King Memorial Dedication A Great Day For Nonviolent Revolution

Today saw the formal dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C.

The Civil Rights Leader and Nonviolent Revolutionary was enshrined on the National Mall, establishing his rightful place as one of the greatest leaders in the history of the United States of America.

How Dr. King lived his life serves an example to us all.

He refused to give up amidst great tribulation, he refused to hate in the face of great ignorance and mortal danger, and he refused to back down regardless of the multitude of reasons to be afraid.

This Memorial is not just a tribute to to the Civil Rights Movement or how much can be accomplished with nonviolent direct action.... it is most importantly a vibrant and lasting testament to the power of love. Dr. King did not view those who hated him and would do him harm as his enemies, instead he referred to them as 'brothers and sisters', ending his sermon about loving your enemies by saying,

"So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, "I love you. I would rather die than hate you."

Although the King Memorial is located a short distance from the Pentagon, Dr. King also made it very clear that he opposed war as a viable solution for the United States to resolve or reconcile its foreign affairs.

Distinguished guests of the Dedication included Civil Rights leaders Andrew Young and Dr. Joseph Lowry and singer Aretha Franklin.

President Barack Obama gave an eloquent speech saying,

"Dr. King refused to accept what he called the "isness" of today. He kept pushing towards the "oughtness" of tomorrow."

.... I just hope the President remembers those words and considers the legacy of Dr. King the next time he assesses the cost of our current wars or how well assassinations and drone strikes are working to help forward Dr. King's dream.

Nader Gets Behind Occupy Wall Street

Nonviolent Revolutionary Ralph Nader cheers on the Occupy Wall Street Movement!

"When the corporate and political bosses hear the rising roar from the people, they start sweating. Now is time to turn up the heat without pausing." -Ralph Nader




Rumble From The People

October 12, 2011

by Ralph Nader

Inside the barricading bubbles surrounding the Wall Street plutocrats and the Washington oligarchs who service them, there must be worry. After three years of disclosed “lying, cheating and stealing” as one prosecutor put it, with nary a visible stir from the masses, suddenly the barricades are beginning to quiver.

Could this “Occupy Wall Street” challenge in New York City that is spreading to hundreds of communities from Prescott, Arizona to Hartford, Connecticut, be the real thing they have dreaded? Could this be the revolt of the multitudes, the “reserve army of the unemployed?”

It is remarkable what a little more than 100,000 Americans, showing up and staying awhile have done in three weeks.

They’re rattling the corporate supremacists. They have become a mass media story with columnists, editorials and cartoonists grinding out the ever increasing commentary.

There is fascination and curiosity about people who call themselves “The 99 percent!” People are organizing their little societies and 24/7 necessities - food, first aid, shelter, legal advice, music, posters - all without leaders.

The demonstrators are deliberately nonviolent but are angry over deep inequities and entrenched greed and power that are impoverishing and harming millions in need, including hungry children and those without health care. The protesters are keeping the pundits and pontificators guessing about their “real agenda.”

Perfect, so far! Keep expanding the numbers of Americans who show up all over, who stay, who discover each other’s talents and the emerging power of the powerless. Go to 300,000, then 800,000, then 2 million and onward. There are 25 million Americans who want work but cannot get it to pay their rent, their debts, their mortgages and their multiplying student loans. While big corporate profits, bosses’ bonuses and tax loopholes for the wealthy proliferate.

Read the rest at Common Dreams

Visit Occupy Wall Street

Three courageous women awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Congratulations to these Nonviolent Revolutionaries making it happen in Liberia and Yemen! The courage of these women can't be understated! Thank you, ladies, for representing yourselves as inspiring leaders of the Nonviolent Revolution.


The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work. We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.

Read the full press release at Nobelprize.org

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president. The committee said that since her inauguration in 2006, Johnson-Sirleaf had "contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women".

"We are dancing," Bushuben Keita, a spokesman for Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf's United Party told The New York Times. "This is the thing that we have been saying, progress has been made in Libera. We've come through 14 years of war and we have come to sustained peace. We’ve already started dancing."

Gbowee, 39, has long campaigned for the rights of women and against rape, organizing Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia's warlords. In 2003, she led hundreds of female protesters – the "women in white" – through Monrovia to demand swift disarmament of fighters who continued to prey on women even though a peace deal ending 14 years of near-constant civil war had been reached months earlier.

"I know Leymah to be a warrior daring to enter where others would not dare," Gbowee's assistant, Bertha Amanor, said to the AP. "So fair and straight, and a very nice person."

It said Yemen's Karman, known as 'the Mother of the Revolution', had "played a leading part in the struggle for women's rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen" in what was described as the "most trying circumstances both before and during the 'Arab Spring'".

"Tawakkol is one of the bravest people in this country," said Khaled al-Anesi, a lawyer and pro-democracy activist. "It is not easy for a woman to fight and go to the streets demanding change in a country like Yemen."

“I am so happy,” said Karman, speaking by telephone in broken English from inside her tent in Change Square, the nexus of the uprising in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. “I believe that this award is a victory for the peaceful revolution. It’s a victory for our revolution, for our methods, for our struggle, for all Yemeni youth, and all the youth in the Arab world — in Tunisia, in Egypt, everywhere. I am so happy.”

“This makes us stronger in the fight for our freedom, for our dignity,” she added. “This will give the people more strength, and to recognize that peace is the only way. That making a new Yemen must come without violence.”

Karman was briefly detained in January, but protests forced authorities to release her. Since then, Yemen’s uprising has engulfed the country, drawing in hundreds of thousands of Yemenis from all walks of life. Not all youth activist leaders like Karman’s tactics, and some have criticized her openly in recent months. But she nevertheless remains a central figure in the uprising, a loud voice that has called for a peaceful struggle even as government loyalists have fired upon unarmed protesters, killing and injuring hundreds.

Related articles and videos at Al-Jazeera and the Huffington Post

Rest in PEACE- Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Steve Jobs

Today we mourn the passing of two great Nonviolent Revolutionaries of our time. Two remarkable lives contributing in their own powerful ways to the Nonviolent Revolution!


Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

"They had a white section and a colored section. Fred and his wife bought tickets, and they sat in the white section," Huntley said. "That was revolutionary for Birmingham of the 1950s."........

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a pioneer of the civil rights movement, died Wednesday in Birmingham, Ala. Shuttlesworth led Birmingham's battle against segregation — a battle that focused the national spotlight on the violent resistance to equal rights in the South and forced change. He was 89.

Listen to the story on NPR

See a timeline of the life of Rev. Shuttlesworth.

In Memorium

Nonviolent Revolutionary Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth spent his live standing up with love. He was beaten, he was bombed, he was threatened, he was hated for the color of his skin... and through it all continued to be an example of love. Thank you, Rev. Shuttlesworth, for the integrity with which you lived and legacy of how be nonviolent without being passive.

Steve Jobs

"Death is the destination we all share, no one has ever escaped it, and that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent, it clears out the old to make way for the new." - Steve Jobs

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple Inc. chairman and co-founder who pioneered the personal computer industry and changed the way people think about technology, died Wednesday at the age of 56.

Read the article at Wall Street Journal

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Steve Jobs was a visionary unafraid, he lived his life as a Nonviolent Revolutionary and we are the better for it. Thank you, Steve Jobs, for your contribution to my creative process.

I have used a Mac for the duration of my career as an artist with a computer. This was composed on a Mac.