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Wikipedia article on George Lakey

George Russell Lakey (November 2, 1937 --) is an activist, sociologist and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". His writing and workshops teach how to increase the effectiveness of nonviolent social movements. A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.

Biography

Early life:

George Lakey comes from an extended family of slate miners. He was born to Dora M. and Russell George Lakey in Bangor, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cheyney University in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He also studied at the University of Oslo, Norway, where he married Berit Mathiesen in 1960 and taught at an Oslo high school. He continued his sociology studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Activist Career:

In the late 1950s Lakey was active in the ban-the-bomb movement, then added participation in the civil rights movement where, in 1963, he was arrested in a sit-in. The following year he was a trainer for Mississippi Freedom Summer and for the civil rights movement co-authored his first book, A Manual for Direct Action. In 1966 he co-founded the national A Quaker Action Group (AQAG) which took him in 1967 to Vietnam to participate in the sailing ship Phoenix’s protest action in South Vietnam seeking to give medical supplies to the anti-war Buddhist movement.

In 1970 Lakey was active within AQAG in the successful direct action in the Puerto Rican struggle to stop the U.S. Navy from using the island of Culebra for target practice. In 1971 he helped found Movement for a New Society (MNS), (1971-1988)</ref>, a network of autonomous groups working for a nonviolent revolution. The network featured living collectives and co-ops as well as participation in national movements of the 1970s and ‘80s. The network’s training program at the Philadelphia Life Center became highly influential in the U.S. and abroad in spreading Friere’s popular education and other participatory training methods.

During the 1970s he also gave national leadership to the Campaign to Stop the B-1 Bomber and Promote Peace Conversion, which succeeded in persuading Congress and President Carter to de-fund the Air Force program. In 1976 he co-organized Men Against Patriarchy to teach men to become more effective allies of women and children. In 1982 he organized the Pennsylvania section of a national labor/community coalition named Jobs with Peace, and directed the effort for seven years.

In 1991 he co-founded with Philadelphia activist Barbara Smith a new national agency, Training for Change (TfC). Building on previous training at the MLK School and MNS,Training for Change also added state-of-the-art educational theory and methods to devise a more powerful, cross-cultural pedagogy which was called “direct education.” TfC did trainings and consultations for activists and nongovernmental organizations in 20 countries during Lakey’s 15 years as director, then re-grouped and continued after his retirement in 2006.

In 2009 Lakey co-founded Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), to build a just and sustainable economy through nonviolent direct action campaigns. The group won its first campaign, forcing PNC Bank to stop financing mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Then in his seventies, Lakey was arrested and led a 200-mile march in that campaign.

Academic career:

Lakey’s first teaching post in higher education was in a graduate program, the Martin Luther King, Jr., School of Social Change, a division of Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, PA. Lakey helped formulate the curriculum, then taught for its first four years, 1965-69. In this period he systematized the field of “experiential nonviolence training;” his students travelled across the country to spread this approach.

After several years of focus on activism, Lakey in 1975 joined the peace studies program at the University of Pennsylvania, successfully expanding its undergraduate offerings and participation of minority students. In addition, he helped lead a Penn group dynamics lab promoting innovative feminist leadership, then taught 1981 at Haverford College to build a peace studies presence there. He concluded this period of teaching at Penn and Haverford in 1982.

Except for a brief teaching stint at Temple University in 1989, Lakey didn’t return to academia until he accepted the endowed Eugene M. Lang Visiting Professorship in Issues of Social Change at Swarthmore College in 2006. In 2010 he was named by the national Peace and Justice Studies Association “Teacher of the Year.” He continued at Swarthmore as Lang professor and then research professor until retirement in 2013.

Later life:

In 1973, after the Lakeys had had their third child, George came out in public as a gay man and joined the LGBT movement. The Lakeys divorced in 1986. He continued his family responsibilities when grandchildren came along (five) and then great-grandchildren (four as of 2016), continually having at least one of his family living with him, giving rise to multiple articles and workshops that related to issues of nurturance and participation in sexual and gender liberation.

Writing

Lakey’s writing springs from his view that intellectuals can serve social movements by doing homework that helps solve movement problems. He regards analysis of society alone as severely limited, seeing it as simply a step toward the more pressing tasks of envisioning alternatives and formulating strategies for achieving a new society. Analysis alone, he claimed, is as likely to disempower as to empower people to make lasting change. His nine books reflect this view.

The visionary books have been:

In Place of War (proposal for civilian-based defense for U.S.), co-author with American Friends Service Committee working party, (NY: Grossman, 1967). Lead author: James E. Bristol. Moving toward a New Society with Susan Gowen, Bill Moyer, Richard K. Taylor, (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1975). This book begins with analysis before going at length into vision and closing with strategy.

No Turning Back: Lesbian and Gay Liberation in the ‘80s, with Gerre Goodman, Judy Laschof, and Erika Thorne (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1983). Equal parts analysis, vision, and strategy, with the vision part the most original contribution.

Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians got it right and how we can, too. (NY and London: Melville House, 2016). Minimal analysis and strategy, with emphasis on vision.

The strategy books have been:

A Manual for Direct Action (widely used in the south by the civil rights movement of the '60s), with Martin Oppenheimer (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965).

Strategy for a Living Revolution, a World Order Book (NY: Grossman, and San Francisco,: W.H. Freeman, 1973). Revised and published as Powerful Peacemaking (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1987). Revised and published as Toward a Living Revolution (London: Peace News Press, 2013), then published with the same title in a North American edition by Wipf & Stock, 2016. The central thesis of this book on nonviolent revolution is found in multiple places including “A Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolution” released by War Resisters International (WRI), 1975, and translated and published by a number of national chapters of WRI. Its academic publication was in: "A Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolution," in Richard Falk, Samuel S. Kim, and Saul H. Mendlovitz (eds.), Toward a Just World Order, Vol. 1 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982).

Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times, with Berit Lakey, Rod Napier, and Janice Robinson (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1995; new edition self-published 2016). Also published in translation in Cairo, Belgrade, and Bangkok.

Opening Space for Democracy: Curriculum and Manual for Training for Third Party Nonviolent Intervention (634 pp., see www.TrainingforChange.org), 2004. Heavily researched curriculum to bring advanced pedagogy to the task of training people risking their lives to defend nonviolently social movement activists.

Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010). The book that describes “direct education,” with theory and multiple examples.

Other writing:

Global Nonviolent Action Database (ongoing on internet website http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu). Over 1000 researched cases from nearly 200 countries with focus on campaigns back to ancient Egypt that used nonviolent direct action. Searchable, and includes a narrative for each case. Developed by George Lakey with Swarthmore and other university students.

“Living Revolution” column, ongoing, WagingNonviolence.org, on-line blog where George Lakey is a featured columnist with over 80 articles archived.

Hundreds of other articles both scholarly and popular to be found in chapter books, magazines and journals, newspapers, and on-line sources.

See also (topics my name might be found under): Publications References Further reading External links (e.g. Quaker Speak interviews, etc.)