Civil Disobedience

This discussion forum explores a controversial topic: Civil Disobedience. Remember that any argument asks (or perhaps challenges) us to change something about our perspective on a topic or issue. If we are asking our readers to change their perspectives, we need to be persuasive and civil. Likewise, when we are challenged by others with a different opinion, we need to keep an open mind and keep our responses persuasive and civil.

Civil Disobedience and Non-violence (refer to attached documents)

King, M. (2009). Letter from Birmingham Jail. Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1.
Brown, T. M., & Fee, E. (2008). Spinning for India’s Independence. American Journal Of Public Health, 98(1), 39.
Perlin, R. (2015). Two Occupys: Dissent (00123846), 62(3), 92-100.

Be sure to address all of the following elements:

Step 1: Summarize.

Summarize the articles you picked. Write one paragraph. Identify the sources by title and author in your paragraph.

What is the main thesis of each?
How are they are they different and how are they similar?

Step 2: Using sources to support your argument (point of view).

Now, discuss your perspective of the topic. Support your statements by citing supportive evidence from the articles you read. Remember to use appropriate citations when you quote, paraphrase or summarize. Write one paragraph. Here are some questions you can use as a starting point for your one-paragraph discussion.

What is your opinion of the content and the topic? For a researched argument, you would support your opinion by using supporting information from the article. Use in-text citations if you quote, summarize, or paraphrase.
Was the article persuasive? How?
What reaction did you have to the content of the article? Draw upon personal experience or use other sources to support your discussion.

Pursuit: The Journal of Undergraduate

Research at the University of Tennessee

Volume 8, Issue 1 (2017) PURSUIT

ACase Study Analysis of the “Letter fromBirmingham Jail”:
Conceptualizing the Conscience of King through the Lens of

Paulo Freire

TREMAINE T. SAILS-DUNBAR

American Baptist College, Nashville, TN

tremaine.sails-dunbar@vanderbilt.edu

Advisor: Dr. Robert Hassell

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

The pedagogical qualities of Martin King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” can be observed

through the lens of Paulo Freire as his illustration of thematic universe’s can be used as

a framework to contextualize the conscience of King. King encountered obstacles, in his

contemporary context, to his self-actualization that once cognitively subjugated were trans-

formative to his being. Three questions are explored: What manifestations led to the writing

of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”? What were King’s transformative actions? Will an

answer to the first help make sense of the second? I endeavor to briefly examine the “Letter

from Birmingham Jail” through the lens of Paulo Freire.

PURSUIT 139 Volume 8, Issue 1

http://trace.tennessee.edu/pursuit/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Introduction

Martin Luther King, Jr. is a Civil Rights icon whose actions are firmly cemented in American

history. Lewis Baldwin, a leading scholar on King’s life and thought, argues, “Martin Luther King,

Jr. was one of the greatest prophets and distinguished reformers to emerge from the American

South.”1 While King was incarcerated, he wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a response

to an article authored by eight white clergymen, entitled “A Call for Unity.”2 His involvement in the

CivilRightsMovementof the1960smakeshimaprominentfigureofdiscussion inacademiccircles.

It is of no surprise, then, that his seminal work, the “Letter fromBirmingham Jail,” has been studied

from a variety of perspectives, including its logic, philosophy, and prose.3

However, fewer scholars have analyzed the “Letter fromBirmingham Jail” through a pedagog-

ical lens. Undoubtedly, King was as an exceptional leader in the Civil Rights Movement, but by

the nature of King’s historical context, he held the power to improve the lived experience of black

Americans. In this paper, I will engage King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” through Paulo Freire’s

pedagogical theory present in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.4 Paulo Freire asserts in Pedagogy

of the Oppressed that because we are aware of life, we can “take it on,” and construct it; and be-

cause we can construct it, we can transform its configuration.5 Moreover, for Freire the struggle

for liberation is one that is rooted in the existential reality of human interactions, the products of

these interactions, and the creation and challenging of historical realities. In this paper I use Paulo

Freire’s Pedagogy of theOppressed as a framework to contextualize the thought process of King as

it pertains to his understanding of the need for non-violent direct action in Birmingham, Alabama,

which I denominate the conscience of King.

FollowingFreire’s lead, I explore the thoughtpatternsof theoppressed, and then thatofKingas

it is present in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” I first provide a historical overview of the context

in which King was writing by exploring the specific incidents in Birmingham, Alabama, that led to

nonviolent direct action and King’s subsequent arrest. I then turn to the text itself and focus on an

obstacle of liberation for King – segregation in Birmingham. Next, I briefly discuss King’s transfor-

mative action – nonviolent direct action against segregation. In particular, I argue that King’s text

suggests his disapproval of racialized signs posted by downtown businesses, and that through his

awareness he was able to lead a nonviolent demonstration. Finally, I reflect on how King’s letter

provides a template for marginalized communities in America today.

Historical Context

In 1963, Birmingham appeared to be an ideal southern city to travelers. David Lewis observes,

“Birmingham, the whites said, was a ‘good’ city.”6 Upon entering the city limits, travelers would en-

counter a billboard posted by the Chamber of Commerce that read, “It’s so nice to have you in

Birmingham.”7 Yet, therewas drastic contrast in political participation between thewhite andblack

population. Of the 80,000 registered voters in 1963, only 12.5% (10,000) were black.8 Of the

total population (340,887), Blacks accounted for 39.6% (135,113).9 Statistically speaking, many

black residentswere unrepresented by the city’s political leaders. Even in the iron and steel indus-

tries segregationwas rigidly and brutally enforced.10 The city’s Commissioner of Public Safety, Bill

Connor, helped enforce segregation in Birminghamby terrorizing black citizenswho attempted to

challenge it.11

The ethos of segregation was seemingly a part of everyday life for residents of Birmingham.

Jonathan S. Basswrites, “Even the younger generation ofwhites in theDeep South had instruction

while on their ‘Mother’s knee,’ that blacks were ‘inferior, dishonest, diseased, degenerate,’ happy

withsegregation, andperhapsnotquitehuman.”12Ayearprior, studentsattendingMilesboycotted

local stores in 1962. Their campaign insisted that blacks not shop at downtown merchants for

eightweekswhich resulted in a 40%decline, and twodepartment stores desegregated theirwater

fountains.13 Their political action in Birminghamwas one of several events that ledMartin Luther

King to believe Birmingham was an ideal city to hold a nonviolent demonstration.14 It is useful to

study how these conditions led to the emergence of activism in Birmingham, for these conditions

PURSUIT 140 Volume 8, Issue 1

led to the establishment of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth’s organization, the Alabama Christian

Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). This organization had very strong ties with Dr. King’s

Southern LeadershipChristianConference (SCLC). TheAMCHRsupported theMilesCollege stu-

dents in their boycott, and theSCLC followed suit by holding their conference inBirmingham in the

autumn of 1962.

