Toolbox:

An interconnected web of the key strategies and tactics that have inspired people-powered victories & upended the status quo. Start anywhere and explore…

Story

99% Bat Signal

99% Bat Signal

As 20,000 people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge at the height of the Occupy Wall Street uprising in 2011, guerrilla-projectionists lit up the skyline with a huge “99% bat signal” light projection.

Theory

Abolition

Abolition

A political vision, a structural analysis of oppression, and a practical organizing strategy working towards a society that addresses harm without relying on prisons, police, military, or other violent systems.

Theory

Action logic

Action logic

Your action should speak for itself. Its inner logic should be obvious to the outside eye. When a protest has good action logic, its dramatic challenge to power tells a clear and compelling story.

Methodology

Action star

Action star

A checklist of 8 key factors for planning & evaluating actions.

Principle

Activate international mechanisms

Activate international mechanisms

While international mechanisms like the United Nations’ human rights protocols are no cure-all for correcting abuses, savvy campaigners can use them to put pressure on rogue governments or protect activists.

Tactic

Advanced leafleting

Advanced leafleting

People are more likely to take your leaflet, read it, and remember what it’s all about if you deliver it with flair. (Or ice cream!)

Theory

Al faza’a (a surge of solidarity)

Al faza’a (a surge of solidarity)

A key segment of your supporters will only join at peak moments of your campaign — usually in response to an external event — and then disappear again. To win, you must be ready to make the most of this surge.

Theory

Alienation effect

Alienation effect

Bertolt Brecht’s method for using innovative theatrical techniques to “make the familiar strange” in order to provoke a social analysis and a critical response from the audience.

Principle

Anger works best when you have the moral high ground

Anger works best when you have the moral high ground

Anger is a powerful emotion. Use it wisely. If you have the moral high ground and act with dignity, anger is compelling and people will join you. If you don’t, you’ll seem a little scary, or even crazy.

Story

Angola 15+2

Angola 15+2

The story of how 17 young activists risked their lives in hunger strikes and flash mobs to force out Angola’s brutal dictator and bring an end to over 30 years of oppression.

Theory

Anti-oppression

Anti-oppression

Anti-oppression practice provides a framework for constructively addressing and transforming oppressive dynamics as they play out in our organizing.

Principle

Anyone can act

Anyone can act

Don’t worry about being a lousy actor — you’re a great one.

Tactic

App flooding

App flooding

Appropriate a politically neutral phone application to your cause by overwhelming it with campaign messages.

Methodology

Art of Hosting

Art of Hosting

The Art of Hosting is a set of principles and practices for harnessing the self-organizing capacity and collective wisdom of groups to address complex challenges.

Tactic

Artistic vigil

Artistic vigil

A vigil that draws upon artistic and ritual elements — thoughtful symbolism, the right tone, and a distinct look and feel — to deepen the experience for both participants and observers.

Theory

Artivism

Artivism

Artivism, the intersection of art and activism, harnesses the critical imagination to design events and strategies that provoke new questions and new meaning in pursuit of more respectful ways of being.

Methodology

Artstorm

Artstorm

Like brainstorming, but more active, artstorming invites participants to jump directly into the creative process, resulting in better ideas, and often amazing creations.

Tactic

Autonomous servers

Autonomous servers

Organized collectives use networked computers and software to provide communications tools directly to their communities and resist spying, exploitation and control of their data by corporations and the state.

Principle

Balance art and message

Balance art and message

Art seeks to explore deep questions. Politics demands a clear direction and message. The right balance can move both hearts and minds.

Theory

Baltajiah (thugs)

Baltajiah (thugs)

A common political formation shows up across the Arab World: an often marginalized grouping of individuals that the government can call on to momentarily disrupt movements seeking change.

Tactic

Banner hang

Banner hang

Hanging a banner off a building or structure makes for great media coverage, alerting the broad public to an issue or campaign. It’s also a good way to frame or contextualize an upcoming action.

Methodology

Baraza

Baraza

A large community gathering to discuss important matters, share information, & hold leaders to account.

Story

Barbie Liberation Organization

Barbie Liberation Organization

Switching the voice boxes of Barbie and GI Joe dolls generated hilarious results and a much-needed conversation about gender stereotypes in America.

