The first major documentary biography of civil rights hero, congressional…
Citizen George
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Citizen George presents the life and work of Philadelphia-based Quaker activist George Lakey, a non-violent revolutionary who has worked his entire life for justice and peace, guided by his ideal of societal transformation.
Called "a civil rights legend" by The Guardian, George was born into a working-class family in rural Pennsylvania, worked in factories, and conducted sociological research at the University of Pennsylvania while learning to build movements for justice and peace. When he was nine years old, George preached about civil rights and equality. He was first arrested in the civil rights movement, risked his life in Vietnam in the struggle against that war, came out publicly as bisexual, and, more recently, as an 85-year-old great-grandfather of a large interracial family, committed civil disobedience for climate justice. George has led over 1500 social justice workshops on five continents, started movement-building organizations including Jobs with Peace and Earth Quaker Action Team, taught at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, and is the author of eleven books.
Citizen George moves back and forth in time, highlighting specific events of George’s activist life, his spiritual inspiration, and the dynamic role that community plays in enabling him to face danger and violence. His experiences as an activist are intertwined with his personal journey as a husband, father and out gay man. George’s Quaker roots have been the foundation for his work in many movements that have shaped our world: Ban the Bomb Movement, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Civil Rights Movement, LGBTQ Liberation Movement, Anti-Apartheid Movement, and the Climate Justice Movement. The film blends archival footage, contemporary verité footage of George in action, and interviews with colleagues and family members. Animated sequences, inspired by graphic novels, illustrate scenes from George’s life. The scenes are narrated by George, and feature excerpts from his memoir “Dancing with History.”
The thread that ties this remarkable life story together is a passion for change. Since the age of 19, George has been conscious of his life’s purpose – to use whatever gifts he has to work for justice and peace. Today, at 86 years of age, George’s message of a nonviolent revolution is more urgent than ever. His story will inform those struggling to make sense of the current troubling political climate, illuminate a path forward, and inspire those willing to work for change to face today’s moment. Citizen George paints a portrait of a deeply human, determined individual who is unstoppable and unflappable in his quest for a fair and just world.
"An awesome story of an awesome man - who shows that all of us have a deep role to play in standing up to power and opening new possibilities for justice." —Bill McKibben, Environmentalist, Author, Educator, Journalist, Founder of Third Act
"This is more than just a good biographical film. It is a call for action. It's about the importance of thinking strategically. It's about the connections between the personal and political. It's about overcoming fear and self-doubt to make a difference in the world. Citizen George is one of the most hopeful and inspirational films you'll ever see." —Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics, Director of Middle Eastern Studies, University of San Francisco, Author, Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective
"A powerful tribute to a great activist leader and social movement mentor. If you don't know about George Lakey's extraordinary career there's no better way to learn than taking in this panoramic portrait of a life well lived in pursuit of peace and justice." —Mark Engler, Co-author, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century
"Citizen George is a well-timed documentary that offers important lessons for navigating today's era of political conflict with hope and courage...Community plays a complementary role in many of George's stories. Although the film features George, in most scenes, he is part of a group. Even the making of this film was a communal experience...As people brace for the coming election and its aftermath, we need to remember that what we can face together is much greater than what we can face alone." —Eileen Flanagan, Waging Nonviolence
"Citizen George is an inspiring tribute to George Lakey's lifelong dedication to peace and justice. Lakey's prophetic voice shines through in this film, offering a vision of inclusive community and leadership rooted in both vulnerability and rigorous, systematic study. The film's portrayal of his personal journey, including his coming out story and enduring rejection, invites us to see Lakey as a true 'channel of peace.'" —Deeb Paul Kitchen, Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of Peace and Justice Studies, Marian University
"Citizen George is not only about one person, it is also a testimony to the power of organizing and movements for real change through nonviolent action. This earnest exploration of a life dedicated to peace invites us to ask how we might be better, do better, and then points the way through the story of nonviolence. George's persistent hope will inspire you in these contested times and teach you how to dance with history for effective social change." —Mike Klein, Associate Professor and Director, Justice and Peace Studies, University of St. Thomas
"The humanity of Citizen George is refreshing. This is a powerful testament to the power and importance of strategic nonviolence in a world that often fails to interrogate its violent dominant cultural discourse. This film can used in a classroom to explore themes of commitment, dedication, the complexities of intersectionality and critiques of white saviorism, action research, and, of course, strategic nonviolence. Even someone familiar with the work of George Lakey will learn more about his life and the socially constructed resistance to his counter-cultural ideas from watching this engaging film." —Jeremy Rinker, Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of North Carolina-Greensboro
"The story of George's life is a look into the history of American social movements of the last 70 years. More than that, it is an inspiration for activists today; it is a manual for individual empowerment through collective action for social change. This film offers hope, guidance, and a reaffirmation of the power of people. We need George's vision today more than ever." —Mark Leier, Professor of History, Simon Fraser University, Author, Roles of Resistance: Game Plans for Teachers and Troublemakers
"We need more George Lakeys - his is a story of hope. He is the community organizers' organizer. This is the story of a person deeply invested in making the world a better more humane place, where love and peace provides a counter narrative that the world only moves forwards with violence." —Greg Carroll, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Associate Director, Center for Childhood and Youth Studies, Salem State University
"Citizen George is a powerful, thought-provoking call to action. This invitation to non-violent protest as a catalyst of change is profound and crosses all identities we may carry. I truly recommend that this film is shown to all audiences." —Sue Patterson, Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Pennsylvania State University-Altoona
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Distributor subjects
Sociology,Social movements,History Social studies,Civics,Psychology,Religion,American studies,war and peace Peace studiesKeywords
[00:00:00.03]
[film reel rolling]
[00:00:11.03]
- I think this moment is
the biggest opportunity
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I have experienced in my lifetime
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to make major change for justice.
[00:00:21.07]
♪ ♪
[00:00:24.07]
If you look at history,
[00:00:26.04]
the biggest positive changes happen
[00:00:29.07]
in periods of enormous polarization.
[00:00:32.08]
I'm thinking about the climate crisis,
[00:00:34.08]
and there's a reason
for standing right here,
[00:00:37.05]
because this bank is
financing the development
[00:00:41.00]
of fossil fuels that's responsible
[00:00:43.02]
for the wildfires in California,
[00:00:45.04]
for the floods right here in Pennsylvania.
[00:00:48.01]
They are creating the problem right now
[00:00:50.08]
by financing the problem.
[00:00:52.06]
Polarization is a time
when we can stop them,
[00:00:55.02]
because we can build the mass movements
[00:00:57.04]
that are needed to do that.
[00:00:59.02]
- [Sara] George is a force,
[00:01:01.03]
unequivocally committed to justice.
[00:01:03.07]
♪ ♪
[00:01:07.08]
- [Zein] He's big and he's unapologetic.
[00:01:10.04]
- [Dwight] He is a rebel.
[00:01:11.06]
[protesters chanting]
♪ ♪
[00:01:13.05]
He's got the full jersey and warmup pants,
[00:01:15.07]
he's got everything, the
headband that says "Rebel."
[00:01:17.07]
That's who he is.
[00:01:19.01]
- [Dwayne] I think George
wants to see a world
[00:01:20.03]
where everybody's at peace,
that nobody's in poverty,
[00:01:22.06]
or suffering, that
everybody can be recognized
[00:01:25.02]
for who they are and respected for that.
[00:01:27.04]
- [Johnny] George's big vision
[00:01:28.07]
is that all the movements get stronger
[00:01:31.02]
and join together into
a movement of movements
[00:01:34.00]
that's able to ultimately win the day,
[00:01:36.05]
so that we get to live in the
world that we wanna live in.
[00:01:39.00]
- [George] We're not slaves
to conventional thinking.
[00:01:41.03]
People will spontaneously innovate.
[00:01:44.01]
- [Alexa] Change does
happen in fits and starts,
[00:01:46.07]
but it's the kind of steady
year in and year out work
[00:01:50.08]
that I think George has
been doing for decades
[00:01:53.04]
that has had an impact on the world.
[00:01:56.03]
- [Dwayne] Fighting around disarmament,
[00:01:58.02]
fighting around civil rights,
[00:01:59.07]
fighting for LGBTQIA rights,
[00:02:01.09]
he's still going strong at 85 today.
[00:02:04.05]
You have to be deeply rooted in hope,
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and you've got to love humanity enough
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that you wanna see humanity do better.
[00:02:11.01]
- We don't deserve the
United States of America
[00:02:13.09]
the way it is right now.
[00:02:14.09]
We deserve a transformed United States,
[00:02:17.08]
but we can only do it with huge
numbers of people in motion
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to take on the forces that oppose us.
[00:02:25.06]
Let's do it.
[00:02:26.05]
♪ ♪
[00:02:38.06]
[protesters talking]
[train clanking]
[00:02:43.07]
[train horn honking]
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- Chester was Pennsylvania's
first city that was founded.
[00:02:50.08]
William Penn came here, and
Martin Luther King came here.
[00:02:53.01]
Have a rich history,
but nobody knows that.
[00:02:56.00]
The residents don't know that,
[00:02:57.06]
because they were told their
value is what they see.
[00:03:00.09]
And when they see their
environment was full of trash,
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they feel like they're trash.
[00:03:05.03]
They feel like they're not worth anything.
[00:03:06.09]
- Chester has been an
intentionally defunded
[00:03:10.00]
toxic dumping ground
[00:03:11.09]
because it is a predominantly Black city.
[00:03:15.00]
[protesters cheering]
♪ ♪
[00:03:15.08]
- Our existence on this
planet is being put
[00:03:18.03]
into increasing question, of
course, by the economic elite.
[00:03:22.02]
- The oil refinery is
owned by Delta Airline.
[00:03:25.04]
Guess who's the biggest
investor in Delta Airline?
[00:03:28.01]
- Vanguard!
- Vanguard.
[00:03:30.01]
- Chester is a majority Black city,
[00:03:32.02]
it is a textbook case of
environmental injustice.
[00:03:36.09]
There's an oil refinery,
there's a chemical plant,
[00:03:40.02]
there's an incinerator.
[00:03:41.08]
Industry after industry
polluting the community,
[00:03:44.09]
and when we started to dig into it
[00:03:46.09]
we realized that most of them
are Vanguard investments.
[00:03:50.04]
Vanguard is one of the biggest
asset managers in the world.
[00:03:53.07]
- We want everything that
every other human being wants,
[00:03:57.07]
the right to live in a
clean and decent place.
[00:04:00.09]
And we got the frickin' right to breathe!
[00:04:03.01]
[protesters applauding]
[00:04:04.00]
- We are here the very
first day of this long walk.
[00:04:08.01]
- In the tradition of the
civil rights movement,
[00:04:10.02]
we decided to have a walk
from the city of Chester
[00:04:13.09]
to Vanguard's headquarters in Malvern.
[00:04:16.09]
- I was barely out of my teenage years
[00:04:19.08]
when I was recruited into a long walk.
[00:04:22.06]
The cause was that there was
leukemia being caused in babies
[00:04:27.03]
by nuclear testing in the atmosphere.
[00:04:30.00]
That long walk gathered
energy in such a way
[00:04:34.00]
that the movement could grow,
and the movement won.
[00:04:38.07]
And that's what this long
walk is about, as well.
[00:04:41.07]
♪ You gotta walk the walk ♪
[00:04:43.06]
A walk not only gets publicity,
[00:04:45.07]
but it also builds people's confidence
[00:04:49.01]
in each other and in themselves.
[00:04:51.01]
It's a safe and smart way
of changing the world.
[00:04:55.02]
♪ We're gonna live our lives for justice ♪
[00:04:58.06]
♪ Live our lives for justice ♪
[00:05:02.00]
- It takes a leader of a certain kind
[00:05:04.00]
to actually cultivate and
nurture other leaders.
[00:05:06.09]
♪ Never turning ♪
[00:05:08.01]
George has so much wisdom,
he has so much experience,
[00:05:10.08]
but I've seen him lead by following.
[00:05:14.08]
- Woo!
[protesters cheering]
[00:05:17.02]
He wants to see everyone
lead in their communities
[00:05:20.04]
in big, bold, visionary ways.
[00:05:23.04]
- My dad is such a good Quaker.
[00:05:25.02]
He's such a good Quaker.
[00:05:27.00]
It was just such a funny thing,
[00:05:28.03]
like, what does it mean to
be a good Quaker, right?
[00:05:31.07]
What I think it means
is to have integrity,
[00:05:35.09]
to, like, live your purpose.
[00:05:39.07]
It doesn't mean that
you're a perfect being.
[00:05:41.09]
It's not about an ego trip.
[00:05:43.04]
It's not about, like, "How
do I get on the front page?"
[00:05:46.04]
It's really about, "What is
Spirit calling on me to do?"
[00:05:50.05]
And that's part of his Quaker
activist special sauce.
[00:05:55.01]
♪ Turning back ♪
[00:05:56.04]
♪ Never turning back ♪
[00:05:59.01]
[traffic noise]
♪ ♪
[00:06:06.07]
He's lived this incredibly
courageous, big life
[00:06:11.06]
that his parents could
never have imagined for him.
[00:06:14.09]
- So this is the house where I grew up.
[00:06:19.01]
Full of memories, and a house
with a lot of joy in it.
[00:06:25.06]
The town I grew up in
[00:06:26.08]
is a small town surrounded
by huge piles of slate.
[00:06:32.06]
I come from a tribe of miners.
[00:06:35.05]
My uncles, my grandfathers,
[00:06:37.09]
my dad had all spent at least
part of their working lives
[00:06:42.01]
in slate mines, so it was a very robust
[00:06:45.04]
working class identification.
[00:06:48.09]
Bangor had no Black
people in its boundaries,
[00:06:51.09]
it was all white people,
[00:06:53.05]
and so this town had a lot of racism.
[00:06:56.02]
♪ ♪
[00:06:57.05]
Well, my dad believed in racial equality,
[00:07:00.05]
and he was a very argumentative Dad.
[00:07:02.03]
I learned to argue from him.
[00:07:04.00]
And one of the ways that he would like to
[00:07:05.09]
stir things up at the
workplace was he would say,
[00:07:08.02]
"I have an idea.
[00:07:09.05]
"I want Ralph Bunche,"
[00:07:11.00]
who was the best known Black person
[00:07:12.07]
in American political life at that time,
[00:07:15.00]
"to run for President so
I could vote for him."
[00:07:18.05]
Everybody would turn on him
[00:07:20.03]
and just eeally, really rag on him
[00:07:22.09]
for the very preposterous idea
[00:07:25.05]
that a Black person should
be in the White House.
[00:07:27.04]
And he came home very proud
to tell us all about it,
[00:07:30.07]
and we were, like, cheering him on.
[00:07:33.09]
I was brought up by a mom
who was extremely religious
[00:07:38.07]
and very connected to
the Evangelical Church.
[00:07:42.00]
♪ ♪
[00:07:44.03]
This is the church I grew up in.
[00:07:45.08]
♪ ♪
[00:07:48.02]
I was very much at home in my church.
