How Nonviolence Can Transform Teaching

During this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we hear from Mike Tinoco, public school teacher, author and committed nonviolence educator. Stephanie, Michael and Mike discuss some of the key themes of Mike’s new book, Heart at the Center: An Educator's Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy. Mike explores a radically holistic approach to education, one that not only teaches nonviolence content but embodies it in method as well. Mike tries to level some of the hierarchy often found in traditional classrooms which establish teachers firmly as the authorities over students. To develop an alternative way to organize a classroom, he shifts the aim of education: instead of an instrumental means of getting a good job and ensuring financial success, he sees the goal of education, in part at least, as oriented towards ‘becoming more fully human’:

I think the role of teachers and administrators is to just reflect on how we can create cultures that are really humanizing our students and ourselves and allowing us to use our power in service of the kids so that we're not having power over them…my interest is not to have any sort of control over [students], but is really to be in community with them and to use my privilege and power in service of creating conditions that maximize learning and maximize like our community strength. They respond really well to that.

This model of teaching – where learning is as much a part of the teacher’s job as the students’, where service and community are as important as individual success – allows for education to become an effective form of nonviolent resistance within a culture sometimes lost in selfishness and struggling to find meaning and purpose.

Transcript

Stephanie: Greetings and good morning, everybody. You're here at Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I'm here with my co-host and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler. And today is MLK day.

We have an interesting guest here with us. We don't often get to speak with teachers because they're usually in the classroom at the time of our interview.

So, we're really lucky to have Mike Tinoco with us today. He's an educator and nonviolence teacher from San Jose, California. He's certified in Nonviolent Communication, as well as Kingian Nonviolence, and we'll learn a little bit more about that. And his efforts focus on strengthening interconnectedness, healing together, and fighting for collective liberation. And I was recently sent a beautiful book that he has recently completed called, Heart at the Center: An Educator's Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy. 

Welcome to Nonviolence Radio, Mike.

Mike: Thank you so much for having me. I'm grateful and excited, humbled to be here. 

Stephanie: So, Mike, how are you feeling today, both as a father and an educator and nonviolence practitioner? Let's just sort of settle in together and assess what the day is about.

Mike: Yeah. Thank you for asking that. I'm feeling hopeful. I was listening to Dr. King's final speech, the Mountaintop Speech, this morning. I just was really appreciating the unwavering commitment to creating the beloved community, and the commitment to nonviolence, in spite of what he called the darkness of the time. And his saying that, “It is in the darkest of times that we can see the stars clearly and shining bright.”

My child is in the next room with my partner, so just hearing them giggle and laugh is grounding me in some joy as well. We're going to go to the museum later. But yeah, it's an interesting juxtaposition with the inauguration also happening today. And so, I feel some – I don't know if disappointment is quite the right word, but feeling unsettled for sure about that happening at the same time as MLK’s birthday. So, a mix of things, I think, is the short answer. 

Stephanie: Yeah. This similar feeling of – it's that sometimes these juxtapositions really help us to go more deeply into our values and our conscience and can be quite important opportunities to reflect on where we are and what kinds of actions we'd like to take next at these kinds of moments of tension.

And your work, in particular, in education, I think for a lot of people, feels like part of the answer, like getting nonviolence into schools. Not just teaching about nonviolence, but really teaching nonviolence as an example of setting the culture of a school, the culture of a classroom, in a nonviolent way. 

And so, how do you see nonviolence fitting into this kind of broader picture of transforming something as important as our educational system?

Mike: Yeah. Thank you for that question. And in particular, like you just drawing a distinction between teaching about nonviolence versus teaching ways to embody it and practice it, and weave it into how we are. 

Yeah, I’m trying my best to have an approach that's helping us to be more fully human. That's supporting students, and myself, and colleagues who are along this journey with me, to attend to our individual and collective needs.

And part of becoming more fully human is by disrupting the different ways in which violence manifests in our schools – be it through policy systems, behaviors. So allowing us to kind of tap into like the different dimensions of who we are and building community in that process, creating more humanizing systems, practicing interdependence. And especially moving away from the kind of hyper individualistic, rugged individualistic, culture that's so ubiquitous in schools. That's really toxic and damaging, I think.

