Under What Circumstances Would A Non-Violent Revolution Be Justified?

[H2O Man]

On August 4, 1857, Frederick Douglass said: "Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.

"This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

A century later, on April 8, 1964, Minister Malcolm X delivered a speech to the Militant Labor Forum, entitled "The Black Revolution." It was based in part on Douglass's earlier message. It marked the beginning of the last stage of evolution in Malcolm's thinking. The ex-Nation of Islam preacher had become invested in the potential for America to have what he called "a bloodless revolution."

What were the weapons of choice outlined by Malcolm that evening? They were the rights and responsibilities outlined in the US Constitution, specifically in the Bill of Rights. Malcolm expressed a concern that was considered closer to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr's point of view at that time: that America was suffering from divisions, and that violence could not cleanse the nation. Rather, he recognized that the only option for a true revolution in values in America called for citizens to grasp the Bill of Rights, and experience the unity it could create. Further, Malcolm asked those who were able to volunteer to undergo a self-purification, and dedicate themselves to taking non-violent actions to save the soul of this country.