this guy set his sights on he accomplished. He was amazingly progressive for his time, he was funny as hell, he was one of the smartest men to ever live, he was like a walking aphrodisiac for the ladies (even if he didn't sleep with very many), and he was always rose above the petty squabbling and hypocrisies of his peers.
Honorable Mention: John Dickinson - I have a fondness for this guy because he's often painted as almost villainous (in the John Adams miniseries, in 1776) because he was so ardently against declaring independence. But he argued against the war for religious reasons (he was a Quaker, and thus staunchly against War) and out of interest in the safety of his fellow Americans (the idea of fighting the revolutionary war still seems like suicide today, even though we know that they won). He wanted independence in a less violent way. He argued till the bitter end, then abstained himself when it became apparent that everyone else was going to vote for Independence...then when it was declared he jumped on a horse and went off to lead a militia. You've got to respect a man so staunch in his beliefs, yet so ardent in his belief in the American cause. In fact, his revolutionary credentials outshone pretty much everyone, including everyone on my list. He was one of the very, very few people involved from the very beginning of the revolution to the very end. He was a major player in the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congresses, and the Constitutional Convention. When he died Jefferson wrote of him, "A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he continued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."
Dickinson proves the exception the the general rule of the American struggle for independence: that rule being that there were three waves, each borne of separate ideas about America and independence, and that the main players of one wave rarely contributed to the others. The first wave, beginning around 1764, was that of the initial agitators. People like Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty, who were probably considered to be terrorists by the English. These were the very first people to call for independence from Britain. Sam Adams, John Dickinson, John Hancock, Caesar Rodney, several others...these were men who had been agitating for a decade, these were the most respected delegates at the Continental Congresses. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin...these guys were either complete unknowns (Jefferson), or absolute newcomers to the cause (Franklin had been a complete supporter and a RESIDENT of England until a few months before). Men like Hancock were made president of the Continental Congress, Sam Adams was an honored delegate; the men of the first wave were given the cushy, prestigious positions, while the newcomers became symbols of the War.
At the end of the war, those with the lengthiest revolutionary credentials again were given the choicest positions. Sam Adams became governor of Massachusetts, John Dickinson became president of Delaware (and Pennsylvania), etc. The major newcomers (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson) were given some pretty good jobs as well, but nothing of that caliber. All the major players of the first two waves had been justly rewarded and were busy with the business of running their new government, secure in their place in history.
Unfortunately for them, some even newer newcomers(Alexander Hamilton, James Madison) were convinced that the Revolution wasn't quite over yet. They staged what was essentially a coup, and replaced the existing government entirely. Most of the major players in the first wave were either long out of public business or at the heights of power, the chief players of the second wave were either across the pond (Adams in England, Jefferson in France) or figureheads (Washington was president of the Constitutional Congress and hardly said a word, Franklin was a participant but was nearly eighty years old at this point), and it was Hamilton and Madison who did all the major legwork and they eventually reaped the rewards.
Ironically, of the people most responsible for the Revolution, those men who initially rebelled against the Empire and worked for over a decade to turn public support against the British, which resulted in the Continental Congresses, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution, not a single one is remembered as one of the chief Founding Fathers. Most are hardly remembered at all.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I just recently finished Joseph Ellis' biography of George Washington "His Excellency", and I really liked it. Ellis really brought the man alive for me. This was read in a continuation of a general revival of interest in the Revolutionary Generation. When returning "His Excellency" I checked out the McCullough biography of John Adams, as well as a recent biography of Abigail Adams. In line with all of this, it just seems proper that I post a list!
Top 5 Founding Fathers
5. Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Ellis is almost solely responsible for turning my opinion about Jefferson. A couple of years ago, he might have been at the top of my list instead of the bottom. His radical, revolutionary rhetoric is right up my alley, and judging him just by the Declaration of Independence, his theories of the earth belonging to the living, and how a government should be overturned about once a generation he's my kind of guy. His duplicitous nature and his role in bringing about the Party Wars, the way he betrayed Washington and Adams (and then refused to acknowledge doing so), really turned my opinion of him.
4. Alexander Hamilton - Likewise. I can respect him for his genius (arguably the most genius of all the Founders) and his pragmatic nature. But his part in the Party Wars and his...well...his insanity and his insatiable ambition and appetite for power were his downfall. He ranks slightly above Jefferson because he never made any attempt to hide his nature nor made any apologies for it, but the potential he wasted away is mind boggling. Imagine how much could have been accomplished had he and Jefferson put their heads together instead of butted them constantly.
