WEBVTT

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(MUSIC PLAYING)

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- The concept of nonviolence
is a 20th century term

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coined by Mohandas Gandhi of India.

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Gandhi also goes on to
say that love is power.

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It's the most creative power of the universe
-- and it's the greatest force, he says,

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that is available to humankind.

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And humankind needs to learn how to use it.

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The laborer deserves his wagers.

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I think wages of people who do the work
is an essential ingredient of justice

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and of community.

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I think the human species was
created primarily to learn to work --

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physical work, intellectual work, artistic
work, community work, social work.

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We have to work as human beings
because it feeds our dignity.

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It feeds our sense of making a contribution.

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It feeds our sense of
taking care of ourselves.

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And so all work has dignity to
it, is what Martin King said.

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- All labor has dignity.

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- And so work is not primarily for wages,
but we ought to be able to benefit from

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our work -- especially the work that we
do outside of the home and in the larger

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community.

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They cannot support the simple right of
the ordinary man and woman in this society

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to have the full dignity of
their work and their wages.

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And we must begin to tell
the Democratic party,

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"Stand up, and be counted for human
rights and for human dignity."

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- Reverend Lawson's work
is grounded in love.

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And it is grounded in a deep
appreciation and respect

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for the dignity of all human beings.

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- People of our land need to ask
themselves what kind of people we are,

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and what kind of government
we want for ourselves.

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Do we want a daily existence or
an existence between elections

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that's primarily about the enhancement
of the powerful and the rich?

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Do we want growing chaos?

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Do we want more violence?

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Do we want to increase poverty
and structural poverty?

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Or do we want to be a
people where we can see

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the bonds of human affections, a period
in which we become more and more connected

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to each other across every
kind of human division?

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- And so that comes across in his
sermons, it comes across in his lectures,

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and it comes across in the human interaction
that he has with all of the workers

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that he has touched.

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- Violence is the use of power to harass,
intimidate, injure, shackle, kill, destroy.

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Sexism is a form of violence.

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Racism is a form of violence.

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That's structural violence.

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And slavery was kept in place by violence.

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And my contention is that while many people
may have the power to do such things,

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I maintain they have no
right to do such things.

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Domestic violence in our
homes is a major factor

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in the instability of millions of our
children and millions of our families.

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And often that domestic
violence is directly linked

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to what the work is that the mother or
father are able to achieve in their homes.

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I think that mass incarceration in
the United States in the last 30 years

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is an example of institutional violence
that is economic and political and social,

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and is rooted in fear.

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What is nonviolence?

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Nonviolence is trying to use
the power that life gives you

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in ways that solves problems and heals
you, and transforms you, and changes

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and transforms others.

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- Through Reverend
Lawson's teaching, you will

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see the very conscious and deliberate
integration of the philosophy

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of nonviolence through the campaigns.

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Whether it is through worker
mobilizations, civil disobedience actions,

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whether it's through direct
action campaigns that

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have provided a framework to
build power for workers who

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previously thought that they had no power.

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- We cannot do better for working people in
this country unless there is a strong labor

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movement.

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The labor movement has to
believe first in solidarity.

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We cannot win without solidarity amongst us.

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Whether you're a firefighter
standing next to a hotel housekeeper,

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we have to have solidarity across the board.

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Which then leads us to, we've
got to love one another.

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- You do not have to be
religious to be nonviolent.

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But if you link life to
your very birth and beyond,

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you can discover the power of nonviolence.

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It is a force more powerful.

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I grew up in a climate, an
environment of love and truth-telling

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and music and talk and education.

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And I felt quite comfortable in
my skin from a very early age.

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The most significant
moment in that, I think,

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occurred when I was in the spring of
my fourth year in elementary school.

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When a racial slur was hurled at
me, I hit back, and I fought back.

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For the first time, I recall telling
one of my parents about this, my mother.

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She confronted me, asked me the
question, "Jimmy, what good did that do?"

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Well, that encounter convinced
me, and I heard myself

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making the decision "Never again will I
on the playground or on the street use

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my fists."

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So the Bible has always been
a major document for me.

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I've read it back and forth.

