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Mar 23, 2022

"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers." --Bayard Rustin

Revolutions and the Politics of Being

Anthony Siracusa studies the power of successful and enduring social movements from the grist of deep life experience. He has spent his life practicing -- and then studying and teaching -- how ordinary people find courage and the in-dwelling light that compels them to assert their power and humanity in the face of deprivation, dehumanization and injustice not principally as a form of protest, advocacy or activism, but first and foremost as a way of being and living in the world with integrity, of asserting their full humanity. The politics of being rather than strategy or activist tactics has, according to Siracusa, animated the most enduring and transformative social movements in history. What follows is an excerpt from his compelling book, 'Nonviolence before King: The Politics of Being and the Black Freedom Struggle.'