Story

Battle in Seattle

Battle in Seattle

In 1999, in a carnival of creative nonviolence, 70,000 protesters shut down the WTO meeting in Seattle, scoring a victory against neoliberalism and launching the global justice movement in the U.S.

Story

Battle of the Camel

Battle of the Camel

A violent attack on protesters in Tahrir Square by pro-regime, camel-riding thugs was a turning point in the Egyptian revolution, generating popular support for the protesters and leading to the fall of Mubarak.

Methodology

Battle of the story

Battle of the story

Harness the power of stories to expose oppressive beliefs and show how another reality is possible.

Principle

Beware the tyranny of structurelessness

Beware the tyranny of structurelessness

Sometimes the least structured group can be the most tyrannical. Create a participatory and welcoming environment by adopting a transparent decision making process and promoting accountability within the group.

Story

Bicycle rally for peace

Bicycle rally for peace

In 2014, on the one-year anniversary of political violence in Rajganj, Noakhali, Bangladesh, the local community organized a bicycle rally to promote peace.

Story

Bidder 70 (Tim DeChristopher)

Bidder 70 (Tim DeChristopher)

In December 2008, Tim DeChristopher disrupted an auction of Utah oil and gas drilling leases by bidding, and winning, many parcels. He then used his arrest and trial to make the case for bolder climate action.

Story

Billionaires for Bush

Billionaires for Bush

During George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, the Billionaires for Bush used humour, guerrilla theatre, and creative media actions to dramatize economic inequality and political corruption in the US.

Story

Birthright Unplugged/Replugged

Birthright Unplugged/Replugged

The Birthright Unplugged/Replugged project used travel as a subversive act to expose Israel’s unjust restrictions of movement and violations of international law.

Tactic

Blockade

Blockade

A human chain or physical barrier that shuts down something bad (a coal mine or Shell meeting), protects something good (a forest or home), or makes a purely symbolic statement.

Story

Boxing Gender Oppression

Boxing Gender Oppression

After Kenya’s post-election violence in 2008, when many young women were sexually abused and traumatized, Boxgirls Kenya used boxing to fight the shaming, stigma, and fear they experienced.

Principle

Brand or be branded

Brand or be branded

Though the concept of branding has a negative connotation, especially among anti-corporate activists, it can, and indeed should, be used proactively to amplify your message and persuade your target audience.

Story

Brazil’s Free Fare Movement

Brazil’s Free Fare Movement

The Free Fare Movement awakened a generation of Brazilians to the power of mass street action and the utopian possibilities inherent in a popular uprising.

Principle

Breakfast is persuasive

Breakfast is persuasive

Providing a direct service that benefits your community can speak louder than any rhetorical argument. Living out the values of self-reliance can empower the community to engage in deeper organizing.

Story

Bring Back Our Girls

Bring Back Our Girls

In April 2014, 276 girls were abducted from their school by the Boko Haram terrorist group, sparking a massive global campaign demanding their return.

Principle

Bring the issue home

Bring the issue home

By using creative visuals, telling powerful personal narratives, and highlighting local costs, we can make an otherwise abstract, far-away issue personal, visceral, and relevant.

Principle

Build people power, then negotiate

Build people power, then negotiate

While negotiation with the state can play a role in a social movement victory, that depends entirely on people’s stamina and determination to keep the pressure on in the streets, far from the negotiating table.

Principle

Build strength through repetition

Build strength through repetition

An often overlooked aspect of campaigning is the patient work of building a skilled and committed base of support through the repetition of regular events.

Methodology

Building resilience

Building resilience

Activities and practices for building individual, small-group, and community resilience, so we can create sustainable, impactful, and thriving groups capable of changing the world for the better.

Story

Burmese Students’ Long March

Burmese Students’ Long March

In 2014, hundreds of students embarked on a 580 kilometre-long march across Myanmar to protest the military-controlled Parliament’s attempt to outlaw student unions.

Principle

Burn brightly, but don’t burn out

Burn brightly, but don’t burn out

Taking care of ourselves and having fun in our work for social change are essential to building stronger, more effective, healthier movements.

Tactic

Cacerolazo (noise-making protest)

Cacerolazo (noise-making protest)

Let your resistance be heard loud and clear by making lots of noise en masse — banging pots and pans, blowing whistles, honking horns, or setting off cell-phone ringtones.