After the student-led protest, the AMCHRmet with a white civic organization, the Senior Cit-

izens Committee (SCC), to discuss solutions to relieve growing angst in Birmingham.15 The two

groups created a contract as an attempt to eliminate the possibility of a larger demonstration in

Birmingham. The SCCmisled the AMCHR by failing to uphold the agreement that they would re-

move “whites only” signs from downtown department stores to relieve the racial tension between

blacks andwhites. Lewis explains, “aside from the organizational ties between theACMHRand the

SCLC and the warm friendship of Martin [Luther King] and Fred Shuttlesworth, the racism of this

city was archetypal.”13 With previous agreements to suppress large demonstrations having failed,

Birminghamwasan ideal stage for large-scaledemonstrative action throughnonviolent resistance.

It seems that King was called by affiliation of suffering, and of conviction, to participate in the ac-

tion inBirmingham. David Lewis contends, “To ameliorate the condition of the black inBirmingham

would constitute a victory over JimCrow, the repercussions ofwhichwould be felt throughout the

South.”14 Hence, thousands of blacks began to mobilize in order to claim a city that was gravely

failing in issues of equality. Dr. King’s much quoted line, that an “injustice anywhere is a threat to

justice everywhere,” materialized from thesemoments of angst.16

Unfortunately, certain individuals in the local and federal government did not believe in

the protestors’ cause. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had been one of the first to voice his

criticism.17 It is possible that the Attorney General’s reproach influenced Dr. King’s decision to

meet with his brother, President John F. Kennedy, on October 16, 1963, to discuss discriminatory

policies in the South. President Kennedy seemed to be committed to the cause of desegregation,

but hewas slow tomove. Additionally, leaders in Birmingham refused to leave their offices, making

it difficult for younger, more progressive, officials to emerge. Dr. Kingwrote inWhyWeCan’tWait,

“Despite the results of the run-off, the city commissioners … had taken the position that they could

not be legally removed fromoffice until 1965.”18 This interactionwith thePresident, in conjunction

with less politically influential sources, impelled King and leaders of the demonstration to embark

upon an intentional campaign, ‘Project X.’ The name of the campaign was changed when members

of the council recognized the possibility of violence.19 Diane McWhorter observes that ‘Project

X’ became ‘Project C’ “for ‘Confrontation’: jail-filling, history making demonstrations, during the

symbolically freighted Easter season.”20

Their proposed strategy was devised so that it would not suffer from the same faults as cam-

paigns of the past. For instance, King’s campaign in Albany had ended in defeat, and his protest

resulted in him being ousted from the city.21 As a result, some of the leaders in Birmingham lost

their faith in King’s ability to lead a nonviolent demonstration in their city. Birmingham’s black

leaders were cautious of Dr. King’s movement as knowledge of the action had spread by word of

mouth. King desired to maintain a level of secrecy until the action began. Still, anticipation around

the planned action grew tremendously.

There was resistancewithin the black religious community from leaders who rejected the idea

of a demonstration in Birmingham. Black preachers questioned King’s ability as many had not got-

ten over his defeat in Albany, and believed that King was incapable of completing a demonstration

without leaving the black community in a far worse condition than it was before the campaign be-

gan. The action was originally set to take place in early March at the end of the mayoral election,

but Connor and his challenger, another white supremacist, were tied. The stage was set, but the

campaign was postponed until late spring.

In early April of 1963, the ‘Project C’ campaign aides delivered a manifesto to the Birmingham

newspaper. It was a purposeful tactic of activism because it made demonstrators’ issues publish-

able. Newspapers could receive details from the perspectives of the protesters, and protesters

could consolidate their message in one document. Those who volunteered went to great lengths

to show their intended audience that they were loyal Americans fighting for their civil rights.

PURSUIT 141 Volume 8, Issue 1

They approached the day spirit-led and tactfully. Before volunteers were separated by assign-

ments, they had to sign an oath committing themselves to Christian values and nonviolent prac-

tices:

I hereby pledgemyself -myperson andbody – to the nonviolentmovement. Therefore

I will keep the following Ten Commandments: Meditate, Remember, Walk and Talk,

Pray, Sacrifice, Observe, Seek, Refrain, Strive, and Follow.22

Dr. King and leaders urged demonstrators to accept these principles without enmity.

Protestors took to the streets and began to march in downtown Birmingham. However, there

was an unusual quietness exuding fromCommissioner Connor, who acted uncharacteristically po-

lite, althoughheallowedpolice officers tobriefly show their dogs to the crowdsonpreviousdays. It

is possible that his involvement in the runoff led him to usemore diplomaticmeans to suppress the

action. Contrarily, Dr. Kingmade his stance clear on the use of nonviolent tactics used to suppress

the struggle towards justice. “So I have tried tomake it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means

to attain moral ends,” he evinced, ”But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, even more, to use

moral means to preserve immoral ends.”23 They continued to protest for several more days, and

Connor began to change his approach. OnApril 10th, the city administration secured an injunction

from JudgeWilliam A Jenkins Jr., banning all protest.24

Dr. King and leaders in Birminghamwere faced with the decision of whether to violate the law

or abide by it. Dr. King was vigilant in his desire to be guided by his Christian faith. His theologi-

cal background influenced his actions heavily. As a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, King

studiedsociologyanddevelopedastrong interest in thebehaviorof social groupsandtheeconomic

and cultural arrangements of southern society.25 It is of no surprise that Dr. King was prepared to

break the law as a blackChristianwho understood social class and racism. It seems that his actions

were so heavily influenced by his need to be in accordancewith his Christian faith that hewaswill-

ing to risk jail time for the sake of his religion. “By combining social analysis with biblical piety and

theological liberalism,” says Lewis Baldwin, “King employed creative nonviolence and civil disobe-

dience as he and his followers challenged the structures of racial and economic injustice in Albany,

Birmingham…”26 Kingwaswell aware of the repercussions of his actions andwas ready to face the

legal system for his civil rights.

Yet King’s dilemma grewworse. Word had gotten back to the black leaders in Birmingham that

a large portion of the protesters would be jailed if the protest continued. King was forced to ei-

ther acquiesce to Connor or go to jail. If he were out of jail, he could raise funds for the release of

the other protestors, maids, janitors, and others who had families that would need them after the

demonstrations had been completed. It was a difficult dilemma for him at that time. He reflected

on his thoughts in this moment inWhyWe Can’t Wait:

Then my mind leaped beyond the Gaston Motel, past the city jail, past city lines and

state lines, and I thought of twenty million black people who dreamed that someday

they might be able to cross the Red Sea of injustice and find their way to the promise

land of integration and freedom. There was nomore room for doubt.25

He knew that he would personally sacrifice time in jail and believed that through his faith it

would work out. “I’m going to jail. I don’t know what will happen,” he stated. “I don’t know where

themoney will come from. But I have to a make a faith act.”26

On April 12, King spoke the next morning at a church, and selected fifty people that were will-

ing to go to jail. Demonstrators left the church andwere subsequently arrestedbyEugeneConnor.

