After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance

by Anne Sibley O'Brien, Perry Edmond O'Brien (Illustrator), Tharanga Yakupitiyage (Contribution by)

Overview

In 1908 Mohandas Gandhi spoke to a crowd of 3,000. Together they protested against an unjust law without guns or rioting. Peacefully they made a difference. Gandhi’s words and deeds influenced countless others to work toward the goals of freedom and justice through peaceful methods. Mother and son team, Anne Sibley O’Brien and Perry Edmond O’Brien, highlight some of the people and events that Gandhi’s actions inspired. From Rosa Parks to the students at Tiananmen Square to Wangari Maathai, these people have made the world sit up and take notice. The provocative graphics and beautiful portraits accompanying these stories stir the emotions and inspire a sense of civic responsibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632897749
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	11/20/2018
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	244
File size:	80 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Anne Sibley O'Brien has illustrated more than twenty picture books, including WHAT WILL YOU BE, SARA MEE? and the Jamaica series by Juanita Havill. Anne has also illustrated a number of her own books, including THE LEGEND OF HONG KIL DONG: THE ROBIN HOOD OF KOREA, AFTER GANDHI: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE, and A PATH OF STARS. She lives on Peaks Island, Maine. Perry Edmond O’Brien is a former Army medic who served in Afghanistan and received an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector. He is the founder of www.peace-out.com, a website that helps servicemen navigate the conscientious objector application process. Perry majored in political theory at Cornell University and now works as a labor organizer in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

Since the 2009 release of After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance, the world has seen a surge in nonviolent movements. In country after country, people have used the power of mass gatherings to overthrow corrupt and tyrannical leaders. Around the globe, young people have organized to protest against police violence, environmental threats, and Islamophobia; and in support of immigrant justice, better education, and jobs that pay a living wage. In their 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict, researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan shared their finding that “historically, nonviolent resistance campaigns have been more effective in achieving their goals than violent resistance campaigns.”
            No matter how effective they are, it’s easy to see that nonviolent movements are rarely popular while they’re happening. Looking back through history, patterns suggest that this has always been true. From Gandhi on, every leader and group profiled in this book was criticized, maligned, and dismissed for their efforts to make a better world.
            In 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, a group of white ministers wrote a letter calling the demonstrations he was leading “unwise and untimely” and “extreme measures.” They urged Dr. King and the black community to withdraw from the protests. “When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets,” they wrote. Not in the streets. We hear the same refrain today.
            By definition, nonviolent resistance is disruptive. Sit-ins, marches, and blockades are designed to be inconvenient. Participants purposefully disturb people in an effort to wake them up to the uncomfortable truth that something needs to change.
            We also have abundant evidence that the people who lead nonviolent campaigns are complex, flawed human beings. When we look back at movements that happened in the past, we often put leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. on pedestals, as if they were saints. In fact, every leader and movement has failings as well as successes.
            Throughout history, women leaders in nonviolent resistance have seldom received due credit for their work, as male leaders are often recognized over their female counterparts. For instance, Dolores Huerta’s role in the farmworkers’ movement has long been overshadowed by that of César Chávez. Even the movement’s famous slogan, “Sí se puede,” which Huerta coined, has been wrongly attributed to Chávez.
            As Gandhi began advocating for the rights of Indian workers in South Africa, he couldn’t yet recognize the full humanity of black South Africans who labored beside them. Leaders who are principled in the struggle for freedom and justice may falter when they finally achieve a measure of power. After he was elected the first president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel quickly became an uncritical supporter of the United States. Throughout the Velvet Revolution he had insisted on the importance of “living in truth,” but as a politician, he voiced support for the deceptive arguments of the Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq, even though people across the world—including most Czechs—strongly opposed the war.
            The first edition of After Gandhi profiled the struggle for democracy in Myanmar led by Aung San Suu Kyi and her long years of house arrest. In 2010 Suu Kyi was released, and she became the head of the opposition party and was then elected state counsellor. Yet in this position of influence, and despite her inspiring voice for nonviolent struggle, to date she has failed to speak out against the terrible campaign of violence waged against the Rohingya people, a persecuted group in Myanmar. We can no longer hold Aung San Suu Kyi up as a champion of nonviolence.
            Though it can be disappointing and even heartbreaking to consider leaders’ failures, it’s essential to remember that nonviolent actions are taken by ordinary people— just like us. And like you.
            This rings true today more than ever. As people of all ages around the world take up tactics of nonviolent resistance— from social media in their homes to mass marches on the streets—we’ve only begun to imagine what’s possible in the quest for justice, equity, and peace.
            —Anne Sibley O’Brien & Perry Edmond O’Brien with Tharanga Yakupitiyage, November 2017

Table of Contents

Contents

Map....................viii
Introduction....................1
1908 JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Mohandas Gandhi Struggle for Indian Independence....................6
1947 RURAL VIETNAM Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnam War....................20
1955 MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, USA Rosa Parks Civil Rights Movement....................30
1962 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Nelson Mandela Antiapartheid Movement....................40
1963 Birmingham, Alabama, USA Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Movement....................50
1965 MOREE, AUSTRALIA Charles Perkins Aboriginal Rights Movement....................60
1965 DELANO, CALIFORNIA, USA César Chávez Farmworkers Strike....................68
1967 HOUSTON, TEXAS, USA Muhammad Ali Vietnam War Draft Resistance....................78
1967 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland....................88
1977 BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA Madres de Plaza de Mayo Mothers of the Disappeared....................98
1989 A VILLAGE IN BURMA Aung San Suu Kyi Struggle for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma)....................108
1989 BEIJING, CHINA Student Activists of Tiananmen Square Fight for Participatory Democracy in Communist China....................118
1989 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Desmond Tutu Truth and Reconciliation Commission....................126
1989 PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA Vaclav Havel Velvet Revolution....................136
1992 NAIROBI, KENYA Wangari Maathai Green Belt Movement....................146
2003 ACROSS THE PLANET Protests Against the War in Iraq....................156
The Future of Nonviolence....................160
Authors' Note....................164
Bibliography....................168
Acknowledgments....................175
Index....................177

