The main themes in A Manual For Direct Action is the value and effectiveness of nonviolent protest in its history in the civil rights movement. Another theme is being prepared to engage in civil disobedience in the practical, physical aspect, in organizing protest, and in understanding the different methods of civil protest and their legal and historical ramifications.
live there all the time and share the life of the neighborhood) can begin to build community organizations to do the jobs which need to be done, the jobs which have come from specific and deeper complaints of your neighbors. This turns you and your team into a political force, for you are now organizing the community to do for itself what it formerly received as favors from the white power structure” (Lakey 27).
“This is nonsense. Why should the innocents be made to suffer? Who are these leaders, to be willing to sacrifice their followers to racist madmen? It is important to safeguard our lives and the lives of our families” (Lakey 116).
A parallel to this book is to Khan-Cullors When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. It relates to this book in that Khan-Cullors takes the steps in becoming a community organizer and protest leader in the same ways which Oppenhiemer and Lakey lay out. Choosing a strategy and recognizing how a problem might be best suited to a specific type of civil protest, then enacting that community is exemplified in Cullors actions of forming the BLM organization and could be taken as a textbook example of what to do.
Manual For Direct Action relates to When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors in that Khan-Cullors actively uses many of the non-violent strategies incorporated in Manual For Direct Action. However, nonviolent civil disobedience has also been a major theme in the movie Rustin which fictionalizes the story of Bayard Rustin organizing the march on Washington. In relation to Rustin I want to highlight the section on theory of nonviolent protest because it actively engages in themes which find themselves in many readings regarding black thought, including Du Bois and Khan-Cullors and that is of identity, and that in order to have a successful non-violent protest, by definition, identity can not get in the way of participation. In the case of Rustin, his being gay was a factor which saw him face hardship and almost lose the position of organizer which he had. Or in the case of Khan-Cullors her identity as queer and a woman distinctly separated her from the rest of her black community. But these same otherings based upon identity are the same tools which the racist oppressor uses in its tactics, tactics of violence, tactics of fear. Only by eliminating these otherings in a given community, can a protest succeed.
A Manual For Direct Action firstly, presents a general overview of the civil rights movement at the time of its writing, and a history of the civil rights movement to that point. The majority of the book however, is a practical guide for actively forming and carrying out non-violent protests of civil disobedience. Forming and leading groups to engage in civil disobedience, types of civil disobedience, how to actively and effectively enact non-violent protests, and information on the courts and jail. Oppenheimer and Lakey also have a section on the legality of civil disobedience and civil rights protests in the past, and the theory of why non-violent protest is the most effective means of obtaining change.
George Lakey is an activist for peace, nonviolence, and currently the climate crisis. He has led activist workshops across the country and recently retired from a position at Swarthmore College. He is the author of a number of books and articles on sociology and activism. Martin Oppenheimer is an emeritus sociology professor at Rutgers university and an author of multiple books and articles around civil rights and sociology.
Cullors, Patrisse, and Asha Bandele. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Story of Black Lives Matter and the Power to Change the World. Canongate, 2021.
“March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 20 Nov. 2023, www.nps.gov/articles/march-on-washington.htm#:~:text=It%20was%20the%20largest%20gathering,from%20all%20over%20the%20country.
“Martin Oppenheimer - International Viewpoint - Online Socialist Magazine.” Internationalviewpoint.org, internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?auteur1251. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
“George Lakey.” Resilience, www.resilience.org/resilience-author/george-lakey/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
One of the contemporary problems affecting the black community today is police brutality and the prison system. Both of problems are violent and bloody, and have resulted in the death and injury of many innocent blacks folks and youth in the U.S. Black Lives Matter has been integral to engaging others in this issue and creating protests to fight back and gain some equity. Khan-Cullors writes in A Black Lives Matter Memoir describing an occurrence at a LA Jail of widespread police abuse which her brother was involved in, "Prisoners who were already rendered unconscious continued to be assaulted. In most every case the prisoner was reported by independent observers as not resisting. Many were handcuffed from the moment the attack was initiated" (Cullors 159).
During the 1964 when this book was published the most active and relevant black political action was the Civil Rights act of 1964, spurred by the March on Washington in 1963. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was one of the most prominent occurrences of black civil protest and garnished a huge group of protesters from across the country. Civil rights were at a particularly tumultuous point with the assassination of black leaders occurring with a disturbing frequency and a parallel mass of protests to Vietnam. The March on Washington however, maintained its opposition toward violence with the leadership and organization of Bayard Rustin and proved successful. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream Speech” during this event and civil rights garnished the legislative attention it needed.
"While the March was a peaceful occasion, the words spoken that day at the Lincoln Memorial were not just uplifting and inspirational such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, they were also penetrating and pointed. There was a list of "Ten Demands" from the sponsors, insisting on a fair living wage, fair employment policies, and desegregation of school districts. John Lewis in his speech said that "we do not want our freedom gradually but we want to be free now" and that Congress needed to pass "meaningful legislation" or people would march through the South. Although the SNCC chairman had toned down his remarks at the request of white liberals and moderate black allies, he still managed to criticize both political parties for moving too slowly on civil rights" (NPS).
My A-HA moment was in chapter 7, “Direct Action Tactics'' because it actively combined theory and practical application by discussing the various forms of protest which one might implement. I found “haunting” to be particularly interesting because it is a practice of trying to convince the police of the immorality of their ways, which in contemporary society and through social media takes the form of a more internet based approach but employs the same means either way. This method stands out because it is an ultimate form of non-violence: communication and reason.
People should know that this book though written very much for its time would still be very useful today and much of the information in it is niche and not simply something one might learn without looking for it. This information is still practical today and actively reading it might inspire someone to organize and engage locally in civil disobedience.