After his arrest, King was separated from the group and was denied access to a telephone and le-

gal counsel. Though King was startled by the conditions he faced in solitary confinement, he was

prepared by the means of his nonviolent approach. Chaiwat Satha-Anad asserts in Between Non-

violence as a Pragmatic Strategy and a Principled Way of Life that practitioners of “principled non-

violence view the opponent as a partner in the struggle to satisfy the needs of all; if anyone suffers,

it is the practitioner of nonviolence. More fundamentally, this practitioner may view nonviolence

PURSUIT 142 Volume 8, Issue 1

as a way of life.”27 Thus, Dr. King, in the darkness of his cell, suffered only to be granted contact

with his lawyer days later. When King’s lawyer arrived at his cell on Good Friday, April 12, 1963,

he brought a newspaper article entitled “A Call for Unity” with him. The article, written by a group

ofwhite clergymen,28 referenced a previous article they published in the city’s newspaper entitled

“An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense”. In the short “An Appeal for Law and Order

and Common Sense”, they abjured the protest efforts of citizens and urged demonstrators toward

the courts as a means to rectify the racial divide. It is of no surprise, then, that “A Call for Unity”

held a similar stance on issues of race. In it, the authors acknowledged the crisis in Birminghambut

admonished demonstrators’ nonviolent approach. They believed it createdmore tension than rec-

onciliation. King disagreedwith the authors andwrote a response in themargins of the newspaper

that his lawyer snuck in to his cell. In this way, we can begin to understand King’s thought pattern,

and how he challenged segregation for himself and other blacks

in Birmingham.

Analysis

TosynthesizeKing’shistorical realitywithFreire’s theoryof liberation, Iwill analyzeKing’s “Let-

ter from Birmingham Jail” alongside Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. King’s letter was a

product of his historical reality, as an oppressed black man in America in 1963. Because of this,

we can engage King, as Freire engaged the oppressed, as one who was oppressed but became un-

fettered fromoppression through objectifying and acting against social structures and institutions

that inhibited his ability to act freely. King was aware that unjust laws and racism were structures

that could be changed. He viewed these systems and institutions as the product of a racialized

system in which blacks endured substandard conditions comparative to their white counterparts.

Ultimately, King challenged segregation as an institution that inhibited his human agency.29 King

was able to educate other oppressed people and assist them in recognizing their potential to over-

comesituations that limited their agency. I begin this sectionbyprovidingabrief summaryofKing’s

“Letter fromBirmingham Jail.” Then, I explain the transformation process, fromoppressed to liber-

ated, as detailed by Freire. Lastly, I provide a comparative analysis of King’s letter alongside the

themes present within Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is an eloquent response to “A Call for Unity.” King begins

by first explaining why he is in Birmingham, noting that an affiliate organization invited him. He

expresses his disappointment in liberal white churches, arguing that their repudiation of demon-

stratorswas unsound. Moreover, he admonishes them for not repudiating the events that brought

about the protest. He further reproves his critics for urging protestors to be patient with the legal

system, noting that silence and complacency against racism are farworse than overt racist actions.

He explains that he is doing what he believes is right and explains how blacks are reacting to seg-

regation differently. For example, one group agrees with segregation because they are benefitting

economically, and others are black nationalists who are radically advocating a violent separation of

the races. King insists that he stands between the two, and offers his passive approach as a way to

bring about change in Birmingham. He believes the Black community has waited long enough for

equal access to downtown businesses and should not have to walk in the backdoor of businesses.

He closes the letter by lamentinghis disappointment in the actions of liberalwhite clergymembers,

as he thought they would be his greatest allies.

The “Letter fromBirmingham Jail” is a channel throughwhich onemay view the deep complex-

ities of King’s reality and the reality for many blacks in Birmingham in 1963. For instance, on the

fourth page, King reveals black Americans’ desire for equality when he writes, “Oppressed people

cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedomwill eventually come. This iswhat has hap-

pened to the American Negro.”30 Through examining “The Letter from Birmingham Jail” through

the framework of the Pedagogy of the Oppressedwe can contextualize King’s historical reality, and

examine how his letter was used as a medium for teaching oppressed blacks in 1963.

Freire asserts in Pedagogy of the Oppressed that human history and historical periods are the

product of human action. Theworldwould no longer exist if human action, and the results of these

actions, did not exist. The world in which humans live is one that is always being challenged, due

PURSUIT 143 Volume 8, Issue 1

to the finitude of human imagination and ability. However, humans throughout history have tri-

umphed over such challenges. A human being’s triumph is contingent upon the human’s under-

standing of the product of its action, which ultimately allows the human to adjust and adapt in

a complex world. As human action and the product of its actions aggregate, social institutions,

culture, and concepts, intangible and tangible realities are created. Hence, historical periods are

characterized by a complex interaction of social institutions, cultures, and ideas, intangible and

tangible.31

Freire’s theoretical elucidation of anoppressed individual’s reality in a givenhistoricalmoment,

orepoch, helpsexplain fromatheoretical standpoint thecomplexitiesofKing’s socio-historical con-

text:

“An epoch is characterized by a complex of ideas, concepts, hopes, doubts, values, and

challenges in dialectical interaction with their opposites striving towards plenitude.

The concrete representation of these ideas, values, concepts, and hopes, as well as

the obstacles which impede the people’s full humanization, constitutes the themes of

that epoch.32”

“The juxtaposition of competing themes within a historical epoch,” says Robert London Smith in A

Practical Theology for Black Churches, “makes up a thematic universe.”33 Thematic universes are

complex historical realities, comprised of social institutions, ideologies, cultures, and customs, that

affect individuals and historical groups in a positive or a negative manner. In a manner of terms,

history is the creation of human beings.

History, to the human being, is tripartite: the past, present, and future are direct reflections

of human beings’ ability to create products that are separate from themselves, while at the same

time in interactionwith other products fromother humanbeings. The past has been, the present is

becoming, and the future is what has not yet been. The future is forecasted through human under-

standingof theprocessof thepastbecoming thepresent. Humansunderstand thepasthasbecome

the present, the present will become the past, and the future will become the present. Freire as-

serts that the complex interaction of these systems constitutes the relationship between humans

and historical themes, or the social institutions, cultures, and set of ideas of a historical period.33

Themes can have a geographical component, however, and many can exist in a given historical

period. Nevertheless, Freire asserts that domination/subjugation is a universal aspect that is un-

derlying in every theme.34 Liberation, its antithetical opponent, is thus the goal of those who are

obstructed by its limits.35 Smaller themes, which are more likely to be geographically based, are

compiled together tomake larger national themes. Freire argues that it is impossible for the larger

themes of a historical period to not exist within its subsets. If individuals in a particular area cannot

perceive elements of a larger theme, then they may face a limit situation.36 Hence the American

ideal of democracy was present in Birmingham. However, racism, its subset, inhibited the agency

of many blacks in the city. In King’s geographical context, he stood at odds with the larger theme

of America democracy because he was black in the South in 1963. King displayed that he could

not participate in the larger theme of American democracy unless he overcame his limit situation

in Birmingham.

Some may suggest that racism in Birmingham was not a limit situation for King because King

lived in Atlanta. However, King saw the struggle for the civil rights of black Americans as one that

was connected:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable

networkofmutuality, tied in a single garmentof destiny. Whatever affects onedirectly

affects all indirectly. Never again canweafford to livewith thenarrow, provincial “out-

side agitator” idea. Anyonewho lives inside theUnitedStates canneverbe considered

an outsider.”37

King’swords suggest that his limit situationwas not one thatwas isolated to a particular city, state,

or to himself. He realized that segregation was an impediment to his self-actualization and that

PURSUIT 144 Volume 8, Issue 1

because the limit situation was based on the color of his skin, that those who looked like himmust

undoubtedly encounter the same limit situation. That is, segregationwas an obstacle to King’s and

black Americans in Birmingham’s liberation. He took several steps to participate in transformative

practice: first, he observed the situation in Birmingham, then he identified the limit situation, then

he, through nonviolent direct action, participated in transformative practice.

