Guest Author: David Finke
“Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story” (1958/FOR)
I was thrilled to see the picture of this revived comic book, now translated into Arabic and Farsi. I believe I could still put my hands on my own copy of the original one, issued soon after the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the mid-1950s. As a teenager, I was energized to realize that the peace organization which my parents belonged to (and to whose meetings I’d often been taken along) was once again seeking new ways to promulgate the old lesson of the Power of Love as organized nonviolent social protest which does not dehumanize one’s political opponent. I think I ordered a batch of these for my classmates at Sunday School, at the time.
The next important thing to remember about this particular document is that some of the students who started the Sit-Ins — at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC — and thus officially launched “The Sixties” on Feb. 1, 1960, had seen this very book!
A modest investment by Fellowship of Reconciliation has paid immeasurable dividends, now, over half a century.
This is the same organization which — when they saw the young Dr. King suddenly being thrust into the public leadership of the Montgomery Movement (and with very little political experience) — sent one of their staff members, Glenn Smiley, to assist (and tutor) him, very much in the background. A google on his name turns up this telling piece, from the King archives.
Nonviolent action seldom “just happens.” Usually, creative (and courageous!) people have been laying the groundwork for a long time. Rosa Parks, for instance, wasn’t just another random tired black worker who happened not to give up her place on a bus for a white man. No, she had been the Youth Secretary for the local NAACP in Montgomery, and had participated in workshops at the Highlander Institute (now Highlander Research and Educational Center). She also had a tremendous mailing list, and stayed up all night running off leaflets on a mimeograph machine that she knew how to run. Hardly an accident.
The model for all this in my view was Gandhi’s careful preparation for mass protest… which I’ll not try to summarize here, but invite you to explore perhaps starting with his autobiography, “The Story of My Experiments With Truth”.
I first started getting a systematic overview of this when, in the late ’60s, I attended a conference on Nonviolent Training and Action held at Pendle Hill, organized by then-staffers George & Lillian Willoughby, now of beloved memory. One of the speakers who really caught my attention was a retired military General from Canada! As you may know, Canada has over the decades provided lots of peacekeeping troops to various U.N. missions. He spoke of the military virtues that can be put to service (and should not be ignored) by nonviolent social change movements. Discipline and a clear sense of purpose and mission were among them.
But primary was the role and value of TRAINING. Every soldier has this and knows this, and would be dangerous without it. For social change movements to be seriously effective, there have to be those who don’t just show up at the last minute, or treat it as a lark or yet another social event. Not that folks have to be grim — far from it! Songs and “light-and-livelies” are a good part of training programs for nonviolent action. And there have to be ways that activists (I’ll use Gandhi’s term “Satyagrahis”) build trust and commitement with each other — in fact, willing to die for each other.
The AIC's HAMSA initiative - designed to link civil rights groups throughout the Middle East -- undertook in 2008 a project to translate The Montgomery Story into Arabic (and later Farsi). With the endorsement of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Ziada distributed 2,000 copies of the comic throughout the Middle East.
Rather than spin out more of my own stories right now, let me just invite you to give your own reflections on some of these themes. And, to join me in celebrating the unfolding transformative power, seen in recent days in the MidEast, of people finding their voice, asserting their dignity, working together, being creative, being joyous and yet determined — and making the world more hopeful and humane by putting their bodies on the line, modeling what it is to Live Free.
Editors Note: Dalia Ziada is Egypt Director of the American Islamic Congress, a non-profit group founded in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to confront intolerance against Muslims, and later to promote peace and civil rights throughout the Arabic world. Read more about the AIC’s HAMSA initiative and this story here, plus see photos of The Montgomery Boycott and read more coverage of this comic book’s contribution to the air of peaceful revolution in Egypt.
You can actually read the whole comic here, page by page:
http://www.ep.tc/mlk/index.html
David – So interesting – thanks for sharing. I hope you (and others) saw the front page of today’s New York Times, which mentioned other, similar reading materials generated in the US, smuggled into Arab & other countries & translated into Arabic and other languages. Their author, Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution, was previously unknown to me. One thing I take from this story (not to mention the various stories emanating these days from the Arab Middle East) is a pride in, and gratitude for, the courage of US writers, journalists and publishers who exercise our Constitutional right to a free press, so very precious and rare. Shalom and best wishes, Patricia McMillen
The story continues to unfold, and my excitement is ill-concealed. Have a look at all the fascinating links that are brought up by this google search on “Comic Book” “Egypt” and “Fellowship of Reconciliation”:
http://tinyurl.com/4cpqqed
I too am continuing to learn about, and be amazed at, more resources all the time. The Power of Nonviolence — an irrepressible tide! (And the internet is a pretty good tool for boosting it along, too, I might say.)
I remember this comic-book from my childhood as well. Though it was widely distributed in my Friends meeting, I think it came directly from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. At that time, generally there was felt to be little difference between Quakers and other pacifists. I’m sorry to say that my copy disappeared long ago.
We cannot say that the revolutions in Egypt, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, are truly nonviolent in spirit or action. But they are unarmed, and this is of great importance. We cannot even say that the revolutions will succeed; in the end, military dictatorship may continue, and we can only pray for success. It is exciting to live in a time of unarmed revolution in a large part of the world.