Theory

Capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is a profit-driven economic system that, in spite of its supposed material benefits, is rooted in inequality, exploitation, dispossession, and environmental destruction.

Principle

Challenge patriarchy as you organize

Challenge patriarchy as you organize

Like all other unjust and arbitrary systems of authority and power, patriarchy must be actively challenged in our daily lives and organizing work if we are to achieve collective liberation.

Principle

Change a name to change the game

Change a name to change the game

Translate complex terms into simple, everyday language, so that people can more easily discuss and confront unjust and oppressive systems.

Principle

Change is the only constant

Change is the only constant

It’s not just the status quo that needs to change, but the status quo inside our own heads. How can we expect to change the world without also changing how we change the world?

Principle

Choose tactics that support your strategy

Choose tactics that support your strategy

Strategy is your overall plan; tactics are those actions you do to implement it — a critical distinction for effective campaigning. Don’t organize a rally before you know whether it serves your larger gameplan.

Principle

Choose your target wisely

Choose your target wisely

A campaign’s success or failure often hinges on correctly identifying your target — the specific person or entity with the institutional power to meet your demands — and then going after them strategically.

Tactic

Citizen’s arrest

Citizen’s arrest

What can people do when criminals or corrupt officials are beyond the reach of the law? Arrest them!

Story

Citizens’ Posse

Citizens’ Posse

In the final days of a stalled push to reform healthcare in the US, a “citizens’ posse” gathered to arrest those responsible for the gridlock.

Tactic

Civil disobedience

Civil disobedience

Breaking a law in public in order to challenge the moral legitimacy of that specific law (e.g. racial segregation) or a greater injustice committed by the state (e.g. corruption).

Story

Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army

A new methodology of civil disobedience, merging the ancient art of clowning with contemporary tactics of nonviolent direct action, which became an international protest phenomenon in the early 2000s.

Tactic

Clandestine leafleting

Clandestine leafleting

When it is unsafe to protest or campaign publicly, there are many creative ways to deliver your message without putting yourself at risk — even floating lanterns or ping pong balls.

Theory

Commodity fetishism

Commodity fetishism

Money, debt, property rights, and markets are not unchangeable facts, but symbolic systems based in social relationships. Activists should inspire radical hope by exposing that they can and should be changed.

Theory

The commons

The commons

The natural and cultural wealth that belongs to all of us, such as air, water, forests, libraries, and the Internet. These shared gifts are foundations for a more just world, and must be protected and expanded.

Theory

Comunalidad (communality)

Comunalidad (communality)

Comunalidad is a way of naming and describing the daily practice of coexistence in an autonomous collectivity, in the service of everyone, as practiced in the indigenous communities of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Story

Conflict Kitchen

Conflict Kitchen

Cleverly retro-fitting a take-out window, Conflict Kitchen built cross-cultural understanding by introducing Pittsburgh locals to the food and culture of places with which the US government was in conflict.

Principle

Consensus is a means, not an end

Consensus is a means, not an end

The two foundational values of consensus decision making, which are more important than the form itself, are empowering every person’s full participation, and respecting and accommodating diverse opinions.

Principle

Consider your audience

Consider your audience

Don’t expect your audience to choose you. Instead, identify the constituencies you need to win your campaign, and strategically design your actions to move them in the right direction.

Story

Countering Homophobic Policing

Countering Homophobic Policing

A series of bold and creative direct action protests, from police station invasions to “wink-ins,” succeeded in pushing back against police persecution of gay men for consensual acts in the UK in the 1980s.

Story

Couple in the Cage

Couple in the Cage

This performance art piece was an ironic reenactment of the practice of displaying indigenous peoples in public venues designed to expose the historic prejudices of the museums in which it appeared.

Principle

Create many points of entry

Create many points of entry

Some can dedicate their lives to a cause, others just an hour a week. Some can take risks, others can’t. Your campaign will be stronger if you offer many ways for people to get involved.

Tactic

Creative disruption

Creative disruption

You could disrupt an illegitimate event by shouting or throwing things, but this might not help your cause. To outshine your target’s message, it’s often better to disrupt creatively: song, glitter, theatrics.