So, that's a little bit of how I see the role of nonviolence. It's being explicit about, like, here is a way in which we may be enacting or perpetuating violence, even unwittingly. So, part of the work is for us to be reflective about our policies and our rules and the ways in which we interact with our young people and the content we're teaching, or the things that we're not teaching.

And also, there is a time and a place to explicitly look at peace movements and nonviolence movements. And so, it's all of those things. 

Stephanie: Yeah, because history, it almost doesn't exist if we don't talk about it. And there’s not anything that we can learn from it if we don't analyze it. And yet, I also hear, we understand that culture and systems can either promote nonviolent values or they can promote divisive ideas. Such as, you know, us against them, where one is better than the other, or what we see as the highest good.

So, understanding that people who are clinging to divisive ideas learn that somewhere along the way. Can you speak to that? 

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. One of the ways that I see nonviolence playing out, especially like in the classroom, when we focus our energy toward sustaining relationality and really propping that up as like a core value, a core ethic.

From there, the learning is so much easier. Like, we want to be in community. We want to contribute to each other's well-being. So, when we have practices and systems that are conducive to that, the kids are going to want to be more engaged. It feels like common sense to say that, right?

And then the flip side is, if I'm a teacher who maybe is scared of relinquishing some power and control, lest my classroom be a site of chaos, the kids might kind of fall in line, but likely they're going to be motivated out of fear, motivated out of fear of punishment. They want to do what the teacher says. And then they're acting unconsciously, right? Like they're not consciously connected to their needs, most likely they're not. 

And if we're doing that, we may be well intended as teachers, but then we're perpetuating this dynamic where there's domination, there's having control over other people – and violence is rooted in domination and control. So, I think there's a lot of well-intended practices that nonetheless perpetuate violence.

And so, I think the role of teachers and administrators is to just reflect on how we can create cultures that are really humanizing our students and ourselves and allowing us to use our power in service of the kids so that we're not having power over them. And the same goes for administrators in relation to teachers, where administrators aren't weaponizing their power – particularly when a teacher is maybe dissenting or voicing a complaint or a concern or there's a conflict.

Sometimes power is weaponized, and you have this hierarchical system where it's really easy to silence voices, push people out. And to me, that's violent. So, I'm hoping that, touches on your question. 

Stephanie: Yeah, it does it. Absolutely. For me, it just makes me think about the ways that as we learn systems that encourage power over, you know, from being in schools, to seeing that who has all the power in the classroom or do one's ideas matter or, you know, even some grading systems have a kind of question mark there about how supportive they are to developmental and emotional growth. We start to take those systems as natural and normal and say, “Well, that's just the way it is.” And then we look for politicians that fit into that framework as well, that we all are living through. 

So, to disrupt those systems in new ways, I think it feels really constructive, even as a form of nonviolent creative action.

Mike: Yeah. And I'll just add one last thing to this piece is that the kids also really, really appreciate the transparency around what our intentions are as the adults. Be it classroom teachers, administrators. So, when I'm clear with them that my goal, my interest is not to have any sort of control over them, but is really to be in community with them and to use my privilege and power in service of creating conditions that maximize learning and maximize like our community strength. They respond really well to that. 

And during the times where there may be a conflict or some rupture, I can be transparent about the needs of mine that I'm trying to meet in that moment, while also being mindful of their needs. As opposed to this kind of knee-jerk reverting to like, “Hey, do blank because I say so.” You know, the kids respond really well to the thing we share, which is our needs and being part of this community space that hopefully we're building together.

Michael: Mike, I very much appreciate your remarks. I come from a long line of educators, and I've been an educator my whole life, for better or for worse. So, this is very important to me. And this morning, we had a very big webinar with something called Ubiquity University. And one of the first things I said we need to do is infiltrate the educational system with nonviolence ideas and with the scientific model that supports nonviolence ideas, which is the idea, the vision, the recognition, the awareness that as human beings we are body, mind, and consciousness. And our consciousness unites us all. So, that is pretty much a pitch that I've been giving all the time.

But I want to comment specifically on what you were just saying about ‘power over’ because I had a difficult, but in the end useful, experience with that issue when I was teaching toward the end of my career, when I was teaching Peace and Conflict Studies and nonviolence at UC Berkeley.

