As Eboo Patel states on the Interfaith Youth Core website, he core belief is “that religion is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division.” Patel also believes that students are leaders, so he launched a movement that has reshaped the nature of interfaith activity in the United States. Instead of clerics and… Read more »
Category: Biographical Stories
ALISON DES FORGES (1942-2009)
“Governments hesitate to call the horror by its name, for to do so would oblige them to act.” The Rwandan genocide was personal for me. I had a Rwandan friend who was involved in peacemaking efforts and was caught up in the violence. He was missing for a month before we heard from him in… Read more »
FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1818-1885)
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.” Frederick Douglass was a man who claimed his own freedom by a dramatic escape from slavery. He then became a liberator of others. He helped slaves escape their bondage. He was a powerful voice for abolition of slavery. He struggled for… Read more »
GENE SHARP (1928-2018)
“I think you get rid of violence only if people see that you have a different way of acting, a different way of struggle”—Gene Sharp I first read The Politics of Nonviolent Action in 1989 as the uprisings in China’s Tiananmen Square were unfolding. Sharp’s analysis highlighted both the power of the student’s actions and the… Read more »
GEORGE LAKEY
“The essence of the work I do is to love.” I know George through various activist projects in the Philadelphia area. I’ve even gone to “folk sings” at his home in West Philly–one of my unfulfilled goals is to join him in singing Handel’s Messiah. But things changed when I attended my first Training for Social… Read more »