In the lectures and discussion times, George Lakey will explore with us how to have joy in the midst of the difficult struggle for social change. He has entitled the lectures and his time with us as "Joy in the Struggle." The question for the first lecture will be how we can experience our full humanity while serving God through our work. The second lecture puts before us the deep issues of our doubts and fears and how love is a power that transforms doubt and fear. George is noted as one who can find grace and humor in tough times!
George Lakey is an author, professor, organizer, and great-grandfather with both an arrest record and affinity for Broadway tunes. He recently co-founded Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), which organized a successful campaign that got PNC Bank to stop funding mountain top removal by coal companies.
George has worked on strategic nonviolence since the 1960's, and he has helped groups around the world in applying principled nonviolence to create social change. During the Vietnam War, George sailed into the war zone on a Quaker ship to deliver medicine to Vietnam. Since then he has worked in Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, and the former Soviet Union.
George has written nine books. His first book, A Manual for Direct Action, served the civil rights movement. A new edition is coming out of what George calls his “most original” book, Toward a Living Revolution. His 2003 book, Opening Space for Democracy, is an extensive curriculum on civilian peacekeeping. George's newest book is Viking Economics: How the Nordics Got it Right and How We Can, Too. He also writes a column called “Living Revolution” for Waging Nonviolence, www.wagingnonviolence.com.
He has taught courses at Haverford, Temple, and the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently George was visiting professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore where he and his students developed a research data bank on nonviolent actions through history, the Global Nonviolent Action Database. http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/
http://esr.earlham.edu/news-events/events/2016-willson-lectures