And at that point – this is Berkeley, right? – so, the students went overboard, I think, with this idea of ‘no power over’, and got to feel that the act of teaching itself was an act of domination. And it took a lot of very useful discussion to get them past that generalization. Because I think, and we'll open this up to you soon for comments – I think that the act of teaching can be an act of domination, or it can be an act of service. 

And I brought up the idea of Gandhi who said, “If you want me to run this campaign,” a very, very intense campaign. He said, “I'm happy to do it. I will do it as your general. You have to obey me implicitly. But,” he said, “the minute you don't want me here, I’m going back to my ashram. I'm out of here.” So, it was his way of offering leadership in a way that elicits the leadership capacity of the led. As opposed to stifling that capacity, which is the kind of leadership that's just been inaugurated in the nation's capital.

These are issues that have troubled me and that I've thought about very much for a long time. And I'd love to get your opinions, your thoughts on it. 

Mike: Yeah. Everything you said resonates. Particularly that piece around my teaching can either be kind of grounded in domination or grounded in being of service to others. And it's the latter that so deeply aligns with my values and with my heart. And, you know, I'm transparent with the kids that as a salaried, credentialed adult, like, I have forms of privilege and power that they don't have. And I think to not mention that, to neglect that, would just not be useful. It’d be wrong to not be clear about that. 

And I am always trying to be a student myself, learning from the kids. And so, while I have units and curriculum and things in mind, I'm in regular dialog with the kids and soliciting their feedback about like, what would they like to do? And ways in which I'm trying to learn with them. I'm doing some of the assignments with them too, particularly when we're writing about our stories and such. I want to be on that journey with them.

So, yeah, I think that goes a long way, where the kids feel some companionship, that it's not as Paulo Freire refers to it as the banking concept of education, where we're just depositing these pieces of information in the empty heads. That's not what I'm interested in.

So, when there's this sense of mutual learning happening, I think it's more rich. And we can aspire to more of, I guess, a horizontal power dynamic. Maybe not 100% that. Right? But more of that. 

And it can be little things. Like, I asked the kids to call me by my first name if they need to use the restroom, like, just go to the restroom. You don't need to ask me. Like just little tiny things that I think can go a long way. And yeah, so that's some of what comes up for me. 

Stephanie: Mike, I'd like to know a little bit more about you for our listeners. What's been your background, both in terms of what inspired you to get into the field of education, and then what inspired you to then take up nonviolence as part of your mission within education?

Mike: Yeah. In short, I really struggled as an adolescent. I mean, we – I come from a mixed-race family. And when I think I was maybe in fourth grade, we had relocated to Oregon so there was some culture shock there that I wasn't quite ready for. And so, feeling out of place, and kind of struggling to make friends. Also having a hard time, just learning some of the material at school. 

Like I just felt a little disconnected from school, ended up getting into a lot of trouble as an adolescent and struggled even more in school. And just really – I was really having a hard time kind of finding my place, and developed a lot of self-loathing. And I just remember feeling so frustrated with school, like it wasn't offering me what I was really needing at the time. I wasn't getting the tools to help me make sense of my experience and to, to kind of heal from what I was dealing with. 

And so that planted seeds for me. By the time I was a senior in high school, I kind of got it together. And so, the seed for wanting to be a teacher was planted, and I didn't quite know exactly what that meant. I just knew that I wanted to try to create a space and be the kind of teacher I was yearning for when I was younger. 

And so fast-forward a few years, by the time I decided to go to college, that seed was still there, and I think I just had a kind of vague notion of like, I just want to be a good teacher, you know. Like English was the subject of the ones I had, the one I think, I guess, that I was most interested in. 

And it wasn't until graduate school that this vision was really starting to solidify about who I wanted to be – a teacher committed to social justice. A teacher committed to creating loving spaces. But even then, it was still kind of abstract. I'm thankful for my teacher education program. But it wasn't until I actually started teaching that I kind of stumbled into nonviolence. Now, this is like my third year or so in the classroom that the nonviolence journey began – or at least that I consciously embarked on that journey, because I think seeds were planted along the way.

But I kind of just did a deep dive into all things nonviolence because I was noticing that the kids were really responding well to things like sharing their stories and creating these humanizing spaces that felt like communal. But I wanted to have a better way to articulate how they do that and how to do it alongside the kids. I didn't want things to feel piecemeal. 

