The War Resisters League (WRL) is the oldest secular pacifist organization in the United States.
A protest is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate by attending, and share the potential costs and risks of doing so. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations. Protesters may organize a protest as a way of publicly making their opinions heard in an attempt to influence public opinion or government policy, or they may undertake direct action in an attempt to enact desired changes themselves. Where protests are part of a systematic and peaceful nonviolent campaign to achieve a particular objective, and involve the use of pressure as well as persuasion, they go beyond mere protest and may be better described as a type of protest called civil resistance or nonviolent resistance.
The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement. In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but later it became biannual due to difficulties with finding host countries. The conference was last held in 2010. It aims to allow social movements, trade unions, NGOs, refugees, peace and anti-imperial groups, anti-racist movements, environmental movements, networks of the excluded and community campaigns from Europe and the world to come together and discuss themes linked to major European and global issues, in order to coordinate campaigns, share ideas and refine organizing strategies. It emerged from the World Social Forum and follows its Charter of Principles.
Peace Action is a peace organization whose focus is on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, thwarting weapons sales to countries with human rights violations, and promoting a new United States foreign policy based on common security and peaceful resolution to international conflicts.
The Movement for a New Society (MNS) was a U.S.-based network of social activist collectives, committed to the principles of nonviolence, who played a key role in social movements of the 1970s and 1980s.
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is a coalition of more than 1,300 international and U.S.-based organizations opposed to "our government's policy of permanent warfare and empire-building."
Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) is an American independent grassroots network of students opposing the occupation of Iraq and military recruiters in US schools. It was founded prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and claims to be the largest campus-based antiwar organization in the United States.
Nonviolence International (NI) acts as a network of resource centers that promote the use of nonviolence and nonviolent resistance. They have maintained relationships with activists in a number of countries, with their most recent projects taking place in Palestine, Sudan and Ukraine. They partnered with International Center for Nonviolent Conflict to update Gene Sharp's seminal work on 198 methods of nonviolent action through a book publication. NI has also produced a comprehensive database of nonviolence tactics, which stands as the largest collection of nonviolent tactics in the world. They partner with Rutgers University to provide the largest collection of nonviolence training materials in the world.
Stephen Zunes is an American international relations scholar specializing in the Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, and strategic nonviolent action. He is known internationally as a leading critic of United States policy in the Middle East, particularly under the George W. Bush administration, and an analyst of nonviolent civil insurrections against autocratic regimes.
The Washington Peace Center is a nonprofit organization founded and currently located in Washington, D.C., focusing on peace and social justice. The organization provides education, support, and resources to activist groups. The Peace Center aims to strategically link organizations to establish "structures and relationships that are nonviolent, non-hierarchical, humane and just."
Eve Tetaz is a retired American public school teacher and peace and justice activist from Washington, DC. Tetaz was arrested 11 times in 2007 for nonviolent civil resistance during protests against the war and occupation of Iraq. She has been arrested approximately a dozen times between 2008 and early 2010.
Student Peace Action Network or SPAN is the student wing of Peace Action. [1] It is also a coordinating committee member of the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC). [2] SPAN works to end U.S. militarism, nuclear weapons, weapons trafficking, and “the complex webs of corporate and military power that perpetuate racism, damage the environment, deprive people of basic needs, and violate human rights.” [3]It currently has over 130 chapters and affiliates.
A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peace. Some of the methods used to achieve these goals include advocacy of pacifism, nonviolent resistance, diplomacy, boycotts, peace camps, ethical consumerism, supporting anti-war political candidates, supporting legislation to remove profits from government contracts to the military–industrial complex, banning guns, creating tools for open government and transparency, direct democracy, supporting whistleblowers who expose war crimes or conspiracies to create wars, demonstrations, and political lobbying. The political cooperative is an example of an organization which seeks to merge all peace-movement and green organizations; they may have diverse goals, but have the common ideal of peace and humane sustainability. A concern of some peace activists is the challenge of attaining peace when those against peace often use violence as their means of communication and empowerment.
In March 2007, high-profile protests were focused on the Port of Tacoma, in Tacoma, Washington, United States. The protests, which lasted for 11 days, centered on a shipment of Stryker vehicles belonging to the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which were scheduled to ship through the Port of Tacoma to the Iraq War. During the protests, members of Port Militarization Resistance tried to obstruct the shipping operations. A total of 37 protesters were arrested.
Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, constructive program, or other methods, while refraining from violence and the threat of violence. This type of action highlights the desires of an individual or group that feels that something needs to change to improve the current condition of the resisting person or group.
Malachy Kilbride is an Irish-American social justice and peace activist who primarily works with Washington Peace Center in Washington, D.C. He is a former board member of this non-profit organization. He was born in New York City and spent part of his childhood in Dublin, Ireland. He is the son of an Irish immigrant, his father, Aidan Kilbride, and his mother, Mary Moran Kilbride, the daughter of Irish immigrants to New York City. He is the nephew of Fintan Kilbride. He has two brothers, Aidan Jr. and Barney.
Gordon Clark is an American activist and politician. He has served as the National Executive Director of Peace Action, and was a 2008 Green Party candidate from Maryland for the United States House of Representatives in 2008.
Stellan Vinthagen is a professor of sociology, a scholar-activist, and the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he directs the Resistance Studies Initiative. He is also Co-Leader of the Resistance Studies Group at University of Gothenburg and co-founder of the Resistance Studies Network, as well as Editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies, and a Council Member of War Resisters International (WRI), and academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). His research is focused on resistance, power, social movements, nonviolent action, conflict transformation and social change. He has since 1980 been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has participated in more than 30 nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served in total more than one year in prison.
George Russell Lakey is an activist, sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.
