How do we work?
What is ‘Direct Action’?
[di•rect ac•tion] noun
- Action taken by a group intended to reveal an existing problem, highlight an alternative, or demonstrate a possible solution to a social Issue.
- Action employed by organized groups to obtain results from an employer, government, etc.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the method of direct action…
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?”
You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963
Notice the horizontal line – tolerance for tension. This line is a group’s ability to tolerate being challenged, or to sit with an uncomfortable truth. It’s the ability to ask tough, direct questions and to wait for clear answers. To move past feeling discomfort and hold to purpose. That’s what you can expect to feel at a Nehemiah Action.
Our temptation when we head into “tense” situations is to try to cool things off and be deferential instead of direct. We are tempted to return to the comfort and safety below the threshold of change. We have to resist that temptation because the status quo isn’t comfortable and safe for our neighbors and loved ones who are harmed by the problems we’re trying to address!
The point of negotiation on stage at the Nehemiah Action is to raise us into the productive zone. You know you have enough heat (healthy tension) when our officials go beyond well-rehearsed rhetoric and start making commitments.