There were days when the teaching felt really rich and generative, and other days where things would just kind of fall flat, and I struggled to prioritize things consistently. Some days I was prioritizing content standards and doing the rich, engaging activity kind of secondary, and other days like it was the flip side.

When I started learning about nonviolence, it just felt like a light bulb went off. I got a lot of clarity for myself around what I was teaching, why I wanted to teach it, and how to teach it. It was like this kind of trifecta grounded in nonviolence. 

And so, in the time since, there's just been a lot of growth, a lot of powerful teaching and learning that transpired. And there's been no looking back since. 

Stephanie: Yeah, that's so interesting when you describe that you weren't feeling great about school, you weren't feeling like you belonged in that space and were acting out. And then somehow something clicked in you where you decided that you wanted to reform that space through your presence, and you wanted to do something better.

And that, I think, is inspiring. And it must be inspiring for other teachers, and also parents out there, who see very young people maybe struggling in those spaces. And instead of giving up on them, knowing that they could be incredible reformers of those spaces where they are feeling like they're not succeeding or doing great.

Mike: Yeah, yeah. And if I may just add briefly, so many of our young people are engaged in beautiful creative things that the school system, just the way it's designed, doesn't really value. For example, I have a number of students who have their own side businesses – whether it's like doing eyelash stuff or nail extensions or clothing lines – really cool stuff. And others are musicians and things like that. 

And the one piece I didn't mention is when I was in high school, I discovered beatboxing. For those who don't know, beatboxing is where you make sounds with the mouth. [Beatboxes] So, I found that when I was a sophomore, which was one of the things I really needed because I was able to meet my needs for creativity, expression, community. Like all of these things I was like yearning for, I had to get it kind of outside the school system. I didn't really have a place in school to nurture that hobby, that endeavor.

Because I was able to meet those needs, I was then able to see school, by the time I was a senior, as a space where, “All right, well, maybe I can do this.” Like, my confidence has been boosted through beatboxing, so maybe I can do school. 

So similarly, like in the classroom now, I'm trying to be mindful of like creating space where kids can attend to their different needs, where it's not just privileging the head, but it's tapping into these other areas where kids feel like they're recognized and their humanity is honored and valued, and their interests are valued. And I want them to have space to be able to talk about and share those things. 

Stephanie: I'm so excited. You're the first person to beatbox on Nonviolence Radio. Congratulations. 

Mike: Oh, thank you. 

Stephanie: Amazing. So, it also seems to be, from what you're saying, that you understand nonviolence more holistically. You don't necessarily see it as just either protest or as certain strategies, or as, you know, not being violent. So why don't you give us an expanded understanding of your vision of what nonviolence means? 

Mike: Yeah. No, that's absolutely spot on, what you just said. I'm going to borrow from one of my teachers, Dr. Hongyu Wang. She's a professor of curriculum studies, I believe, at Oklahoma State University. And I appreciate how she defines nonviolence, which is, the mutual embeddedness of everything and everybody in the cycle of life. And that's an idea that we've seen across cultures, across different traditions. And that's kind of how I think of it, where it's practicing interdependence, it's valuing community. It's in service of life. 

And it also connects to, for me, connects to Dr. King's definition of agape love. Where he talks about love as an action, like something that we practice. It's not something that we feel as much as it's something that we practice, and that it seeks to preserve and create community. So, that's how I think of nonviolence. At its heart, it's seeking to sustain life and create community. And when needed, disrupting forms of violence, disrupting that which inhibits people from coming together. 

Stephanie: And as that relates as well to your work as an educator, I also want to segue into this bigger topic of, okay, so you're redefining what it means, you know, to be in the classroom in some way together. So, let's make it explicit. 

How has the purpose of education somewhat been perceived? Is it, you know, we get an education so that we're able to get a job, make money – which is often a false promise, of the end goal of education. How do you see the purpose of education, and how does nonviolence fit into that picture? And what do you see as the role of educators in there? 