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-10

It's been a century since a young lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi peacefully defied the British Empire in support of Indian laborers working in South Africa. In this book, a mother-son team of social activists trace the impact of that seminal event, highlighting the subsequent, worldwide history of nonviolent resistance through understandable text and rich portraits and illustrations. The book does an admirable job of clarifying complex conflicts and conveying that the truth eventually prevails when persistently applied, even against the most malevolent regimes. Coverage includes dozens of examples profiling the durable courage of leaders like Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Václev Havel, and Wangari Maathai and ending with a chapter on the role of nonviolence in shaping the future.-Jeffrey Hastings, Highlander Way Middle School, Howell, MI

School Library Journal

Aside from the smudgy pastel illustrations provided by Anne Sibley O'Brien, this mother-and-son effort earns high marks both for adding less-celebrated names to the pantheon of peacemongers and for noting that the nonviolent approach to civil protest doesn't always work-which makes the courage of those who engage in it all the more exemplary. Each of the 16 chronologically arranged chapters highlights a particular event, from the Gandhi-led mass burning of Indian registration documents in 1908 Johannesburg to the worldwide anti-Iraq war protest on February 5, 2003, then closes with a set of rubrics that add detail or historical background. Along with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali and Cesar Chavez, young readers will meet-and come away admiring-Vietnam's Thich Nhat Hanh, Australian Charles Perkins and the Students For Aboriginal Action, Belfast's Peace People, the Mothers of the Disappeared in Buenos Aires and others who understood that "nonviolence is the weapon of the strong." Might that admiration grow into emulation in some? (annotated bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews

Aside from the smudgy pastel illustrations provided by Anne Sibley O'Brien, this mother-and-son effort earns high marks both for adding less-celebrated names to the pantheon of peacemongers and for nothing that the nonviolent approach to civil protest doesn't always work—which makes the courage of those who engage in it all the more exemplary. Each of the 16 chronologically arranged chapters highlights a particular event, from the Gandhi-led mass burning of Indian registration documents in 1908 Johannesburg to the worldwide anti-Iraq war protest on February 5, 2003, then closes with a set of rubrics that add detail or historical background. Along with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali and Cesar Chavez, young readers will meet—and come away admiring—Vietnam's Thich Nhat Hanh, Australian Charles Perkins and the Students For Aboriginal Action, Belfast's Peace People, the Mothers of the Disappeared in Buenos Aires and others who understood that "nonviolence is the weapon of the strong." Might that admiration grow into emulation in some?
—Kirkus Reviews


Using Gandhi as its starting point, this large-format book traces the history of nonviolent resistance by looking at significant adherents from 1908 to 2003, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Charles Perkins, Cesar Chavez, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vaclav Havel, and Wangari Maathai and groups such as the student activists of Tiananmen Square and the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Disappeared) in Argentina. Each of the 15 main entries includes a little background information as well as an account of significant events. Read individually, these entries offer basic introduction to leaders of nonviolent movement over a hundred years and its potential as a catalyst for change. There are no source notes, but a discursive, chapter-by-chapter bibliography is appended. The handsome design and striking black-and-white illustrations are strong visuals that complement the story of nonviolent resistance in action.
—Booklist

It's been a century since a young lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi peacefully defied the British Empire in support of Indian laborers working in South Africa. In this book, a mother-son team of social activists trace the impact of that seminal event, highlighting the subsequent, worldwide history of nonviolent resistance through understandable text and rich portraits and illustrations. The book does an admirable job of clarifying complex conflicts and conveying that the truth eventually prevails when persistently applied, even against the most malevolent regimes. Coverage includes dozens of examples profiling the durable courage of leaders like Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Vaclev Havel, and Wangari Maathai and ending with a chapter on the role of nonviolence in shaping the future.
—School Library Journal

If children are sometimes led to believe that nonviolent civil disobedience runs a straight line from Mohandas Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr., this effort by mother and son authors will expand their understanding. More than a dozen profiles of peaceful resistance movements and their proponents are highlighted here, spanning six continents and a century. Many names will be familiar—Gandhi, King, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez—while other activists, such as Charles Perkins (Australian Aboriginal rights), Aung San Suu Kyi (pro-democracy in Myanmar), Wangari Maathai (environmentalism and women's empowerment in Kenya) are probably lesser known among American children. Each entry opens with a few gripping paragraphs that capture the climax of a confrontation and readily hook reader interests; unfortunately, the several pages of context that follow seem fairly dry in comparison... The global scope of the title does, nonetheless, establish its usefulness, both in opening readers' eyes to underexamined civil rights movements, and in raising awareness of resistance activities that may be quietly making waves in their own communities. Gray-tone pastel portraits and illustrations are included, as are an index and annotated bibliography.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Literature

From the Publisher