Kit Miller

It was my privilege last week to join the refugee youth in the summer leadership program (see their beautiful faces below).  We spoke about the connection between leaders and suffering.  We spoke about how transformational leaders-Mandela, King and Gandhi  among thousands of unknown others- can harness their personal suffering and the collective suffering of their people to move humanity forward.  As I looked into the eyes of these young ones, many of them having witnessed violence and suffering at a scale unknown to most of us, I saw how alive this idea was for them.   The power of ideas, of community and of nonviolence to create unimaginable change was present within all of us in that moment. 

We are working with Rochester City Council and the Mayor's office to have Rochester join dozens of other cities in declaring a day of nonviolence on August 22, to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Dr. King's landmark sermon, 'I Have a Dream'.  Stay tuned on facebook and on the website about a screening of a rare film on King that day that includes footage of that remarkable day fifty years ago.    

Today final work is underway on the exterior of this house to prepare for our third annual Gandhi birthday party on Sunday, September 29, 2-5 pm.  Bhangra dancing, a concert with EIGHT pianos, and more will happen that day.  Please mark your calendar right now!

With love from all of us,

Kit Miller

Director, MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

We are excited to introduce our first installment of "A New World in Action". Each month we will profile a community project that promotes peace and justice in the world.

Rochester, NY: Facing Foreclosure, Leonard Spears Pledges to Stay in His Home

 

Take Back the Land

After Martin Luther King  Jr. led a successful civil disobedience-based mass movement that desegregated the Jim Crow South his life's work moved on to his next phase: organizing against poverty and economic injustice.  In this phase (1966-1968)  Dr. King shifted his attention to the drastic economic inequalities that plagued Northern cities.  When he was assassinated in April 1968 he was organizing a Poor People´s March on Washington to demand not just civil rights but economic human rights for all in the form of an Economic Bill of Rights. 

  

One of the. movements where Dr. King´s dream and struggle live on is through the Take Back the Land Movement which has sprouted up across the United States. Through Take Back the Land homeless and people losing their homes unite to fight for their homes and elevate housing to a human right.  Just as in the Civil Rights Movement people did sit-ins to enforce their civil rights, in the Take Back the Land Movement people are doing live-ins to enforce their human right to housing--often staying in or taking back their foreclosed home without permission from the bank or authorities.  The model is simple.  People going through foreclosure and other community members go door to door contacting others suffering a similar plight and let them know they are not alone and that they can work in solidarity transforming the shame and isolation that often accompany foreclosure and eviction.  Through the process of solidarity, support, and accompaniment by their community people are empowered toward hope and courage to take on the most powerful corporations in the world and defend their homes and their families from displacement.  It soon becomes clear that to win their struggle they must join the struggle of others.   In this process people find each other suffering from a common fate. They discover that they need each other to save one another´s home and strengthen their community for the next fight.   Home defenders find they both give and receive creating reciprocity, balance, and sustainable struggle. 

 

As is often necessary, home defenders and their community must make their case through direct action such as nonviolent eviction blockades and families liberating their homes back after the banks have kicked them out (i.e., live-ins).  And then a remarkable thing happens... families win.  In Boston families working with City Life/Vida Urbana have won their homes back from banks in 28 of the 31 eviction blockades put up since 2008.  In Rochester, families with Take Back the Land Rochester have yet to lose their home through an eviction blockade since 2011.  These dramatic actions force a public moral confrontation to a system that operates amorally and shifts the power.  When fighting on moral grounds, all of sudden David has more standing than Goliath (no matter how many billions of dollars Goliath has).  Each dramatic action is a platform to decry injustice and put forward a vision of a dramatically different society where peace and justice prevail and everybody has access to quality housing and land.