[00:07:53.00]
This window is really central for me,
[00:07:55.04]
because it was a totally
caring presentation of Jesus.
[00:08:00.08]
That was what I wanted,
[00:08:02.04]
a God who cared about me
and cared about all of us.
[00:08:06.03]
♪ ♪
[00:08:07.08]
At age 12, I stood out as a
particularly religious boy
[00:08:12.05]
who also liked to talk.
[00:08:14.08]
Some of the elders in the church thought
[00:08:17.09]
I might have the makings
of being a child preacher.
[00:08:21.06]
And so the minister told me,
[00:08:23.08]
"George, a month from now,
[00:08:25.09]
"you're going to be in the pulpit
[00:08:27.08]
"and you're going to deliver a sermon."
[00:08:29.08]
♪ ♪
[00:08:34.01]
I prayed earnestly for a theme,
[00:08:36.04]
a message that God wanted me
to bring to the congregation,
[00:08:40.00]
and what came to me most clearly was
[00:08:42.06]
that God wanted me to tell
people that it was His will
[00:08:47.05]
that there should be racial
equality in the land.
[00:08:52.02]
And so that was the sermon I wrote.
[00:08:56.04]
My heart began to pound
[00:08:57.09]
when I opened the tall
doors to the sanctuary
[00:09:01.01]
and walked to the front,
[00:09:03.00]
the organ swelling on the
early notes of the Prelude.
[00:09:06.08]
The Minister and I sat in
matching heavy oak chairs,
[00:09:11.01]
as hard and uncomfortable
[00:09:12.08]
as much the theology that inspired them.
[00:09:15.06]
[George chuckles]
[00:09:16.05]
My legs were going like this.
[00:09:17.08]
They were shaking.
[00:09:18.07]
I was really terrified.
[00:09:20.08]
I felt very much like a 12-year-old.
[00:09:23.02]
[laughing]
[00:09:25.01]
Finally, the moment
for the sermon arrived,
[00:09:27.06]
and I went for it, lacking the confidence
[00:09:30.02]
to release my full
passion but nevertheless
[00:09:33.05]
speaking loudly and emphatically.
[00:09:36.08]
"God", I preached,
"wants racial equality."
[00:09:41.04]
I cited biblical references
[00:09:43.02]
and what I thought was common sense.
[00:09:46.04]
I couldn't tell from looking
at the faces of the grownups
[00:09:49.02]
how they felt about what I was saying.
[00:09:52.03]
As the nervousness lessened,
I thought to myself
[00:09:55.03]
that the sermon was coherent,
[00:09:57.05]
persuasive, an airtight case.
[00:10:01.07]
After the final hymn, I went
with the Minister to the door
[00:10:04.09]
of the church to shake hands
as people left the service.
[00:10:08.05]
Did I pass my audition?
[00:10:11.00]
Would I be encouraged to
become a boy preacher?
[00:10:15.03]
No one commented on the sermon
[00:10:17.07]
except in the most general
and condescending ways.
[00:10:22.01]
I expected the preacher and the elders
[00:10:24.00]
who had asked me to preach
[00:10:25.06]
to circle up and
congratulate me on the sermon
[00:10:29.02]
and discuss next steps in my
formation as a boy preacher.
[00:10:33.09]
Instead, when the last member
left, they hastily dispersed.
[00:10:40.02]
The message was clear: "Don't
call us, we'll call you."
[00:10:46.08]
I couldn't understand
what was so objectionable
[00:10:50.06]
about the nature of the
sermon that I preached,
[00:10:54.07]
and figuring that out
was an important part
[00:10:58.02]
of my adolescence, realizing, yes,
[00:11:01.09]
God does want racial equality,
but that doesn't mean
[00:11:04.09]
that all His people are ready for that.
[00:11:07.03]
♪ ♪
[00:11:10.02]
- Growing up in a white
working class town,
[00:11:13.04]
he was like a fish out of water.
[00:11:15.05]
He would just put himself out there
[00:11:18.02]
even though he was so different,
[00:11:21.03]
which I think sometimes was lonely.
[00:11:23.01]
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
[00:11:26.08]
[book pages turning]
[00:11:30.04]
- Oh my gosh, I looked like such a geek.
[00:11:34.06]
I was a geek.
[00:11:36.03]
And a fun loving one, if
that's possible to be both.
[00:11:39.04]
[laughing]
[00:11:41.03]
George Lakey, band, librarian,
student director of the band,
[00:11:47.00]
"'Don't be a conformist'
[00:11:48.08]
"will undoubtedly be the
advice George will give.
[00:11:52.00]
"His favorite pastimes are
music, literature, and talking.
[00:11:55.08]
"For the latter of these
avocations, however,
[00:11:58.06]
"he will be longest remembered."
[00:12:01.04]
[laughing]
♪ ♪
[00:12:07.07]
- One of the things about
George that I find intriguing
[00:12:09.07]
is that this is a man that
can go in any community
[00:12:12.03]
and build relationships.
[00:12:13.07]
♪ ♪
[00:12:16.05]
I was fascinated when I found out
[00:12:18.01]
that he went to Cheyney University,
[00:12:19.09]
the oldest Black
university in the country.
[00:12:23.07]
George went to Cheyney in the '50s,
[00:12:26.01]
when that would've been
unheard of for a white person
[00:12:28.06]
to go to a Black university.
[00:12:30.04]
And I think that that says
something very much about him,
[00:12:32.09]
that there's a deep desire
[00:12:34.05]
to be with the other and to be the other.
[00:12:37.01]
♪ ♪
[00:12:38.06]
- I was the only white
student in the dorm,
[00:12:40.09]
and as it turned out
[00:12:42.00]
there were students
who didn't want me here
[00:12:44.06]
because they found it a relief
[00:12:46.07]
not to have white people
around to worry about,
[00:12:48.08]
and then there were students
who really welcomed me.
[00:12:51.08]
So I just threw myself
into the campus life.
[00:12:55.00]
Lots going on intellectually,
lots going on socially.
[00:12:58.01]
I became the pianist for the
choir, and loved it here.
[00:13:02.02]
Of course, I must have
made a zillion mistakes,
[00:13:04.07]
I must have been very annoying.
[00:13:06.09]
But I was lapping up new experience.
[00:13:09.07]
♪ ♪
[00:13:13.07]
♪ ♪
[00:13:16.01]
When I was in college, I was searching.
[00:13:19.09]
I wasn't so sure that there was a God,
[00:13:22.05]
as I had been earlier,
[00:13:24.04]
and I was curious about how other people
[00:13:26.06]
dealt with that question.
[00:13:29.02]
There was no church of my
denomination in that college town,
[00:13:32.03]
and so each Sunday I would
go to a different one.
[00:13:34.06]
I'd find out, what are
the Presbyterians up to?
[00:13:36.04]
What are the Baptists up to?
[00:13:37.06]
And so I was sampling
all these different ones.
[00:13:40.04]
One of them was a Quaker meeting.
[00:13:42.04]
♪ ♪
[00:13:43.09]
And without any orientation,
I was amazed that people
[00:13:47.09]
just sat there silently.
[00:13:49.02]
[laughing]
[00:13:50.01]
I kept waiting for the service to start,
[00:13:52.04]
and then I got "Oh, yes,
it's already started."
[00:13:58.03]
In a Quaker meeting, people sit in silence
[00:14:00.07]
until someone's moved to speak and share.
[00:14:07.05]
I was used to quiet being
just an intermission
[00:14:10.01]
between something happening.
[00:14:12.05]
And instead, what I found
in that Quaker meeting was
[00:14:15.04]
that it was the quiet that was happening.
[00:14:20.03]
It was in Quaker meeting
that I went deeper.
[00:14:22.05]
I felt more responsiveness
from Spirit, more guidance.
[00:14:27.05]
♪ ♪
[00:14:32.06]
On the way out,
[00:14:34.04]
one of the things on the
bulletin board was a message
[00:14:38.00]
that Quakers should be
writing their Congress members
[00:14:41.03]
to oppose the military draft.
[00:14:44.00]
And I thought, oh, that's right.
[00:14:45.07]
Quakers are pacifists.
[00:14:48.00]
Well, that's not me then.
[00:14:50.04]
That's really a kind of a
ridiculous, off the wall idea.
[00:14:54.08]
My dad had been in the
military in World War II.
[00:14:57.09]
I'd actually lost an
uncle in World War II.
[00:15:01.02]
Everybody in my family assumed,
[00:15:03.02]
as did the mainstream
of the whole country,
[00:15:05.04]
that the military way is
the way to defend yourself
[00:15:08.00]
and violence is necessary.
[00:15:10.09]
I spent a year wrestling with
this question of pacifism,
[00:15:14.06]
and it seemed that the
moral weight is on the side
[00:15:17.08]
of trying something other than
hurting or killing someone,
[00:15:22.02]
which is actually very hard to justify
[00:15:24.08]
if there's an alternative.
[00:15:26.01]
♪ ♪
[00:15:28.04]
When I was 19, I spent the
summer with a Quaker work camp.
[00:15:34.00]
It was in Lynn, Massachusetts,
which has a wonderful beach,
[00:15:37.04]
and I loved walking on that beach
[00:15:40.06]
when I needed alone time.
[00:15:43.07]
Something that was very
much on my mind was,
[00:15:46.05]
what's my life about?
[00:15:49.00]
And it really came to a head one night.
[00:15:52.08]
I walked for hours and hours,
[00:15:55.04]
back and forth, looking at the sea,
[00:15:58.00]
and asking God,
"What am I really to do?"
[00:16:01.07]
And the message became clear as crystal.
[00:16:06.02]
My life was to be about social change,
[00:16:09.07]
about moving society toward justice.
[00:16:12.07]
♪ ♪
[00:16:14.02]
That was to be my mission.
[00:16:15.09]
- No more fossil fuels!
[00:16:17.09]
- [Protestors] No more fossil fuels!
[00:16:19.04]
- Keep it in the ground!
[00:16:20.09]
- [Protestors] Keep it in the ground!
[00:16:22.05]
- [George] I've been
on a Grandparents' Walk
[00:16:24.05]
for climate justice.
[00:16:25.09]
- The environment is
connected to everything.
[00:16:28.03]
There's no economic justice
without climate justice.
[00:16:31.05]
- [Protester] Yes, that's right.
[00:16:32.08]
- Our children need to be
studying in healthy environments,
[00:16:36.08]
not in environments where there's asbestos
[00:16:39.03]
dripping down from the ceiling.
[00:16:40.06]
- [George] The grandparents among us,
[00:16:42.01]
and in some cases great-grandparents,
[00:16:43.08]
like I'm a great-grandparent,
[00:16:44.09]
are just thrilled to be on
this particular mission,
[00:16:48.06]
being out front about how deeply we care
[00:16:52.01]
about the young ones having a future.
[00:16:54.08]
[protesters chanting]
♪ ♪
[00:16:56.07]
Looming climate disaster
is a pressure that means
[00:17:00.07]
that we don't really have much choice
[00:17:03.00]
about whether we change.
[00:17:04.01]
♪ ♪
[rhythmic drumming]
[00:17:06.06]
With sea levels rising,
we can't just, like,
[00:17:09.04]
"Oh yes, well, let's do our
polite little tea parties."
[00:17:12.07]
It will be disaster after
disaster, larger and larger,
[00:17:15.04]
until everybody gets it
that we have to change
[00:17:18.05]
and change drastically.
[00:17:20.02]
[protesters chanting]
[00:17:21.06]
- [Ingrid] So there are a couple ways
[00:17:22.05]
I feel like people come at protest,
[00:17:24.02]
and some it's really about stopping a harm
[00:17:26.06]
and we have to do that.
[00:17:27.08]
There's another piece though,
and that's about the hope.
[00:17:31.01]
What do we wanna create as a society?
[00:17:33.03]
It's also about love, and about vision,
[00:17:35.08]
and about what does liberation
for all of us look like?
[00:17:39.01]
- [George] I expect that at 105
[00:17:41.08]
I'll be here in my
wheelchair doing something
[00:17:44.06]
because I think everyone's responsibility
[00:17:47.06]
is to continue to be a
citizen until we die.
[00:17:50.03]
Why not?
[00:17:51.03]
We can die as Americans.
[00:17:52.07]
♪ ♪
[00:17:54.09]
[police siren wailing]
[00:17:58.06]
I really love my country,
[00:18:00.09]
and I so much want for it
to live up to its potential.
[00:18:05.03]
[police siren wailing]
[00:18:08.02]
♪ ♪
[00:18:11.07]
Getting mentored by Quakers
[00:18:14.03]
meant new opportunities opening up,
[00:18:17.05]
and one of them was going to an
[00:18:19.06]
American Friends Service
Committee summer youth project.
[00:18:23.08]
One of the first things
I did was fall in love
[00:18:25.08]
with another college
student, a woman from Norway.
[00:18:30.00]
- He was tall, gangly,
had a very short crew cut,
[00:18:34.01]
and he played the piano,
[00:18:35.09]
and he admitted that he didn't
even know where Oslo was.
[00:18:41.04]
[laughing]
[00:18:42.05]
- I was still, I was
still that small-town boy,
[00:18:45.03]
but nevertheless, I was
enormously attracted to her
[00:18:48.08]
and she was happy to tell
me where her country was.
[00:18:51.07]
[laughing]
[00:18:53.02]
- But I forgave him pretty soon.
[00:18:55.09]
- [George] Berit and I had
a marvelous summer together
[00:18:58.08]
getting to know each other.
[00:19:00.03]
- By that time, it
started to be real clear
[00:19:03.00]
that this was not a
fly-by-night relationship,
[00:19:05.09]
so he proposed.
[00:19:09.03]
I thought about it for a
minute, and I said yes.
[00:19:13.00]
Then we had only a few more weeks together
[00:19:15.06]
before I have to get on the
ship to go back to Norway.
[00:19:20.01]
- [George] So I thought,
well, I will come to Norway,
[00:19:22.05]
and we can get married and live there,
[00:19:24.08]
and then I can get to know your family
[00:19:26.05]
and get to know your
language and your culture
[00:19:29.01]
and all of that.
[00:19:30.04]
And who knows what the future will bring,
[00:19:32.01]
but that's what we'll do.
[00:19:33.09]
- [Berit] While he was in Norway,
[00:19:35.04]
he was teaching music
at a local high school,
[00:19:39.04]
and he was also starting
his sociology studies
[00:19:42.00]
at the University of Oslo.
[00:19:44.01]
He got to know somebody called Gene Sharp,
[00:19:46.04]
who was a researcher on
peace and nonviolence.
[00:19:49.06]
- I say nonviolent
struggle is armed struggle,
[00:19:52.07]
only with this type of struggle one fights
[00:19:55.02]
with psychological weapons,
social weapons,
[00:19:58.05]
economic weapons and political weapons,
[00:20:01.08]
and that this is ultimately more powerful
[00:20:04.05]
against oppression, injustice and tyranny
[00:20:09.00]
than is violence.
