A. J. Muste Quotes
The oppressed will make surer and faster progress if they eschew violence and depend, as they do mainly depend in their organizing and strike activities, on their solidarity, courage, capacity for suffering and sacrifice, and on non-cooperation where injustice becomes extreme
A. J. Muste, 1885-1967, Clergyman & Pacifist, Non-violence in an Aggressive World, 1940
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Muste raised money for the strikers and was soon made the executive secretary of the strike committee for 25,000 strikers. A. J. placed himself at the head of the picket line and was beat to exhaustion by the police and arrested. Several weeks into the strike, the police tried to provoke violence by lining up machine guns and having a labor spy urge the strikers to overcome them.
There was a planned boycott of the Olympics protesting three factors: Avery Brundage, the long serving head of the American Olympic Committee was a notorious racist and anti-Semite, Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia had been invited to the Olympics, and there were almost no Black coaches of the American Olympic team while the majority of the athletes were Black. Dr. King met with the organizing athletes. The boycott did not get organized soon enough and did not materialize. However, Carlos and Tommy Smith made the famous raised fist gesture during the Olympic victory ceremony, and the third medal winner Australian Peter Norman wore a button supporting the protest at the ceremony. All 3 athletes faced serious retribution afterwards.
The Muslim Brotherhood Government had just been deposed by a popular coup d’etat carried out by the Egyptian military. The Brotherhood flooded into the streets to protest the coup and some of them attacked police with weapons. The military overreacted and in an effort to clear the demonstrators from the streets killed hundreds of them. This brought out signs like this.
He had been kidnapped by the coup plotters and transported to Costa Rica. When they took over, he was not allowed back in the country despite objections to the coup by the United States and most other countries of the region. He managed to sneak back into Honduras and led a non-violent protest movement. He was finally restored to the presidency.
Abraham Johannes Muste was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. He is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, antiwar movement, and civil rights movement.
