Nonviolent Community Action
Creating the winds of change ...
Develop knowledge and efficient use of nonviolent action to promote equity, sustainability, democracy, and liberty.
Nonviolent Citizen Action Events
See all our wonderful events below!
Learn How to Defend Our Democracy:
Training to Prepare for 2020 Election
Oct 22 - 7:00-9:00pm
PANELISTS
Jamila Raqib from Albert Einstein Institution
Marla Marcum from Climate Disobedience Center
Barbara Peterson from Nonviolent Citizen Action
Kendra Ford from Nonviolent Citizen Action
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This will be a 2-hour training hosted on Zoom by Nonviolent Citizen Action and cosponsored by Albert Einstein Institution, Climate Disobedience Center, and Festival Center, with tech support by Dana Dwinell-Yardley. The schedule will be as follows:
7:00-7:05 Kendra Ford - Opening and Introductions
7:05-7:45 Jamila Raqib - Design Effective Action: Using Theory, Global/Historical Examples, and Global Trends that Shape the “Battlefield”
7:45-8:10 Barbara Peterson - Here and Now: A State-wide Illustration
8:10-8:35 Marla Marcum - First Steps: Taking a Pledge
8:35-8:50 Breakout Session: One major takeaway & One thing to learn more about
8:50-9:00 Closing
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Welcome to our training to begin organizing for the 2020 election! We believe that preparing now to defend our democracy serves as both a deterrence to any possible crisis and as the best approach to effectively meeting a crisis should it occur. By applying certain principles that put our beliefs and faith into practice, we can begin now to engage in the work of nonviolent resistance that shows our opposition that we are empowered and ready to stand strong to uphold our democratic foundations and freedoms.
For more information, see Blog post
The stakes could not be higher, nor
the missions more critical.
Join us for a special screening of the documentary Disobedience.
Disobedience tells the David vs Goliath tales of front line leaders around the world risking life and limb in the fight for a livable climate. Interwoven throughout are the most renowned voices in the global conversation around social movements and climate justice.
Following the film, we'll have a conversation with scholar, author, educator, and activist Dr. Barbara Peterson with Nonviolent Citizen Action.
November 21st 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Manchester City Library, 405 Pine St, Manchester, NH
Come to this exciting presentation by scholar, author, educator, and activist Dr Barbara Peterson. She will present a slide show with handouts on Power: What is it, how do we the people get it, and how do we use it.
Following the presentation, people will form small groups and learn how to apply what we learned to stop the Granite Bridge Pipeline.
October 22nd 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Tuscan Market, Market Square, Portsmouth, NH
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It's time to bring a Resistance Action group back to Portsmouth! The focus will be on building community, strong empowering relationships, and strategic nonviolent campaigns that include direct action to make significant structural changes. We have asked and even demanded improvements for long enough; those with the authority to help us have done far too little. It's time to empower ourselves enough in connected caring to make those improvements ourselves. We are ready to revitalize Portsmouth's resistance efforts. Join us and let's get to work!
Social Justice Sewing Academy
Lowell, MA - Oct 5 1:00pm-2:30pm
Their mission: Piecing together youth voices, textile art, and community in a 21st Century Sewing Circle. They teach middle and high school students about social justice and how to create quilt blocks. Students from around the country, in some of the poorest and most marginalized areas of our nation learn to construct powerful and creative blocks for quilts that get displayed in museums, libraries, and community centers across the country.
Barbara Peterson, from Nonviolent Citizen Action, was asked to speak in a Social Justice Leadership Panel with Sara Trail, founder of the Social Justice Sewing Academy, and other panelists.
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#NoCoalNoGas Direct Action
The Merrimack Power Station Bow, NH Sept 28, 2019
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Nearly 70 Arrested to Close Down the Bow Coal Plant
Nobody’s going to close this coal plant for us. WE are the ones we've been waiting for!
Continuing to burn coal and build fracked gas infrastructure in NH is immoral. That our political leaders stand idly by in the midst of this climate emergency is unconscionable. We must act ourselves.
Sitting by the river in the town of Bow, New Hampshire, the Merrimack Generating Station is the last large coal plant in New England without a shut-down date. On September 28th we will gather in Bow, take massive nonviolent direct action to shut down this plant.
September is just the beginning. If we are going to avoid catastrophic climate crisis, we need a bold and boisterous movement to end business as usual. After we shut down Bow, we will end our addiction to fracked gas, and ensure the Granite Bridge pipeline is never built.
Nonviolent Direct-Action Training
Portsmouth Library Sept 21, 2019
The Climate Disobedience Center, with support from 350nh, NCA, and other groups, organized a Direct-Action Training for all activists interested in learning more about changing their relationship with risk in our efforts to move beyond asking others to make improvements for us but to make those improvements ourselves.
Youth Climate Strike!
Sept 20, 2019
In cities and towns across New Hampshire, thousands rallied, marched, sang, held signs, and listened to enigmatic and informed speakers. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, the Youth Climate Strike across the globe was the largest organized climate protest in the history of the world. The message was clear: business as usual is no longer acceptable. We must be fossil fuel free by 2030 and install carbon capture solutions to save human habitation on this earth.
Power & Nonviolence
Nashua Sept 3 & Manchester Aug 22, 2019
Rights & Democracy held two community meetings and presentations from Barbara Peterson of NCA about the power and vital importance of organized, coordinated, and strategic nonviolence to build our movement, disrupt entrenched power, and win real structural change.
We are good at making use of the traditional tools to advocate for political change. We know how to call our elected officials, visit them at the State House, vote, etc. But what do we do when we've tried the traditional methods - and gotten nowhere?
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This is where strategic nonviolent civil resistance comes in. It is a proven way to disrupt entrenched power and win real structural change.
The slide show presentation takes us through the 8 Essential Steps for building a movement, and it gives details on the necessary steps for developing an effective and truly empowering strategy.
No War, No Cages
South Church, Portsmouth, NH 7/6/19, 6:30pm - 8:00pm
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Barbara Peterson from NCA gave a talk on how we can organize to prevent a US-Iran war and to release refugees from being held in prison camps.
This talk and organizing event lays out strategies we can take to choose diplomacy over war with Iran and to treat our refugees with humanity and full human dignity.
Building Real People Power
Portsmouth Library, April 18, 2019 6:30pm
Come join us to learn from experts, such as world-renowned Nonviolent Resistance expert Jamila Raqib from the Einstein Institution, how we can use the tactics and organizing methods of King and Gandhi to build a nonviolent people power movement so no government representative can ever put our democracy, our moral decency, and the health of our planet into jeopardy again.
Next Two Years and Beyond!
Dec 11, 2018
KEEP THE POSITIVE MOMENTUM GOING!
Now that Midterms are over, let's keep the pressure on! We want to get organized and build strategy so we can engage in a series of long-term citizen action campaigns to pass legislation in NH on Paid Medical & Family Leave, Raising the Minimum Wage, Public Education Funding/Spending, and Healthcare.
Expand Beyond Protest & Persuasion!
Portsmouth, NH March 5, 2017 1:00pm - 3:00pm
This is an informational meeting to learn about how we can expand our resistance to nonviolent techniques other than protest and persuasion. We will learn about nonviolent noncooperation and intervention