Tactic

Creative petition delivery

Creative petition delivery

Petitions can often feel ineffectual, but when you deliver them creatively — with art, theater, or humor — you can make public opinion more visible to a campaign target.

Theory

Critical multiculturalism

Critical multiculturalism

Critical multiculturalism disrupts power structures by challenging the subjugation of marginalized cultures, questioning power and privilege, and acknowledging knowledge as a process.

Story

CryptoRally in Mexico City

CryptoRally in Mexico City

In response to a sweeping new telecommunications law, the CryptoRally was organized as a game played out on the streets of Mexico City, whose goal is to build skills in digital security and freedom of speech.

Tactic

Cultural disobedience

Cultural disobedience

Civil disobedience is the deliberate violation of unjust laws. In a similar spirit, cultural disobedience bravely subverts unjust cultural norms.

Theory

Cultural hegemony

Cultural hegemony

Capital maintains hegemony not just through raw power (violence, laws, and property) but through culture, by shaping what feels like “common sense.” To create a new society, we must create a new common sense.

Tactic

Culture jamming

Culture jamming

A cultural intervention that alters a brand or meme to make a subversive political point.

Tactic

Currency hacking

Currency hacking

Money can speak loudly, whether we’d like to admit it or not, so why not turn it into a tool to protest and organize, by stamping messages on local currency, and turning bills into leaflets.

Story

Daycare Centre Sit-In

Daycare Centre Sit-In

Single moms pressured a public housing official for a daycare centre by not just sitting-in at his office, but actually turning his office into the daycare centre they needed.

Theory

Debt revolt

Debt revolt

Realizing our collective power to withdraw our willingness to pay debts is potentially as system-shaking today as the power of the industrial working class to withdraw its labour power a century ago.

Tactic

Debt strike

Debt strike

Inspired by a common struggle against systemic financial exploitation, a debt strike is a coordinated refusal to make monthly debt payments and thereby force the banks to negotiate.

Principle

Debtors of the world, unite!

Debtors of the world, unite!

The burden of debt unites millions in common struggle. Together, we can build a movement that challenges not just debt, but the entire capitalist system and its drive to profit from imposed scarcity.

Theory

Decolonization

Decolonization

A form of bottom-up disobedience that revives indigenous ideas and lived experiences to challenge the impact of historical colonization and reverse its trajectory.

Principle

Define “hardcore” strategically

Define “hardcore” strategically

When movements heat up, there’s a tendency to become so extreme that you lose touch with your base. Good leaders will define that “extreme” in constructive ways, and escalate their campaigns strategically.

Principle

Delegate

Delegate

Things get done only when the task is clearly defined and on someone’s to-do list. Delegate!

Theory

“Democracy promotion”

“Democracy promotion”

Democracy promotion is the term the US uses to describe efforts to penetrate and control emergent civil societies in targeted countries — those with regimes deemed unfriendly or unstable by policymakers.

Principle

Develop an inside-outside strategy

Develop an inside-outside strategy

Some people only work through the system. Others only challenge it from outside. But the most powerful strategies will link the two, combining social movement pressure with efforts to win and wield state power.

Story

Dhawili (turn on the lights)

Dhawili (turn on the lights)

In 2012, Tunisian anti-corruption campaigners used blogs, flash mobs and lobbying of National Constituent Assembly deputies to enshrine the right to freedom of information in the post-revolution constitution.

Theory

Direct action

Direct action

Action that changes our circumstances without handing power to an intermediary. Direct action interrupts business-as-usual, seizes leadership, and introduces an alternative narrative.

Story

Disrupting Obama’s town hall in Myanmar

Disrupting Obama’s town hall in Myanmar

In 2014, young activists at Yangon University, Myanmar, creatively disrupted a town hall meeting with President Obama to expose the flaws in the military-dominated government’s political reform process.

Tactic

Distributed action

Distributed action

A decentralized mass protest where large numbers of people express their support by taking many small, simple, coordinated actions: banging pots, turning lights off, wearing the same colour of clothing, etc.

Tactic

Distributed denial of service (DDoS)

Distributed denial of service (DDoS)

A coordinated online effort that brings together vast numbers of people to target a powerful entity’s website by flooding it with high levels of data traffic. A powerful means to draw attention to your cause.

