Prayer or Protest? Fasting, Nonviolence, and Anti-Nuclear Activism in the 1980s

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, Americans interested in nonviolence and pacifism have experimented with innovative forms of protest, linking their ideas about a just and peaceful world to contemporary concerns such as military budgets, poverty and homelessness, environmental devastation, nuclear power, and, of course, nuclear weapons. In doing so, they expanded upon the scope of nonviolence and its application within broader social movements. In the 1980s, campaigns of nonviolent protest forged a polite, morally persuasive image, devised to attract public support. Mindful of the potentially divisive impact of acts of civil disobedience, some pacifists attempted to locate their actions firmly within the model of “polite protest” that characterized much of the peace movement. In the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s, certain pacifist campaigns sought to blend traditional ideas about nonviolent protest with modern publicity strategies, intending to mobilize public opinion and provoke a favorable response from elites. Doing so updated the operation of pacifism in American social movements and incorporated contemporary trends of mainstream social movement organizing. In the process, some pacifists attempted to unite the tactics of nonviolent protest with modern public relations strategies. Such campaigns also sought to combine nonviolence with ideals of liberal reformism that characterized the nuclear freeze movement, an approach that was out of step with traditional pacifism and radical nonviolence.1 KeywordsNuclear WeaponCivil DisobedienceSocial ProtestHunger StrikeSimple LivingThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.