3. George Washington - What is there to say about Washington? He made a career of giving up power when no one expected him to do so. He could have been the American Napoleon at the end of the Revolution, he could have been King for life after having been elected, but he wisely realized that relinquishing power would set him apart from almost all other men in his position throughout history. And he was right. He is third because I have an affinity for philosophical men rather than military men, but my respect for the man is not slight.
2. John Adams - I'm just another part of the John Adams revival that we're in the middle of going through. Adams' learning, his philosophy, his relationship with his life, his revolutionary virtues...I love it all. It was unfair that history focused so much on people like Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington because their personalities and places in the Revolution were easier to pigeonhole, and it's especially unfair that Adams recognized while he was still alive that that was the way it was going to go down. Thankfully that's being remedied.
1. Benjamin Franklin - Ben Franklin was simply a pimp. The ultimate self-made man, anything this guy set his sights on he accomplished. He was amazingly progressive for his time, he was funny as hell, he was one of the smartest men to ever live, he was like a walking aphrodisiac for the ladies (even if he didn't sleep with very many), and he was always rose above the petty squabbling and hypocrisies of his peers.
Honorable Mention: John Dickinson - I have a fondness for this guy because he's often painted as almost villainous (in the John Adams miniseries, in 1776) because he was so ardently against declaring independence. But he argued against the war for religious reasons (he was a Quaker, and thus staunchly against War) and out of interest in the safety of his fellow Americans (the idea of fighting the revolutionary war still seems like suicide today, even though we know that they won). He wanted independence in a less violent way. He argued till the bitter end, then abstained himself when it became apparent that everyone else was going to vote for Independence...then when it was declared he jumped on a horse and went off to lead a militia. You've got to respect a man so staunch in his beliefs, yet so ardent in his belief in the American cause. In fact, his revolutionary credentials outshone pretty much everyone, including everyone on my list. He was one of the very, very few people involved from the very beginning of the revolution to the very end. He was a major player in the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congresses, and the Constitutional Convention. When he died Jefferson wrote of him, "A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he continued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."
Dickinson proves the exception the the general rule of the American struggle for independence: that rule being that there were three waves, each borne of separate ideas about America and independence, and that the main players of one wave rarely contributed to the others. The first wave, beginning around 1764, was that of the initial agitators. People like Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty, who were probably considered to be terrorists by the English. These were the very first people to call for independence from Britain. Sam Adams, John Dickinson, John Hancock, Caesar Rodney, several others...these were men who had been agitating for a decade, these were the most respected delegates at the Continental Congresses. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin...these guys were either complete unknowns (Jefferson), or absolute newcomers to the cause (Franklin had been a complete supporter and a RESIDENT of England until a few months before). Men like Hancock were made president of the Continental Congress, Sam Adams was an honored delegate; the men of the first wave were given the cushy, prestigious positions, while the newcomers became symbols of the War.
At the end of the war, those with the lengthiest revolutionary credentials again were given the choicest positions. Sam Adams became governor of Massachusetts, John Dickinson became president of Delaware (and Pennsylvania), etc. The major newcomers (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson) were given some pretty good jobs as well, but nothing of that caliber. All the major players of the first two waves had been justly rewarded and were busy with the business of running their new government, secure in their place in history.
Unfortunately for them, some even newer newcomers(Alexander Hamilton, James Madison) were convinced that the Revolution wasn't quite over yet. They staged what was essentially a coup, and replaced the existing government entirely. Most of the major players in the first wave were either long out of public business or at the heights of power, the chief players of the second wave were either across the pond (Adams in England, Jefferson in France) or figureheads (Washington was president of the Constitutional Congress and hardly said a word, Franklin was a participant but was nearly eighty years old at this point), and it was Hamilton and Madison who did all the major legwork and they eventually reaped the rewards.
Ironically, of the people most responsible for the Revolution, those men who initially rebelled against the Empire and worked for over a decade to turn public support against the British, which resulted in the Continental Congresses, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution, not a single one is remembered as one of the chief Founding Fathers. Most are hardly remembered at all.
Monday, May 3, 2010
List Item #1
I have a tendency for fascination, and in some cases admiration, toward the most extreme variations of a thing. I’m interested in serial killers and in saints, I find fascism and anarchy compelling, I find scripture fascinating and I love blasphemy, my favorite Hindu scriptures are the Upanishads, and my favorite early Christians are the Desert Fathers. When I first studied the Reformation, I was instantly drawn to the Anabaptists, among the most radical of all the reformers.