Tactic

Divestment

Divestment

Withdrawing your investment from a company can be a powerful form of economic pressure on an industry or state that is profiting from injustice and destruction.

Principle

Do the media’s work for them

Do the media’s work for them

Entice journalists to cover your issue by providing them with print and video materials that do half their job for them, while giving you more control of the story you’re trying to create.

Principle

Do your research

Do your research

Whether you’re scouting an action location, doing a power analysis of your political target, or reviewing previous episodes of a TV show you’re going to be on: Do. Your. Research.

Principle

Don’t dress like a protester

Don’t dress like a protester

If you look like a stereotypical protester, it’s easy for people to write you off, but if you look like the girl next door, people just might sympathize with you instead.

Principle

Don’t expect a concrete outcome from a symbolic action

Don’t expect a concrete outcome from a symbolic action

Concrete actions have measurable goals and are designed to have a direct physical impact. Communicative actions tend to have more symbolic goals. Know the difference and plan accordingly.

Principle

Don’t fall in love with your tactics

Don’t fall in love with your tactics

Just because an action succeeds once and is a big hit, doesn’t mean that same tactic will succeed again and again. While planning your campaign, employ creative tactics that take your target by surprise.

Principle

Don’t mistake your group for society

Don’t mistake your group for society

We want society to be democratic. But to be effective, your small group may need to operate more like the crew of a small ship, with a strict division of roles. That’s OK, because your little group isn’t society.

Story

Dow Chemical Apologizes for Bhopal

Dow Chemical Apologizes for Bhopal

An imposter posing as a Dow Chemical spokesperson announced live on BBC World News that Dow would spend $12 billion to compensate the victims of the Bhopal disaster, creating an instructive PR disaster for Dow.

Story

Dump Veolia Campaign

Dump Veolia Campaign

BDS activists around the world forced the French company Veolia to divest from the Israeli market after causing it to lose $20 billion worth of contracts for its complicity in Israel’s human rights violations.

Theory

Dunbar’s number

Dunbar’s number

We can only maintain 150 I-care-you-care relationships. These strong, primary relationships foster empowerment and social cohesion, while more rule-based relationships favor management. This impacts organizing.

Story

Earth First!

Earth First!

In deep belief that there is “no compromise in defense of Mother Earth,” members of this movement put their bodies on the line to stop ecological destruction.

Tactic

Electoral guerrilla theatre

Electoral guerrilla theatre

By running for public office as a prank, you can sabotage a particularly ugly policy or candidate, popularize a radical idea, or challenge the limits of the electoral system itself.

Principle

Enable, don’t command

Enable, don’t command

Whereas efforts led by commanding leaders are often dependent on that one person’s energy and presence, enabling leaders awaken the creative potential of all participants, helping to grow the broader cause.

Tactic

Encryption

Encryption

A vital tool for activists and organizers — and everyone else — to communicate securely outside the prying eyes of the state and corporate bad actors.

Theory

Environmental justice

Environmental justice

Only by looking at environmental issues through a social justice lens can we effectively challenge abuses of power that target indigenous people, people of colour, and other disenfranchised communities.

Principle

Escalate strategically

Escalate strategically

Since a target rarely gives in after one action, it is often necessary to strategically increase the pressure on them in a step-by-step escalation that draws upon a diverse mix of tactics.

Theory

Ethical spectacle

Ethical spectacle

Since politics is not just about facts and reason, but also desire and fantasy, activists need to engage in spectacle. By honouring our principles, our spectacles can be ethical, liberating, and reality-based.

Story

Every Heartbeat Counts

Every Heartbeat Counts

Using the #LATE campaign hashtag, revolutionary artists and media activists are reinventing the aesthetic narrative of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and situating the commune at its symbolic center.

Principle

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel

Everyone has balls/ovaries of steel

A need to follow through on crazy ideas, and friends who will goad you on to do so, can take you far. You’re braver than you think!

Tactic

Eviction blockade

Eviction blockade

A strong show of physical resistance to an unjust eviction.

Principle

Expose inequality with a viral gesture

Expose inequality with a viral gesture

A simple, defiant gesture (say, thousands of stone-broke people turning their pockets inside-out as they go about their day) can bring economic inequality to the surface and make oppressive institutions panic.

