Throughout the ages, humanity has taken a stand against injustice. When faced with intolerable situations and untenable systems, we resist. This uniquely human pursuit of justice, deeply rooted in our nature as social beings, has given rise to generations of resistance movements. Each is a collective donning of liberatory capes to right the wrongs of our time. The successful ones—characterized by strategic, disciplined execution—persist through mass participation, shaping history by challenging injustice through unified action.
Resistance, whether through force or peaceful means, demands profound courage, steadfast conviction, and unshakable resolve. Nonviolent resistance, in particular, requires an inner stillness—maintaining calm in the face of violence and equilibrium in its aftermath. As Thoreau asserts in his influential 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience,” we must “not lend” ourselves “to the wrong which” we “condemn.” Likewise, Gandhi’s commitment to Ahimsa—the principle of non-harm, grounded in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions— rejects violence as a means of change, urging moral strength over aggression.
The following sections, each introduced by a movement rallying cry, examine impactful movements that used peaceful direct action. Driven by the collective strength of individuals united for a cause, these movements used boycotts, selective patronage, civil disobedience, noncooperation, petitioning, and demonstrations—picketing, sit-ins, vigils, strikes, and fasting—to uphold human dignity while sparking change.
No Bread, No Work
The global quest for justice predates modern times. As early as the twelfth century BCE, Egyptian tomb builders at Deir el-Medina collectively ceased work until they received overdue compensation, primarily in the form of grain rations, history’s first recorded labor strike. Their successful sit-in protest reveals the deep roots of peaceful resistance.
Youth for Change
Youth have long stood at the forefront of peaceful resistance, embodying the intersectionality and dynamism of social movements throughout the past century. Their energy, passion, and indomitable will have infused justice struggles with new vitality, igniting and sustaining transformative change.
Greensboro Four and the Ride of SNCC. In 1960, four Black college students “sat-in” at a segregated Woolworth’s counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Denied service, they stayed until closing—defying the waiter, manager, and a police officer—and returned the next day with supporters. Within days, hundreds joined.
Recognizing the power of student-led resistance, activist Ella Baker organized a youth summit that gave rise to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led by activists such as Diane Nash and John Lewis. SNCC pioneered sit-ins, Freedom Rides, Jail-no-bail strategies, and voter drives, confronting white supremacy through organized, peaceful disruption.
School Strike for Climate. On August 20, 2018, fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, frustrated by inattention to the climate crisis, sat outside Stockholm’s Parliament House, demanding urgent action to limit global warming. She returned daily for the three weeks leading to the Swedish election. Soon, other students joined. With the hashtag #FridaysforFuture, the campaign went viral, uniting millions in over 200 countries in climate activism. Her tenacity shows how individual action can drive global change.
Abolition
“The time has come for action” served as the rallying cry of the American Abolition Movement. While some resistance efforts took violent forms—such as Nat Turner’s revolt or John Brown’s raid—most relied on peaceful tactics, including petitions, rallies, anti-slavery publications, and boycotts of goods made by enslaved labor.
Religious communities played a unifying role in the abolitionist movement. The African Methodist Episcopal Church and Quakers, among others, framed abolition as a moral imperative, mobilizing those who might not have otherwise engaged and broadening the movement’s reach and impact.
Garrison, Douglass, & Tubman. American abolitionism reached its height in the 1830s when William Lloyd Garrison launched The Liberator, a newspaper dedicated to ending slavery. Two years later, he co-founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. Frederick Douglass escaped enslavement in 1838 and rose to prominence through powerful oratory and writing, shifting public opinion by adding a deeply personal perspective to the national conversation. In 1847, he founded The North Star to further the abolitionist cause.
Undeterred by oppressive laws, abolitionists continued to petition and protest. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, mandating the return of escaped enslaved people, provoked widespread outrage and intensified activism. Harriet Tubman, a formidable conductor on the Underground Railroad—a clandestine network of escape routes and safe houses—led seventy enslaved people to freedom on thirteen missions. During the Civil War, she bravely helped lead a Union raid that liberated over 700 more in June 1863.
Although Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared freedom for enslaved people in Confederate states, enslavement remained legal elsewhere until the Thirteenth Amendment passed in 1865, abolishing enslavement throughout the United States.
Labor Rights
Rapid industrialization created harsh labor conditions as the U.S. population tripled between 1860 and 1910. Organized labor became the antidote to exploitative workplaces. The American Federation of Labor (AFL), formed in 1886, fought to secure workers’ rights and fair wages.
By the 1930s, the labor movement was in full swing. In 1935, the United Auto Workers formed to advocate for auto laborers. During the 1936–1937 Flint sit-down strike, General Motors workers refused to leave the factory, blocking strikebreakers. This pivotal action led to widespread unionization and the enactment of labor laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), which established minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor protections.
Huelga means strike! In September 1965, Filipino and Mexican farmworkers in California’s grape-growing San Joaquin Valley united in a shared struggle for better wages and working conditions. Ironically, when Mexican workers had previously organized strikes, growers typically recruited Filipino grape pickers as strikebreakers.
Despite this history, Larry Itliong led fellow Filipino farmworkers in protesting pay cuts and harsh conditions—including pesticide exposure and inadequate shelter—and appealed to Mexican-American migrant labor advocates César Chávez and Dolores Huerta to join forces. In August 1966, the coalition formed United Farm Workers.
Inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in 1965 the Delano Grape Strike employed peaceful picketing and a consumer boycott of grapes to pressure growers. Despite violence and intimidation, strikers upheld an ethos of nonviolence. After five years of sustained protest, grape growers met the farmworkers’ demands—a watershed moment in both agricultural and labor history.
Freedom Now! American Civil Rights Movement
Despite Reconstruction-era amendments that abolished enslavement, established citizenship, and granted voting rights to all male citizens, a regressive backlash—including violent reprisals and the rise of Jim Crow laws—undermined these gains and curtailed Black freedoms.
The 1908 Springfield Race Riot in Illinois, marked by white mob violence, prompted an interracial coalition to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Change came slowly, but it grew to become the largest civil rights organization in the U.S. In 1942, students at the University of Chicago founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), planting seeds of modern civil resistance.
The Honorable John R. Lewis dedicated his life to advancing civil and human rights, from grassroots student activism to a long tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives. He championed key laws like the Voting Rights
Advancement Act, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, and the Equality Act. Lewis also fought for criminal justice reform, health equity, immigration rights, gun safety, marriage equality, education, and racial and economic justice. Known for his courage, compassion, and unwavering commitment to nonviolence, this civil rights icon and elder statesman of the movement is remembered for his enduring call to “get into good trouble, necessary trouble” in pursuit of justice and equality.
Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks’ arrest for boldly refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus catalyzed a year-long bus boycott. In the highly organized campaign led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., about eighty percent of Montgomery’s Black residents walked, carpooled, and refused to ride public buses from December 1, 1955, to December 20, 1956. The grassroots movement inflicted substantial economic losses on the bus system and ultimately led to a victory: a Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation on public transit unconstitutional.
Fieldnotes on Fortitude is available in print and digital formats at ourhumanfamily.org and just about everywhere books are sold.
Member discussion