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In that document I see the
way of love, the way of truth,

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and beauty and the spirit as of
utter importance to the human family.

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A part of all that is, too, who I am.

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By the time I finished
college in '52, I knew

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that we Negroes had to launch
a major campaign of nonviolence

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because what we were doing at that time
was inadequate to change our plight,

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our scenery.

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1955, I met Martin King in
the Montgomery bus boycott

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on the front pages of the Nagpur Times,
over BBC, over all India radio, everywhere.

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I realized that's what I'd been looking for.

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And Martin Luther King
and I met, shook hands

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for the first time on February the
6th, 1957, after my return from India.

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And as we visited we felt a
deep kinship, deep relatedness.

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And in the process, we talked at length.

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I said when I finish graduate degrees,
I would probably move south to work.

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And he said "Don't wait, come now.

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We need you now."

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I told him quietly I would come
south as quickly as I could.

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I moved to Nashville and landed with a job,
as the Fellowship of Reconciliation offered

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me the Southern Secretaryship -- which
meant that I came with a job and a title.

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Tonight, we have a most important
business to try to accomplish.

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A good friend of mine in
Alabama here last week...

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And King and some of his cohorts
welcomed me with open arms.

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I think one of the legacies
of the Nashville movement

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would be the fact that King called
the movement the "model movement" up

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to that time.

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And SCLC and Martin King used
that imagery in future efforts,

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in campaign after campaign.

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We became folk who worked directly
with King, with citizenship schools,

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with workshops on nonviolence and
the training of field workers --

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which I did annually for
SCLC throughout that decade.

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Some of us became advanced
staff people for places

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like Birmingham, Selma,
Alabama, and elsewhere.

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So you had, year after year,
major struggles that moved.

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And in one way, there was no
major source directing this.

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But it moved mostly as
organizations and people

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organized and wanted to advance the cause
of freedom and justice and equality.

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We've learned from this too, as
to how we might act nonviolently.

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What are the basic problems here?

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- And I say segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, and segregation forever.

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- The Birmingham Campaign
is one example, in 1963.

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We went on week after week, day after day.

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Sometimes there were such
crowds in the downtown area

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that one could hardly move through them.

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The city, by and large, ceased to function.

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And the net result was that President
Kennedy himself got into the act

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and began to demand a big business.

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- The events in Birmingham and elsewhere
have so increased the cries for equality...

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I shall ask the Congress of
the United States to act ...

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to the proposition that race has
no place in American life or laws.

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- I have a deep appreciation of Reverend
Lawson's leadership in a critical period

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of time in the 1960s during
the Civil Rights Movement,

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and in particular his historic contributions
to the Nashville sit-in movement,

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to the emergence of a new generation of
civil rights leaders who changed the course

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of history throughout the South.

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The Memphis sanitation worker's strike
-- his role in that historic period was

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powerful.

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- The Memphis sanitation strike -- these
1,300 black men who walked off their jobs

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without warning to anybody, but made the
decision themselves and for themselves

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and for their families.

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(MUSIC PLAYING)

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- And no matter how you dress it up in terms
of whether or not a union could organize,

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it's still racism.

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For at the heart of racism is
the idea that a man is not a man,

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and a person is not a person.

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For them, "I am a man" meant "I'm
going to treat you with dignity

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and I expect you to treat me with dignity."

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- You are reminding not only Memphis,
but you are reminding the nation

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that it is a crime for people
to live in this rich nation

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and receive starvation wages.

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- And our power has always been in ourselves
and our people, and in our unity --

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in the courage that we have to
say "No" to racism and injustice.

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(MUSIC PLAYING)

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- Dr. Martin Luther King, the apostle of
nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement,

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has been shot to death
in Memphis, Tennessee.

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(MUSIC PLAYING)

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- I have a dream that one day this nation
will rise up and live out the true meaning

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of its creed: "We hold these
truths to be self- evident..."

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- Martin King and I talked at length
in the year before he died about this,

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and we were in very much agreement
that we had good success,

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but that we had not dismantled racism.

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But the politics of assassination
greatly diffused us and shocked, I guess,

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many people and caused many
people to drift away and not

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work on what would have been necessary
to maintain the dynamic movement.

