Above photo: Campaign Nonviolence.
Nationwide – Between September 21 and October 2, 2024, tens of thousands of people will take nonviolent action to protest violence, war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction as part of the 11th annual Campaign Nonviolence Action Days.
Stretching between the International Day of Peace (Sept 21) to the International Day of Nonviolence (Oct 2), over 100 organizations participate in the effort. In 2023, over 5,000+ actions and events were held across the United States and around the world. More than 3,340 actions and events have already been announced for 2024, with thousands more expected to join in between now and September.
The campaign calls for a range of nonviolent actions, including labor strike solidarity, divestment from fossil fuels and weapons, racial healing circles, nonviolence teach-ins, peace demonstrations, and violence de-escalation trainings. Viewing nonviolence as both the ‘means and the ends’, as M.K. Gandhi expressed it, Campaign Nonviolence and its allies work to dismantle direct, structural, and systemic forms of violence using the tools of active nonviolence.
“Campaign Nonviolence Action Days is a time for our movements to link arms and show how our struggles are connected. It’s also a time to reach out to our communities to share and demonstrate the power of nonviolent solutions, tools, and practices,” says one Campaign Nonviolence coordinator.
Collaborating with organizations like Sandy Hook Promise, Nonviolent Peaceforce, Cure Violence, World BEYOND War, Unity Earth, Pax Christi, and longstanding Peace Day efforts like Peace Day Philly and Peace Week Arkansas, the annual action days highlight and uplift events such as:
– A children’s peace march in Arkansas
– A zone of peace at a housing project in Hawaii
– A street theater demonstration at a military base in California
– A teach-in on Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in Colorado
– A peace proclamation by a mayor in Illinois
– An interfaith protest for the abolition of nuclear weapons in New York City
– A university training on strategic nonviolence in Oregon
– A day-long immersive ‘culture of peace’ festival in Texas
– International violence prevention teams deployed by Cure Violence and Nonviolent Peaceforce
“Amidst the horrors of gun violence, mass shootings, ongoing wars, and political violence, people are longing for a profoundly different society. Campaign Nonviolence offers the tangible solutions of the visionary idea of a culture of peace and active nonviolence.” – Campaign Nonviolence
Through Campaign Nonviolence, historically separate movements are joining forces to tackle these many forms of violence and to build a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.
Those looking to participate can sign-up on their website here: https://paceebene.org/action-days
Campaign Nonviolence was launched September 2014 with over 230 nonviolent actions in every state in the nation and continued in 2015 with 370 nonviolent actions, 760 actions in 2016, 1600 in 2017, 2600 in 2018 and over 4000 in 2020 and 2021. In 2023, over 5000 actions took place.