King perceived that Birmingham, though a prosperous society, treated blacks differently than

itsothercitizens. Thesubjective realityofblackswasdrasticallydifferent fromthatofwhites. Some

may argue that is a statement of the obvious, however, I argue in any oppressive historical period

there are complex interactions that create varying perspectives, or opposing views, in historical

situations. Hence, oppression may serve the needs of the oppressor, but seldom if ever of the op-

pressed. Objectification of reality by the oppressed is necessary for them to overcome limit situa-

tions and to teach others to do the same. King is no exception:

“There can be no gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community.

Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its

ugly recordofpolicebrutality is known inevery sectionof this country. Its unjust treat-

ment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved

bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in this

nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts.”38

ToKing, segregationwas an obstruction and an opportunity. He saw in it the ability for blacks to be

free, and overcome their societal constraints. Though seemingly minuscule, Freire states that an

individual’s ability to overcome limit situations are what makes them differ from animals.

Humans have the capacity to commit themselves beyond the present. Animals are ahistorical,

meaning that they live in the present and cannot escape it. As conscious beings, humans exist in

the relationship between their limits and their freedom: their past, their present, and their future.

Hence, an obstacle of liberation is a situation that though in the present, which eventually becomes

the past, can be overcome in the present leaving unforeseeable possibilities in the future. King un-

derstood his primary obstacle to be segregation, and he sought to eliminate it through nonviolent

direct action.

Limit situations are createdwhen themes of a historical period inhibit the production or action

of individuals in a historical period. These situations either serve or negatively affect people – they

either support the structures, institution, and ideas of a historical period or they obstruct it. Limit

situations do not create hopelessness, rather, it is the subjective perspective of one’s reality that

gives credence to hopelessness or optimism.39 Overcoming limit situations is cyclical. As one limit

situation is overcome, newones emerge so that the individualmust overcome newobstructions to

their agency.

Fromapedagogical standpoint, it is important that themanydimensionsof a givenhistorical re-

ality are presented in a manner that allows the populace to engage them. Secondly, an individual’s

subjective experience should be understood as portions of a larger historical construct, or theme,

so that individuals can grasp the reality of their oppression in concreteness. By this, the presenter

may introduce to individuals a new critical way to view their limits.40 It is through reflection and

action that people may become independent of created cultures, social institutions, and concepts,

tangible and intangible.41 King’s participation in ‘Project C’ offers a realworld circumstance to ex-

amine Freire’s pedagogical theory. As the leader of ‘Project C’ he was able teach oppressed blacks

in Birmingham how to challenge their limits and increase their ability to act in life:

“Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law

is just or unjust? A just law is aman-made code that squares with themoral law, or the

law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put

it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted

in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that

degradeshumanpersonality is unjust. All segregation statutes areunjustbecause seg-

regation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false

PURSUIT 145 Volume 8, Issue 1

sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words

of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an “I – it” rela-

tionship for the “I – thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of

things. So segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound,

but it ismorallywrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn’t segre-

gation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, an expression of his awful

estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of

the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segre-

gation ordinances because they are morally wrong.42”

King identified segregation as an immoral code that affected black Americans negatively. As a ped-

agogical leader, he led blacks in a struggle to increase their ability to act as human beings. In short,

‘Project C’ gave blacks whomay not have been able to see the reality of their oppression a chance

to overcome it and participate in the larger theme of American democracy.

Conclusion

The preceding paragraphs highlight the thought process of King and how he came to the con-

clusion that nonviolentdirect actionwasanecessary struggle to takeplace inBirmingham. I argued

that King’s nonviolent demonstration is equivalent to Freire’s idea of transformative practice. On

the one hand, King challenged his socio-historical context by defying laws he sawas an impediment

to his and others’ civil rights, as a citizen of the United States. On the other, King identified the

American south, particularly Birmingham, Alabama, as an ideal location to confront his limited abil-

ity to act in the American democratic system. King influenced the historical reality of many as a

pedagogical teacher who taught oppressed blacks to challenge segregation, a situation that lim-

ited them. In ThePedagogy of theOppressed, Freire presents a theory that explains the course that

oppressed peoplesmust take to achieve liberation. His theory, though abstract by nature, has par-

ticularities that can be applied and understood in realworld situations. It is no surprise, then, that

when examined alongsideKing’s “Letter fromBirminghamJail,” similarities in their approaches and

methodologies arise.

Acknowledgements

Thisworkwas supportedby theMcNairScholarsprogram(U.S.DepartmentofEducationgrant

#P217A130148).

References

1. Baldwin, Lewis V. There Is a Balm in Gilead: the Cultural Roots ofMartin Luther King, Jr.Min-

neapolis: Fortress Press, 1991, 9.

2. “A Call for Unity” was published in Birmingham on April 12, 1963, by eight white south-

ern clergymenwhoencouragedBirminghamprotesters todesist fromtheir protests against

racism and segregation, and to seek the courts as a viable means of resolution.

3. See, forexample,Miller, Keith. “MartinLutherKing, Jr. BorrowsaRevolution: Argument, Au-

dience, and Implications of a Secondhand Universe.” College English 48, no. 3 (Mar., 1986):

249-265.; Burrow, Lewis V. Baldwin with Rufus, Jr., Barbara A. Holmes, and Susan Holmes

Winfield. The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Boundaries of Law, Politics, and Reli-

gion. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.; Tunstall, Dwayne A. Yes, But

NotQuite: Encountering JosiahRoyce’s Ethico-Religious Insight. NewYork: FordhamUniver-

sity Press, 2009.; Leff, Michael, and EbonyUtley. “Instrumental andConstitutive Rhetoric in

Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 7, no. 1

(Spring 2004): 37-51.; Colaiaco, James. “The American Dream Unfulfilled: Martin Luther

PURSUIT 146 Volume 8, Issue 1

King, Jr. and the ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’.” Phylon (1960-) 45, no. 1 (1st qtr., 1984):

1-18.; Bass, S. Jonathan. Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White

Religious Leaders, and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2001,

1-22.

4. In this paper, I define transformative practice as an individual’s subjective and personal chal-

lenge to the systems and people that inhibit its ability to act in freedom. Freire, Paulo. Ped-

agogy of the Oppressed. 30th ed. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000, 98-110. Paulo

Freire reinterprets comments from Edmund Husserl concerning the intentionality of per-

ception. Freire brings to focus objects in one’s consciousness that Husserl left out of focus.

Bringing objects in the background of one’s consciousness to the forefront allows for more

possibilities and decisions for individuals. Additionally, there may be obstacles of liberation

(stumbling blocks that hinder one’s ability to overcome circumstances that limit one’s ability

to act.)

5. Ibid.

6. Lewis, David Levering. King: A Biography. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012,

171-190.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. “Birmingham Public Library – Birmingham’s Population, 1880-2000.” Birmingham Public Li-

brary – Birmingham’s Population, 1880-2000. Accessed November 15, 2016. http://www.

bplonline.org/resources/government/BirminghamPopulation.aspx.