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Well I don't think that you are meant
to forget; you're meant to endure.

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You're meant to persevere.

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You're meant to keep breathing,
to keep taking a step

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and keep leaning into the future.

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And I really think that perseverance
and what that does to strengthen life --

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give life care, and love, and truth --
is more important than anything else.

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But in my work in labor in Los Angeles,
where I started working with Local 11

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and Maria Elena Durazo when she, at 23,
became president of local HERE 11 at that

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time...

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- It was in the 1980s
when Maria Elena Durazo

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led a campaign to successfully change
the culture of the hotel workers

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here in Los Angeles.

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She became the first Latina
to lead a major union.

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And she worked very closely
with Reverend Jim Lawson

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to infuse the philosophy
of nonviolence and to build

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a rank-and-file led union of hotel
workers, the vast majority of whom

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were Latino immigrant workers.

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- It was in the first big battle that we
had that I met Dr. Reverend James Lawson.

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And it was quite extraordinary
for me personally.

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We had tried strikes -- week-long
strikes, day-long strikes,

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delegations to the employers.

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We had just done so many different actions.

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It took a lot of courage from the workers.

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And so we called on Reverend Lawson
and we called on Cesar Chavez

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to come and speak to us.

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To help us figure out how
do we keep going at this.

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- So I suggested among
other things, go to them.

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So you get them to talk
about their situation.

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And you work with that person until that
person then is really talking freely with

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you, and is beginning to
share with other workers --

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and with all sorts of other
people -- his own scene.

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There has to be deep preparation
in nonviolent struggle,

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because they have to understand the
strategic value of goals which are

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measurable and attainable as a way of
corralling all your resources and not

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getting confused, and not allowing
the nature of the struggle to move you

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off-goal...

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off-target.

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- And that moment, it was
a very telling moment.

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It was a very important
moment when the two of them

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together spoke to us
about staying on course,

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of not giving up, and giving us examples
of their own lives and historic moment.

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And it made a very big difference.

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When you don't know all the
details, some really specific plan

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of all the steps you're
going to take forward,

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it's really important to
have the inspiration but also

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the vision of what our society could be.

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And the sacrifice and risk
began to involve getting fired.

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That was a big risk.

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Maybe even getting deported
and getting arrested.

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And so these were other
levels of sacrifice and risk

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that we had not thought of doing before.

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- And police had become one of
the major side tracks of activism

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in the United States.

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So we did a series of workshops on
taking the police out of being the issue.

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And so Local 11 then, in their strikes
and in their pickets and all, became...

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where formerly they had been roughed up,
were being roughed up and treated harshly

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by police.

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They turned the police around.

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- Reverend Lawson talked to us about if we
had a cause that was bigger than $0.50 more

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an hour, was it a cause that was bigger than
how many rooms were the housekeepers going

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to clean?

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Those were very important issues,
because they reflected the dignity

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and the compensation that workers deserve.

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But did we have a bigger
idea of what we wanted to do?

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Did we have a bigger idea of what
kind of change we wanted to make?

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- The Justice for Janitors
campaign was launched here

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in Los Angeles that successfully reorganized
the janitorial industry in Los Angeles,

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and brought a new generation
of Latino immigrant workers

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into the US labor movement.

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If you look at the janitorial
workforce decades earlier,

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it was a predominantly unionized
African-American workforce.

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And when the building owners decided as
a cost-cutting measure that they would no

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longer hire the janitors directly -- whereby
they would contract out the janitorial work

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to the lowest bidder -- that abrupt change
led to a severe displacement of unionized

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African-American janitors, and instead
brought in a whole new group of nonunion,

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low wage Latino immigrant workers.

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And it was through Reverend
Lawson's guidance and teaching

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that he said that this is not the
fault of Latino immigrant workers.

00:21:34.792 --> 00:21:39.959
- You do not fault the workers that they're
fearful of the job -- poor paying as it is,

00:21:39.959 --> 00:21:41.918
and tough as it is.

00:21:41.918 --> 00:21:45.876
They want to keep the job for
the benefit of what little food

00:21:45.876 --> 00:21:47.876
they can keep in their
house, and their shelter.