[00:20:11.06]
- [Berit] And so it really
got George into studying
[00:20:14.06]
some of that work.
[00:20:16.04]
And then of course he
lived in Norway long enough
[00:20:18.06]
to see the different government
[00:20:20.02]
under the social safety
network system in Norway.
[00:20:25.00]
- And by the time two thirds
of that year had passed,
[00:20:28.04]
I was clear that Norway was in great shape
[00:20:32.06]
and that the US was the
country that needed me.
[00:20:36.00]
- I think he's always
had a sense of mission.
[00:20:41.01]
And I think the other thing is he always--
[00:20:44.01]
for better or for worse, always
has a sense that he's right.
[00:20:48.00]
[laughing]
[00:20:51.00]
We didn't really talk about it too much.
[00:20:52.08]
George decided that the action
was on this side of the ocean
[00:20:55.08]
and so we were gonna go back here.
[00:20:57.08]
[jet engine rumbling]
♪ ♪
[00:21:02.05]
[indistinct chatter]
[00:21:08.01]
- [News Reporter] It was unprovoked,
[00:21:09.09]
but this is what Russian
President Vladimir Putin
[00:21:13.00]
unleashed on Ukraine.
[00:21:14.03]
[explosions echoing]
[00:21:15.06]
And there are civilian casualties.
[00:21:17.07]
Local officials say this
apartment building...
[00:21:19.08]
- Good morning, very glad to be here.
[00:21:23.07]
Ukraine has been heavy on my heart,
[00:21:26.07]
as it no doubt has been for many of you.
[00:21:30.02]
It's been hard to watch.
[00:21:36.07]
Especially from a distance,
[00:21:38.05]
because I'm an activist.
I like to be involved.
[00:21:42.05]
But one way I can honor their struggle
[00:21:45.03]
is to learn what I can from it.
[00:21:48.09]
And because I'm a Quaker,
an important starting point
[00:21:52.09]
in learning about anything that's going on
[00:21:56.03]
is to go to that place of Spirit.
[00:21:59.09]
Spirit leads me in making
the key decisions of my life.
[00:22:05.02]
And I turn to Spirit for
that kind of guidance.
[00:22:09.04]
- George, one question that
didn't get asked at the assembly
[00:22:11.07]
that I think might be kind
of interesting to these guys.
[00:22:14.00]
Which arrest are you proudest of?
[00:22:15.08]
[students laughing]
[00:22:17.02]
- Oh...
[00:22:19.02]
the first one.
[00:22:20.01]
- The first one?
[00:22:23.01]
- The first one, because
I was so clueless about,
[00:22:27.02]
you know, everything.
[00:22:28.06]
♪ ♪
[00:22:31.01]
- [News Reporter] The latest in Chester's
[00:22:32.02]
year-long racial troubles came yesterday,
[00:22:34.01]
when officials ordered all public schools
[00:22:36.02]
closed indefinitely.
[00:22:37.05]
That action was prompted by a new round
[00:22:39.03]
of sit-ins on the school steps.
[00:22:40.09]
36 demonstrators were arrested.
[00:22:42.08]
Overnight, more than 200
others were picked up
[00:22:44.08]
after a series of violent
street demonstrations.
[00:22:47.02]
♪ ♪
[00:22:48.09]
- There was a major civil rights struggle
[00:22:51.07]
going on in Chester in the early '60s,
[00:22:54.04]
inspired by the civil rights
movement in the south.
[00:22:57.02]
[protesters chanting and clapping]
[00:23:00.02]
Berit and I settled in Philadelphia
[00:23:02.04]
so I could go to graduate school,
[00:23:04.02]
but I was reading every day
about the unfolding story
[00:23:07.08]
of this struggle in Chester,
near Philadelphia,
[00:23:10.07]
♪ ♪
[00:23:13.08]
and thinking, there's something
very wrong about this,
[00:23:17.00]
because everybody who's being arrested
[00:23:19.07]
to deal with racism was Black.
[00:23:23.07]
So I thought it was really my
responsibility as white person
[00:23:27.00]
to get out here to Chester
and join the movement.
[00:23:29.07]
♪ ♪
[00:23:31.07]
♪ ♪
[00:23:33.02]
The civil rights movement
had things really organized,
[00:23:36.03]
so the people who were
volunteers, like me,
[00:23:38.06]
could go to a dispatching
center, it was a storefront,
[00:23:41.04]
and be dispatched to wherever
the action was that day.
[00:23:45.07]
My name was called, and the person said,
[00:23:48.00]
"You will go with those four people,
[00:23:51.03]
"and you'll all go together
in your car to City Hall.
[00:23:55.08]
"Go inside and sit down,
and you'll be arrested."
[00:23:59.02]
So we set off for City Hall,
which was full of the media
[00:24:03.06]
and the police and demonstrators.
[00:24:06.01]
And so I said, "We have to
go find a parking place,"
[00:24:08.09]
and they said, "Well,
let us out, let us out,
[00:24:11.00]
"and then you go find your
parking place and join us."
[00:24:13.08]
It took a while to find
a safe parking place.
[00:24:16.04]
Who knew how long I was gonna be in jail?
[00:24:18.03]
Then I get back here, and I look
[00:24:20.09]
and I didn't see my comrades.
[00:24:22.06]
I was very scared of being arrested alone.
[00:24:25.01]
I'd never been arrested before.
[00:24:27.02]
The police were all over the place
[00:24:28.07]
but they didn't try to stop me,
[00:24:29.07]
I think because I was white
[00:24:31.02]
and I was wearing a, you know, nice shirt.
[00:24:33.05]
I think they figured I came
[00:24:34.07]
to pay my water bill or something.
[00:24:36.02]
♪ ♪
[00:24:40.02]
I came into a very large,
quiet and darkened lobby
[00:24:45.03]
with a series of office
doors around its edges.
[00:24:49.03]
I was alone, except for
three police officers
[00:24:53.00]
hanging out in the far corner from me.
[00:24:56.01]
"Where's my team?" I fretted.
[00:24:58.06]
I began circling the lobby,
[00:25:00.06]
looking through the windows
in the office stores
[00:25:02.09]
to see if my comrades
were inside an office.
[00:25:06.00]
The offices were deserted.
[00:25:08.09]
The trio of officers sauntered over to me.
[00:25:12.06]
"Can I help you?" inquired one of them.
[00:25:16.01]
"I'm looking for the sit-inners," I said.
[00:25:18.04]
"I've come to sit in."
[00:25:21.00]
The three smiled incredulously.
[00:25:24.03]
"You what?" asked the first one.
[00:25:27.05]
"I'm with the movement," I said nervously,
[00:25:30.00]
"I've come to sit in."
[00:25:32.07]
The three started to grin.
[00:25:34.08]
"Well," said the first one,
[00:25:36.06]
"why don't you just go ahead and do it?"
[00:25:40.01]
"What?" I said.
[00:25:42.03]
This was not turning out
anything like what I expected.
[00:25:45.07]
I continued, "Right here?"
[00:25:48.07]
He spoke again, gesturing
toward the lobby floor.
[00:25:52.05]
"Pull up a tile and sit down."
[00:25:55.03]
And so I did, grateful for
one action I could take
[00:25:59.06]
in the midst of my bewilderment.
[00:26:02.01]
"All right," he said, "now you can go home
[00:26:04.05]
"and tell your friends you're a hero."
[00:26:07.05]
He paused as I continued to sit.
[00:26:10.07]
"Go on now, go home."
[00:26:13.05]
"Oh, no," I said, my
voice getting stronger.
[00:26:17.01]
"I am serious about this.
[00:26:19.05]
"This is about civil rights.
[00:26:21.08]
"I'm sitting right here."
[00:26:24.08]
"Okay," he said, turning to
the other two police officers.
[00:26:28.08]
"Arrest him!" he said.
[00:26:31.06]
The two grabbed me by my
armpits and yanked me up.
[00:26:35.04]
They threw me against
the wall, patted me down,
[00:26:38.07]
and handcuffed my hands behind my back.
[00:26:41.07]
At last, something was happening
[00:26:43.02]
the way I imagined it would.
[00:26:46.01]
One on each side, the police walked me
[00:26:48.01]
toward the back exit of the lobby.
[00:26:50.05]
I remember the echo their
shoes made in the empty space.
[00:26:55.03]
I suddenly felt very alone.
[00:26:59.00]
Behind the lobby was a stairway
[00:27:00.06]
that led to the back door of City Hall.
[00:27:03.05]
"You wanna walk him over
to the station to book him
[00:27:06.04]
"or call the wagon?" one asked the other.
[00:27:11.01]
That's when I made my
second mistake of the day.
[00:27:14.07]
"I don't mind walking," I said.
[00:27:17.08]
Calling attention to myself triggered
[00:27:21.00]
their fatigue and resentment.
[00:27:24.00]
One of them started to beat me.
[00:27:26.07]
Immediately, I remembered
what Dr. King and the others
[00:27:29.02]
had been saying for the last few years.
[00:27:31.08]
I took a deep breath, unlocked my knees,
[00:27:34.08]
opened my hands, and prayed.
[00:27:38.04]
After a bit, the other officer spoke up.
[00:27:41.05]
"Let's use the bus" he said.
[00:27:43.06]
"Let's get this over with."
[00:27:46.05]
They led me to the parking
area behind the building,
[00:27:49.06]
and a yellow school bus had drawn up.
[00:27:52.09]
They half pushed and half
threw me into the bus.
[00:27:57.03]
And with that, the bus
took us to the county jail.
[00:28:01.03]
I realized that coming out here to do this
[00:28:03.06]
would be the biggest risk
that I had taken so far.
[00:28:07.05]
And I thought I was up for that
[00:28:11.05]
because if we don't risk,
we don't gain, really.
[00:28:14.09]
And being outside our comfort zones,
[00:28:17.00]
we grow in our power, as people.
[00:28:19.02]
♪ ♪
[00:28:21.04]
My bed was in a block with
about 30 single-person cells
[00:28:26.02]
arranged around an open space.
[00:28:29.05]
It was easy to communicate with neighbors,
[00:28:31.05]
and we had two exercise times each day
[00:28:34.08]
to mingle in the open space.
[00:28:37.05]
Campaign leader Stanley
Branche was in our block,
[00:28:40.05]
and during exercise time
[00:28:42.03]
he had us quickly marching back and forth,
[00:28:45.07]
singing freedom songs.
[00:28:48.02]
I remember one.
[00:28:50.01]
♪ We are soldiers in the army ♪
[00:28:55.00]
♪ We've gotta fight ♪
[00:28:56.04]
♪ Although we have to cry ♪
[00:28:59.00]
♪ We have to hold up the freedom banner ♪
[00:29:03.02]
♪ We have to hold it up until we die ♪
[00:29:07.08]
The warden became nervous
about our high spirits
[00:29:10.08]
and the possibility of that
infecting other prisoners,
[00:29:15.07]
so he took an exercise
period away from us.
[00:29:19.04]
That set us to banging our
metal beds up and down,
[00:29:22.09]
clanging our cups against the bars
[00:29:25.03]
and howling like banshees.
[00:29:27.06]
We refused to stop until
the deputy warden came,
[00:29:30.09]
and after negotiating with Branche
[00:29:33.05]
gave us back our second exercise period.
[00:29:38.00]
After a week in jail, my day
in court was as surprising
[00:29:42.03]
as everything else had been.
[00:29:44.04]
The judge asked me to state
my story, which I did briefly.
[00:29:48.01]
The judge leaned forward and
turned to the police officer.
[00:29:51.07]
"Did you say to Lakey, 'Pull
up a tile and sit down?'"
[00:29:57.01]
"Yes", said the officer.
[00:29:59.08]
"Then the charge is invalid."
The judge glared at him.
[00:30:03.06]
"When a police officer invites
someone to break the law,
[00:30:06.07]
"we call that entrapment".
[00:30:09.06]
The judge snorted.
[00:30:11.04]
"Case dismissed."
[00:30:13.04]
[gavel slamming]
[00:30:16.01]
♪ ♪
[00:30:21.05]
♪ We shall overcome ♪
[00:30:27.02]
♪ We shall overcome ♪
[00:30:32.08]
♪ We shall overcome some day ♪
[00:30:37.08]
♪ We shall overcome some day ♪
[00:30:42.07]
♪ Oh deep in my heart ♪
[00:30:49.07]
♪ I do believe ♪
[00:30:55.03]
♪ We shall overcome some day ♪
[00:31:00.02]
♪ We shall overcome some day ♪
[00:31:04.02]
♪ ♪
[00:31:06.03]
Thank you.
[00:31:07.03]
[audience cheering and applauding]
[00:31:11.05]
- Let's do this.
[00:31:12.06]
[audience applauding]
[00:31:15.07]
[audience applauding]
[00:31:17.00]
Good evening.
[00:31:19.08]
This is my first time
meeting George in person,
[00:31:22.06]
but I feel like I have
known him for the decade
[00:31:26.04]
that I have been organizing.
[00:31:28.02]
He is a movement and mentor grandpa to me.
[00:31:32.01]
He has mentored my mentors.
[00:31:34.02]
He, for me, is an example of
what it means to take action
[00:31:39.02]
even if you're scared,
[00:31:40.09]
and to not let your fear
[00:31:44.00]
hold you back from taking
your place in history.
[00:31:47.08]
Thank you so much to that
beautiful, beautiful choir.
[00:31:51.09]
George and I were just standing
backstage listening to it.
[00:31:55.02]
How did that feel?
[00:31:57.01]
- Very emotional.
- Yeah.
[00:31:58.04]
- We were holding hands,
because I was in, you know,
[00:32:01.06]
we sang that a million times
in the civil rights movement
[00:32:03.07]
and we never did it without
holding hands with somebody,
[00:32:06.03]
and usually a circle or 1,000 people,
[00:32:09.03]
or you know, 100,000 people,
[00:32:11.02]
and it was the soul of the movement
[00:32:15.08]
expressed in music.
[00:32:17.04]
- Wow.
[00:32:18.02]
- And supported us to risk
our lives for racial justice.
[00:32:22.07]
- The summer of 1964
will be marked in history
[00:32:26.00]
as the summer of civil rights.
[00:32:27.08]
♪ Oh freedom ♪
[00:32:31.06]
♪ Oh freedom ♪
[00:32:34.08]
First, because of the Civil Rights Bill,
[00:32:36.06]
which has passed the Senate,
[00:32:38.08]
and because of a program,
[00:32:40.05]
the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.
[00:32:43.02]
- The Negroes there are
subject to a reign of terror.
[00:32:46.00]
In the southwest corner of Mississippi,
[00:32:47.09]
they're what amount to
modern day lynchings,
[00:32:50.03]
which are shootings of Negroes
at night, on the roads.
[00:32:54.09]
This has been by the Ku Klux Klan.
[00:32:57.05]
- The civil rights movement
knew that it's very tough
[00:33:00.08]
to face a gun or a knife
or a noose on your own.
[00:33:04.07]
So the solidarity of acting
with others is very important,
[00:33:08.02]
but also very important is training
[00:33:10.07]
to know how to face the threat.