Theory

Expressive and instrumental actions

Expressive and instrumental actions

Political actions tend to either express an identity or try to win concrete changes. Know the difference so you can choose the one that best serves your purpose.

Principle

Fail forward

Fail forward

“Fall seven times, stand up eight,” a Japanese proverb says. Only when you experiment, execute and iterate will you be able to learn from your mistakes and turn your stories of failure into valuable lessons.

Story

Fees Must Fall

Fees Must Fall

The 2015 tuition hikes sparked a national student movement in South Africa that demanded comprehensive reform and questioned the political, social, and economic status quo of the “rainbow nation.”

Theory

Feminism

Feminism

Feminist social movements identify patriarchal power as a fundamental source of injustice and inequality, and hence call to transform gender power relations in all domains.

Tactic

Flash mob

Flash mob

A spontaneous, contagious, and often celebratory protest that often uses social media or word of mouth to gather people on short notice in a particular place at a particular time.

Theory

Floating signifier

Floating signifier

A floating signifier is a symbol or concept (for example, the Zapatista balaclava) that's loose enough to mean many things to many people, yet specific enough to galvanize action in a particular direction.

Tactic

Flotilla

Flotilla

A flotilla — also known as a boat rally or “kayaktivist” blockade — is an innovative way to attract public attention, demonstrate support for a cause or disrupt a marine target.

Story

Flower Speech Campaign

Flower Speech Campaign

In 2014, Burmese activists launched the Panzagar (“flower speech”) campaign to counter hate speech in Myanmar in response to a rise in anti-Muslim violence.

Principle

Focus on basic needs

Focus on basic needs

In repressive regimes, directly criticizing the authorities can be dangerous. One lower-risk way to challenge the legitimacy of the regime is to focus attention on everyday economic struggles, e.g. high prices.

Principle

Follow the lead of the most impacted

Follow the lead of the most impacted

It is both good ethics and good politics to take direction from, and provide appropriate support to, those who have the most at stake in your cause.

Tactic

Forum theatre

Forum theatre

Forum theatre is a tool for exploring and rehearsing possible actions that people can take to transform their world. It’s often used both in preparation to taking action and in anti-oppression workshops.

Principle

Foster safer spaces

Foster safer spaces

Whether in our meetings or on our streets, we can advance our struggle for justice by creating safer spaces for everyone, and by challenging the norms and power dynamics that make spaces unsafe for some people.

Theory

Framing

Framing

Like the frame around a photograph, a conceptual frame highlights certain events and facts, while making others invisible. Effectively framing your message can make the difference between winning and losing.

Story

#​Gambia​Has​Decided

#​Gambia​Has​Decided

After almost a decade of building momentum, Gambians seized a crucial window of opportunity in 2016 to overthrow a notorious dictator.

Tactic

General strike

General strike

A widespread work shutdown across many industries in a city, region, or country. General strikes are led by workers, often involve entire communities, and can be triggered by unpopular political edicts.

Theory

Gerontocracy

Gerontocracy

Gerontocracy is the rule of the old over the young — a form of oppression primarily exercised across a society or culture, but sometimes also specifically within governments or other institutional structures.

Story

Gezi Park iftar

Gezi Park iftar

When Turkish authorities tried to break the unity between secular and religious anti-capitalist protesters, Observant Muslims responded by inviting everyone to a public feast during the Ramadan Iftar.

Story

Ghana ThinkTank

Ghana ThinkTank

A global art project that flips the script on the international aid model by enlisting regular folks in Ghana and elsewhere throughout the Global South to help “develop the First World.”

Principle

Give voice to those that can’t speak

Give voice to those that can’t speak

Trees can’t speak, right? Wrong! There are many creative ways to give voice to those that can’t speak — be it trees, animals, or archeological artifacts — so humans can hear their plight loud and clear.

Theory

Glitch feminism

Glitch feminism

When the systems and technologies that mediate our lives “glitch” or malfunction, those marginalized by tech can seize the radical potential of this moment. Theory coined by scholar-activist Legacy Russell.

Theory

The Global South

The Global South

The Global South is not a place, but a way of talking about a diverse set of struggles: the uprising of the planet’s people against neoliberal policies, at least, and against the capitalist system, at most.