Anabaptism was essentially a movement within a movement. Every other major split of the Reformation (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicism, etc) was essentially a centralized religion unto itself. Anabaptism, however, was a broad movement of people who wanted to break from Catholicism but found no satisfaction among the mainstream dissidents. Therefore, when speaking of Anabaptism one speaks of a mishmash of several things: religious movements, radical theologians, charismatics proclaiming themselves prophets, and seminal events. Because of its very character, there could be no centralized theology or broad popular movement. Even that which is most identified with the remaining descendents of Anabaptism (the extreme pacifism of the Amish and the Mennonites) cannot be universally applied to the formative Anabaptists. In fact, two of the most violent and militant incidents of the early Reformation, the Peasant’s War and Muster Rebellion, were carried out by Anabaptists.
However, the crazier elements in the early stages of Anabaptism eventually self-destructed, and what prevailed was one of the purest forms of organized Christianity since the early Church. Their non-violence, their radical and anarchic views toward society and cultural mores, and their willingness to separate themselves from the world of material things aligned them as the true heirs of the spiritual wealth of Jesus Christ and the Desert Fathers.
What I’ll Research Because of Researching This: Petr Chelcicky, a fourteenth century theologian and anarchist who was a forerunner of Anabaptism, who I had read about before in Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You” but whose name I kept forgetting.
Anabaptism was essentially a movement within a movement. Every other major split of the Reformation (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicism, etc) was essentially a centralized religion unto itself. Anabaptism, however, was a broad movement of people who wanted to break from Catholicism but found no satisfaction among the mainstream dissidents. Therefore, when speaking of Anabaptism one speaks of a mishmash of several things: religious movements, radical theologians, charismatics proclaiming themselves prophets, and seminal events. Because of its very character, there could be no centralized theology or broad popular movement. Even that which is most identified with the remaining descendents of Anabaptism (the extreme pacifism of the Amish and the Mennonites) cannot be universally applied to the formative Anabaptists. In fact, two of the most violent and militant incidents of the early Reformation, the Peasant’s War and Muster Rebellion, were carried out by Anabaptists.
However, the crazier elements in the early stages of Anabaptism eventually self-destructed, and what prevailed was one of the purest forms of organized Christianity since the early Church. Their non-violence, their radical and anarchic views toward society and cultural mores, and their willingness to separate themselves from the world of material things aligned them as the true heirs of the spiritual wealth of Jesus Christ and the Desert Fathers.
What I’ll Research Because of Researching This: Petr Chelcicky, a fourteenth century theologian and anarchist who was a forerunner of Anabaptism, who I had read about before in Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You” but whose name I kept forgetting.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Non-Violence Essay
I wrote this essay for my aforementioned non-violence class. It's not the best essay (it's the first I've written for a grade in several years), but I think it makes some interesting points.
**********************************************************************************
The Albany Campaign
On December 15th, 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Albany, Georgia at the behest of Dr. W.G. Anderson, leader of the Albany Movement. King had planned to only stay a short while in Albany, but was arrested the next day along with about 700 others. This began a series of non-violent protests and subsequent arrests. On August 10th, 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. called off all demonstrations and left Albany for the last time. The non-violent campaign discussed in the following paragraphs, however, is not that of Martin Luther King Jr., but that of Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett, who studied Gandhian and Kingsian non-violent tactics and tried to subvert them. This essay will discuss why Pritchett’s tactics were a resounding success as well as why they occupy a unique position within the history of non-violence.
“I did research - I found his method was non-violence, that his method was to fill the jails -same as uh, Gandhi in India.” So says Laurie Pritchett in a 1985 interview; ten years earlier, in another interview, Pritchett explained his actions thusly, “Well, as you remember, we had information that Dr. King was coming...And you know his philosophy was non-violence. So we were going on the same philosophy as that. My men would train on non-violence…The men were instructed that if they were spit upon, cussed, abused in any way of that nature, that they …would act in a non-violent approach in that.” Before we begin, it should be said that there were some violent incidents perpetrated by Albany police officers during this period. However, if this is to be used as an argument to invalidate Pritchett’s attempts at non-violence, then the same argument must be used against King. And Gandhi. And Jesus Christ, for that matter. No one of these was, or claimed to be, a perfect controller of human beings. There were violent incidents from both sides in Albany, and there are violent incidents in every non-violent campaign. Another argument leveled against Pritchett is that he was not truly non-violent because he did not practice non-violence as a way of life. I would respond that there is no “true” non-violence. I personally find Pritchett’s actions all the more interesting in that they were used purely as a political strategy, stripped of the usual moral, religious, or ethical accouterments. This is how most young people today perceive non-violence. With that out of the way, I will discuss Pritchett’s specific tactics.