[00:33:15.00]
I had the privilege of
joining the training staff
[00:33:18.00]
for Mississippi Freedom Summer,
[00:33:19.08]
the time when about
1,000 northern students
[00:33:23.01]
were recruited to go to Mississippi
[00:33:25.02]
and work alongside Black people
[00:33:27.05]
to break open that segregation.
[00:33:30.06]
- [Reporter] This is a meeting
of Freedom Summer volunteers.
[00:33:33.06]
They were warned their
mission will not be pleasant.
[00:33:36.02]
- If people wanna turn back,
they can turn back now
[00:33:39.05]
without understanding
the tremendous dangers
[00:33:41.07]
that are involved.
[00:33:42.07]
People should be expected to get beaten,
[00:33:44.09]
they should expect to spend in jail,
[00:33:46.05]
and they should expect possibly
somebody to get killed.
[00:33:49.07]
- I got to be in the
training of these students
[00:33:53.00]
and teaching them the
most essential skills
[00:33:55.09]
that they would need when they went down
[00:33:57.06]
and faced the Ku Klux Klan and the rest.
[00:34:00.00]
[martial drumming]
[00:34:00.09]
- Go ahead.
[00:34:02.07]
- [Reporter] They are
taught how non-violently
[00:34:04.05]
to protect themselves when attacked.
[00:34:06.01]
- [Activist] He can't hit you right here
[00:34:07.07]
if you can pull yourself
across a little bit more.
[00:34:10.02]
The only place he can hit is
right up and down the ribs,
[00:34:12.09]
across the back and across the rump.
[00:34:14.09]
- The whole idea of preparing
[00:34:16.07]
and acting out through role
play the possible responses
[00:34:21.01]
that would be most effective
[00:34:22.08]
was put on the map by the
civil rights movement.
[00:34:25.08]
- [Reporter] A group of students
portraying an angry mob.
[00:34:28.00]
They are supposed to jeer and curse.
[00:34:30.00]
- We also want the white
students who are playing the mob
[00:34:32.09]
to get used to saying
things, calling out epithets,
[00:34:35.04]
calling people n-----s and n----r lovers.
[00:34:37.02]
- Without the training,
it's very hard to get
[00:34:39.07]
a lot of people to do the right thing
[00:34:42.03]
when the pressure is on.
[00:34:44.00]
In that way, it's very like the military.
[00:34:46.06]
When soldiers go to war, first of all,
[00:34:49.02]
they go through a training period.
[00:34:50.09]
And if they didn't, they
would be in very big trouble.
[00:34:54.07]
In the civil rights movement,
[00:34:56.01]
we see extraordinary strategic
smarts that enabled people
[00:35:00.09]
to make the most of that situation.
[00:35:03.01]
They faced the longest
running terrorist organization
[00:35:07.02]
the US has ever experienced,
[00:35:09.03]
and we can use the experience
of the civil rights movement
[00:35:13.01]
in order to understand how
to overcome the opposition
[00:35:18.01]
and be able to make progress.
[00:35:19.07]
My life is trying to teach people
[00:35:22.01]
what has been learned by others.
[00:35:25.04]
♪ ♪
[00:35:29.09]
- We were living in a little
apartment in West Philadelphia.
[00:35:34.00]
It was a fourth floor walk-up
[00:35:36.09]
George persuaded me at some point
[00:35:38.07]
that we should buy a piano, and we did.
[00:35:41.07]
But the people who came
to deliver the piano said,
[00:35:44.05]
"Where's the elevator?"
[00:35:46.07]
"There's no elevator."
[00:35:49.02]
I don't know what their language
was exactly at that point,
[00:35:52.01]
but the piano did manage to get upstairs.
[00:35:56.03]
George was studying and I was working.
[00:35:59.01]
We decided that things
had settled down enough
[00:36:01.08]
that we should consider children,
[00:36:04.01]
but we went through that trying period
[00:36:06.07]
of trying to conceive
and it wasn't happening.
[00:36:10.08]
- But we got eager, and so we
went to an adoption agency.
[00:36:15.02]
We got to adopt a
delightful three-month-old,
[00:36:19.05]
and we named her Christina.
[00:36:22.00]
- I'm Esther Christina Lakey,
[00:36:24.03]
and I'm George's oldest daughter.
[00:36:27.07]
My memories growing up
were really happy ones.
[00:36:33.04]
We traveled a lot, which really
shaped how I view the world.
[00:36:38.07]
My father was always involved
[00:36:42.02]
in some type of activism.
[00:36:45.03]
I thought everybody's
parents were activists.
[00:36:48.00]
I didn't know.
[00:36:49.00]
You know what I mean?
[00:36:49.08]
Because that's all I knew.
[00:36:51.06]
He's a very principled person.
[00:36:54.02]
He's very committed to
what he believes in.
[00:36:58.00]
He's very loving, and I
think that he genuinely cares
[00:37:02.07]
about society as a whole
[00:37:04.08]
and wants the world to
have a good way of being.
[00:37:10.08]
[audience applauding]
[00:37:13.09]
- Ladies and gentlemen.
[00:37:15.07]
This evening, I came here to
speak to you about Vietnam.
[00:37:20.06]
America has entered
with its material power
[00:37:25.06]
and with its moral commitment.
[00:37:27.09]
♪ ♪
[00:37:31.04]
[muted explosions]
[00:37:32.06]
- The US Empire was
totally out of control,
[00:37:35.03]
dropping more bombs on Vietnam
[00:37:38.03]
than had been dropped on Europe
during the second world war.
[00:37:42.08]
It's just amazing slaughter going on,
[00:37:46.02]
being paid for by US taxpayers,
[00:37:48.05]
not realizing those were human beings.
[00:37:51.06]
And as I watched it escalate,
[00:37:53.05]
I joined others in
organizing a Quaker group
[00:37:57.05]
that would focus on direct action.
[00:38:00.06]
Because we were wanting to
reach the American people,
[00:38:03.02]
we needed a dramatic way
to call people's attention
[00:38:07.00]
to the fact that the Vietnamese
people were actually people,
[00:38:10.00]
not just some kind of obstacle
[00:38:11.07]
in the way of the American empire.
[00:38:13.07]
We needed a media story
[00:38:16.00]
that the mass media are attracted to.
[00:38:18.05]
♪ ♪
[00:38:20.08]
- [Reporter] The yacht Phoenix,
a self-ordained mercy ship,
[00:38:23.04]
manned by a crew of
determined American Pacifists.
[00:38:26.04]
Its mission?
[00:38:27.02]
To bring medical supplies
[00:38:28.05]
to the North Vietnamese port of Haiphong
[00:38:30.08]
despite Red Cross warnings
[00:38:32.02]
and without State Department clearance.
[00:38:34.01]
♪ ♪
[00:38:36.06]
- The plan was to get a small sailing ship
[00:38:39.09]
and a crew to sail through the
United States Seventh Fleet,
[00:38:44.08]
which was blockading the Vietnamese coast,
[00:38:47.06]
and get to Vietnam with a
boatload of medical supplies.
[00:38:52.06]
Totally crazy thing to try to do.
[00:38:54.09]
[jet engine roaring]
[00:38:56.03]
How do you get through the
might of the American empire?
[00:39:00.03]
I had a baby, and as a proud young dad,
[00:39:04.02]
the thought of going over
there and not coming back
[00:39:06.07]
was a heartbreaking prospect.
[00:39:09.05]
And yet I found myself led
by Spirit to join the voyage.
[00:39:14.00]
It felt like God was
tapping me on the shoulder.
[00:39:18.06]
And so I went to Hong Kong,
and we sailed to Vietnam.
[00:39:23.02]
♪ ♪
[00:39:36.00]
I'd been in scrapes and
many vulnerable spots
[00:39:38.08]
with regard to the civil rights movement,
[00:39:40.02]
but this was the first time
[00:39:41.04]
that I was really putting
my life on the line.
[00:39:43.07]
♪ ♪
[00:39:50.09]
[ominous blaring]
[00:39:55.05]
[ominous blaring]
[00:39:59.08]
[jet engine whirring]
[00:40:03.00]
We did indeed find
ourselves in a war zone,
[00:40:06.01]
[artillery booming]
[00:40:07.05]
locking horns with gun boats
that wanted us out of there.
[00:40:11.05]
♪ ♪
[00:40:13.08]
They sent boats out to harass us,
[00:40:18.00]
shoot bullets parallel to our ship.
[00:40:19.08]
[machine gun rattling]
[00:40:22.05]
We were partially disabled,
our mast was broken.
[00:40:26.08]
♪ ♪
[00:40:28.05]
I'm human.
[00:40:29.03]
I wanna live a long life
[00:40:30.08]
and certainly not die in my 20s
[00:40:32.07]
in an ocean halfway around the world.
[00:40:34.04]
♪ ♪
[helicopter blades whirring]
[00:40:41.00]
- [Crew Member] Oh boy.
[00:40:42.09]
They've got him surrounded now.
[00:40:46.00]
- George, are you okay?
[00:40:50.06]
- This is George Lakey.
[00:40:52.08]
After Harry went into the water
[00:40:54.05]
and was picked up by Navy vessel 610,
[00:40:58.02]
I jumped into the water and swam over.
[00:41:01.05]
A young man asked me if I would go
[00:41:03.08]
and I told him I would not go voluntarily,
[00:41:06.03]
and we had a profound
opposition to this war
[00:41:09.03]
and we're determined to get Da Nang
[00:41:11.05]
to bring our medicines there.
[00:41:13.03]
♪ ♪
[00:41:17.07]
[indistinct chatter]
[00:41:21.08]
We finally got through the Seventh Fleet
[00:41:27.06]
thanks to the tremendous
concern among Americans
[00:41:32.01]
about what's gonna happen
to this little ship
[00:41:34.08]
and the realization on the part
[00:41:36.07]
of national leadership in Washington
[00:41:39.03]
that it would not look
good for the Phoenix
[00:41:42.02]
to be bombed out of the water.
[00:41:44.05]
It was a wake-up call for Americans.
[00:41:47.00]
"Look at what you are doing."
[00:41:49.00]
"You are supporting a
government which can't even bear
[00:41:53.04]
"to have Vietnamese
civilians get some medicine
[00:41:58.04]
"when they are inadvertently
bombed by our bombs.
[00:42:02.07]
"And you need to do something about it."
[00:42:05.01]
- [Reporter] Anti-war demonstrators
[00:42:06.04]
protest US involvement in the Vietnam War
[00:42:09.03]
in mass marches, rallies,
and demonstrations.
[00:42:12.03]
- Which of course eventually did happen.
[00:42:14.07]
Finally, the American people did stand up
[00:42:17.01]
to the war establishment.
[00:42:19.08]
♪ ♪
[00:42:27.06]
♪ ♪
[00:42:30.06]
Beret and I wanted to
keep our family growing.
[00:42:34.08]
And so Christina had a sibling
who we also adopted, Peter.
[00:42:39.07]
♪ ♪
[00:42:41.03]
So we thought, this is our
perfect two-child family.
[00:42:45.01]
Two parents, two children,
that seems just about right.
[00:42:48.05]
And then we were delightfully
surprised [chuckling]
[00:42:52.07]
when we made a baby anyway.
[00:42:54.02]
♪ ♪
[00:42:55.07]
- I grew up in a really beautiful
family, and I'm grateful.
[00:43:01.00]
I'm sure for some people, like,
[00:43:02.03]
your parent goes off to a 9-to-5 job,
[00:43:03.09]
you have no idea what they did all day.
[00:43:05.09]
I actually did have a pretty good concept
[00:43:08.00]
of what my dad did, because
he included me in a lot of it.
[00:43:12.03]
So I grew up as an activist
in an activist household.
[00:43:17.06]
There were very many
demonstrations and protests
[00:43:20.01]
that I went along, a lot
of very early mornings
[00:43:23.03]
to get on the bus that was
going to DC or New York.
[00:43:26.09]
Which was amazing, to be this kid
[00:43:28.09]
surrounded by these very cool,
interesting people around me.
[00:43:32.06]
- This is about my son, Peter.
[00:43:36.01]
At age six, I found myself
wanting six-year-old Peter
[00:43:40.01]
to try his hand at activism.
[00:43:42.05]
Some friends were helping out
[00:43:44.06]
in the growing consumer
boycotts of lettuce
[00:43:47.09]
that had been called by
the United Farm Workers.
[00:43:50.02]
They were going to start picketing
[00:43:51.06]
at our neighborhood supermarket.
[00:43:53.09]
I explained to Peter that
the aim of the boycott
[00:43:56.01]
was to improve the lives
of children like himself.
[00:43:58.06]
He immediately volunteered
for the picket line.
[00:44:02.01]
He walked up to somebody and said,
[00:44:04.00]
"Don't go in there and buy
that scabbage lettuce."
[00:44:07.01]
[audience laughing]
[00:44:08.06]
I guess Peter had heard
us talking about "scabs,"
[00:44:11.02]
or strike breakers, who were
being hired by employers.
[00:44:15.00]
Scabbage lettuce.
[00:44:17.00]
She kept walking and Peter
kept backing up in front of her
[00:44:20.01]
until he backed right through the doorway
[00:44:21.09]
and into the store.
[00:44:23.04]
Hardly a minute later,
[00:44:24.06]
the store manager came outside,
[00:44:26.06]
pulling Peter by the hand.
[00:44:28.03]
"Whose boy is this?" he demanded.
[00:44:31.05]
I raised my hand proudly.
[00:44:33.03]
"He's mine."
[audience laughing]
[00:44:36.04]
♪ ♪
[00:44:38.01]
- For him as a parent,
my dad is good at listening
[00:44:40.07]
to what is it inside you
that is ready to come out.
[00:44:44.06]
My experience of him as my dad,
[00:44:47.09]
so much of it was about, like,
[00:44:50.01]
"Come on Ingrid, you can do it.
[00:44:51.08]
"You can do that street speaking
in the park when you're 10,
[00:44:56.00]
"telling Ronald Reagan you're worried
[00:44:57.07]
"about nuclear Armageddon.
[00:44:59.04]
"Go for it!"
[00:45:00.03]
[laughing]
[00:45:01.02]
You know, and supporting
me to get through the fear
[00:45:03.06]
that I had about that,
but never in a way of, like,
[00:45:06.06]
"You must, and you
should, and you have to."
[00:45:08.07]
It was all about, like, "It's in you."
[00:45:11.02]
♪ ♪
[00:45:13.02]
- [George] How can we live
at home on planet Earth?
[00:45:16.08]
The human race groans under
the oppressions of colonialism,
[00:45:20.08]
war, racism, totalitarianism, and sexism.
[00:45:24.06]
Corporate capitalism abuses the poor
[00:45:27.05]
and exploits the workers,
while expanding its power
[00:45:30.05]
through the multinational corporations.
[00:45:32.07]
The environment is choked.
[00:45:34.05]
What shall we do?
[00:45:36.04]
We now declare ourselves
for nonviolent revolution.
