What Direct Action Does

Authoritarian regimes demand compliance. Every act of moral resistance is an insistence that the way things are is not the way things have to be

In the spring of 1961 the Congress of Racial Equality organized a Freedom Ride from Washington, DC to New Orleans to challenge the illegal practice of racial segregation on interstate travel. It was a nonviolent direct action. White and black passengers boarded the bus and insisted on sitting together, no matter what the authorities said. They would nonviolently face whatever consequences came for their actions because they knew that what they were doing was right. John Lewis, who was 21 years old at the time, said the goal of the ride wasn’t just to end segregation; it was to “take the civil rights movement into the heart of the Deep South.”

If you visit the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, today, there is a wall of hundreds of mug shots, mostly taken in Mississippi that summer of 1961, before Freedom Riders were sent to the notorious Parchman Prison. After Lewis and his riding partner, Jim Zwerg, were attacked by a mob at the bus depot in Montgomery, Alabama, and another bus was fire bombed in Aniston, Alabama, others came to continue the ride. When Lewis was released from the hospital, he insisted on joining them. They took their direct action to the heart of the Deep South and served 40-day sentences, transforming the Mississippi State Penitentiary into a school for American democracy. Their mug shots cover that wall as a monument to the power of direct action to inspire a moral movement.

Most of the people on that wall did not go on to become famous politicians. None of them were “influencers” when they decided to join a direct action to challenge Jim Crow. But the initial group of 13 Freedom Riders inspired hundreds to join them, and the witness of those clergy in collars, students, and everyday people committed to moral action moved a nation.

Authoritarian regimes always depend on the threat of retribution to instill fear and inspire compliance. Jim Crow was a dehumanizing system that denied the humanity of people with Black skin, but it did not ask most people to put on Klan robes and pledge their allegiance to white supremacy. Jim Crow was an authoritarian regime that insisted segregation was normal and dared anyone to challenge it.

The moral witness of direct actions like the Freedom Rides interrupted everyone in a system that was more fragile than it seemed. It didn’t change the minds of Southern governors or Mississippi jailers, but it did force the masses who’d gone along with the quiet violence of the system to decide whether they really believed it was justified.

This is what direct action does. It exposes the moral bankruptcy of authoritarian regimes. It compels everyday citizens to choose a side in a moral struggle.

For sixteen weeks this spring and summer, our Moral Mondays coalition maintained a prophetic witness in Washington, DC, to expose the policy violence of the Big Ugly Bill in Congress. After weeks of petitioning Congressional leadership, we took direct action to pray in the Capitol rotunda for those who would be harmed by the bill because we knew the proposed cuts to healthcare and nutrition assistance would kill people.

Americans who learned about what was in the bill opposed it 2 to 1, but Mike Johnson and John Thune led Trump’s Republicans to pass the bill anyway.

So we decided we had to take Moral Mondays into the heart of the South, where people will be hurt first and worst by the decisions of politicians who claim to represent them. This five minute re-cap video of simultaneous Moral Mondays across 11 Southern states on July 14 is a glimpse of what our direct action looked like.

These delegations that delivered coffins to members of Congress who voted for unnecessary death did not persuade them to change their position anymore than the Freedom Rides convinced Southern governors to stop defending Jim Crow in 1961. But that’s not what direct actions do. Like the witness of those who came before us, Moral Mondays are meant to confront the violence that an authoritarian regime demands we accept. They are a nonviolent means for small groups of clergy in vestments, directly impacted people, and advocates to register their moral dissent and demonstrate to others that they are not alone in feeling that what we see happening is wrong. The cruelty of the policy is what’s wrong, and we do not have to accept it.

We have a white friend, Bob Zellner, who was a college student in Montgomery, Alabama, when the Freedom Riders were attacked in 1961. He went to the hospital the next day and visited John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, young men who were his age. They told him that, as soon as they were released from the hospital, they were determined to continue the ride because they could not allow the violence of an angry mob to deter their moral movement. Bob says he realized as he was listening to them that he wasn’t free either as long as Jim Crow told him who he could and could not sit beside. He joined the Freedom Riders because they showed him a way to struggle for his own freedom.

As long as an authoritarian regime can frighten most of us into compliance, none of us are free. Moral Mondays are one way that everyday people can take direct action as free people in a democracy where politicians are elected to serve the people, not a regime.

That’s why Moral Mondays are coming back to Congressional offices across the South on August 18th. The people we elect to represent us in the US Congress have district offices in every state. During the month of August, they do not work in Washington, DC. They are back home in their state offices for an in-district work period. This is when they are supposed to listen to the people who elected them and understand how they can represent us when they go back to Washington.

July 14 Moral Monday at Sen Lindsey Graham’s office in Greenville, SC.

Across the South, almost every Republican who represents some of the poorest districts in the country voted for unnecessary death when they did Trump’s bidding and voted for his Big Ugly Bill. We are bringing caskets to their offices to demand that they face the death that’s in this bill and answer to their constituents who will be directly impacted by this policy murder. Our flagship event on August 18 will be in Mississippi, where the local delegation have invited us to join them in taking Moral Mondays to the heart of the Deep South.

We’re coming because we know that a better world is possible. America has the resources to provide for everyone’s needs, and we know what policies could provide access to healthcare and a living wage for all Americans.

We’re coming because we refuse to comply with an authoritarian regime that threatens anyone who speaks out.

We’re coming because we know we are not alone. When delegations showed up simultaneously in 11 states, we heard from thousands who said, “We want to join you. When are we coming back?”

We’re coming because we know that the poor and low-income people who have been slandered and attacked by the Big Ugly Bill are also the swing vote that can sway any election in this country.

We’ve checked in with our partners and set a date for August 18. If you’d like to get information about how to join a delegation in your state, please register here.

We do not know how long it will take to achieve an America that works for all of us, but we are committed to moving forward together, not one step back. And we will draw on the best of this nation’s moral traditions to guide us as we find our way to the better future that we know is possible.

Direct action is one of the best moral tools we have. It’s time to use it.