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George Lakey Addresses Peace and Social Change

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George Lakey Addresses Peace and Social Change University of Dayton eCommons News Releases Marketing and Communications 10-7-1975 George Lakey Addresses Peace and Social Change Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/news_rls Recommended Citation "George Lakey Addresses Peace and Social Change" (1975). News Releases. 6183. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/news_rls/6183 This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Marketing and Communications at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in News Releases by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. University Relations Mark Pomerleau Dir., Information Services DA YTON, OHIO 45469 university of dayton (513) 229-2911 GEORGE LAKEY ADDRESSES NOTE: NEW PHONE: 229-3241/3242 PEACE AND SOCIAL CHANGE DAYTON, Ohio, October 7, 1975 --- "Shall we try to escape, or to act?" inquires George Lakey, an activist of the '70s and internationally known author in the area of social change, peace and world community who will appear at the University of Dayton, Thursday, October 9 at 8 P.M. under the auspices of the Peace Studies Institute in Immaculate Conception Chapel. Lakey answers his own question by saying, "In the long run there is no escape. The problems will not go away. But, the first reaction may be only a complaint, a protest, or a scream of anger and pain. Those spontaneious reactions are like the symptoms of a body's nervous system which reflect disease or injury. They alert the social body that something is wDong. They do not necessarily tell us what is wrong or what to do about it." Lakey has had social change .experience inl Vietnam' i'.rd·: 'r .. · ·· ~tn "'~co as well as the USA. He also taught four yeffrs at the Martin Luther Klilg School for Soci8,l Change, a graduate school in Pennsylvania. He is a Quaker, is 37 years of age and lives with his wife and three children at Philadelphia Life Center ( a community for training and action). A founder of the Movement for a New Society, he presently is a staff member of Friends Peace Committee. Lakey was chosen, according to Wayne Wlodarski, a member of the Religion in Life Board at UD, to bring a balance to bicentennial observances which have a tendency to concentrate on nostalgic aspects of history in the U.S. "Lakey is re-assessing past history in the interest of the future," Wlodarski says. "His philosophy of non-violence is national rather than personal and is a synthesis of history, sociology, and political science." I , Lakey's publications include "In Place of War" and "Manual for Direct Action." Several scholarly articles and a monograph "The Sociological Mechanisms of Non-violent Action" also number among his accomplishments. The Movement for a New Society, which now includes groups in over 17 states, was founded by George Lakey. MNS is a network of autonomous organizations committed to radical nonviolent social change. They attempt to develop an analysis of the present system, a vision of a better world and a sustained nonviolent struggle. Lakey's book "Strategy for a Living Revolutionl1 was reviewed in the National Catholic Reporter and was described by James W. Douglass as I1the only book of which I am aware which attempts to set down in coherent stages a nonviolent strategy to transform our institutions of state and economy within a few decades. It is therefore of immediate importance. The American people's already deepening awareness from Watergate, the savage bombing of Cambodia and a runaway economy suggest that the time to read Lakey, and reflect seriously on nonviolent strategies for a new American consciousness, is now." 1 -30-.
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