[00:45:41.01]
- I grew up in a house with my parents
[00:45:43.08]
and my big brother and big sister
[00:45:46.04]
and about eight other people.
[00:45:49.02]
We were part of a group called
Movement for a New Society,
[00:45:52.02]
which was like an urban commune,
[00:45:54.00]
and we were part of this larger collective
[00:45:56.00]
of several houses in West Philadelphia,
[00:45:57.09]
really trying to live in a different way.
[00:46:00.03]
♪ ♪
[00:46:03.01]
- We're in West Philadelphia,
[00:46:05.07]
and this is what we
called the Stone House.
[00:46:08.05]
It was our village well of our community.
[00:46:11.07]
This was the center of the
Philadelphia Life Center,
[00:46:14.07]
which was itself part of the
Movement for New Society.
[00:46:19.03]
At its height, we had 22 households
[00:46:22.07]
all scattered right here
in this neighborhood,
[00:46:24.08]
and we had 125 people.
[00:46:28.01]
The core was in the name, Life Center.
[00:46:31.07]
We wanted to center on life.
[00:46:34.07]
And for us, life meant creativity,
[00:46:37.02]
and life also meant
opposition to the death center
[00:46:41.08]
that was going on under this
[00:46:43.09]
capitalist imperial military operation
[00:46:47.01]
that was not a good way
for America to keep going.
[00:46:49.09]
- I had been radicalized
by the Vietnam War,
[00:46:53.04]
and was really angry at the way
[00:46:57.01]
things were going in my country,
[00:46:59.07]
and I'm looking for a community of people
[00:47:02.05]
that are doing really good things.
[00:47:04.04]
♪ ♪
[00:47:06.01]
- [George] The promise was support,
[00:47:08.05]
because everybody was feeling kind of raw,
[00:47:10.09]
and also the ability to be more effective
[00:47:14.03]
than we could be as individuals
[00:47:16.00]
in making change for justice and peace.
[00:47:18.06]
- We all had the same goal of
changing how society works.
[00:47:23.00]
We had a training program
[00:47:25.00]
to help people become
community organizers,
[00:47:28.05]
and people came from all over the world.
[00:47:31.00]
- It was really to learn together
about the world around us
[00:47:35.05]
and act in a political,
nonviolent, direct action way.
[00:47:41.02]
Another things were we
focused on the environment.
[00:47:45.02]
So, simple living.
[00:47:47.01]
♪ ♪
[00:47:48.07]
- We were really into
"make your own stuff."
[00:47:50.07]
So we made our own bread, we
made our own peanut butter,
[00:47:52.08]
we made our own granola.
[00:47:54.05]
And I would take my sandwiches to school,
[00:47:57.02]
and, like, my sandwich
would just fall apart.
[00:47:59.03]
The bread was, like, so dense.
[00:48:00.09]
And all of my classmates had
white bread, like, Wonder Bread
[00:48:05.00]
with the bologna and a piece
of, like, American cheese,
[00:48:08.08]
and maybe with Miracle Whip.
[00:48:10.00]
And to me that was, like, the actual,
[00:48:12.08]
that was the holy grail of
lunch, and it was elusive for me.
[00:48:16.09]
[laughing]
[00:48:18.00]
- One of the beautiful things
about collective living
[00:48:20.01]
is that it's cheap,
and we made thee most of that.
[00:48:23.07]
Most people had part-time jobs
to pitch into the collective
[00:48:27.03]
that would be running the house.
[00:48:29.00]
And therefore, we had
abundant available time
[00:48:33.08]
to do activism and to
experiment with new approaches.
[00:48:37.03]
We were busy as bees
[00:48:39.02]
because we were making
a nonviolent revolution.
[00:48:41.05]
♪ ♪
[00:48:43.06]
This street was the favorite street
[00:48:46.04]
for the Life Center children.
[00:48:48.02]
At one point we had 15
or 16 raucous youngsters.
[00:48:52.00]
They would play against the
grownups on street games,
[00:48:55.01]
and no matter who, in fact, won,
[00:48:58.00]
the kids always said at
the end, "The kids won!"
[00:49:02.04]
- One of the rules was we
all had to share the work
[00:49:05.08]
for the cleaning, the
cooking and the childcare.
[00:49:09.01]
It challenged our old sex roles.
[00:49:11.09]
So it was really like
living in a laboratory.
[00:49:15.00]
- Somebody would be assigned
to make a meal each night,
[00:49:17.04]
and it was a very efficient way to live
[00:49:19.08]
and complicated way to live, figuring out,
[00:49:22.00]
okay, who didn't do the dishes tonight?
[00:49:25.03]
Relationships were even more complicated
[00:49:27.05]
'cause you had so many
permutations of relationships
[00:49:31.04]
and people connecting with us.
[00:49:33.07]
George used to say that Life
Center was an army of lovers.
[00:49:38.09]
And after a while he said
it's an army of ex-lovers.
[00:49:42.08]
[laughing]
♪ ♪
[00:49:45.08]
- We lasted almost 20 years,
[00:49:47.07]
which I think is a long time considering
[00:49:50.07]
the kind of cookery it was of
bringing raw, young people in
[00:49:55.05]
with sage, older people, and
lots and lots of changes.
[00:49:59.07]
Women's movement was
happening in those days,
[00:50:01.07]
the gay movement, and so on.
[00:50:04.02]
We had a mission of working
for freedom and justice,
[00:50:07.04]
but we would also discover
beautiful things about ourselves.
[00:50:12.00]
The idea wasn't to homogenize,
[00:50:15.04]
but instead the idea was
to glory in our diversity.
[00:50:19.07]
♪ ♪
[00:50:25.00]
As a boy, I had a sense that
there was tons inside me
[00:50:29.05]
that I didn't understand [laughing]
[00:50:31.06]
but that would have to do with my future
[00:50:33.08]
and how I could contribute to the world.
[00:50:36.03]
But I was in mystery about so much of it.
[00:50:38.08]
♪ ♪
[00:50:41.05]
In 1974, there was an annual
Quakers national gathering.
[00:50:45.09]
Over 1,000 people were there,
[00:50:47.09]
and the organizers of
the conference had asked
[00:50:51.00]
Berit and me to talk about community.
[00:50:54.06]
So she spoke first, she's
a wonderful speaker.
[00:50:57.07]
It really held the attention
of the 1,000 people.
[00:51:00.06]
And then it was my turn.
[00:51:03.02]
And then I finally told the
truth about my sexuality,
[00:51:07.07]
that I can love men as well as women.
[00:51:09.05]
♪ ♪
[00:51:13.04]
The place was shocked.
[00:51:17.03]
There were people crying in
various parts of the room,
[00:51:20.04]
people who shared a different
identity, sexual identity,
[00:51:24.05]
and "Oh my gosh, this is at
last said publicly," right?
[00:51:29.03]
And there were other people
[00:51:30.06]
who were brimming with hostility.
[00:51:33.00]
There were a couple of guys
I thought would slug me.
[00:51:35.01]
Quakers? What?
[00:51:36.04]
- I don't remember it, I was three.
[00:51:38.07]
But to this day, I will
still run into Quakers
[00:51:41.07]
who were there for whom it
was, like, a huge moment.
[00:51:47.01]
This was not a time
[00:51:48.03]
where there was a lot
of people coming out,
[00:51:51.00]
certainly not a lot of married people.
[00:51:54.03]
And my dad was becoming a
pretty well-known Quaker,
[00:51:57.07]
a leader at that time,
and he was risking a lot.
[00:52:02.02]
- The impact on my life
was enormous in terms,
[00:52:05.09]
personally, of feeling freer
and feeling more powerful
[00:52:10.02]
because I'd done this really hard thing.
[00:52:13.01]
- There was never a change in
my relationship with my dad
[00:52:15.03]
'cause to me he's my dad,
and he was always a gay man.
[00:52:20.00]
But one of the really
wonderful experiences for me
[00:52:24.01]
was being able to, like, go
to gay pride parades with him
[00:52:29.08]
and with all these, like,
uncles and aunties around
[00:52:32.05]
just lovin' me up, and feeling at home.
[00:52:36.06]
Feeling at home.
[00:52:37.05]
♪ ♪
[00:52:40.00]
- Just as the civil rights
movement found the tactic
[00:52:42.06]
of sitting in in lunch counters
and buses and other places
[00:52:47.05]
which were segregating
against Black people,
[00:52:50.03]
also, we found a tactic.
[00:52:52.08]
That tactic was coming out.
[00:52:56.04]
Homophobic oppression depends upon
[00:52:59.04]
our cooperation by hiding.
[00:53:02.04]
And when we refuse to cooperate
[00:53:04.01]
and instead come out,
it is a contradiction.
[00:53:07.03]
- Homosexuals have needed,
for a long time, role models,
[00:53:10.01]
or someone who could come
out smilingly and say,
[00:53:13.00]
"Yes, I'm homosexual, and
yes, I'm happy about it."
[00:53:15.08]
- And until people in this country
[00:53:17.00]
include it and embrace it,
substantial change won't happen.
[00:53:21.00]
- [George] Using that tactic
over and over and over.
[00:53:23.05]
People in pulpits, in churches, right?
[00:53:25.06]
Coming out.
[00:53:26.04]
People in leadership positions coming out.
[00:53:28.07]
Every time, that's
non-cooperating with the bigotry,
[00:53:31.08]
and it opens a conversation.
[00:53:33.06]
It keeps changing people's minds
[00:53:36.01]
because they can't look
away from the reality.
[00:53:39.08]
- Feel the power of this moment
[00:53:42.02]
and carry the message to the Capitol!
[00:53:45.03]
We will have full human rights
[00:53:49.04]
for lesbian and gay people!
[00:53:51.07]
[cheering and applauding]
[00:53:52.08]
- It's enormously powerful.
[00:53:54.07]
We had power on our side,
[00:53:56.04]
and that's why we could change society.
[00:53:58.03]
♪ ♪
[00:54:00.09]
I've had beautiful relationships since,
[00:54:02.09]
and one of the things that
made them more beautiful
[00:54:05.06]
is that they could be open,
and people could deal then
[00:54:09.03]
not with a bogey like homophobia is,
[00:54:13.03]
this scary, scary goblin,
[00:54:14.09]
but instead the reality of
two men who love each other.
[00:54:18.04]
And I mean, how upset can we really be
[00:54:21.04]
about people loving each other.
[00:54:29.03]
Where is my great
grandson when I need him?
[00:54:33.02]
He was here last time we did this.
[00:54:34.05]
- He was just here.
[00:54:39.00]
I love that he sees me as a
person who is still growing,
[00:54:43.03]
and he sees himself as a
person that's still growing.
[00:54:46.00]
And we need love,
we need patient attention,
[00:54:49.02]
we need forgiveness, but
mostly we need each other.
[00:54:52.08]
The way we're here for each other
[00:54:54.03]
is the way that we love each other.
[00:54:56.02]
- Yay, let's sing.
[00:54:58.07]
♪ ♪
[00:55:01.06]
♪ To life, to life, l'chaim ♪
[00:55:05.00]
♪ L'chaim, l'chaim, to life ♪
[00:55:08.04]
♪ It gives you something to think about ♪
[00:55:10.09]
♪ Something to drink about ♪
[00:55:13.01]
♪ Drink, l'chaim ♪
[00:55:16.05]
♪ To life ♪
[00:55:17.09]
[group laughing]
[00:55:19.08]
♪ ♪
[00:55:22.04]
♪ We plow the fields ♪
[00:55:24.03]
♪ And scatter the good seed on the land ♪
[00:55:30.06]
♪ But it is fed and watered ♪
[00:55:34.07]
♪ By God's almighty hand ♪
[00:55:37.09]
- I was 39-years-old
[00:55:42.02]
when I was diagnosed with
diffuse histiocytic lymphoma,
[00:55:49.01]
a very extreme kind of cancer
that was expected to kill me.
[00:55:54.00]
♪ ♪
[00:55:59.03]
I was just tremendously shocked.
[00:56:02.03]
I felt like still so much to
learn and so much to give,
[00:56:06.00]
and suddenly this happened.
[00:56:09.05]
I was feeling pathological
[00:56:12.09]
because I had this terrible cancer,
[00:56:15.00]
and on the other hand
[00:56:20.03]
there was somewhere inside me a belief
[00:56:23.01]
that there was something good.
[00:56:25.04]
So I needed to reach for that.
[00:56:29.02]
I realized, "Well, George, you understand,
[00:56:31.08]
"social movements are built by campaigns.
[00:56:34.03]
"This is a campaign for your life."
[00:56:37.00]
- He changed his diet,
he changed the way he lived,
[00:56:40.04]
he changed his relationships,
he cried his heart out.
[00:56:44.08]
He did the all the chemo treatments
[00:56:47.03]
and the stuff the doctors said.
[00:56:48.09]
He did alternative therapies,
[00:56:50.07]
he did healing work in the church.
[00:56:53.04]
- And used prayer and meditation,
[00:56:56.00]
and the strong love of friends and family,
[00:56:59.02]
and day after day after day
[00:57:01.02]
of reaching, reaching, reaching
for that healing sunshine,
[00:57:08.06]
this came to me.
[00:57:10.02]
[monitor beeping]
[00:57:12.03]
Imagine my surprise when,
17 days after surgery,
[00:57:16.09]
still in the hospital, with
tubes coming in and going out,
[00:57:21.04]
missing my children and feeling
broken, helpless, useless,
[00:57:27.06]
I had this revelation which
I recorded in my journal.
[00:57:31.09]
Inside me is a cathedral, grand,
[00:57:36.05]
like St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol,
[00:57:40.00]
a gothic gem.
[00:57:41.03]
♪ ♪
[00:57:46.06]
Inside me is exquisite
color shining on walls,
[00:57:51.03]
on floor, and most brilliantly seen
[00:57:53.09]
when the glass is directly apprehended.
[00:57:57.07]
Great peals of the organ resound
[00:58:00.06]
in the cavernous stone recesses.
[00:58:02.09]
♪ ♪
[00:58:05.03]
The merriest music available,
[00:58:07.09]
like that favorite Bach
cantata we sang in the choir.
[00:58:14.06]
I am vast inside.
[00:58:19.02]
Tapers are lit, dramas occur,
continuities are maintained.
[00:58:25.07]
Fresh words are uttered for new days.
[00:58:29.01]
Doors swing open, sunshine comes in.
[00:58:32.07]
I am clean and healthy and wholesome,
[00:58:36.03]
and love is everywhere,
completely without apology.
[00:58:39.08]
♪ ♪
[00:58:43.06]
I came out of it a better person,
[00:58:45.01]
a person more in touch with my power.
[00:58:47.05]
Things can look really, really bad,
[00:58:50.00]
but that doesn't mean
that we can't win through
[00:58:54.07]
and come to a better place.
[00:58:58.00]
And I did.
[00:58:59.02]
♪ ♪
[00:59:02.04]
- George is good at dancing with history.
[00:59:06.09]
He pays attention to what
particular issues are happening,
[00:59:10.07]
and then thinks about how
social change campaigns
[00:59:14.07]
can take advantage of that.