To begin with, the police officers under Pritchett’s jurisdiction actually received formal non-violent training. No matter what they were not to use overt violence, no matter if they were spit on, verbally abused, targeted by thrown bottles, or what have you. In fact, Chief Pritchett adopted the methods used by SNCC to train his officers. Pritchett also prepared himself to subvert the usual tactic of filling the jails. Prior to King’s arrival, Pritchett sat down with a map and made a list of every jail within a sixty mile radius. He then negotiated their use, and though he arrested over two thousand demonstrators his jail was almost always empty. To ensure the safety of these demonstrators, Pritchett sent over his own officers trained in non-violence to keep in line those who had not been trained. With the police acting non-violently, King was denied the media and national attention that Gandhian non-violence requires and that King’s later campaigns in Birmingham and Selma provided in abundance. With the jails never full, Pritchett never reached a point where he was forced to acquiesce to King’s demands due to a negated capacity to arrest anyone. Pritchett also arranged once for King’s bail money to be paid, then required King to leave, thus taking away another staple of modern non-violence: that of the prisoner of conscience. Stymied at every turn, with no significant help coming from the media or from the White House, King agreed to call off the demonstrations upon his third release from jail after an extremely short sentence.
King’s defeat in Albany has been described in terms ranging from “an embarrassing failure” to “a superficial assessment” to an outright victory…for those activists who had been in Albany before King and who remained in Albany after he left. Nonetheless, King considered Albany a failure and it weighed heavily upon his mind as he continued on to Birmingham in his struggle for civil rights. Albany resulted in a major shift in strategy from King, who resolved that, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it.” He decided subsequently to focus on specific, symbolic victories. Unspoken, but apparent, is that he decided subsequently to focus on towns and cities that would guarantee the violence, and thus the media frenzy, that modern, political non-violence requires to be effective.
More even than Pritchett’s victory, or its subsequent effect on the strategy and future victories of the Civil Rights Movement, I find Pritchett’s actions in Albany to be worth discussing for two reasons. First, Pritchett’s Albany campaign is one of, perhaps the only examples of non-violence being used to fight non-violence. Second, this unique status reveals a fundamental flaw in Gandhian/Kingsian non-violence. Flaw is not quite what I mean, but it is the area that non-violence in the 21st century must refashion in order to be effective. The “flaw” is this: modern, political non-violence relies inherently upon violence. In describing Satyagraha Gandhi usually does so in terms of winning the heart of one’s opponent through one’s own suffering, of taking a blow but never giving one, etc. “To lay down one’s life for what one considers to be right is the very core of Satyagraha.” But what if one’s opponent is not inflicting suffering, not giving blows, not trying to kill?
In that case, it seems, the method flounders. King reeled in confusion when faced with a non-violent opponent, and then dove headlong into Birmingham, the most violently racist city in the country. Today there are hundreds of people and organizations in our country protesting non-violently, inspired by Gandhi and King, who are largely accomplishing nothing because the American government rarely reacts to them. Non-violence as a religious or moral way of life, of course, is not affected by these considerations. But non-violence as a political weapon, which is the defining characteristic of modern non-violence, must face this problem head-on if it is to remain potent in the 21st century.
Sources and Citations
1. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Eyes on the Prize, 11-07-1985.
2. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Southern Oral History Program Collection, 04-23-1976.
3. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Style of Leadership” by Dr. Peter J. Ling.
4. Quote from Howard Zinn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Movement
5. King, Martin Luther. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998
6. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi on Non-Violence. New York: New Directions, 1965.
**********************************************************************************
The Albany Campaign
On December 15th, 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Albany, Georgia at the behest of Dr. W.G. Anderson, leader of the Albany Movement. King had planned to only stay a short while in Albany, but was arrested the next day along with about 700 others. This began a series of non-violent protests and subsequent arrests. On August 10th, 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. called off all demonstrations and left Albany for the last time. The non-violent campaign discussed in the following paragraphs, however, is not that of Martin Luther King Jr., but that of Chief of Police Laurie Pritchett, who studied Gandhian and Kingsian non-violent tactics and tried to subvert them. This essay will discuss why Pritchett’s tactics were a resounding success as well as why they occupy a unique position within the history of non-violence.
