| Non-Violent Journey
Journey to Non-Violence
More than 5,000 people followed this eight-week Journey into Soulforce to prepare, as Gandhi and King taught, for the historic 1999 Soulforce meeting with Rev. Jerry Falwell, confronting the religion-based oppression against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. Any person who is interested in non-violent process can utilize these steps to bridge the polarization between people in any area.
Click here for the original 17 Step Journey into Soulforce.
WHAT IS "SOUL FORCE"?
Gandhi developed and refined his Satyagraha or "soul force" principles while leading justice movements in South Africa (1893-1915) and India (1915-1948). Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. discovered Gandhi's "soul force" rules and used them to shape his own nonviolent civil rights movement in America (1955-1968).
"While the Montgomery boycott was going on," King writes, "India's Gandhi was our guiding light...Nonviolent resistance emerged as the technique of the movement, while love stood as the regulating ideal." Dr. King believed that Jesus and the Jewish prophets furnished the spirit and motivation, while Gandhi furnished the method.
Mel White, author of Stranger at the Gate: To be Gay & Christian in America, (and Jerry Falwell's ghostwriter), said, "How would our civil rights movement be different if we rediscovered and applied those 'soul force' principles in our response to Jerry Falwell (and the others)? What might happen if we began by seeing Jerry as a 'fallen brother', a victim of misinformation as we have been? (Even if we have to do it by faith.)" Mel White and his partner, Gary Nixon, took these principles to heart and began the journey to wholeness, utilizing their new organization, Soulforce, to ignite a love for these "fallen brothers and sisters" who are victims of misinformation.
Click here for the original 17 Step Journey into Soulforce.
To learn more about the Civil Rights Era, click on the links below.
The Civil Rights Era:
Part I: Desegregation/Civil Rights in the Arena and on the Stage
The Civil Rights Era:
Part II: Sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and Demonstrations
In Part 1 and 2, you can also see what Rodney Powell (Soulforce board member) who took a seat at the lunch counter when he was a young man, says about The Equality Ride, a response to the anit-gay teachings of Christian colleges/universities and military schools and the modern day equivalent to what the Freedom Riders did during the civil rights era
Click here for African American Odyssey from the Library of Congress
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