[00:59:17.01]
Nonviolent direct action
is not just something
[00:59:19.05]
that you're born knowing how to do,
[00:59:21.04]
so one of his big passions
has been helping people
[00:59:24.09]
to see that this is something
they could step into.
[00:59:28.00]
- Being an activist, a big
part is about your heart,
[00:59:30.03]
it's about your yearning for justice.
[00:59:32.06]
But there are real skills
that are really important.
[00:59:36.01]
- There's a craft in social change.
[00:59:38.09]
We become way more
powerful, way more effective
[00:59:41.08]
as social changers when
we learn those skills.
[00:59:44.02]
- He realized for our movements to create
[00:59:46.05]
the kinds of change we need,
we need to skill up.
[00:59:49.05]
So he created a training center
called Training for Change.
[00:59:53.00]
- Training for Change
really was a place for him
[00:59:55.03]
to channel so much of
the tools and methodology
[00:59:59.02]
that he and others around him
learned about leading groups
[01:00:02.01]
and doing training for social change.
[01:00:05.01]
- And when we turn on
[01:00:06.02]
to the intentionality inside ourselves
[01:00:08.03]
and the resource in each other,
[01:00:10.01]
there will be nothing that can stop us.
[01:00:12.09]
- For far too many people,
[01:00:14.01]
they think the world happens to them
[01:00:15.08]
as opposed to them happening to the world.
[01:00:18.00]
And training helps them to understand
[01:00:19.05]
that they can flip the script on that
[01:00:21.02]
and be able to own their own agency,
[01:00:22.08]
and be able to create the
change that they need.
[01:00:25.00]
- Training for Change was set
up as a series of workshops,
[01:00:29.02]
and people came to this house, you know,
[01:00:31.03]
from all over the world.
[01:00:32.06]
They would take all of these trainings,
[01:00:34.03]
and then go back and
train their community.
[01:00:37.03]
- George was oftentimes
going to countries in Europe,
[01:00:40.08]
or responding to the most
grassroots organizers
[01:00:45.01]
that wanted training
[01:00:46.07]
for some of the most radical change work
[01:00:48.09]
going on in the world.
[01:00:51.09]
- [Activist] What you are doing!
[01:00:54.01]
- You're taking over my city.
[01:00:55.00]
- [Reporter] This is not a real argument.
[01:00:56.09]
These are protesters learning
how to deal with police
[01:00:59.05]
and others who may confront
them while demonstrating
[01:01:02.04]
during the Republican National Convention.
[01:01:04.04]
- We're encouraging people
to be their nonviolent best
[01:01:07.09]
when they're on the streets,
even when the pressure's on.
[01:01:10.04]
Everywhere I look it's protesters,
protesters, protesters.
[01:01:12.08]
- [Reporter] George Lakey has
been training demonstrators
[01:01:15.06]
since the 1960s.
[01:01:17.01]
- [Activist] Come on now,
break it up, get out!
[01:01:19.03]
[protesters yelling]
[01:01:20.01]
- We think it gives people
some inner confidence
[01:01:22.01]
so that they can deal
nonviolently with the events
[01:01:24.04]
that we haven't thought
through in advance.
[01:01:26.07]
- You and your damn beard!
[01:01:28.05]
- So that they can inject
[01:01:29.07]
as much a spirit of goodwill as possible
[01:01:31.08]
into that confrontation.
[01:01:34.02]
- [Ingrid] He was really part
of helping to think about,
[01:01:36.03]
how do we go to the deeper level?
[01:01:38.04]
What's the personal growth
that people need to do
[01:01:41.04]
to take on authority?
[01:01:43.07]
- A train that goes off the
rails can just go off the rails.
[01:01:47.06]
And with activists, that's like triply so,
[01:01:50.04]
'cause we're assholes, we're rebels.
[01:01:52.08]
The goal of training is
to increase our learning,
[01:01:55.04]
not just to practice being
a-holes to each other.
[01:01:58.04]
Your generation never
faced a timing problem.
[01:02:01.09]
The timing of climate change is limited,
[01:02:04.00]
so we only have so many years.
[01:02:05.07]
- [George] Actually though,
we perceived ourselves
[01:02:08.05]
as in that boat with
the nuclear arms race.
[01:02:11.02]
- The first time that I heard about George
[01:02:12.09]
I was still in college at the time.
[01:02:14.03]
I got invited to go to George's training.
[01:02:17.05]
And there's a particular moment
where George said something
[01:02:20.09]
that I thought was
oppressive or something.
[01:02:23.01]
I raised my hand, I was
like, "This is not right."
[01:02:25.08]
And George said, "Okay,"
you know, listened to me
[01:02:29.03]
and then he explained his rationale.
[01:02:31.05]
He said, "No, I don't read it that way,
[01:02:33.02]
"I think it's this way."
[01:02:34.05]
And I was ready to burn it to the ground,
[01:02:36.08]
and I said, "This is wrong.
[01:02:38.09]
"We shouldn't do it."
[01:02:40.00]
And he said, "Daniel, you've
made very clear your position.
[01:02:42.06]
"I've made clear my position.
[01:02:44.00]
"I'm not squashing you,
if you believe it's wrong
[01:02:46.04]
"you should absolutely not do it.
[01:02:49.06]
"And if you believe it's so wrong
[01:02:51.03]
"that everyone shouldn't do it,
[01:02:53.01]
"you should stop trying to convince me
[01:02:55.02]
"and you should go organize
everybody in this room
[01:02:57.07]
"to stop doing it."
[01:02:59.03]
And it was the first
time in my entire life
[01:03:01.08]
that any teacher educator
had ever taught me
[01:03:04.09]
how to be a better rebel.
[01:03:06.08]
- ...stories in there.
[01:03:07.06]
- My grandpop is a very savvy guy.
[01:03:10.01]
I like to call him Yoda
[01:03:11.05]
because he makes everything
so complicated so simple.
[01:03:15.07]
And you know, whenever I was going through
[01:03:18.03]
a hard time in life,
[01:03:19.05]
I always knew who to go to
to talk about my issues.
[01:03:22.06]
- George has a fundamental belief
[01:03:24.07]
that everybody has a role to play
[01:03:27.09]
and that everyday people
can do extraordinary things,
[01:03:31.04]
and it's just a matter of
inviting people into their power.
[01:03:36.02]
[explosion booming]
[01:03:41.02]
♪ ♪
[01:03:44.07]
- The coal mining industry
had chosen in Appalachia
[01:03:49.05]
to level entire mountains
[01:03:52.05]
in order to get the coal
out of the mountains,
[01:03:55.06]
because it's cheaper for
them to dynamite a mountain
[01:04:00.01]
than to pay workers to
do the traditional thing
[01:04:03.02]
of tunneling into the mountain
in order to get the coal.
[01:04:05.08]
[explosion booming]
[01:04:07.03]
The amount of destruction and nasty stuff
[01:04:10.05]
that gets into the streams and the rivers
[01:04:12.04]
and into the atmosphere,
[01:04:14.00]
it was a disastrous course of action
[01:04:16.08]
that was being financed by banks.
[01:04:19.08]
And we found the number
one bank in the country
[01:04:23.01]
for financing mountaintop
removal coal mining
[01:04:25.05]
was in our town.
[01:04:28.03]
- PNC had Quaker roots that
it liked to brag about,
[01:04:31.08]
and it claimed to be a green bank.
[01:04:34.03]
That really clicked as a
thing that we could take on,
[01:04:38.04]
the financing of this terrible practice,
[01:04:41.00]
and the goal was to get
PNC to stop lending money
[01:04:44.08]
to the companies engaged in this.
[01:04:46.07]
- We borrowed from the
civil rights movement
[01:04:48.09]
the strategic concept of,
[01:04:50.09]
you get something done by campaigning.
[01:04:53.01]
The one-off expression of
opinion doesn't make sense.
[01:04:56.08]
It's as silly as if a
politician announced,
[01:05:00.00]
"I want people to vote for me,
[01:05:01.09]
"so every once in a
while I'll make a speech,
[01:05:03.09]
"but basically I'll keep
doing whatever I do."
[01:05:06.01]
No, politicians don't do that.
[01:05:08.03]
They have to get out and campaign.
[01:05:10.06]
- We took advantage of a
National Quaker Conference
[01:05:13.07]
to recruit Quakers from
around the country,
[01:05:16.01]
and then offered trainings in their region
[01:05:18.08]
so that people could lead
their own bank actions.
[01:05:22.02]
- [George] We had to grow from being able
[01:05:24.00]
to invade their banks in Philadelphia,
[01:05:27.02]
to several counties, to several states,
[01:05:30.09]
till by year five we were able to do
[01:05:33.07]
simultaneous bank actions in 13 states.
[01:05:38.00]
- PNC has a choice to make.
[01:05:39.08]
Invest in the future.
[01:05:41.04]
[protesters chanting and singing]
[01:05:48.01]
- Quakers are known for silent worship,
[01:05:49.07]
but today we're speaking out.
[01:05:51.05]
- [George] We ended up doing 125 actions.
[01:05:54.07]
- If you do not wanna
get locked up, leave now.
[01:05:58.02]
- [George] The bank got the message.
[01:06:00.02]
This is a group that may be a small group,
[01:06:03.01]
but they are tenacious.
[01:06:04.07]
[protesters shouting]
[01:06:06.06]
And they will not let go until we give up.
[01:06:10.02]
♪ ♪
[01:06:11.08]
And we did indeed force PNC Bank
[01:06:15.02]
to give up this lucrative
source of income,
[01:06:17.09]
and they even acknowledged
that it had to do
[01:06:20.07]
with the pressure that we put on them.
[01:06:23.01]
♪ ♪
[01:06:26.09]
♪ ♪
[01:06:30.05]
My mission in life was social change.
[01:06:34.06]
But this family, which I thought
[01:06:37.02]
could comfortably work out
alongside this mission--
[01:06:40.09]
people have a job, and
people have a family--
[01:06:43.00]
turned out to be way way more than that.
[01:06:47.02]
- Well, what didn't make my family unique?
[01:06:48.09]
[Ingrid chuckling]
[01:06:49.08]
My dad is gay, my mom's from
Norway, so she's an immigrant.
[01:06:53.08]
My parents adopted my brother and sister,
[01:06:56.01]
they're African American,
my parents are white.
[01:06:58.05]
We're Quakers, and we lived
in a collective household.
[01:07:02.07]
Almost every issue of American families
[01:07:05.05]
got expressed in our family.
[01:07:07.02]
And each of us, I think, had
our own part of seeing that
[01:07:10.05]
or experiencing that.
[01:07:12.09]
- When George and I put in
an application to adopt,
[01:07:16.08]
we said we were quite willing
to take a child of color.
[01:07:21.07]
The agency was wondering
what we were trying to prove,
[01:07:25.00]
and we said, "Well, we just want a child."
[01:07:28.00]
And we thought, we're not prejudiced
[01:07:30.05]
and we live in a mixed community,
[01:07:32.07]
and that would be all right.
[01:07:35.05]
In retrospect, I realize that
we didn't really understand
[01:07:39.09]
what that was gonna be
like for the children.
[01:07:43.08]
- You know, I really
didn't know about race
[01:07:46.07]
until I was probably seven or eight.
[01:07:49.09]
I was at a Phillies game,
'cause I had this best friend
[01:07:53.03]
and her dad would always
take me to the Phillies game.
[01:07:56.01]
Now, they were white.
[01:07:59.03]
I mean...
[01:08:00.04]
And this boy called me a
n----r at the Phillies game.
[01:08:04.04]
And I remember saying, you know what?
[01:08:06.09]
I came away from that just
like, yeah, I am different.
[01:08:11.06]
I didn't even know what n----r meant.
[01:08:13.05]
You know, I could tell
by the way he said it,
[01:08:14.09]
it wasn't a good thing.
[01:08:16.05]
♪ ♪
[01:08:18.07]
- Christina was a happy child,
[01:08:22.08]
and then had a very very
hard time as an adolescent,
[01:08:26.02]
so we went through a lot of
[01:08:27.09]
the kind of turmoil that that generates.
[01:08:30.00]
- The way we view the world
is totally different, I think,
[01:08:35.01]
so my view of what he thinks
[01:08:39.03]
is not realistic to me
[01:08:44.07]
based on my life experiences, you know.
[01:08:47.08]
He adopted biracial kids
[01:08:49.05]
because he doesn't wanna
have racism in the world,
[01:08:53.00]
but he doesn't understand what
it is to be Black in America.
[01:08:58.09]
He never will.
[01:08:59.09]
It's impossible.
[01:09:01.01]
He's a white man.
[01:09:02.00]
There's no way that that could happen.
[01:09:04.09]
- [George] Peter did not have
a good start in the family
[01:09:08.01]
that had him first, a foster family,
[01:09:11.05]
and never got over the
anxiety that he brought to us.
[01:09:18.03]
- He had a very hard life.
[01:09:20.07]
He was a damaged child.
[01:09:24.01]
So he had a hard time.
[01:09:27.02]
That upsets me to talk about him.
[01:09:29.06]
♪ ♪
[01:09:33.02]
- Peter became addicted
to alcohol and cocaine.
[01:09:38.08]
We got a place for him at a
treatment center in Maine.
[01:09:42.09]
We got friends to help us pay for it.
[01:09:45.07]
It cost an arm and leg.
[01:09:47.09]
But it was like, okay,
this is gonna have to--
[01:09:51.05]
We have to do this to save his life.
[01:09:54.03]
And we found there that
40% of the youngsters
[01:09:58.01]
who were there were adopted.
[01:10:00.06]
So we learned more about the whole issue
[01:10:02.09]
of the tensions around identity.
[01:10:07.00]
As far as George and myself,
[01:10:10.05]
through all the difficulties,
[01:10:12.00]
what was important in a big picture
[01:10:14.02]
was important to both of us.
[01:10:15.09]
But personally, and how
we related to children
[01:10:20.01]
and to each other and to other people,
[01:10:22.01]
were really, really different.
[01:10:24.04]
And, long before this,
George had come out as gay,
[01:10:29.01]
and more and more that was
becoming part of his identity.
[01:10:33.09]
♪ ♪
[01:10:36.01]
We held it together for a good long time,
[01:10:39.04]
but eventually, you know, the
marriage ran out of steam.
[01:10:43.06]
♪ ♪
[01:10:54.00]
- When I was growing up,
[01:10:55.01]
and my dad was doing all kinds of actions
[01:10:56.09]
all kinds of places,
[01:10:58.02]
I was mostly not worried about him.
[01:11:01.01]
The time I did get worried about him
[01:11:03.03]
was when he had gone to Sri Lanka
[01:11:06.05]
to become a nonviolent bodyguard.
[01:11:09.06]
- In the late '80s,
[01:11:10.09]
Sri Lanka, a small island
off the tip of India,
[01:11:14.07]
was struggling to deal with
a mass movement of peasants
[01:11:20.01]
that wanted economic justice
[01:11:21.08]
and was being strongly
supported by students.