“I did research - I found his method was non-violence, that his method was to fill the jails -same as uh, Gandhi in India.” So says Laurie Pritchett in a 1985 interview; ten years earlier, in another interview, Pritchett explained his actions thusly, “Well, as you remember, we had information that Dr. King was coming...And you know his philosophy was non-violence. So we were going on the same philosophy as that. My men would train on non-violence…The men were instructed that if they were spit upon, cussed, abused in any way of that nature, that they …would act in a non-violent approach in that.” Before we begin, it should be said that there were some violent incidents perpetrated by Albany police officers during this period. However, if this is to be used as an argument to invalidate Pritchett’s attempts at non-violence, then the same argument must be used against King. And Gandhi. And Jesus Christ, for that matter. No one of these was, or claimed to be, a perfect controller of human beings. There were violent incidents from both sides in Albany, and there are violent incidents in every non-violent campaign. Another argument leveled against Pritchett is that he was not truly non-violent because he did not practice non-violence as a way of life. I would respond that there is no “true” non-violence. I personally find Pritchett’s actions all the more interesting in that they were used purely as a political strategy, stripped of the usual moral, religious, or ethical accouterments. This is how most young people today perceive non-violence. With that out of the way, I will discuss Pritchett’s specific tactics.
To begin with, the police officers under Pritchett’s jurisdiction actually received formal non-violent training. No matter what they were not to use overt violence, no matter if they were spit on, verbally abused, targeted by thrown bottles, or what have you. In fact, Chief Pritchett adopted the methods used by SNCC to train his officers. Pritchett also prepared himself to subvert the usual tactic of filling the jails. Prior to King’s arrival, Pritchett sat down with a map and made a list of every jail within a sixty mile radius. He then negotiated their use, and though he arrested over two thousand demonstrators his jail was almost always empty. To ensure the safety of these demonstrators, Pritchett sent over his own officers trained in non-violence to keep in line those who had not been trained. With the police acting non-violently, King was denied the media and national attention that Gandhian non-violence requires and that King’s later campaigns in Birmingham and Selma provided in abundance. With the jails never full, Pritchett never reached a point where he was forced to acquiesce to King’s demands due to a negated capacity to arrest anyone. Pritchett also arranged once for King’s bail money to be paid, then required King to leave, thus taking away another staple of modern non-violence: that of the prisoner of conscience. Stymied at every turn, with no significant help coming from the media or from the White House, King agreed to call off the demonstrations upon his third release from jail after an extremely short sentence.
King’s defeat in Albany has been described in terms ranging from “an embarrassing failure” to “a superficial assessment” to an outright victory…for those activists who had been in Albany before King and who remained in Albany after he left. Nonetheless, King considered Albany a failure and it weighed heavily upon his mind as he continued on to Birmingham in his struggle for civil rights. Albany resulted in a major shift in strategy from King, who resolved that, “The mistake I made there was to protest against segregation generally rather than against a single and distinct facet of it.” He decided subsequently to focus on specific, symbolic victories. Unspoken, but apparent, is that he decided subsequently to focus on towns and cities that would guarantee the violence, and thus the media frenzy, that modern, political non-violence requires to be effective.
More even than Pritchett’s victory, or its subsequent effect on the strategy and future victories of the Civil Rights Movement, I find Pritchett’s actions in Albany to be worth discussing for two reasons. First, Pritchett’s Albany campaign is one of, perhaps the only examples of non-violence being used to fight non-violence. Second, this unique status reveals a fundamental flaw in Gandhian/Kingsian non-violence. Flaw is not quite what I mean, but it is the area that non-violence in the 21st century must refashion in order to be effective. The “flaw” is this: modern, political non-violence relies inherently upon violence. In describing Satyagraha Gandhi usually does so in terms of winning the heart of one’s opponent through one’s own suffering, of taking a blow but never giving one, etc. “To lay down one’s life for what one considers to be right is the very core of Satyagraha.” But what if one’s opponent is not inflicting suffering, not giving blows, not trying to kill?
In that case, it seems, the method flounders. King reeled in confusion when faced with a non-violent opponent, and then dove headlong into Birmingham, the most violently racist city in the country. Today there are hundreds of people and organizations in our country protesting non-violently, inspired by Gandhi and King, who are largely accomplishing nothing because the American government rarely reacts to them. Non-violence as a religious or moral way of life, of course, is not affected by these considerations. But non-violence as a political weapon, which is the defining characteristic of modern non-violence, must face this problem head-on if it is to remain potent in the 21st century.
Sources and Citations
1. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Eyes on the Prize, 11-07-1985.
2. “Interview with Laurie Pritchett”, Southern Oral History Program Collection, 04-23-1976.
3. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Style of Leadership” by Dr. Peter J. Ling.
4. Quote from Howard Zinn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Movement
5. King, Martin Luther. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. New York: Warner Books, 1998
6. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi on Non-Violence. New York: New Directions, 1965.
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