10. Patterson, Lillie. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the FreedomMovement (Makers of America).

New York: Facts on File, 1989.

11. Lewis, King: A Biography, 172.

12. Bass, Blessed Are the Peacemakers, 10.

13. “Civil Rights Documentary Focuses on Campaign Led by Miles College Students.” Break-

ing News & Weather – Birmingham and Central AL – WBRC FOX6 News – Birmingham,

AL. Accessed November 15, 2016. http://www.wbrc.com/story/24633804/civil-rights-

documentary-focuses-on-campaign-led-by-miles-college-students.

14. King, Martin Luther, Jr. WhyWe Can’t Wait. New York: Signet, 2000, 54.

15. Lewis, King: A Biography, 173.

16. King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”. San Francisco: HarperCollins,

1994, 1-6.

17. Ibid, 1.

18. King,WhyWe Can’t Wait, 68.

19. Ibid.

20. McWhorter, Diane. CarryMeHome: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil

Rights Revolution. Reissue ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013, 308.

21. King, Martin Luther, and Clayborne Carson. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

New York: Intellectual PropertiesManagement in Association withWarner Books, 1998.

22. King,WhyWe Can’t Wait, 69.

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http://www.bplonline.org/resources/government/BirminghamPopulation.aspx

http://www.wbrc.com/story/24633804/civil-rights-documentary-focuses-on-campaign-led-by-miles-college-students

23. King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, 1.

24. King,WhyWe Can’t Wait, 72.

25. Colaiaco, James.Martin Luther King, Jr.: Apostle ofMilitantNonviolence. London: Macmillan

Press, 1988, 62.

26. Oates, Stephen B. Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (P.S.). Reissue ed.

New York: Harper Perennial, 2013, 221.

27. Satha-Anad,Chaiwat. Civil Resistance: ComparativePerspectives onNonviolent Struggle (So-

cial Movements, Protest and Contention) Kurt Schock, ed. Minneapolis: University of Min-

nesota Press, 2015, 291.

28. Carpenter, C.C.J., Durick, Joseph., Grafman., Hilton L., Hardin, Paul, Harmon, Nolan B., Mur-

ray, GeorgeM., Ramage, Edward V., Stallings, Earl. “Public Statement by eight Alabama cler-

gymen,” Birmingham News, April 12, 1963, http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/09a/

mlk_day/statement.html.

29. Freire classifies situations that limit an individual’s agency as limit situations. Limit situations

are situations that have the possibility, once overcome, to allow individuals to interact with

their environment more freely.

30. King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, 4.

31. Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 100.

32. Ibid, 101.

33. Smith, Robert London, and Jr. From Strength to Strength: Shaping a Black Practical Theology

for the 21st Century. New York: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2007, 68.

34. Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 101.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid, 103.

37. King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, 1.

38. Ibid.

39. Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 104.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid, 101.

42. King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, 3.

PURSUIT 148 Volume 8, Issue 1

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is the property of University of Tennessee and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

IMAGES OF HEALTH

Spinning for India’s Independence
Theodore M, Brown, PhD, and Elizabeth Fee, PhD

THPS PHOTOGRAPH OF

Mohandiis K. Gandhi (October 2,
18(S9-Jamiai>’ 30, 1948),
ilit̂ ssed only in a loincloth and
workitij; at his spintiinjj wheel on
the (leek ol’llu’ SS Hajputiinu. was
taken in 1931 as Gandhi traveled
to Uindon to attend a high-level
(“oiuidtable conference wilh
Uritish officials.’ Gandhi was
leader of tlie Indian National
Congress and Uic major torce in
its drive for independence. He
had already led sticcessf’ul non-
violent civil dLsobt’dience and ta^
resistance campaigns against
Biitish mle, culininating in the
250 mile Salt Maich” li-om
Ahmedabad to the Indian Ocean
at Dandi (Mairh 12-Apnl 6,
1930).~ Alter violently assaulting
the marchers, the British impris-
oned Gandhi and 6 0 0 0 0 sup-
poilenj. Becaase of adverse
worldwide publicity, the British
eveiiliially n’leasod Gandhi and
ill Mairh 1931 negoliattid an
agi-eement with him for tlie re-
lease of the i-eiiiaining political
prisoners in exchange for the sus-
pension of civil disobedience,
llie Bntish inviied Gandhi to
London in laic 1931, supposedly
to discuss the transfer of power.
The confei-ence disappointed
Gandhi hut provided liiin with
opporttmities to win popular sup-
port. In 1930, he had already
been declared 7i>ne’s “Man of the
Year”; in 1931, he won over such
leading figures in London as
Geoi’gc Bei’nard Shaw, Maria
Montessori, and Charlie Chaplin,
I lis every move was followed

closely by the press, and after an
audience at Duckingham Palace,
he was asked if he had felt under-
dressed. His widely reported
comment expressed with ty])i( al
Gandhian wit, was, “The king had
on enough for both of us,”^'””^’

Gandhi’s manner of dress and
commitment to hand spinning
were essential elements of his
philosophy and politics. He chose
the traditional loinclotli as a re-
jection of Western culture and a
symbolic identilication witli the
poor of India, 1 iis pei-sonal
choice became a powerful politi-
cal gesture as he tii-ged his more
privileged followers to copy his
example and discard—or even
bum—their luimpean-style cloth-
ing and return with pride to tlieir
ancient, precolonial culture.**
Gandhi claimed that spinning
thread in the traditional maimer
also had material advantages, as
it would create the basis for eco-
nomic independence and tbe
possibility of survival for India’s
impoverished Riral multititdes.’*
Tins commitment to tiadilional
cloth making was also part of a
larger swadeshi movement, which
aimed for the boycott of all
British goods. As Gandhi ex-
plained to Charlie Chaplin in
1931, the return to spinning did
not mean a rejection of all mod-
em technology but of the ex-
ploitive and conliollmg economic
and [jolitical system in which tex-
tile manufacture had become en-
tangled, Gandhi said. “Machinery
in the past has made us depen-
dent on England, and the only

Mohandas K. Gandhi

way we can rid ourselves of the
dependence is to boycott all
goods made by machinery. This
is why we have made it the patii-
otic duty of every Indian to spin
his own cotton and weave his

The image of the emaciated,
almost naked, and obviously
nonviolent Gandhi hard at
work at his spinning wheel had
an electric effect on millions in
India and across the world. He
was hailed as the father of In-
dian independence, and start-
ing in 1931, his traditional
spinning wheel became the pri-
mary symbol on the Hag of the
Provisional Government of
Free India. •

About the Authors
Ihi-iidiire M. llroien is with tlie Depart-
ments o/Hislim/ and Community and
Preuvntive .Medicine. University of
Rochester. Rochfstn; \’Y. Elizabeth Fee w

with the National Library of Medicine, Na-
tional Institutes of Health, Bethesda. Md.

Rejyrint ret/uests shniitd be sent to
Theodore M. Hmwn, fhO. Histoni Dep

doi:l0.2l05/AJPH.2007.l20l39

REFERENCES
1. Git’cn M. Gandhi’ Vniceofa New
:\ge Revolution. New York. NY; Contin-
uum; 199:i.