[01:11:24.09]
[protesters shouting]
[01:11:27.06]
[tear gas canisters pinging]
[01:11:29.03]
So they were arresting
students and torturing them
[01:11:32.05]
to get information on
which students they knew
[01:11:36.00]
were actually part of
that peasant movement.
[01:11:38.04]
If a student was seized,
the parents would go
[01:11:40.07]
to a human rights lawyer
[01:11:42.04]
and get that student out
of the hands of the police.
[01:11:45.01]
So the police started assassinating
[01:11:48.00]
the human rights lawyers.
[01:11:49.01]
♪ ♪
[01:11:51.03]
So that's what brought the issue to me.
[01:11:53.06]
There was an international organization
[01:11:55.05]
called Peace Brigades International,
[01:11:57.02]
which came to me and said,
[01:11:58.03]
"We want to put a team
[01:12:00.02]
"of civilian protection into Sri Lanka
[01:12:04.02]
"to accompany the human rights
lawyers to keep them alive
[01:12:09.05]
"while they're doing this necessary work
[01:12:11.06]
"of protecting students."
[01:12:13.01]
The idea was, if the police
came to assassinate the lawyer,
[01:12:17.06]
we would be there.
[01:12:19.04]
I was foreign.
[01:12:20.08]
Hit squad wasn't instructed
to kill foreigners
[01:12:23.07]
because that might make major
trouble for the government,
[01:12:26.04]
which was responsible for the hit squads.
[01:12:29.05]
- I will admit, I was scared.
[01:12:31.08]
It was the thing that felt so directly
[01:12:35.05]
about him putting his
body between an assassin
[01:12:40.00]
and their target,
[01:12:41.07]
fully aware that part of
what would keep him safe
[01:12:45.01]
was being a six-foot-three
white American in Sri Lanka.
[01:12:50.02]
He absolutely was clear
[01:12:51.06]
what all the privileges that he carried,
[01:12:54.01]
and he was gonna use that to protect
[01:12:57.08]
a human rights lawyer across the globe.
[01:13:02.04]
How could I not support that?
[01:13:05.08]
- And so I went to Sri Lanka.
[01:13:07.08]
♪ ♪
[01:13:11.03]
I remember one lawyer I
was protecting who said,
[01:13:14.04]
"I'm very worried about
[01:13:16.02]
"somebody knocking at the door at night."
[01:13:19.04]
[muffled knocking]
[01:13:20.06]
"And I, thinking it's a
distraught parent who's saying,
[01:13:24.04]
"'Quick, quick, quick save my son,'
[01:13:26.02]
"and I open the door
[01:13:27.03]
"and it turns out it's
the assassination squad,
[01:13:30.08]
"who shoots me down.
[01:13:32.02]
[frantic knocking]
[01:13:33.02]
"So I need you to open the door."
[01:13:35.08]
♪ ♪
[01:13:39.02]
I was scared the whole time I was there.
[01:13:40.09]
It was three months of fear.
[01:13:42.07]
People were being killed around me.
[01:13:45.05]
Every time I passed a
religious institution,
[01:13:48.00]
I would duck in and calm myself, pray,
[01:13:51.08]
and experience the love that reminds us
[01:13:54.06]
why we're here on earth.
[01:13:57.09]
And if I should die here, so be it.
[01:14:00.02]
But I did want to participate
in this pioneering way
[01:14:05.01]
of saving lives.
[01:14:06.04]
♪ ♪
[01:14:09.03]
♪ ♪
[01:14:15.03]
- The last time I saw Peter,
we had dinner together,
[01:14:18.08]
and then we talked on the phone afterwards
[01:14:21.00]
and he said how hard it was
[01:14:22.08]
to be cross-addicted
to alcohol and cocaine.
[01:14:29.08]
He couldn't hold it together.
[01:14:32.00]
♪ ♪
[01:14:34.06]
- My dad was in Sri Lanka at the time,
[01:14:37.00]
and almost immediately he flew back
[01:14:40.09]
and we just, you know,
held each other and cried.
[01:14:46.03]
And our family has cried
and cried and cried
[01:14:50.07]
over losing my brother.
[01:14:55.01]
And we continue to, and
it's been, you know,
[01:14:58.01]
more than 30 years since he's been gone.
[01:15:01.09]
- [George] Where are we?
[01:15:03.03]
- "You'll Never Walk Alone."
[01:15:05.07]
You okay Dad?
[01:15:06.08]
I sang this at my brother's memorial.
[01:15:09.04]
♪ ♪
[01:15:15.04]
♪ You walk through a storm ♪
[01:15:20.02]
♪ Hold your head up high ♪
[01:15:26.05]
♪ And don't be afraid of the dark ♪
[01:15:31.05]
♪ And don't be afraid of the dark ♪
[01:15:36.04]
♪ At the end of the storm ♪
[01:15:41.05]
♪ Is a golden sky ♪
[01:15:43.01]
It's just such a searing pain
that doesn't ever go away.
[01:15:48.06]
It's, like, a part of all of our lives,
[01:15:52.02]
and for sure my dad's.
[01:15:56.01]
Being able to listen to
him now as a parent myself,
[01:15:59.08]
to be able to listen to him
talk about what it was like
[01:16:02.08]
to try to figure out what to do
[01:16:07.06]
for this boy who was
suffering so, so much,
[01:16:11.03]
and not being able to save his son
[01:16:15.05]
despite heroic efforts on
both of my parents' part.
[01:16:21.00]
And that's part of the pain of addiction,
[01:16:22.06]
it's...the suffering is everywhere.
[01:16:25.07]
♪ And you'll never walk alone ♪
[01:16:30.07]
♪ And you'll never walk alone ♪
[01:16:34.08]
♪ You'll never walk alone ♪
[01:16:39.05]
♪ You'll never walk alone ♪
[01:16:47.07]
♪ You'll never walk alone ♪
[01:16:52.03]
♪ You'll never walk alone ♪
[01:17:14.07]
- This is how I feel
about parenting overall
[01:17:18.07]
with most folks.
[01:17:20.05]
You do the best you can with
what you got at the time.
[01:17:23.03]
There's no book that says,
"Hey, when this happens,
[01:17:26.05]
"go to page eight, chapter,
you know, paragraph nine,
[01:17:30.07]
"and there's the answer."
[01:17:32.07]
You just do the best you can.
[01:17:34.00]
I think my father made
some mistakes with Peter,
[01:17:36.05]
as he has with me, as well.
[01:17:38.06]
However, he did the best
he could do at the time.
[01:17:41.09]
I know that he loves us.
[01:17:43.04]
You know, I know that he loved Peter,
[01:17:45.06]
and he still has a lot of guilt and grief
[01:17:49.05]
over Peter's death.
[01:17:52.01]
But it was nothing that he could have did
[01:17:54.08]
one way or the other that
would've stopped him from dying
[01:17:57.09]
the day that he died.
[01:17:59.04]
♪ ♪
[01:18:07.02]
- So after my brother died,
we decided to plant a tree
[01:18:10.03]
for my brother in our local park.
[01:18:13.08]
It was so beautiful, and
we sang around the tree
[01:18:16.03]
and we planted some of
his ashes with the tree.
[01:18:21.05]
And then at Christmas time,
[01:18:22.08]
we as a family would go
and decorate the tree.
[01:18:26.04]
We'd put tinsel on it and, like, you know,
[01:18:29.00]
little Christmas balls and stuff,
[01:18:30.05]
as part of our, like,
remembering my brother.
[01:18:33.07]
♪ ♪
[01:18:36.08]
There's something powerful
about having a living memorial
[01:18:39.00]
'cause it keeps growing
and changing as we do, too,
[01:18:41.06]
even though we've lost
this incredibly important
[01:18:43.05]
person in our lives.
[01:18:45.02]
So, it's been a real
blessing to have that.
[01:18:48.04]
[bells tolling]
[01:18:58.02]
- There are alternatives to
the paradigm in most cultures
[01:19:03.03]
that violence is the
only way to exert power.
[01:19:07.02]
The theory that if you wanna win,
[01:19:09.07]
you have to be willing to
hurt people is so incorrect.
[01:19:13.04]
That is as incorrect as the
flat Earth theory was once.
[01:19:16.07]
Well, we've gotten rid
of the flat Earth theory.
[01:19:18.08]
Now we need to get rid
of the violence theory,
[01:19:21.05]
and instead understand
that nonviolent power
[01:19:24.00]
is actually more powerful
than violent power.
[01:19:28.01]
- I first met George
[01:19:30.01]
when I was a student
at Swarthmore College.
[01:19:32.06]
He was a visiting professor there.
[01:19:34.01]
And I enrolled in his course
researching case studies
[01:19:37.04]
in social movement campaigns
[01:19:39.05]
that were using nonviolent direct action.
[01:19:42.04]
- In the US, civil rights
movement is kind of, you know,
[01:19:45.05]
key period that we know some, you know,
[01:19:48.04]
collective action happened,
[01:19:50.01]
but in terms of opening our
eyes to the rest of the world,
[01:19:52.06]
George wanted to show the successes
[01:19:55.02]
of nonviolent collective action
[01:19:57.08]
throughout history and across the globe.
[01:20:00.06]
- I ask them to write up cases
[01:20:03.07]
for a publicly available database
[01:20:05.07]
that we would create and put on a website,
[01:20:08.04]
and what their job would
be would be to take a case
[01:20:11.06]
of struggle somewhere in the world,
[01:20:13.08]
where people went after something
[01:20:16.04]
or defended themselves against something
[01:20:18.03]
that was coming at them, nonviolently.
[01:20:21.01]
- Every week, we each researched
[01:20:24.01]
and then wrote one case study.
[01:20:26.02]
And I remember I did a case study
[01:20:27.06]
on the apartheid divestment
movement from the '80s.
[01:20:30.05]
- [Alexa] I wrote about
case of the occupation
[01:20:33.02]
of Alcatraz Island by Indigenous folks.
[01:20:35.08]
I wrote about nonviolent
action in the Middle East.
[01:20:39.00]
- [Stephie] Cases about, like,
[01:20:40.01]
taking down dictators
in different countries,
[01:20:42.09]
so it sort of went across the gamut.
[01:20:45.00]
- Case after case after
case in which people
[01:20:47.09]
won hard fought struggles nonviolently.
[01:20:52.00]
We ended up with a database of 1,400 cases
[01:20:55.05]
from around the world.
[01:20:56.09]
♪ ♪
[01:20:58.06]
- The work really exposed
social change is happening
[01:21:01.09]
all around us, all the time,
[01:21:04.05]
and it offers a really
dramatic competing narrative
[01:21:08.03]
that the world only moves
forward with violence,
[01:21:11.07]
and the world only moves forward
[01:21:13.04]
when people in authority
say it's time to change.
[01:21:15.09]
- It is so empowering to know
[01:21:17.08]
that the people can act in ways
[01:21:20.02]
that aren't hurting and
killing other people, and win.
[01:21:24.02]
What's better than that?
[01:21:25.06]
[laughing]
[01:21:26.07]
- Being in the spaces
that George has created
[01:21:29.06]
and is part of in a broader
movement showed me that,
[01:21:31.07]
"Oh, there's actually a
science and an art to this."
[01:21:34.07]
♪ ♪
[01:21:35.08]
[protesters chanting]
[01:21:39.01]
The crew of us who were
part of those experiences
[01:21:42.00]
at Swarthmore moved to Philly together,
[01:21:44.04]
and when there was plans
to expand fossil fuels
[01:21:47.04]
in Philadelphia, we got
to work knocking on doors
[01:21:50.08]
and talking to neighbors,
[01:21:52.00]
and we shut down the largest
oil refinery on the East Coast.
[01:21:56.03]
We did that as a group of everyday people,
[01:21:59.06]
just like, you know,
the cases in the database.
[01:22:02.05]
"Gets the goods," as George says.
[01:22:05.04]
- I'm an organizer with
the Sunrise Movement.
[01:22:07.09]
Sunrise is a movement of young people
[01:22:09.08]
that is organizing to
tackle the climate crisis.
[01:22:13.04]
- We are here to say to our politicians,
[01:22:15.04]
"We need you to back a Green New Deal."
[01:22:18.00]
- [Stephie] The moment
that really sent Sunrise
[01:22:19.07]
into the national sphere
[01:22:21.06]
was a sit-in at Nancy
Pelosi's office in 2018,
[01:22:24.08]
right after the midterm elections.
[01:22:26.07]
- Ladies and gentlemen...
[01:22:28.07]
[indistinct crosstalk]
[01:22:33.03]
- I just wanna let you
all know how proud I am
[01:22:36.04]
of each and every single one of you
[01:22:40.01]
for putting yourselves and your bodies
[01:22:42.06]
and everything on the line to make sure
[01:22:45.09]
that we save our planet, our
generation and our future.
[01:22:49.08]
- A hundred young people took action,
[01:22:51.04]
and it changed the
conversation in US politics
[01:22:54.02]
and affected things that,
like, presidential candidates
[01:22:56.04]
and, like, now-President
Joe Biden was saying.
[01:22:58.08]
- As President, I have a responsibility
[01:23:00.06]
to act with urgency and
resolve when our nation
[01:23:04.00]
faces clear and present danger.
[01:23:06.03]
And that's what climate change is about.
[01:23:11.03]
- [George] That kind of
action by a small group
[01:23:13.05]
can be repeated over and over and over.
[01:23:16.02]
♪ ♪
[01:23:18.00]
We will make bigger and
bigger and bigger changes,
[01:23:20.06]
because a change in one
area inspires people.
[01:23:24.07]
♪ ♪
[01:23:26.05]
- Putting together that
global nonviolent database
[01:23:29.02]
offered a resource to
the rest of the world
[01:23:31.07]
for people who are looking for models
[01:23:35.00]
of how to do social change,
[01:23:36.05]
and what social change
movements have actually worked.
[01:23:39.06]
That's just an extraordinary
gift to folks worldwide
[01:23:44.03]
who are seeking liberation.
[01:23:46.08]
- There's a George quality
that has rubbed off on me,
[01:23:50.03]
and I'm so grateful for it,
[01:23:51.06]
that at some point, just be in motion.
[01:23:54.00]
- [Eileen] The 2020
election was approaching,
[01:23:57.05]
and there was a lot of anxiety
[01:23:59.05]
about what the outcome of
that election was gonna be.
[01:24:02.04]
- [Daniel] George and I got on the phone,
[01:24:03.07]
and we were chatting about Trump,
[01:24:06.06]
and so what's up with Trump?
[01:24:08.06]
- As far as the ballots are
concerned, it's a disaster.
[01:24:11.07]
This is going to be a fraud,
like you've never seen.
[01:24:14.04]
- The question on our minds was twofold.
[01:24:16.05]
One, how likely is a coup?
[01:24:19.00]
And the second was,
[01:24:20.07]
how likely is it that leftists,
progressives and Democrats
[01:24:24.04]
get so obsessed with the first question
[01:24:27.00]
of how likely is a coup,
[01:24:28.04]
that we'll spend all of our energy
[01:24:30.02]
completely enraptured in
angst, concern, worry,
[01:24:34.05]
so we won't actually do the
things that we need to do?