Mike: Yeah, I think as I was mentioning earlier, what I think education should be is really about us. Not only maximizing our potential, but being fully human. Being able to drive the best of ourselves, like right now. Because oftentimes schools tend to be very future oriented and feeding into the rugged, individualistic ideas. Like, “You need this for the real world, or you're going to need this one day.” But there's that urgency right now. And I want my kids to feel confident that what they're learning is helping them right now as much as it'll help them later.

And so, there's both like the individual growth that I want the kids to experience, you know? Like to realize their dreams, their aspirations, to see the beauty and value of celebrating the people who are in the same room as them. And developing a sense of commitment to standing for what they believe in, taking a stand for what they believe in.

I guess we could say this is more of the activist side of things. But it feels unconscionable to have an education that's “apolitical or neutral” in the midst of so much violence that's happening, particularly in schools – via legislation and really harmful policies like targeting trans youth, BIPOC youth, banning books and so forth. 

I think there's a responsibility that we educators have to confront these forms of violence, and to be able to reckon with the impact that they're having on our students and our teachers as well. 

So, yeah, that's some of what comes up for me with that is, of course I do want my kids to go to college, or at least to have the choice to go, because I didn't have that when I was in their shoes. It was well understood that there were some kids who were going to go, and some who weren't. And there's that phrase that’s sometimes thrown around, that college isn't for everybody.  And so, I respond back with like, “Well, then who is it for?” What is the subtext in that question? 

I think maybe in the past year or so, there's been a subtle shift towards, maybe we're not trying to do college as much, but maybe pushing some kids to consider vocational tracks because like you said earlier, I think there are some false promises with that.

But beyond that, like, what kind of value system are we trying to create as a society? Because if we just look at where we're at right now, things are not feeling too great. And so, I want to have faith that we can do better, but we have to be explicit and be in companionship with our kids about creating something that's fundamentally different, that's not grounded in the us versus them paradigm. So yeah, those are some thoughts. 

Stephanie: Yeah. It reminds me of, as we're here on MLK day, Dr. King talking about the need for a revolution of values. Yeah. How that ties in to a revolution of values, as it ties into our educational system. 

Michael: Mike, when I was at the university, I began to feel that there was a critical lack, that something was really desperately missing in the discourse among my colleagues and the planning for curriculum and so forth. And that was the issue that we just touched on. What is the meaning of education? And so, I tried for better than a decade to just get a conversation about that.

And it was very instructive for me that my colleagues, and probably, you know, everyone else involved – I'm not so sure about students – but my colleagues balked. They stared at me blankly, and they absolutely refused to have that conversation. And I think the reason that they refused is that they knew full well that they would not be living up to any meaningful answer to that question, “What is the meaning of education?” 

And sure enough, I just read an article in The Atlantic about a college, Baker College I believe it was, that is getting sued because they promised students would make a lot of money with their degree, and not all of the students did. And none realized – nowhere in this article was it pointed out – that we have a very serious job to do in life, and making money has very little to do with it. Okay, I just vented.

Mike: As I was hearing you, I mean – some names and faces of colleagues, former colleagues came up who just like, very well-intended folks who were doing good things with their kids in the classroom, but who had said similar things. Where it's like, “Hey, this Social Emotional Learning stuff sounds cool, but we should probably have a dedicated position for that.” Like, “I didn't I didn't sign up for teaching to do that.” Or, you know, like, “Restorative justice? Yeah, that sounds cool. I think we need it. But that that's beyond my skill set.” So, this kind of, I don't know, absolving oneself of the duty or the interest to engage with these really important and necessary approaches, I think it's problematic. 

So that's why I think for the teachers who are maybe encountering similar sort of resistance is to seek out the folks who you know are interested and willing to engage. And that could be folks at your site, that could be folks at other schools. 

Case in point, some teacher friends and I have been part of a cohort that's been meeting monthly on Fridays for the better part of ten years, just engaging in critical professional development that's a really grounded in collective care because that's been lacking in our schools, for the most part. And so, we've just taken it upon ourselves to do that, to sustain community, and to sustain our practice, to grow our practice. 

Because, yeah, if we're just, like, sitting by waiting for it to happen, we could be waiting a really long time. So we’re just taking that upon ourselves. And I just humbly invite educators to think about where they can seek out people who will want to be in that work together. 