2- l-ischer L. lhe Essential Gandhi: An
Anthohgii of His Writings on His Life.
Work and Ideas. New York, NY; Vintage
Books; 1983.

3. jHck HA. Vie Gandhi Header: A
Source Book of his Life and Writinfpi.
Bioomington; Indiana Univcrsily Press;
1956.

4. lirikson K. Gandhi’s Thith: On lhe
Origins of Militant ,\’imviolence. New
York. NY: WVV N.iiion; 19(19,

5. BhattatihaiyyH B. Vie Evolution of
the Piiitical Hliilosophi/ of Gandhi. Cal-
cuMa, India: Cnlailta Uoiik I liniise; 1969.

(i, The Collected Works ofMaliatma
Gandhi. Vol 4 8 (Soim-mbcr 1 9 3 1 –
January 1932). Ahmed all (id; Ministry
of Infoniialion antl Broadcasting, Gov-
ernment ol’India; 1971.

January 2008, Vol 98. No. 1 ) American Journal of Public Health Images of Health | 39

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In the fall of 2011, after two years in China, I came home to New York.
Occupy Wall Street was at its height. Zuccotti Park, less than an acre of
concrete in the city’s Financial District, was a teeming little universe of dis-
sent and potential, more radically open and charged with life than any pub-
lic space I’d ever seen. It changed you, just milling around and deliberating
with people who, by and large, were straining toward the better angels of
their nature. A thousand flowers, a hundred schools of thought: this was
actually it. After the People’s republic of China—which is neither the peo-
ple’s nor a republic—I was suddenly mainlining freedom, democracy, and
diversity in what felt like an actual people’s republic, however short-lived
and anarchic.

tiny Zuccotti inspired a global archipelago of Occupy offshoots (includ-
ing a small but long-lived encampment in Hong Kong), but turkey’s Occupy
Gezi and Hong Kong’s more recent Occupy movement mark an inflec-
tion point. Sustained, fiercely local mass movements are tapping into and
extending a new global language of protest. Both in turkey and in China,
fearmongers and propagandists blamed malicious foreign influences for
the protests, but the reality is less sinister and more significant. Occupy is
serving as an open-source template for dissent, a transparent and adapt-
able playbook for organizing global movements with diverse aims and val-
ues. By turns autonomous and hyperconnected, the template is an uncanny
fit for our precarious, plugged-in life.

In Hong Kong, the Occupy template provided a name and an initial
strategy. Disrupt and take over a major financial district. Build a mass move-
ment through nonviolence, savvy self-organizing, and radical chutzpah. the
parallels multiplied in practice. Both youth-driven movements centered
themselves on liberated urban space and drew strength from the authori-
ties’ mistakes, winning mainstream sympathy. In both Hong Kong and New
York, mainstream support was just becoming a possibility when the occupa-
tions came to an end. the occupiers mastered forceful, inclusive messaging
on the biggest issue of the day: the tyranny of the elites—what Eli Friedman

Two Occupy

The New Global Language of Protest

ross Perlin

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described in the Nation (comparing the two Occupys) as “the inability of
anyone except the super-wealthy to have a voice in politics.” Each move-
ment charted a viral trajectory, lasting in its most potent, concentrated form
for just under an autumn. Neither “won,” but both reimagined activism in
the heartlands of global capital. Both movements now struggle with disar-
ray and disillusionment.

the differences were just as significant. Instead of an explicit struggle
against inequality in the name of the 99 percent, Hong Kong’s Occupy was a
classic democracy movement, bourgeois-friendly, with calls for local auton-
omy and economic justice kept on the sidelines. By embodying horizontal-
ist ideals and going for the economic jugular of global capitalism, Zuccotti
became a symbol and a platform, as much a meme as a movement. On the
other hand, occupiers everywhere can learn from the scale and sophistica-
tion of Hong Kong’s movement: its mass participation (which dwarfed New
York’s), its clear and trenchant demands, its willingness to allow account-
able coalition-style leadership, and its peaceful deployment of cultural and
linguistic difference (as well as shared global signifiers) to articulate and
carry on the struggle for democracy.

two academics (legal scholar Benny tai and sociologist Chan Kin-man)
and a Baptist minister (rev. Chu Yiu-ming)—all respected figures in the
city’s pro-democracy movement—first laid the groundwork for Occupy Cen-
tral With Peace and Love in early 2013. they have been careful to empha-
size that the movement is completely homegrown and locally focused.
the universal suffrage promised in Hong Kong’s Basic Law—agreed to by
the PrC in preparation for the city’s handover (“return” is the term used in
mainland China)—had been long in coming. the year 2017 had emerged as
yet another hopeful deadline for implementing genuine popular elections
for the office of the Chief Executive, ostensibly equivalent to a president
or prime minister elsewhere. the city-state has never been a true democ-
racy, but in the later years of British rule, it began a slow progression in that
direction. that progression has now slowed almost to a standstill.

Occupy Central, spearhead and rallying cry for a broader “pan-demo-
cratic” movement, was designed to keep up the pressure: one more battle
in an escalating war. Compared to Occupy Wall Street, the movement oper-
ated with a high degree of preparation and coordination, pursuing a closely
calibrated timeline of popular consultations, votes, and contingencies,
starting over a year before the protests themselves. two years earlier, the
city’s independent-minded student movement had shown its own organiz-
ing mettle with an intense campaign against a pro-Beijing “patriotic educa-
tion” curriculum. In June 2014, an informal, wildly popular referendum gave
Occupy advance legitimacy, with nearly 800,000 Hong Kongers effectively
expressing their support.

On August 31, China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress,
announced that there might be universal suffrage in 2017, but that

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effectively only pro-Beijing candidates could run. Outrage reached a fever
pitch. Staying narrowly within the letter of the Basic Law, Beijing was send-
ing an unmistakable signal that full democracy was not on the table. On
September 28, ignoring the dithering of the Occupy Central leadership,
the Hong Kong Federation of Students and the student group Scholarism
launched the occupation with support from an estimated 50,000 protesters.

Assaulted with eighty-seven rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets, stu-
dents and protesters dug in and were joined by an additional 30,000 Hong
Kongers, enraged by the violence of the police. two days later, now attract-
ing widespread local and international solidarity, a reportedly even larger
crowd was defiantly blocking major roads, and protesters had erected tents
and established occupations in the heart of the city. Direct attacks followed,
allegedly by hired goons with ties to the city’s gangs and ultimately to Bei-
jing. A broad base of support, including local political parties, labor unions,
religious leaders, and other institutions, began to coalesce, though not
without opposition. Umbrellas carried against the monsoon rains were soon
protecting faces from police tear gas. the Umbrella Movement was born.

though badly outmatched, the protesters showed “more staying power
than anyone, including themselves, imagined,” wrote Nick Frisch in Dis-
sent four weeks later. On the mainland, noted Frisch, “protests are usu-
ally divided, conquered, and smothered with well-rehearsed authoritarian
finesse.” But Hong Kong’s civil liberties under the Basic Law—plus media
flashbulbs, ham-handed policing, and local support—gave the dedicated,
overwhelmingly young occupiers a chance to get the movement firmly
established. Occupy with Hong Kong Characteristics turned out to be

Protesters flee tear gas, October 7, 2014. Photo by Pasu Au Yeung via Flickr.

