Beyond the Dream

Online Professional Development for Social Change Organizers and Nonviolence Educators

Join On Earth Peace and the Kingian Nonviolence Coordinating Committee in an intensive five-month cohort on the philosophy and methodology of Kingian Nonviolence, built around in-depth reading and discussion. “Beyond the Dream” provides a learning cohort for organizers, trainers and educators to go deep into the nonviolence philosophy and methodology of the US Black Freedom struggle.

Beyond the Dream consists of nine 90-minute online sessions, and runs from September 12, 2018, to February 6, 2019. You will read and discuss Dr. King’s five books alongside writings by and about Bayard Rustin and women leaders in the movement (Ella Baker, Dorothy Cotton, JoAnn Gibson Robinson, Coretta Scott King, and more). In each session, one main book is assigned, along with several essays and chapters from other sources.

Who participates in this program?  Good question! Since 2013, participants have included nonviolence organizers and educators, cultural activists, pastors, faith-based community activists, prison educators, staff of national peace & justice organizations, youth workers, congregational peace advocates, and more.

Course coordinator Matt Guynn writes, “Beyond the Dream offers space for people to connect with each other, to learn and grow and apply the readings about nonviolence and social struggle to their own questions and contexts. It’s an intense reading commitment! We take what we glean from King, Baker, Rustin, Cotton, and the rest, and consider how it impacts and strengthens us each as leaders for peace and nonviolence today.”

This is the first phase of the Beyond the Dream program. It focuses on King’s own writings supplemented with writings of women who were organizing at the same time (and many times out in front of him!) The second phase of Beyond the Dream, to be offered next in 2019, includes spiritual, intellectual and contextual influences on Kingian Nonviolence (including Howard Thurman, Septima Clark, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and more).

More information and registration available here.