Stephanie: That inspires me that, through Metta, we could definitely offer some kind of a group gathering on a regular basis for any educators that are here listening and want to explore these ideas more deeply.

Mike: Yeah. Stephanie, if I may just add one last piece, nonviolence is disruptive, right? It disrupts complacency. And so, I think for some folks, it's easy and tempting to just kind of be complacent. Maybe it's comfortable, but nonviolence agitates that. 

And I just wanted to connect it to a Dr. King quote. Especially as we're talking about his legacy on MLK day. He says, “When I'm commanded to love, I'm commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and meet the needs of my people.” So that's something that's coming up for me.

Stephanie: That's really beautiful. Thank you for that inspiration. Also, in thinking about Dr. King's work with young people. I mean, he was a young man, I think more than people understand, right? That he's doing this work in his 20s and early 30s, right? This is, pretty still quite young. He’s half my age at this point.

But, you know, there's the children's march and there's, you know, teenagers involved in the work of the civil rights movement. And he's given a number of speeches as well that were directed toward young people. Two come to mind, in particular, that people might want to check out. And you might have some comment on as well. 

But there's the Life Blueprint speech, like, what is your blueprint? Thinking that your life, to remember that your life has a purpose. And to tap into that and to understand it. Just as you were talking about your own process of seeing where your purpose is and how you could tie nonviolence into it.

And then the other is the Drum Major Instinct. I believe that was given at a high school, to, you know, be a drum major for peace. You know, put yourself out there and let yourself shine, you know, let yourself emerge. I wonder if you have any comments on those or anything else that inspires you.

Mike: Yeah, it's funny, I was writing them as you were talking, I wrote down Drum Major Instinct right before you said it. Yeah, those are the two. 

I just think they're beautiful, powerful pieces. They're among my favorites. And I'm just really appreciating that for Dr. King, when it came to talking to young people, it wasn't about, “Yeah, what job are you going to have? Make as much money as you can, get those A's.” But it was something much deeper, right? 

It was having clarity around, what value system do you want to live by? How will you manifest that? So that when your time comes, you can say, “This is how I want to be remembered.” And it's just a beautiful way I think of – I don't know if guiding or teaching is the right word here – but a beautiful way of engaging with the young people. To invite them to think more deeply about what is it you want to do with the finite time you have here?

Like, yes, of purpose, absolutely. But not just purpose for self, but like in relation to other people and other living things and living systems. So yeah, I appreciate you naming those. 

Stephanie: Yeah. Mike, you have a beautiful book, Heart at the Center: An Educator's Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy. Tell us, how people can find you and find this book and learn more from you.

Mike: Yeah. I say the best way is, my website. MikeTinoco.com. I'm also on Instagram. The handle is MikeNotMister. And would love to hear from anyone who's interested. This book explores a holistic approach to nonviolence. So, what it means through content, relationally, how we engage with time, how we navigate conflict, and even how we might navigate suffering, be it involuntary and voluntary.

So, there's a lot that this book explores if folks are curious and interested. 

Stephanie: Well, thank you so much for joining us today and taking your time out to help point our listeners in the direction of nonviolence in schools and embodying nonviolence in their lives. Thank you so much for joining us, Mike. 

Mike: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it and enjoyed this conversation. 

Stephanie: For those of you just tuning in, you're here at Nonviolence Radio, and we were just speaking with Mike Tinoco. He is the author of Heart at the Center: An Educator's Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy. 

And we're going to take a shift now into honoring MLK with some of his words. Here is a speech that he gave in 1968 at Santa Rita Prison. He was visiting Joan Baez, and Ira Sandperl, and Joan Baez’s mother, who were arrested for some work around draft resistance. And Joan Baez, she's made incredible contributions to nonviolence, especially in the United States, but elsewhere in the world as well. I think her contributions are somewhat overlooked. And she was good friends with Martin Luther King Jr. 

So, he came to visit her. And it's really interesting the way that he compares the struggles between civil rights and war resistance. And we're going to listen to a little bit of that speech, which is quite inspiring. It was originally aired on Pacifica. 

Martin Luther King: Let me say how happy I am to see each of you here today. I want to commend you for your willingness to engage in this vigil and stand in the midst of this rather inclement weather to express your support for all of those who have been arrested as a result of their courageous actions, resisting the tragic, unfair, and unjust drive system of our nation.