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orderly, structured, and resilient, doing its homework and cleaning up after
itself. the movement made specific, popular demands geared towards gen-
uine universal suffrage, direct negotiations with the government and the
ouster of pro-Beijing Chief Executive C. Y. Leung.

For all its focus and organization, the movement was always multiple,
with three largely autonomous protest camps around the city. the occu-
pation at Causeway Bay was the smallest and least defined of the three,
but those at Admiralty and Mong Kok were widely acknowledged as rep-
resenting different protest themes and social formations, however stereo-
typed. Near the city’s political center, the Admiralty camp stood for the
high-minded suffrage struggle, globally oriented and bourgeois-supported;
meanwhile, Mong Kok across the harbor was a working-class occupation
with a strong local spirit (shading into Hong Kong separatism), intimidating
barricades, and undercurrents of class tension.

At times, political grievances seemed all but indistinguishable from
economic ones, given that Hong Kong’s economic 1 percent and political
1 percent are largely one and the same; Beijing’s preferred method of con-
trolling the city is through local business tycoons. Economic colonization
may not be too strong a phrase to describe the current influx of mainland
money. Calls to abolish “functional constituencies” (special interest groups
that control close to half of the legislature, by design) can be seen as analo-
gous to American despair over Citizens United. Vast inequality and strato-
spheric housing prices characterize the city, while its ruling crony capitalists
are busy courting the mainland’s newly minted millionaires—who in turn
are seen as buying up the city’s (untainted) milk powder, filling up hospital
birthing wards, and cornering the housing market.

Hong Kong, like New York, is a hall of mirrors, a stage that all the world can
see, where both media and capital magnify. Both China and not-China, it is
the most effective place in the world to protest, in relative safety, against
the Chinese Communist Party. this is a right that the Umbrella Movement
has been keenly aware of and determined to exercise before it is too late.
Local puppets—the business oligarchs and the “pro-Beijing camp” of politi-
cians who rule the city—were the protests’ immediate target, their PrC pup-
petmasters the ultimate one.

Hong Kong stands in a potent relation to the PrC: a living, breathing, but
threatened alternative to one-party authoritarianism just across the border.
As a “Special Administrative region,” the city is a unique point of leverage
in the Chinese system, a fulcrum on which democratization and liberal-
ization may or may not turn. the three protest camps established around
the city not only gave the Umbrella Movement a base of operations, they
enacted the autonomy that the city has been losing under Beijing’s control,
from shrinking press freedom to the presence of the People’s Liberation

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Army and Beijing’s “Liaison Office.”
the Umbrella Movement represented the largest series of protests

on Chinese soil since tiananmen Square twenty-five years earlier—itself
a movement inspired by and linked to the rise of Solidarity and unfold-
ing events in the USSr and Eastern Europe. the May Fourth Movement of
1919, a founding moment of modern Chinese political activism, had like-
wise reflected a post-Versailles, anti-imperialist ferment then kicking off all
over the world. Westerners who care about democracy and human rights
in China should take note: movement-building at home may be the surest
way to help your Chinese comrades, inspiring them with a framework and a
sense of momentum that crosses borders more rapidly than ever.

If Occupy Wall Street carried on and extended some of the best tradi-
tions of American dissent, Hong Kong’s Occupy Central did the same for the
Chinese activist tradition. “Democracy Walls” were covered in colorful sticky
notes with political messages, echoing Beijing in 1978, while the twelve-
foot, wooden Umbrella Man statue by the artist Milk echoed tiananmen’s
Goddess of Democracy, only now with an upraised umbrella. today, with the
mainland under tight control, nowhere is China’s activist legacy more alive
than in Hong Kong. the city’s support was vital in sustaining the tianan-
men protests; in the bloody aftermath it was the Hong Kong–run Operation
Yellowbird that helped dozens of leaders escape to or via the city. In Hong
Kong at least, 1989 was a formative year: prompting a diaspora in the years
before the 1997 handover, casting a pall over the handover itself, and set-
ting the pro-democracy movement on the course that led to the Umbrella
Movement.

the increasingly authoritarian style of Xi Jinping, with his half-nation-
alist, half-Maoist “turn,” has set the stakes even higher. there is a feeling in
the city that the clock is ticking, that autonomy and freedom are slipping
away. the traditional view—that the best assurance of a democratic Hong
Kong was a democratic China—now seems premised on an impossible
hope. As a result, some younger activists overtly espouse decoupling the
city’s democracy movement from broader efforts to democratize China, an
understandable but divisive stance.

Unlike in New York, where secessionist impulses have always been
marginal, Hong Kong has a history of separateness to draw on, however
colonially inflected. the territory has evolved through a unique triangula-
tion between the West with its relentless cultural and commercial influ-
ence, the global Cantonese diaspora (of which Hong Kong is the capital),
and mainland China (which calls the shots politically). Besides the echoes
of mainland movements, traces of global movements manifested the city’s
cosmopolitan spirit—from chants of “Hands up, don’t shoot,” borrowed from
Ferguson, to a post-it note “Lennon Wall,” invoking Prague in ’89. But other
messages and moments made clear that a very specific kind of national
awakening was also in the air. Without necessarily ceasing to be “ethnically

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Chinese,” younger protesters in particular were busily crystallizing a distinc-
tive Hong Kong identity—grounded in Cantonese but hybrid in its history
and culture, developing now from deeply felt differences with the mainland.

In contrast to Occupy Wall Street, the Hong Kong protests have had a
vital cultural and linguistic dimension, which may anchor and even deepen
the movement—or end up dividing it. Sixty-seven percent of people in
the city identify broadly as “Hongkongers,” while only 31 percent identify
broadly as “Chinese,” according to a December survey that asked about the
overlapping categories “Hongkongers,” “Hongkongers in China,” “Chinese,”
and “Chinese in Hong Kong.” the number represented a record low for the
“Chinese” category; the shift to a new identity is accelerating. Inspired by
scholar Chin Wan’s “Hong Kong City-State theory,” a small but recognizable
movement is now going beyond the Basic Law to call for Hong Kong’s full
autonomy as a quasi-independent city-state. Student leader Lester Shum,
among others, began describing Beijing’s approach as a continuation of the
very colonialism that was supposed to have ended with the 1997 “return.”
these are radical words.

Neglected on the mainland as a “dialect” despite its distinctiveness
and a global population of some 70 million speakers, Cantonese played
a starring role in the protests. though it remains the territory’s de facto

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official language along with English, Cantonese faces a serious long-term
threat from the Standard Mandarin that Beijing is throwing all its weight
behind. Not just the mother tongue of almost all the protesters, Cantonese
increasingly served as a self-conscious weapon of struggle and solidarity
on t-shirts, signs, and websites. this larger shift is also evident in taiwan,
where a distinct group of pro-independence activists are now promoting
taiwanese (Hoklo) instead of Mandarin.

though hardly reported on in the West, last summer’s Sunflower Move-
ment in taiwan saw a sustained, successful occupation of the legisla-
ture after the hurried passage of a controversial trade agreement with the
mainland. the result, participant-observer Ian rowen writes in the Journal
of Asian Studies, was “an inadvertent unification, however temporary, of
the taiwanese independence movements and the democratic left,” as well
as “the development of new sympathies and alliances with their counter-
parts in Hong Kong.” the “One Country, two Systems” approach aimed at
Hong Kong, Macau, and eventually taiwan is looking almost as empty as the
“autonomous” regions the PrC has allotted to tibetans, Uyghurs, and offi-
cially recognized ethnic groups. But Beijing ignores the political and cultural
diversity of the broader “Sinosphere,” effectively its near-abroad, at its own
peril.