00:21:50.167 --> 00:21:54.417
- The course of action is not to
lash out at the new workers --

00:21:54.417 --> 00:21:57.542
who are working in these
substandard conditions --

00:21:57.542 --> 00:22:04.167
but to organize them and to improve their
livelihood and to improve their condition.

00:22:04.167 --> 00:22:09.626
- I think that also taught us that what
we were out to do was not to be angry

00:22:09.626 --> 00:22:13.709
and to hate anybody -- it
was for our own dignity.

00:22:13.709 --> 00:22:15.667
It was for our own cause.

00:22:15.667 --> 00:22:17.501
It was for our own humanity.

00:22:17.501 --> 00:22:24.334
And that's how we were going to convince
others of why our cause was so important.

00:22:24.334 --> 00:22:30.250
- This is part of the dynamic
of nonviolent struggle.

00:22:30.250 --> 00:22:36.000
You get your demands straight.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:39.501
- Through these two campaigns, the
Justice for Janitors and Hotel Workers,

00:22:39.501 --> 00:22:45.250
we saw a major transformation of the culture
of the labor movement here in Los Angeles

00:22:45.250 --> 00:22:51.626
that forged labor community alliances, that
focused attention on organizing the new

00:22:51.626 --> 00:22:56.918
working class -- especially large
numbers of Latino immigrant workers --

00:22:56.918 --> 00:23:03.626
and began to use the power of
nonviolence through civil disobedience,

00:23:03.626 --> 00:23:09.042
through street demonstrations, through
mass mobilizations, direct action,

00:23:09.042 --> 00:23:13.083
and disruption to challenge
the power forces --

00:23:13.083 --> 00:23:18.000
to recognize the inherent
rights that workers had.

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:25.375
So I see those early years in the 1980s
and early 1990s as really pivotal,

00:23:25.375 --> 00:23:29.209
in terms of the transformation of
the Los Angeles labor movement.

00:23:29.209 --> 00:23:34.083
- The nonviolent tactics taught us that
there are a lot more allies out there

00:23:34.083 --> 00:23:36.626
than what we start out thinking.

00:23:36.626 --> 00:23:38.292
We think we're the only ones.

00:23:38.292 --> 00:23:40.626
And then we expanded, and then we expanded.

00:23:40.626 --> 00:23:45.876
There are a lot more people who
believe in the dignity of work --

00:23:45.876 --> 00:23:52.250
who believe in humanity and being fair and
being just -- than sometimes we start out.

00:23:52.250 --> 00:23:54.709
Sometimes we start out very narrow-minded.

00:23:54.709 --> 00:24:00.292
So the attitude of love and forgiveness
allows us to think about all the people

00:24:00.292 --> 00:24:01.125
out there.

00:24:06.167 --> 00:24:11.459
- America has never had equality
economically in this nation.

00:24:11.459 --> 00:24:19.292
We have, from the beginning: impoverished
Indians, impoverished Appalachian whites,

00:24:19.292 --> 00:24:25.959
impoverished coal miners, impoverished
black people, impoverished women.

00:24:25.959 --> 00:24:32.501
We have, from the beginning, followed
our European roots with inequality.

00:24:32.501 --> 00:24:36.834
So to pretend that we once
had equality is nonsense.

00:24:36.834 --> 00:24:42.834
You do not have civil rights or human
rights if you do not have economic justice.

00:24:42.834 --> 00:24:51.959
You have an elephant in the room that says
the economy is primarily for the wealth

00:24:51.959 --> 00:24:59.459
and power of the few -- that the economy
is not supposed to be shaped by democratic

00:24:59.459 --> 00:25:01.209
ideals.

00:25:01.209 --> 00:25:05.334
It's so very, very important
for labor to understand

00:25:05.334 --> 00:25:08.417
and working families and
working people to understand

00:25:08.417 --> 00:25:14.125
that the economic order that
slams them, diminishes them,

00:25:14.125 --> 00:25:22.125
insists that they are but slaves or
property or a commodity or a thing.

00:25:22.125 --> 00:25:26.125
So labor must, of necessity, assert.