On Johan Maurer’s blog, you can find links to material about the nonviolent Norwegian (and Danish and German) resistance to Hitler.
Jeremy Mott
It’s good to see Jeremy participating here. He made significant contributions to the role of nonviolent resistance against the draft during the Vietnam War, and I invite him to help tell that story, probably in a separate thread. Jeremy Mott knows whereof he speaks.
I want to add a note of caution, even of corrective, in our otherwise exciting discussion of the role of FOR’s M.L.K. comic book related to what’s been happening in Egypt:
While on the one hand, we can see movements in one location taking inspiration from those elsewhere (and I could suggest more examples,) at the same time we should fully credit the strength, courage, innovation, and vision of those in Egypt (and Tunisia before, and Bahrain right now) who themselves are building their own distinctive revolution.
Some commentaries in recent days would suggest that it’s American inventions like Twitter and FaceBook (and the Internet itself) that brought about Mubarak’s fall from power… and the beginning (not yet the accomplishment) of an Egyptian Revolution. More people on the streets in Cairo were aware of the “Made in America” teargas canisters and the billions given by our tax money to enrich and keep in power their oppressor for 3 decades.
To counter such simple-minded foolishness, I call attention to a splended article I’ve just seen by an old colleague of mine from our days in Movement for a New Society, a fellow Oberlin College grad, Steve Zunes. He is consistently one of the most enlightned progressive commentators on MiddleEastern affairs (his field of scholarship in California,) and is now sought after more than usual. (For years at a time he may have seemed to be a voice crying in the wilderness, particularly in his critique of Israel’s stranglehold on the Democratic Party.)
Here is the heart of his argument:
“Democracy will not come to the Middle East through foreign intervention, sanctimonious statements from Washington, voluntary reforms by autocrats, or armed struggle by a self-selected vanguard. It will only come through the power of massive non-cooperation with illegitimate authority and the strategic application of nonviolent action by Middle Eastern peoples themselves.”
Steve goes on to show how unarmed liberation movements — as distinct from both violent uprisings and outside manipulation — have succeeded in modern times.
Anyway, I urge you read Steve’s analysis here, as a way to hold in balance what are the elements where the Egyptians deserve the full credit. Thanks, Steve!
http://truth-out.org/credit-egyptian-people-egyptian-revolution67850
We’ve tried in a gentle way to bring some of these themes into our Russian classroom. (See here.) And I posted the link to the comic book on my local social-network profile.
You may be interested to note that the “non-profit group” American Islamic Congress, which you identify as being dedicated to “promot[ing] peace and civil rights throughout the Arabic world,” has from its founding worked closely with the neoconservative ‘democracy promoting’ community in the United States.
For example, to take just one of many examples, in 2003 their founder and executive director, Zainab Al-Suwaij, co-founded Women for a Free Iraq with the support of a leading neoconservative group which calls itself the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. In addition their current board of directors includes Hillel Fradkin, a former supporter of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). http://fanonite.org/2007/07/05/the-neocons/
I would be more than happy to write an article for your web site about the ‘peace’ work of the American Islamic Congress. Just let me know and I will get working on it straight away. Hope you find this useful, Michael Barker
A correction to previous erroneous or incomplete information about the Comic Book’s date:
I have it on the authority of the Communications Department of the national (USA) office of Fellowship of Reconciliation that they produced it in January of 1958.
They also ask that if any other translations/reproductions are anticipated, that there be prior consultation with them, which is eminently reasonable. http://www.forusa.org
Keep spreading the word! -DHF
A correction to previous erroneous or incomplete information about the Comic Book’s date:
I have it on the authority of the Communications Department of the national (USA) office of Fellowship of Reconciliation that they produced it in January of 1958.
They also ask that if any other translations/reproductions are anticipated, that there be prior consultation with them, which is eminently reasonable. http://www.forusa.org
Keep spreading the word! -DHF
David – what an interesting response from FOR. Are we to read your post to imply that the translation into Arabic/Farsi was not authorized by them? Any idea whether it (the translation) has been reviewed for accuracy/fidelity to the FOR original? Or whether FOR are contemplating any action to stop/discourage unauthorized translations, that is other than your post on this blog? Best wishes, Patricia McMillen
It’s not my place to represent what may or may not have happened in the past regarding FOR publications. You could be directly in touch with Ethan Vesely-Flad of their staff if you want:
editor@forusa.org
But in any case, I advise checking permissions when copying a published work. That may be increasingly hard in the Internet Age and the ease of cut-and-paste. I know that this present blog’s administration is scrupulous in trying to reach an author before linking to something possibly of interest to readers.
Wow, personally I would love to see an article on this topic. Blog administrators, are you listening?
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Dear Patricia, this blog does not aim to exhaustively cover each topic or issue, but rather be a space where discussion can occur or arise out in the world. It seems this post has done both, which I am appreciate of. Please continue exploring resources and nurturing opportunities for peace.
I emailed FOR about this, so when they reply I will post another comment.