Back in Hong Kong, protesters circulated “Umbrella terms,” rich with
intricate Cantonese wordplay, enhancing a sense of local solidarity and
a politics of cultural distinctiveness. take the word gau1wu1—“shopping”
in the mouth of a mainlander, it can mean “yelling nonsense” in Hong
Kong Cantonese. When Chief Executive Leung called for Hong Kongers
(and mainlanders) to continue “shopping” in spite of the protests, he was
mocked for “yelling nonsense.” Gau1wu1 then took on a third meaning, “to
occupy”—“I’m shopping” now meaning “I’m occupying”—mocking Manda-
rin, mainland shoppers, and Leung in a single word. then there was the use
of traditional characters (still standard in HK, replaced by simplified variants
on the mainland) and of special Cantonese-only characters and character
combinations, including the crucial word for umbrella.

there is a legitimate question about xenophobia here—whether Hong
Kong identity is now forming from an instinctive revulsion towards low-class
mainlanders. On the other hand, political and economic differences are
now both reflecting and reinforcing a very real cultural and linguistic divide.
Seven million Hong Kongers have reason to be frightened of absorption into
mainland China, with a population 200 times larger and a poor history of
fostering pluralism. Self-determination, pursued in a cosmopolitan spirit,
can be a vital ingredient for progressive politics, as many argued before last
year’s vote on Scottish independence. Felt difference gives Hong Kong’s
movement a staying power that was lacking in New York, where many pro-
testers could claim to represent America more broadly, but, without an
ongoing oppositional identity, melted back into the quiescent mainstream.

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As in New York four years ago, Hong Kong’s instant Occupy histories have
not been long in coming. OWS had an Archives Working Group from early
on. Archivists from the New York Historical Society, New York University, the
Internet Archive, the Occupy Archive at George Mason University, and other
institutions collected thousands of artifacts. Likewise, the Umbrella Move-
ment Visual Archives & Research Collective has been active on the ground
in Hong Kong—the Lennon Wall was reportedly taken down, post-it note by
post-it note, for preservation. Both movements’ sense of “making history,”
however powerful a force they represented, may have come too easily.

A co-production of Verso and n+1, Occupy! Scenes from Occupied Amer-
ica appeared as a wide-ranging collective diary of the movement, just a
month after the final raid on Zuccotti. Described as “a prism to put to the
lamp of the event,” Occupy! drew on the style of the occupation itself—dif-
fuse, eclectic, intimate, collaborative—to describe a halting but hopeful pro-
cess of political awakening. In a comparable but more impersonal register, a
participant-observer using the name Zhong Zhong published the Chinese-
language Behind the Scenes at “Occupy Central” and “Anti-Occupy Central”
last October, just weeks into the movement. this sympathetic instant his-
tory was recently countered by the pro-Beijing book How Was Occupy Cen-
tral Forged? (answer: Anglo-American meddling, an insufficiently patriotic
education system) and the government’s own “report on the recent Com-
munity and Political Situation in Hong Kong,” whose conclusion gamely pre-
tends that nothing much really happened at all.

rehearsing Hong Kong’s ten-ish days that shook the world and launched
the movement, Behind the Scenes makes it clear that Asia’s financial capi-
tal underwent a much more profound disruption of “business as usual” than
New York did in 2011. In one form or another, up to 1.2 million people, or
20 percent of the population, joined a popular mass movement. the move-
ment’s deep embeddedness in some of the city’s major social formations
(students, workers, pro-democracy liberals) give it a fighting chance. the
city’s elections, however flawed, continue to indicate strong support for
genuine democracy. Pan-democrats control a majority of the forty directly
elected seats in the Legislative Council, but the other thirty are elected by
much smaller “functional constituencies” like “tourism” and “Finance,” reli-
ably pro-Beijing. In a system rigged for oligarchy, the question of tactics is
front and center.

Hong Kong’s Occupy lost steam for many of the same reasons New
York’s did: policing and legal strategies designed to dismantle, popular
weariness with constant disruption, a lack of galvanizing victories or trag-
edies. the original organizers Chan, tai, and rev. Chu turned themselves in
to the police for a sense of symbolic closure; the streets and encampments
were cleared. the Occupy template works up to a certain point, but lacks
strategies for dealing with a dug-in opposition and with deeply embedded
structures, whether in the two most powerful nations on earth or beyond.

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“Carnivals come cheap. the true test of their worth is what remains the day
after, how our normal daily life will be changed,” Slavoj Žižek told the occu-
piers in Zuccotti Park. “the hard and patient work” it would take to counter
the power of Wall Street, or to bring about universal suffrage in Hong Kong,
remains to be conceived, let alone accomplished.

With last fall’s push inconclusive, both sides in Hong Kong are now
focused on winning over any remaining undecideds. relative restraint (likely
spiced with covert provocation) served Beijing well, but now the puppet-
masters and their puppets may be pushing their advantage. Hong Kong
needs to be “re-enlightened” about “One Country, two Systems,” says a top
official in Beijing. Several hundred protesters have been arrested for incit-
ing, organizing, and participating in “unlawful assemblies,” not to mention
the more dangerous and opaque arrests of many sympathizers on the main-
land. the stage is set for fresh confrontations between a wily but intransi-
gent authoritarian-tycoon alliance and a maturing democracy movement
that is developing powerful autonomist and socioeconomic critiques. talk
of “Hong Kong Nationalism,” long beyond the pale, is beginning to spread.
Opponents of this trend warn darkly that the slightest whiff of separatism
will give Beijing the excuse it needs for an eventual crackdown. this was
anything but inevitable—if Beijing had taken a different approach since
1997, Hong Kong might have served as a model, and a pivot, for political
reform on the mainland.

the shift in Hong Kong identity is deeply demographic, driven by the
young. And in the Chinese-speaking world, well-organized students are a
recognized vanguard with a particularly important role to play. Elsewhere,
young people are also on the front lines, propelled by their sense of an
exhausting status quo: political regression, economic crisis, ecological
catastrophe. they continue the “historic agency” described by C. Wright
Mills in his “Letter to the New Left”—but then as now, students and work-
ers need to align. the Umbrella Movement was a crash course in mass civil
disobedience.

Compared with the “color revolutions” of the previous decade, Occupy
and Occupy-style protests have been animated by a more radical energy,
a greater willingness to confront both Capital and the State—as well as an
insistence on establishing largely autonomous physical occupations, sup-
ported by online organizing. From tahrir to Zuccotti to Gezi to Euromaidan
to Central, Occupy names a certain energy, a set of practices and strategies
now nearly five years young, diversely manifesting in a range of new social
movements. In Hong Kong, close to a year after launching, it is living, grow-
ing, and adapting.

Ross Perlin writes on language, labor, and politics.

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