00:25:26.125 --> 00:25:30.834
"No."

00:25:30.834 --> 00:25:38.834
- The history of immigrants and the US labor
movement goes back many, many generations.

00:25:38.834 --> 00:25:42.834
And the reality is that many of
the first unions in this country

00:25:42.834 --> 00:25:46.125
were built by immigrant workers.

00:25:46.125 --> 00:25:51.209
- If I was starving to death, if my kids
were in front of me starving to death,

00:25:51.209 --> 00:25:54.834
you think I would sit there
and just watch that happen?

00:25:57.083 --> 00:25:58.501
I would move.

00:25:58.501 --> 00:26:00.125
I would do anything.

00:26:00.125 --> 00:26:04.584
I would fight like hell
for my kids to survive.

00:26:04.584 --> 00:26:06.918
And that's what immigrants
do from all over the world.

00:26:10.459 --> 00:26:17.125
- I came here at the age of nine, and I
started school here in the fourth grade.

00:26:17.125 --> 00:26:23.751
My mom had left Guatemala because she
had to take care of all of her sisters,

00:26:23.751 --> 00:26:29.083
and it was really difficult for her
to maintain a job that paid well

00:26:29.083 --> 00:26:30.918
and to support her family and myself.

00:26:30.918 --> 00:26:35.375
I realized that education
would be my way out of poverty

00:26:35.375 --> 00:26:37.459
and my way to support my family.

00:26:37.459 --> 00:26:40.584
- Moving to Los Angeles
was really, really hard.

00:26:40.584 --> 00:26:46.542
Actually we moved to the city Alhambra,
and it was much different then.

00:26:46.542 --> 00:26:48.792
It was really expensive, and
the only way to afford it

00:26:48.792 --> 00:26:51.083
was to be living with a lot of people.

00:26:51.083 --> 00:26:53.792
- I met Jim Lawson in 2009.

00:26:53.792 --> 00:27:00.834
So I was fortunate enough to take his
class in the spring in 2009 at UCLA.

00:27:00.834 --> 00:27:03.834
The class was "Nonviolence
and Social Movements."

00:27:03.834 --> 00:27:10.334
Often times we are taught in immigrant
communities, in low- income communities,

00:27:10.334 --> 00:27:15.876
that we are destined to live
in a world full of violence.

00:27:15.876 --> 00:27:18.083
And that's the only option.

00:27:18.083 --> 00:27:25.167
And this was just so fitting
during my experience at UCLA,

00:27:25.167 --> 00:27:28.167
learning about different political
movements and social movements

00:27:28.167 --> 00:27:31.709
and organizing with undocumented students.

00:27:31.709 --> 00:27:39.125
It was really important for me to have
an organizing philosophy that made sense

00:27:39.125 --> 00:27:49.125
and that was compassionate, and it was just
such a gift to have Jim Lawson be on campus

00:27:49.125 --> 00:27:51.709
and share his experience with nonviolence.

00:27:51.709 --> 00:27:57.667
And I saw how other political systems
and other political philosophies

00:27:57.667 --> 00:28:04.167
use fear tactics and use
violence to get what they wanted,

00:28:04.167 --> 00:28:07.250
so I wanted something different.

00:28:07.250 --> 00:28:13.959
And for me, it was nonviolence
organizing that made sense.

00:28:13.959 --> 00:28:16.459
It was the only thing that made sense.

00:28:16.459 --> 00:28:23.501
- There are 11 million undocumented
immigrant workers in this country who are

00:28:23.501 --> 00:28:30.834
locked in an apartheid-like existence, where
they are denied basic rights as workers

00:28:30.834 --> 00:28:35.959
and basic rights as human beings
because of their undocumented status.

00:28:35.959 --> 00:28:39.250
- I understood that my
language was a barrier,

00:28:39.250 --> 00:28:44.751
but then even as I got older I
always had the resounding "No" --

00:28:44.751 --> 00:28:46.584
that I understood that I was also...

00:28:46.584 --> 00:28:50.876
my parents call it "sin
papeles", meaning "no papers."