I've just had the opportunity of visiting my very dear friend, Joan Baez, her mother, and our dear friend, Ira Sandperl.

And they all send their greetings and their best wishes to you. And I might say they are in good spirits. You know, when you go to jail for a righteous cause, you can accept the inconveniences of jail with a kind of inner sense of calm and an inner sense of peace. And this is the way they are accepting that experience.

They have supported us in a very real way in our struggle for our civil rights, our struggle for freedom and human dignity, all across the South. I decided that in a way, or rather as an expression of my appreciation for what they are doing for the peace movement and for what they have done for the civil rights movement, I will take time out of my schedule to come out to see them, to visit them and let them know that they have our absolute support. And I might say that I see these two struggles as one struggle there can be.

[Applause]

There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice. People ask me from time to time, aren't you getting out of your field? Aren't you supposed to be working in civil rights? And they go on to say the two issues are not to be mixed. And my only answer is that I have been working too long and too hard now against segregated public accommodations to end up, at this stage of my life, segregating my moral concern.

For I believe absolutely that justice is indivisible, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And I want to make it very clear that I'm going to continue with all of my might, with all of my energy, and with all of my action to oppose that abominable, evil, unjust war in Vietnam.

Now, let me say this, I see some very dangerous trends developing in our country. Trends of oppression and repression and suppression. And I see a definite move on the part of the government to go all out now to silence dissenters and to try to crush the draft resistance movement. Now, we cannot allow this to happen. And we've got to make it clear. We've got to make it clear that to indict Dr. Spock, to indict Bill Coffin, and the other courageous souls that have been indicted will mean indicting all of us, if they think that this draft resistance movement is going to be stopped.

And let us continue to work passionately and unrelentingly to end this cruel and senseless war in Vietnam. I don't have to go through all of the things that this war is doing to corrode the values of our nation. Suffice it to say that the war in Vietnam has all but torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the military industrial complex of our nation. It has exacerbated the tensions between continents and races. And the war in Vietnam has placed our country in the position of being against the self-determination of the Vietnamese people.

And then it has played havoc with our domestic destinies. And I can never forget the fact that we span about $500,000 to kill every enemy soldier in Vietnam, and we spend only about $53 a year for every individual who is categorized as poverty-stricken in our so-called ‘war against poverty’, which isn’t even a good skirmish against poverty.

And I say that that is a great need now, a great need for a revolution of values. And I say to you in conclusion that we must continue to stand up, and we must continue to follow the dictates of our conscience, even if that means breaking unjust laws.

[Applause]

Henry David Thoreau said, in his essay, On Civil Disobedience, that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. And I do not plan to cooperate with evil at any point.

Somebody said to me not too long ago, “Dr. King, don't you think you're hurting your leadership by taking a stand against the war in Vietnam? Aren’t people who once respected you going to lose respect for you? And aren't you hurting the budget of your organization?”

And I had to look at that person and say, “I'm sorry, sir, you don't know [Inaudible]“ by looking at the budget of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or by taking a Gallup Poll of the majority opinion. Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but he's a molder of consensus.”

And on some positions, cowardice asks, the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular?” But conscience asks the question, “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, not popular. But he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

And that is where I stand today. And that is where I hope you will continue to stand so that we can speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters all over the world, and righteousness like a mighty stream. And we will speed up the day when men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not rise up against nations, neither will they study war anymore.

And I close by saying, as we sing it in the old Negro spiritual, I ain't gonna study war no more.

[Full audio of this recording found here]

Stephanie: That was Dr. King in 1968, in front of Santa Rita Prison after visiting Joan Baez, her mother, and Ira Sandperl, to make a comment on the interconnection of the struggles for civil rights and the antiwar movement and the anti-draft movement. 

I'd really like to explore this, some of the things that Dr. King was saying in this speech. And I would love to get your initial response. 

Michael: Listening to him again, I'm impressed once again with the combination of passion and wisdom, passion and eloquence. It was he who said that peace – I'm just paraphrasing – peace without strength is anemic. And strength without peace is violence. Something like that. 

And he had this perfect combination of love, of it expressing itself. Socially, in the form of peace. Social justice within, and peace between nations. And the wonderful passion and eloquence that he had to express it, and to lift the hearts and the conscience of so many people.