[01:24:36.08]
- [Eileen] And so they said,
[01:24:37.07]
"Well, what we could do is offer training.
[01:24:39.09]
- We wanna really welcome
the emotions of this moment.
[01:24:43.07]
The fear, the anxiety, the hope, the joy,
[01:24:45.06]
the rage, the grief.
[01:24:46.08]
- George and others organized
a series of webinars
[01:24:50.04]
to really give people the blueprint
[01:24:52.05]
of what to do if there's a coup.
[01:24:54.02]
How are we building skills
and mindset and strategy
[01:24:58.01]
to activate our local communities?
[01:25:00.08]
- [Eileen] They looked at examples
[01:25:02.09]
where average people had
nonviolently thwarted a coup,
[01:25:07.02]
and they pulled out some key lessons.
[01:25:09.02]
- Strategically,
countries that encountered
[01:25:12.03]
a violent response, the ones
who have been successful
[01:25:15.03]
have been those who've taken that violence
[01:25:18.00]
and used it as a backfire mechanism,
[01:25:21.00]
as a kind of boomerang.
[01:25:22.09]
- In a matter of weeks,
we trained 10,000 people.
[01:25:26.04]
So many people came to these
trainings full of anxiety.
[01:25:30.00]
And I think part of the role
that Choose Democracy played
[01:25:33.02]
was helping people channel that anxiety
[01:25:36.03]
and understand that there
were things they could do.
[01:25:39.06]
American exceptionalism leads us to think,
[01:25:42.01]
"Oh, a coup would never happened here,"
[01:25:44.04]
but in fact it is possible,
[01:25:47.02]
and we can learn from
these other countries.
[01:25:49.09]
♪ ♪
[01:25:51.08]
- [Reporter] We can now project
[01:25:53.00]
that former Vice President Joe Biden
[01:25:54.09]
has been elected President
of the United States.
[01:25:58.04]
[crowd cheering]
[01:26:00.05]
Donald Trump, the 45th
President of the United States
[01:26:03.02]
has vowed not to concede.
[01:26:05.02]
- [Trump] Now it is up to Congress
[01:26:06.09]
to confront this egregious
assault on our democracy.
[01:26:11.00]
[crowd cheering]
[01:26:12.03]
We're gonna walk down to the Capitol,
[01:26:15.03]
because you'll never take back
our country with weakness.
[01:26:19.08]
[crowd shouting]
[01:26:23.01]
- One of the really important
legacies of Choose Democracy
[01:26:26.06]
is that I think it helped play a role
[01:26:28.08]
in convincing
counterprotesters to stay home.
[01:26:32.04]
And in the newsletter, especially, saying,
[01:26:34.04]
"On January 6th,
[01:26:35.08]
"we know that Trump supporters
are gonna go to the Capitol,
[01:26:39.06]
"and we are not gonna show up.
[01:26:41.08]
"They want us to show up.
[01:26:43.02]
"They wanna have conflict with us.
[01:26:45.03]
"We're gonna stay home and
let this all be about them."
[01:26:50.02]
There are so many issues
[01:26:52.01]
where nonviolent direct
action can be deployed.
[01:26:54.09]
My hope is that training will
nurture that seed in people.
[01:26:59.04]
- I bet every person in
this room and in the country
[01:27:03.00]
knows people who disagree
with you politically.
[01:27:06.02]
Get on the phone.
[01:27:08.04]
Reach out to people with
a different point of view
[01:27:11.04]
from yours on this or that issue,
[01:27:14.09]
understanding that we have
this great common interest
[01:27:19.00]
in a democracy, whether
we're Republican or Democrat.
[01:27:22.05]
It's the apple pie issue.
[01:27:26.01]
We all have a stake in
an American democracy.
[01:27:30.00]
♪ ♪
[01:27:36.00]
This is my favorite place.
[01:27:38.03]
♪ ♪
[01:27:41.01]
Sometimes I come down at night
when it's pretty quiet here,
[01:27:44.06]
and reflect on what this
building means for me.
[01:27:48.06]
This was a building where
tremendous innovation happened.
[01:27:52.02]
We announced to the king that
we were no longer willing
[01:27:55.01]
to live under his rule.
[01:27:58.02]
The very assertiveness of
going up against the king,
[01:28:02.09]
and they put their lives on
the line in order to do it
[01:28:05.06]
and to declare independence.
[01:28:07.08]
♪ ♪
[01:28:09.09]
I've made grievous errors in my life.
[01:28:12.04]
You know, I'm a mixed
bag like anybody else,
[01:28:15.09]
and like my country is.
[01:28:19.01]
I want to give my country the love
[01:28:21.01]
and affirmation that it needs and deserves
[01:28:24.00]
at the same time as acknowledging
[01:28:26.09]
that we fall short in many ways.
[01:28:30.00]
The people who met here, sure,
they didn't create utopia,
[01:28:33.04]
left an awful lot of problems still
[01:28:35.07]
for the rest of us to handle.
[01:28:38.04]
But the degree of change that
they started inspires me.
[01:28:42.09]
♪ ♪
[01:28:46.04]
♪ Don't give up hope ♪
[01:28:48.00]
♪ Don't give up hope ♪
[01:28:49.07]
♪ You're not alone ♪
[01:28:51.04]
♪ You're not alone ♪
[01:28:53.02]
♪ Don't you give up ♪
[01:28:55.00]
♪ Don't you give up ♪
[01:28:56.07]
♪ Keep moving on ♪
[01:28:58.06]
♪ Keep moving on ♪
[01:28:59.09]
♪ Yeah, we gotta put ♪
[01:29:01.06]
♪ One foot in front of the other ♪
[01:29:04.08]
♪ And lead with the pull ♪
[01:29:08.07]
♪ Of one foot in front of the other ♪
[01:29:11.09]
♪ And lead with love ♪
[01:29:15.01]
♪ I know you're scared ♪
[01:29:15.09]
- Whether you're Black,
you're white, you're Brown,
[01:29:18.03]
you're Indigenous, you're
Asian Pacific Islander,
[01:29:20.06]
you're urban, suburban,
rural, Democrat, Republican,
[01:29:24.00]
socialist, working families,
[01:29:25.06]
whether you run a corporation
[01:29:27.01]
or you are an underpaid worker,
[01:29:29.02]
whoever you are, whoever you are,
[01:29:31.03]
this Earth is your home!
[01:29:34.03]
[protesters cheering]
[01:29:37.05]
We all belong, we all have a right to it.
[01:29:41.00]
We all have a right to enjoy it.
[01:29:42.09]
We need each other.
[01:29:44.00]
We need our air, our water,
[01:29:45.07]
our soil, and a livable planet,
[01:29:48.02]
and we need each other, including
Vanguard, to divest now!
[01:29:53.04]
Divest now!
[01:29:55.00]
[crowd chanting] Divest now!
[01:29:57.05]
- We're at the end of a week of walking,
[01:29:59.05]
and so we now arrive
today at the headquarters
[01:30:03.01]
of an $8 trillion corporation.
[01:30:05.00]
And what we're saying is,
[01:30:06.03]
"You're taking people's retirement money
[01:30:08.08]
"for their future, to safeguard.
[01:30:10.07]
"On the other hand,
you're destroying the future."
[01:30:13.00]
- They can't say that they're investing
[01:30:15.00]
for our retirement when
there won't be a world
[01:30:17.03]
for us to retire on.
[01:30:19.00]
[protesters cheering and applauding]
[01:30:21.03]
So please, Vanguard, choose humanity.
[01:30:25.03]
Choose the Earth, choose
your children, choose life,
[01:30:30.02]
and do not choose dirty money.
[01:30:32.04]
So as you can see, there are some folks
[01:30:34.07]
standing in the driveway.
[01:30:36.01]
These folks are willing to risk arrest.
[01:30:38.03]
[protesters cheering and applauding]
[01:30:42.01]
- We're going to lie across the driveway
[01:30:44.06]
and basically, you know, say,
"Well, we're here.
[01:30:47.08]
"It's your job to get rid of us."
[01:30:49.09]
And we refuse to accept failures
[01:30:52.04]
from business and world leaders.
[01:30:55.00]
I lie down in solidarity
with those at risk
[01:30:58.07]
and with those who resist!
[01:31:00.08]
[protesters cheering]
[01:31:07.02]
♪ And when I rise ♪
[01:31:08.07]
♪ And when I rise ♪
[01:31:10.04]
♪ Let me rise up ♪
[01:31:11.09]
♪ Let me rise up ♪
[01:31:13.04]
♪ Like a bird ♪
[01:31:14.09]
♪ Like a bird ♪
[01:31:16.04]
♪ Powerfully ♪
[01:31:18.00]
♪ Powerfully ♪
[01:31:19.01]
♪ And when I fall ♪
[01:31:20.07]
♪ And when I fall ♪
[01:31:22.05]
♪ Let me fall down ♪
[01:31:24.01]
♪ Let me fall down ♪
[01:31:25.05]
♪ Like a leaf ♪
[01:31:27.01]
♪ Like a leaf ♪
[01:31:28.03]
♪ Gracefully ♪
[01:31:29.08]
♪ Gracefully ♪
[01:31:31.01]
- I really believe his
approach to activism
[01:31:33.05]
and nonviolent direct action
[01:31:35.01]
does what King and others
[01:31:37.06]
really thought strategically about,
[01:31:39.04]
but also philosophically about.
[01:31:41.04]
How do you make the general
populace have to make a decision
[01:31:44.01]
about what's right and what's wrong?
[01:31:46.01]
♪ Let me rise up ♪
[01:31:47.07]
George causing folks to
interact with his body
[01:31:51.06]
that's laying down on the street.
[01:31:52.09]
People might be annoyed,
people are, like, upset,
[01:31:55.09]
but there also might
be people who see that
[01:31:58.00]
and start to ask, "Why
is this 85-year-old man
[01:32:01.01]
"laying down in the street?"
[01:32:04.02]
The hope is that an action like that
[01:32:06.06]
helps to catalyze something
internal with an individual
[01:32:10.01]
to actually bring about the change.
[01:32:12.08]
I think that's so much part of
[01:32:14.04]
what nonviolent direct
action can do in a society.
[01:32:19.00]
♪ And when I stand ♪
[01:32:20.04]
♪ And when I stand ♪
[01:32:22.01]
♪ Let me stand up ♪
[01:32:23.08]
♪ Let me stand up ♪
[01:32:25.01]
♪ Like a mountain ♪
[01:32:26.07]
♪ Like a mountain ♪
[01:32:28.00]
♪ Solidly ♪
[01:32:29.03]
♪ Solidly ♪
[01:32:30.06]
♪ ♪
[01:32:32.03]
- It is important to me
[01:32:33.06]
to allow the feelings of sadness and anger
[01:32:38.08]
to be experienced by me.
[01:32:40.06]
I can't just whisk them away.
[01:32:43.05]
And I find at such times it's
easy for me to get shaky,
[01:32:47.08]
unless I go to the source of love,
[01:32:51.06]
unless I look inside myself
[01:32:54.00]
and also find in others the love
[01:32:57.05]
that actually is there in abundance.
[01:33:00.02]
♪ ♪
[01:33:05.00]
- We need George Lakeys
[01:33:06.04]
because if we didn't have George Lakeys
[01:33:08.03]
we'd all be robots, serving some masters
[01:33:10.09]
that decided they were
gonna take on the world
[01:33:12.05]
and make it their own.
[01:33:13.09]
The George Lakeys in the
world create an imagination
[01:33:17.01]
about what the world could be,
and then gives us the tools,
[01:33:20.03]
the training, the courage,
[01:33:21.09]
the encouragement to go make it happen.
[01:33:25.03]
- He's not an optimist.
[01:33:27.00]
He looks at the world the way it is.
[01:33:29.02]
You can't be optimistic
about how things are.
[01:33:33.04]
But he's hopeful.
[01:33:34.09]
♪ ♪
[01:33:37.09]
- He talks about his life
[01:33:39.04]
and how he thinks of the
work as dancing with history.
[01:33:42.07]
Despite how much there
is struggle and conflict
[01:33:45.09]
and difficulty in the work,
[01:33:47.05]
there's a way in which
he can still find joy
[01:33:50.01]
in living through it and
being a part of change.
[01:33:53.06]
[protesters chanting]
[01:33:55.08]
- I think in some ways the
largest impact has been
[01:33:58.08]
on the number of people he's trained.
[01:34:00.08]
He's trained thousands of people
[01:34:02.07]
who have, in turn, trained others
[01:34:04.09]
and led movements and campaigns.
[01:34:07.03]
- Our generation is ready
to take back our lives!
[01:34:10.03]
[protesters cheering]
[01:34:11.05]
- [Ingrid] That's a big boulder in a lake
[01:34:13.02]
to make ripples that we can't even see.
[01:34:15.04]
♪ ♪
[01:34:17.07]
- [George] When I was 19,
[01:34:19.02]
I decided my life was to
be about social change,
[01:34:23.00]
about moving society toward justice.
[01:34:26.04]
That was to be my mission.
[01:34:28.04]
- [Ingrid] I think he followed his dreams,
[01:34:31.01]
and ultimately I think
that's what matters.
[01:34:34.01]
♪ ♪
[01:34:37.01]
- George is knocking on nine
decades on planet Earth.
[01:34:40.09]
His legacy will be how much he loved,
[01:34:43.03]
and how well he loved.
[01:34:45.06]
Love in struggle.
[01:34:46.07]
Love in connection.
[01:34:47.07]
Love in celebration.
[01:34:49.01]
Love in grief.
[01:34:51.00]
I think we'll look back and
say that he really loved.
[01:34:53.07]
♪ ♪
[01:35:10.08]
♪ We are going ♪
[01:35:16.00]
♪ Heaven knows how we are going ♪
[01:35:24.03]
♪ We know we are ♪
[01:35:30.00]
♪ We will get there ♪
[01:35:35.03]
♪ Heaven knows how we will get there ♪
[01:35:43.07]
♪ We know we will ♪
[01:35:47.08]
♪ It might be hard we know ♪
[01:35:54.07]
♪ And the road will be stony and rough ♪
[01:36:03.01]
♪ But we'll get there ♪
[01:36:08.01]
♪ Heaven knows how we will get there ♪
[01:36:16.06]
♪ But we know we will ♪
[01:36:21.04]
♪ ♪
[01:38:22.07]
♪ We are soldiers in the army ♪
[01:38:27.02]
♪ We gotta fight ♪
[01:38:28.06]
♪ Although we gotta cry ♪
[01:38:31.00]
♪ We gotta hold up the freedom banner ♪
[01:38:34.06]
♪ We gotta hold it up until we die ♪
[01:38:39.09]
[George sighing]
[01:38:46.03]
It's a great song.
[01:38:48.01]
A true marching song.
[01:38:49.09]
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 99 minutes
Date: 2024
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10-12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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