00:28:50.876 --> 00:28:55.125
- How could it be that in the wealthiest
country in the world, those workers

00:28:55.125 --> 00:29:00.792
who plant and pick the fruits and vegetables
that we eat each day are paid poverty wages

00:29:00.792 --> 00:29:03.334
and are poisoned by
pesticides in the fields,

00:29:03.334 --> 00:29:06.042
and are forced to live in shanty town?

00:29:06.042 --> 00:29:09.626
- In the middle of the 20th
century, we were on our way

00:29:09.626 --> 00:29:15.334
towards recognizing the
human rights of every worker.

00:29:15.334 --> 00:29:21.834
The Chamber of Commerce and other forces
have risen up to begin the terrible assault

00:29:21.834 --> 00:29:25.792
on unions -- to destroy
them, to abolish them,

00:29:25.792 --> 00:29:30.083
and to take fundamental human
rights away from the worker.

00:29:30.083 --> 00:29:34.834
So today in the United States, the
worker literally has no rights.

00:29:37.626 --> 00:29:42.709
- The presence of 11 million
undocumented immigrants in this country

00:29:42.709 --> 00:29:46.083
undermines the labor
standards for all workers.

00:29:46.083 --> 00:29:52.834
And so that's why our fight to demand that
they be allowed a pathway to citizenship

00:29:52.834 --> 00:29:56.501
and full rights as
workers is crucial to lift

00:29:56.501 --> 00:29:59.209
the standards of workers across the board.

00:29:59.209 --> 00:30:01.959
- A part of the resistance
in the United States today

00:30:01.959 --> 00:30:06.751
is a resistance to keeping the United
States from becoming more democratic.

00:30:06.751 --> 00:30:12.501
- After the janitors won their victory
-- after they reorganized the janitorial

00:30:12.501 --> 00:30:18.250
industry here in Los Angeles -- they made
a very conscious and deliberate decision

00:30:18.250 --> 00:30:25.125
to go after the security officers, who
were largely young African-American men,

00:30:25.125 --> 00:30:27.667
to bring them into their union.

00:30:27.667 --> 00:30:35.250
When you go today to meetings, you will
see gatherings of Latino immigrant janitors

00:30:35.250 --> 00:30:37.918
and African-American security officers.

00:30:37.918 --> 00:30:42.167
And they may not speak the same
language, but they're clearly

00:30:42.167 --> 00:30:50.417
united in their mutual demand for justice
and dignity for workers of all colors.

00:30:50.417 --> 00:30:54.876
- What a real labor
movement should be about is,

00:30:54.876 --> 00:30:59.334
whoever is in that workplace should be
represented, should have equal rights,

00:30:59.334 --> 00:31:02.209
and be treated exactly the same way.

00:31:02.209 --> 00:31:06.417
And nobody should be deprived of any rights.

00:31:06.417 --> 00:31:11.042
I don't care your sexuality,
your country of origin,

00:31:11.042 --> 00:31:15.000
your immigration status, or
your nationality or race.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:18.667
You all should have exactly the same rights.

00:31:24.792 --> 00:31:31.501
Love and forgiveness expands the
reason why we engaged in these tactics

00:31:31.501 --> 00:31:33.042
or in these actions.

00:31:33.042 --> 00:31:38.709
Yes, it was about doing better
for each of us, for ourselves,

00:31:38.709 --> 00:31:43.250
but it was about doing better
really as a much broader community.

00:31:43.250 --> 00:31:48.083
- Many of these same issues with
regard to integrating immigrants back

00:31:48.083 --> 00:31:51.167
in the 19th century are
some of the same challenges

00:31:51.167 --> 00:31:54.918
that we face today in the 21st century.

00:31:54.918 --> 00:31:56.459
- So where do we go from here?

00:31:56.459 --> 00:32:05.959
I think that the most important soil
that you and I must cultivate is to lay

00:32:05.959 --> 00:32:12.876
the seeds for the movements of the 21st
century that will reclaim democracy

00:32:12.876 --> 00:32:17.542
for the United States -- that will
reclaim justice, reclaim equality.

00:32:17.542 --> 00:32:25.876
I think that we have to lay the seeds
by which we can take government out

00:32:25.876 --> 00:32:30.292
of the hands of the oligarchy, and
out of the hands of the military,

00:32:30.292 --> 00:32:36.667
and put it back into the hands of
truth and the beloved community.

