[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.NEXT STOP: PROTEST WITH POWERWhen decision makers won t respond to our efforts to demonstratewidespread support for the adoption of new business practices, laws, andgreening projects, we have the choice to turn up the heat with protests.Communities that are shut out of positions of power or lack direct access todecision makers the poor and working class, indigenous and native nations,immigrants, people of color, and youth, for example often use public proteststo advance their environmental concerns, particularly when earlier tactics suchas letter-writing, petitions, and meetings fail to bring about campaign demands.The next chapter dives into how to use peaceful protests to advanceenvironmental change.RESOURCESCorporate AccountabilityInternational, www.stopcorporateabuse.org Corporate AccountabilityInternational has been waging winning campaigns to challenge corporateabuse for more than thirty years, targeting industries like big tobacco, fast food,and bottled water.Forest Ethics, www.forestethics.org Forest Ethics runs hard-hitting andhighly effective campaigns that leverage public dialogue and pressure tocombat forest destruction and climate change.Green America, www.greenamericatoday.org Green America works toempower individuals to make purchasing and investing choices that promotesocial justice and environmental sustainability while demanding an end tocorporate irresponsibility through collective economic action.Green For All, www.greenforall.org Green For All is a nationalorganization working to build an inclusive green economy strong enough tolift people out of poverty.Organic Consumers Association (OCA), www.organicconsumers.orgThe OCA deals with crucial issues of food safety, industrial agriculture,genetic engineering, children s health, corporate accountability, fair trade,environmental sustainability, and other key topics, from the perspective oforganic and socially responsible consumers.People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), www.peta.orgPETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world.The group focuseson the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the mostintensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, inthe clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry.Rainforest Action Network, www.ran.org Rainforest Action Networkcampaigns for the forests, their inhabitants, and the natural systems that sustainlife by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassrootsorganizing, and nonviolent direct action.Responsible Endowments Coalition, www.endowmentethics.org TheResponsible Endowments Coalition works to promote responsible investmentat colleges and universities in the United States.In the past century, youth protests have been behind some of the biggestenvironmental, human rights, and social justice victories worldwide.Don tbelieve me? Here s an amazing story of youth creating monumental societalchanges using peaceful protests.Leading up to the 1960s, African-Americans were not allowed to sharetaxis or public transportation with whites, enter buildings through the sameentrances, eat at the same restaurants, or use the same water fountains.Theywere often not allowed into public libraries, zoos, or parks.Youth protestersconsistently and bravely put pressure on the federal government to endsegregation and establish voting rights for African-Americans.In 1960, four African-American students from a North Carolina collegesat down at a segregated lunch counter in a Woolworth s in Greensboro andwere refused service.The next day, the students brought twenty-sevenadditional protesters to join them.Each day, new students from two collegesand a high school joined, until their numbers swelled to three hundred peacefulprotesters.The Greensboro sit-ins inspired a number of other sit-ins across thenation, making media headlines and winning the verbal support of PresidentEisenhower.Many sit-ins successfully desegregated lunch counters and latercontributed to the desegregation of art galleries, beaches, parks, pools, andmore.Youth continued organizing in the Freedom Rides in 1961, in whichyoung African-Americans and older white allies traveled together on publicbuses from Washington, D.C., to Jackson, Mississippi, to challengesegregation laws.Though twenty-seven Freedom Riders were arrested andsentenced to sixty days on a prison farm, ultimately bus and train stations weredesegregated.After years of growing citizen outrage, the Civil Rights Act passed in thesummer of 1964, outlawing racial segregation and extending voting rights toAfrican-Americans.At the same time, the Mississippi Freedom Summerproject rallied nearly a thousand activists primarily white collegestudents to join with African-American activists to teach in FreedomSchools and register southern voters
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]