George Lakey co-founded Earth Quaker Action Group which just won its five-year campaign to force a major U.S. bank to give up financing mountaintop removal coal mining. Along with college teaching he has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team while protesting mountain top removal coal mining.
How activists can fight through doom and gloom to be more effective
One of the most frequent questions I get from Sunrise Movement members and other young activists is: “How do you keep going considering all the tough situations you’ve been through?”
May 11, 2022
Envision or perish — why we must start imagining the world we want to live in
But without a bold vision that’s inclusive and down-to-earth enough to make intuitive sense to the great majority of Americans, not even the best of strategies will be enough to carry the day.
February 11, 2021
Today’s Progressive Movements must Learn from Black Lives Matter — and Join Together
The initiative of the Movement for Black Lives needs to be picked up by others. The vision can be enlarged to advance key goals of each of the progressive movements operating today.
June 22, 2020
US Opinion is Shifting in Favor of the Nordic model — Can Activists Keep Up?
It’s in the interests of the 1 percent that we not use the Nordic model as a way to talk about vision. They’ve watched with alarm the growing public appeal of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, which are partial versions of the Nordic model. Especially now, they don’t want us to expand, to talk in an appealing way about system-change.
April 10, 2020
Why Doesn’t American Political Culture Understand the Power of Direct Action Campaigns?
Campaigns are perfect for turning away from defensive fights and moving back into what works: Going on the offensive by framing an issue into a demand, choosing a decider, planning a series of actions then escalating and growing. The issue can be local, regional, national, highly ambitious in its demand or less so. We get to choose — it’s an existential move of empowerment.
December 19, 2019
How Movements Can Use Drama to Seize the Public Imagination
Drama is useful in getting attention for our issues. The Sunrise Movement is only one of the recent movements that grew by seizing the public imagination through drama.
July 11, 2019