Nonviolence Project Description

Passing the Legacy of Nonviolence to Tucson Youth --
Creating a Nonviolent Youth Leadership Team


In honor of NAACP’s 100th Anniversary, a group of community organizations* are bringing civil rights pioneer Bernard LaFayette, Jr. to Tucson to conduct several presentations focused on applying nonviolence to today’s civil rights and human rights issues – immigration and border issues; LGBT rights; indigenous rights; youth violence, gangs, bullying and youth empowerment.

Dr. LaFayette was a close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On the day that Dr. King was assassinated, he instructed Bernard LaFayette that the next focus of the civil rights movement must be to institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence. Dr. LaFayette has spent his life carrying out these instructions by conducting nonviolence trainings and setting up centers for peace and nonviolence across the US and around the world. He has worked with gang members in California, prison guards and inmates in Columbia, activists in Israel and Palestine, militia groups in Nigeria, and thousands of other individuals to shift their thinking away from the use of violence and introduce them to the power of nonviolence. In 2006, Dr. LaFayette initiated a new movement to pass the legacy of nonviolence to the youth of today. His visit to Tucson is intended as the first of a three-phase project to create a youth-led nonviolence training and direct action team.

PHASE ONE:
v Wednesday, February 4, 2009 (5:30 to 8:00 PM; Northwest Neighborhood Center) – Community Presentation & Reception -- Dr. LaFayette addresses a diverse audience of community members with stories from the civil rights movement demonstrating how nonviolent strategies can be applied today to key human rights issues within Tucson and Southern Arizona.
v February 5, 2009 (9:30 AM to 2:30 PM; U of A Student Union Ballroom) -- Dr. LaFayette (with a team of local facilitators) presents a training session for 150-175 culturally diverse youth drawn from middle schools, high schools, and the University of Arizona, challenging and inspiring them to become nonviolent leaders in their schools, homes, and neighborhoods.

PHASE TWO: The second stage of this nonviolent leadership project provides young people, who were part of the Feb. 5th workshop with Dr. LaFayette, an opportunity to participate in a two-day core nonviolence training (March 21-22, 2009). The training team for this event consists of individuals from Tucson and So. California certified by Dr. LaFayette (and his Center for Peace and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island) to conduct this two-day Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence.

PHASE THREE: A small group of inspired young people taking the two-day March training select to complete the two-week Nonviolence Summer Institute conducted annually in July by Dr. LaFayette and his colleagues at URI’s Center for Peace and Nonviolence. This final step will enable us to initiate a youth-led nonviolence training and direct action team in Tucson.


* Nonviolence Project Co-Sponsors: the Culture of Peace Alliance (COPA), the Black Chamber of Commerce, Our Family’s Community Mediation Program, Wingspan’s Anti-Violence Program, and the U of A’s Women’s Resource Center. If interested in becoming a co-sponsor or having your school participate in the February events with Dr. LaFayette, contact: COPA c/o Ann Yellott (991-6781; azyellott@aol.com).

About Culture of Peace Alliance

http://www.cultureofpeacealliance.org/home.php


COPA Definition
Culture of Peace: what is it?As defined by the Culture of Peace Alliance (COPA), the Culture of Peace is an evolving paradigm (mental house or system) in which individuals, groups, and nations are cooperatively building systems of sustainable just peace through nonviolent means based on a partnership and a Quality of Life Index. Though much of humanity still sees the world from a Culture of War perspective that inhibits their capacity to even imagine a world of peace, more and more persons, groups, and even some nations are envisioning and implementing Culture of Transformation and Culture of Peace consciousness and practices. Accordingly, COPA formed with the intent to steadfastly facilitate a paradigm shift that will make the Culture of Peace so real that it will be difficult for anyone to imagine a Culture of War. Together, we can lay claim to the Culture of Peace in the ways we live our daily lives and the ways we envision, expect, and work to create a world at peace. In which mental house do you live? There's plenty of open space for those wanting to take up Culture of Peace residency

Student Assistance During Event

The University of Arizona has many programs/students the require volunteer and internship hours. There is a potential that these students will offer free and enthusiastic labor.
Ideas include:
College of Public Health
College of Law
Social Justice Group on Campus
Fraternities (Kappa)

Outreach Ideas

Attend School Fairs
Meet with School Staff/Educators
Attend UofA Resource Events
Mailings
Media

Facilitators

The Our Family Services Community Mediation Program can contact their 30-40 Mediation Volunteers to assist with facilitating and leading break out sessions.

Our Family Services can also contact the youth they have trained as peer mediators if youth facilitators are needed.

Information about Dr. Lafayette

http://www.uri.edu/nonviolence/popup/biography.html

BiographyBernard LaFayette, Jr. has been a Civil Rights Movement activist, minister, educator, lecturer, and is an authority on the strategy on nonviolent social change. He co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. He was a leader of the Nashville Movement, 1960 and on the Freedom Rides, 1961 and the 1965 Selma Movement. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration Project in 1962, and he was appointed National Program Administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and National Coordinator of the 1968 Poor Peoples’ Campaign by Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition, Dr. LaFayette has served as Director of Peace and Justice in Latin America; Chairperson of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development; Director of the PUSH Excel Institute; and minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tuskegee, Alabama.
An ordained minister, Dr. LaFayette earned his B.A. from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, and his Ed.M. and Ed.D from Harvard University. He has served on the faculties of Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta and Alabama State University in Montgomery, where he was Dean of the Graduate School; he also was principal of Tuskegee Institute High School in Tuskegee, Alabama and a teaching fellow at Harvard University.
His publications include the Curriculum and Training Manual for the Martin Luther King, Jr., Nonviolent Community Leadership Training Program, his doctoral thesis, Pedagogy for Peace and Nonviolence, and Campus Ministries and Social Change in the ‘60’s (Duke Divinity Review) and The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence with David Jehnsen. Bernard LaFayette has traveled extensively to many countries as a lecturer and consultant on peace and nonviolence.
Dr. LaFayette is a former President of the American Baptist College of ABT Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee; Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia; and Pastor emeritus of the Progressive Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.
He is the Founder and National President of God-Parents Clubs, Inc., a national community based program aimed at preventing the systematic incarceration of young Black youth; a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and founder of the Association For Kingian Nonviolence, Education and Training Works.
Dr. LaFayette is currently a Distinguished-Scholar-in-Residence and Director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island. He is the chairperson for the International Nonviolence Executive Planning Board. He has been re-appointed by Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri as the chairman for the Rhode Island Select Commission on Race and Police-Community Relations. A native of Tampa, Florida, Dr. LaFayette is married to the former Kate Bulls.

Income Generation for the Event

Sell tabling spots to community organizations so that they can market at the Dr. Lafayette event.
The charge for tabling could range from $25-200 potentially. These same organizations may be interested in underwriting a portion of the event

Organizations that might be interested:
Our Family Services
University of Arizona Clubs
Local Charter or Private Schools
Every Voice In Action
Wingspan