How We Win: A Workshop on Direct Action Campaigning

With George Lakey and the Oregon Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

WHEN
January 13, 2019 -- 3pm-7pm

WHERE
Leaven Community, 5431 NE 20th Ave, Portland, OR 97211

WHAT

• Exploring the history of direct action campaigning

• Understanding the criteria for a powerful direct action campaign

• Generating ideas for current or future direct action campaigns in Oregon and beyond

George Lakey will be in Portland as part of his book tour for How We Win: A Guide to Direct Action Campaigning. The Oregon Poor People’s Campaign is organizing a 4-hour workshop in partnership with George as a chance to build together and consider the power and strategic utility of direct action campaigns, which can provide a different level of effectiveness than protests and rallies, by intentionally creating dilemmas for power holders.

Direct action campaigns use a series of individual creative direct actions to build an escalating sequence of events that is capable of wielding nonviolent power to win goals. Direct action campaigning is one central expression of what the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival calls “nonviolent moral fusion direct action.”

WHO
This workshop is targeted toward:

• those who have been involved or connected with the Oregon Poor People's campaign at any level over the past year
• people who are invested in helping the Oregon PPC develop a state-wide direct action team, and
• leaders from PPC partner organizations who are interested in exploring the possibility of direct action campaigning in partnership with the Oregon PPC while acquiring new skills and imaginations to take back to their organizations.

This workshop will help lay groundwork for a state-wide direct action team within the Oregon Poor People’s Campaign. For more information about the team, contact Matt at mguynn@OnEarthPeace.org.

“George Lakey’s Manual for Direct Action was literally a life-saver for many during the height of the struggle for Black freedom and dignity in the 1960s.  How We Win has arrived to us at another key moment in our human journey. It is a guide for our collective liberation, informed by decades of Professor Lakey’s ongoing research and teaching since the ‘60s. Following these steps will indeed help us achieve a more just and humane society.” - Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, CEO of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

Access the Book
How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning is published by Melville House. You can purchase the book here: https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/how-we-win/ or contact the Oregon Poor People's Campaign to receive a copy, oregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org. If you have access to the resources to purchase one or more additional copies to share, please contact us at oregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org and we will connect you with someone who has requested a copy.

Meal
There will be a brief dinner break during the workshop. Food will be provided (vegan, gluten free, and meat options).

Childcare
Childcare will be available from 2:30pm to 7:30pm. Please email oregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org to let us know to expect your child(ren).

Building Accessibility
The Leaven Community is accessible. People requiring ramp access can access the building through the south door. There are two gender neutral and wheelchair accessible restrooms. If you have any questions about the facility, please email us at oregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org.

Leaven is accessible via the 8 bus (15th and Killingsworth) or the 72 bus (18th and Alberta). There is ample free parking in the lot or on the street.

American Sign Language
ASL is available upon request. To ensure we have an interpreter available, please email us by one week before the event (January 6).  

Spanish Interpretation
Spanish interpretation will be provided.

Cost
There is no fee for the workshop.  We hope to raise at least $1000 to cover the space fee, to help provide food, interpretation, childcare, and facilitation. If 50 people attend and offer $20 each, we’ll meet that cost. Some people will not have access to pay anything at all, and some can pay two or three times that amount - please give what you can. Any extra funds will support the ongoing work of Oregon PPC. Donate as you are able using PayPal prior to the workshop, with cash during the workshop, or via check made out to "Metanoia Peace Community" with "PPC - Direct Action" in the memo line sent to 2116 NE 18th Ave, Portland, OR 97212.

Travel and Hospitality
If you are coming from across the state and are interested in connecting with folks to carpool, email us at oregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org and we will do our best to connect you with folks from your area. If a long commute makes it challenging to travel home after the event, email us and we will help arrange a homestay in Portland on Saturday night.

Book Group

Oregon PPC will organize a book group (meeting in person and also via webcam) to discuss Lakey’s book in January and February 2019. We also invite anyone to organize a book group in your neighborhood or town, to help build capacity for the long haul.  Contact Matt Guynn at mguynn@OnEarthPeace.org for more information, to offer help with organizing the book groups or to participate in a book group.

The book group will meet in Portland, location tbd, 7-8:30pm on Tuesdays, January 22, Feb 5, and Feb 19.

The online book group will meet via the Zoom platform from 7-8:30pm on Tuesdays:
January 29 (register and receive call link for session one)
February 12 (register and receive call link for session two)
February 26 (register and receive call link for session three)

New to Zoom and would like a primer before the group starts? Contact Matt Guynn: mguynn@OnEarthPeace.org.

About George Lakey

George Lakey, 81, recently retired from Swarthmore College where he was Eugene M. Lang Visiting Professor for Issues in Social Change and managed the Global Nonviolent Action Database research project (nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu). Each of his nine published books has been about change and how to get it. He received the Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Award, the Paul Robeson Social Justice Award, the Ashley Montague Conflict Resolution Award, was named the Peace Educator of the Year in 2010, and received the Giraffe Award for Sticking his Neck out for the Common Good.

He is a Quaker, a gay man with four great-grandchildren, and plays Broadway tunes for sing-alongs. His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in, he has served as an unarmed bodyguard for human rights defenders in Sri Lanka, and recently walked 200 miles to protest mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. He has founded a number of social change organizations including Training for Change and, most recently, Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT.org).

He is a columnist for WagingNonviolence.org where he often shares lessons learned from leading over 1500 social change workshops on five continents.