And I just have been looking for the emergence of a leader like that today. Honestly, I know that it might be possible to overcome the negativity and the inhumanity that has just been inaugurated, but I think it will be very difficult to do that without an example. And people respond more to people than they do to ideas.

And I've been praying actually, literally every day, for the uprising of such a leader as he was. So, thank you, Stephanie, for sharing that with us. 

Stephanie: You know, there's an interesting comic out there that many people have seen. I'm sure you've seen it too. And it's a picture of MLK and Gandhi sitting together. And one of them saying to the other, “You know, the funny thing is, is that they think they've killed us.”

And how that we still have the example of, past nonviolent leaders. And we have new nonviolent leaders emerging all the time. Nonviolence has developed so much since Martin Luther King, in some ways. And yet, those core ideas that MLK got from both, you know, the Bible, Jesus, the nonviolent Jesus, and from Gandhi, remain timeless aspects of nonviolence as well.

This idea of a revolution of values is something that we have to pick up the torch and continue. What do we care about? Who do we care about? Everybody, right? How do we say we care about everybody, and how do we enact that with policies, and decisions that truly reflect that? 

Michael: Yeah. And let's not forget, what I believe was one of his most challenging statements, perhaps the most challenging programmatic statement for where we are today, when he was asked, “Do we have a choice between violence and nonviolence?” He said, “Not really. We have a choice between nonviolence and nonexistence.”

And I think that the negative side of it is becoming clearer every day, even on the climate level, of what our greed and violence has done and is doing to the planet, but also the way that we've been responding to and interacting with one another. And so, hopefully we will see the flip side of that, that the only real answer is nonviolence.

And the way to understand what nonviolence is requires our seeing its applicability in every compartment of life. And Gandhi was very explicit about that. You cannot segregate nonviolence into one compartment of life and not have it influencing the others. 

So that's what lies before us now. That's our challenge, to learn what nonviolence is, how to apply it, and then I think we will automatically be inspired to use it. 

Stephanie: And it also inspires me to spend more time studying Dr. King and studying the words of folks who have seen this interconnection of what our values are and how it affects human behavior and human longing and aspiration. And, you know, later in this speech, I didn't play at this point, but he says, “You know, what we really need to do now is to escalate our nonviolence.” 

And so, what does that mean to you? How do we escalate violence? Is it simply, “Okay, we're going to escalate our nonviolence and do protest?” Or does it mean that we, each one of us, increase our commitment to nonviolence in a more powerful way? And how do we do that? That's a big question for the last couple of minutes.

Michael: Yeah, it is. I have a kind of challenging answer to that. And that is that the way we elicit nonviolence in ourself is by sacrifice, by taking risks. We have to get out of our comfort zone. But as you pointed out this morning, Stephanie, in a similar context, while we may be sacrificing our immediate comforts, the deep satisfaction that we gain from doing that is much more long-lasting.

So, ultimately, if you really understand who you are, nonviolence is not an unselfish act. It is the way we develop and discover who we really are. 

[Music - Hate is Too Heavy by Gary Nicholson]

Stephanie: That song is called “Hate is Too Heavy a Burden to Bear”. It’s by Nashville musician Gary Nicholson, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr’s 1967 speech, Where Do We Go From Here?

And that's going to wrap up our show for today. For those of you tuning in, you're here at Nonviolence Radio. 

We want to thank our mother stations, KWMR and KPCA, thanks for making Nonviolence Radio possible, to our guest today, Mike Tinoco, author of Heart at the Center: An Educator's Guide to Sustaining Love, Hope, and Community Through Nonviolence Pedagogy, and to the whole team that works on Nonviolence Radio in the background, including Matt Watrous and Robin Watrous who help create a beautiful transcript as well as editing this show, making it highly listenable and interesting. You can always find all of that information over at NonviolenceRadio.org. 

Special thanks to our friends across the Pacifica Network who help syndicate the show, and to our friends over at Waging Nonviolence who help introduce the show to an even wider audience, thank you so much. 

And to everybody out there, the time is now. It's nonviolence or nonexistence. So, let's commit ourselves even more deeply and take care of one another. Until the next time.