nonviolent resistance

(noun)

The practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, or other methods, without using violence.

Related Terms

Examples of nonviolent resistance in the following topics:

  • Forms of Disagreement

    • Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance.
    • It is one form of civil resistance.
    • This can include nonviolent and less often violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action participants.
    • Examples of direct action can include strikes, workplace occupations, sit-ins, tax resistance, graffiti, sabotage, hacktivism, property destruction, blockades, and other forms of community resistance.

  • Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement

    • African Americans and other racial minorities resisted this regime in numerous ways and sought better opportunities through lawsuits, new organizations (such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), political redress, and labor organizing.
    • Board of Education decision in 1954, civil rights organization broadened their strategy to emphasize "direct action"—primarily boycotts, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, marches and similar tactics that relied on mass mobilization, nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience.

  • Types of Social Movements

    • Methods of Work: Peaceful movements utilize techniques such as nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience.

  • Civil Rights

    • They were faced with "massive resistance" in the South by proponents of racial segregation and voter suppression.
    • In defiance, African-American activists adopted a combined strategy of direct action, nonviolence, nonviolent resistance, and many events described as civil disobedience, giving rise to the African-American Civil Rights Movement of 1954–1968.
    • Robinson's character, his use of nonviolence, and his unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation which then marked many other aspects of American life.

  • Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides

    • Sit-ins and Freedom Rides were nonviolent civil rights actions used to challenge segregation and racial discrimination.
    • Using the strategy of nonviolent resistance, students across the south began these sit-ins, and local authorities often used brutal force and violence to physically remove and restrain the activists.
    • The students generally viewed any media coverage as helpful to their cause, especially when it illustrated their commitment to nonviolence.
    • The sit-ins inspired other forms of nonviolent protest intended to desegregate public spaces.
    • Students also took part in the 1961 “freedom rides” organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

  • The Expansion of the Civil Rights Movement

    • The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance.
    • During the 1960s, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities.
    • As a result of her actions, in April 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed to carry the battle forward.
    • The sit-ins inspired other forms of nonviolent protest intended to desegregate public spaces.
    • Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman and activist who championed racial equality through nonviolence yet fierce resistance.

  • The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement

    • The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance.
    • Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities.
    • The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. 
    • Faubus' resistance received the attention of President Dwight D.
    • Many black Americans in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC; one of the major organizations of the movement) developed concerns that white activists from the North were taking over the movement.

  • Martin Luther King, Jr.

    • He is best known for his practice of nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.
    • The campaign used nonviolent but intentionally confrontational tactics, developed in part by Rev.
    • On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.
    • Veteran African-American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin was King's first regular advisor on nonviolence.
    • This trip affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and reinforcing his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights.

  • The Role of Religion in the Civil Rights Movement

    • SCLC's advocacy of boycotts and other forms of nonviolent protest was controversial.
    • The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner "Bull" Connor, stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists.
    • After weeks of various forms of nonviolent disobiedience, the campaign produced the desired results. 
    • Nonviolent mass marches demanded the right to vote, and the jails filled up with arrested protesters, many of them students.
    • Beginning in the 1950s, individual Klan groups in Birmingham, Alabama, began to resist social change and blacks' efforts to improve their lives by bombing houses in transitional neighborhoods.

  • Civil Rights and Voting Rights

    • Russell stated: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states."
    • Other impediments remained, however, especially in the form of violence and resistance from white voters.
    • While Congress played an important role by passing the Acts, the actions of civil rights groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) were instrumental in forging new paths, pioneering new techniques and strategies, and achieving breakthrough successes.
    • Attempts to register southern African American voters continued to encounter white resistance, and protests against this interference often met with violence.