00:32:36.667 --> 00:32:40.459
- What has now become,
over the last 20 years,

00:32:40.459 --> 00:32:47.292
it has now become more a part of our culture
to have an attitude of love and forgiveness

00:32:47.292 --> 00:32:50.876
and inclusion -- versus "You're the
enemy and we're battling you" --

00:32:50.876 --> 00:32:54.542
than I have ever seen.

00:32:54.542 --> 00:32:59.918
- Too often, labor has not
recognized its responsibility

00:32:59.918 --> 00:33:05.542
to help working people
reaffirm their dignity.

00:33:05.542 --> 00:33:11.334
- And so that love and that solidarity
for social justice, it has to grow.

00:33:11.334 --> 00:33:12.501
It has to become bigger.

00:33:12.501 --> 00:33:16.667
More unions have to do it, more parts of
our labor movement that aren't doing it

00:33:16.667 --> 00:33:17.709
have to do it.

00:33:17.709 --> 00:33:22.334
As we're successful, the whole
country is going to be better off.

00:33:22.334 --> 00:33:27.751
- I've not sought fortune
or fame or popularity.

00:33:27.751 --> 00:33:35.209
I've sought far more -- a kind of integrity
with truth and mystery and beauty.

00:33:35.209 --> 00:33:43.876
And I think that the way in which generally
I've been organized most of my life,

00:33:43.876 --> 00:33:49.584
it's that ambition that has also helped
to keep changing me, transforming me,

00:33:49.584 --> 00:33:51.876
and giving me courage...

00:33:51.876 --> 00:33:56.334
and waking me up in the middle of
the night and sending me forth.

00:34:00.626 --> 00:34:03.834
- Through Reverend
Lawson's work, he has shown

00:34:03.834 --> 00:34:07.125
the power of uniting the vast majority.

00:34:07.125 --> 00:34:15.792
That he's speaking for the interests and
for the needs and for love and compassion

00:34:15.792 --> 00:34:19.334
for the vast majority of
people within our society.

00:34:19.334 --> 00:34:24.375
Through his teachings, through
his work, through embodying

00:34:24.375 --> 00:34:30.042
the philosophy of nonviolence, he
has shown in theory and in practice

00:34:30.042 --> 00:34:32.209
the power of nonviolence.

00:34:32.209 --> 00:34:37.459
- We have to have, in the United States,
a massive nonviolent movement such

00:34:37.459 --> 00:34:45.417
as the Earth has never seen before in the
21st century that will allow us to confront

00:34:45.417 --> 00:34:55.751
the addicted people of violence and wealth,
and shake them up and encounter them enough

00:34:55.751 --> 00:35:01.459
that we begin to reverse
these policies of death --

00:35:01.459 --> 00:35:04.501
and begin to create policies of life.

00:35:04.501 --> 00:35:09.792
At the ordinary local level, there are
all sorts of policies of life and love

00:35:09.792 --> 00:35:12.334
going on.

00:35:12.334 --> 00:35:19.959
Nonviolence insists that ends
and means are the same thing.

00:35:19.959 --> 00:35:24.375
That we do not have control over many
of the consequences of our behavior.

00:35:24.375 --> 00:35:29.792
But if our behavior is true,
if our behavior is loving,

00:35:29.792 --> 00:35:37.334
if our behavior in correcting wrong is
right, if our behavior uses good means,

00:35:37.334 --> 00:35:44.375
we sow the seeds for the consequences
that will bear the fruits of righteousness

00:35:44.375 --> 00:35:46.709
and hope and peace.

00:35:46.709 --> 00:35:52.626
We must control the democracy of America,
and make it possible for every boy,

00:35:52.626 --> 00:35:57.209
every girl, every man, every woman --
wherever they live in this nation --

00:35:57.209 --> 00:36:02.626
to achieve the full
status of their humanity.

00:36:02.626 --> 00:36:08.042
Nothing less than that is
the fight that we have.

00:36:08.042 --> 00:36:13.209
(MUSIC PLAYING)