Tactic

Guerrilla projection

Guerrilla projection

With a clever image, a high-powered projector, and a little moxie, you can literally shine a spotlight on your opposition.

Theory

Hacking

Hacking

Anthropologist Gabriella Coleman defines a hack as “a clever technical solution arrived at through non-obvious means.” Hacking is more than rogue computer programming; it’s a rebellious solutionary spirit.

Story

Hacking Apartheid

Hacking Apartheid

At the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, South African freedom fighters and hackers created an encrypted communication network that connected the leadership in exile with operatives in South Africa.

Theory

Hamoq and hamas

Hamoq and hamas

Turning anger into action is necessary, but that anger is most effective when it is disciplined and intelligently focused (hamas). Uncontrolled, stupid anger (hamoq) mostly undermines your own cause.

Methodology

Hardship to grievance

Hardship to grievance

Organizers can help people shift their understanding of the difficulties they are experiencing from isolated hardships to shared grievances, then carry out successful campaigns to address those grievances.

Story

Harry Potter Alliance

Harry Potter Alliance

An innovative cultural campaign that mobilized the huge Harry Potter fan-base to fight for justice, human rights, and democracy in our world, just like Harry did in his world.

Tactic

Hashtag campaign

Hashtag campaign

By choosing a strategic hashtag and curating the ensuing conversation, you can use Twitter and other social media platforms to shift the debate and expand your support.

Tactic

Hashtag hijack

Hashtag hijack

Don’t have enough Twitter followers to trend better than your target? Pull the rug out from under them by stealing their hashtag!

Tactic

Hoax

Hoax

By impersonating your target through a fake press release or media event, you can use satire and exaggeration to expose an injustice or demonstrate that another reality is possible.

Story

Honk at Parliament

Honk at Parliament

In June 2013, citizens began honking their horns outside Lebanon’s Parliament to tell MPs that their time in office had expired. The protest spread until they were honked at everywhere they went.

Tactic

Human banner

Human banner

A political rally arranged into a huge work of human aerial art, composing a single iconic photo that captures what’s at stake.

Tactic

Hunger strike

Hunger strike

The deliberate and public refusal of food, and sometimes water, as a moral protest against injustice or abuse of power. A single individual can hold a hunger strike, or hundreds together in solidarity.

Tactic

Identity correction

Identity correction

An act of activist ventriloquism in which you momentarily assume the mask of power to speak a little lie that tells a greater truth.

Principle

If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest

If protest is made illegal, make daily life a protest

When repression makes protest too risky, turn ordinary acts — driving slowly, clapping, wearing black, or laughing — into protests, thereby ridiculing the authorities and forcing them into a decision dilemma.

Tactic

Image theatre

Image theatre

A theatre exercise in which participants form statues that represent an oppressive situation, followed by group reflection to better understand the situation and try out possible solutions.

Tactic

Infiltration

Infiltration

The people destroying the planet don’t just have names and addresses, they also have gatherings. When they gather near you, stop in and see what they’re up to.

Tactic

Inflatables

Inflatables

An inflatable prop (pneumatic object made of plastic foil, filled with air or helium) with the right symbol can be a great way to frame your action and communicate your message.

Tactic

Invisible theatre

Invisible theatre

The public staging of a realistic scene — say, a same-sex couple discriminated against in a restaurant — that poses an ethical dilemma and engages bystanders, who remain unaware they are part of a performance.

Tactic

Jail solidarity

Jail solidarity

Putting pressure on authorities after activists are arrested can create a strong community of resistance, and help deter state violence and the persecution of activists.

Principle

Joy is a revolutionary force

Joy is a revolutionary force

Our journey towards a better world can—and often should—be a nurturing and joyful experience! Find pleasure in the process, as adrienne maree brown said: “Feeling good is not frivolous, It is freedom.”

Story

Justice for Janitors

Justice for Janitors

The Janitors’ Union in Washington, D.C. used a series of escalating creative direct actions — dubbed Days of Rage — to win union recognition, wage hikes, and benefits.

Principle

Kill them with kindness

Kill them with kindness

Kindness is sometimes harder for the authorities to rebuff than anger. When done with true compassion and some artfulness, a kind gesture can win over the public, and even help to humanize an inhuman situation.

Story

Kisangani Demands Electric Power

Kisangani Demands Electric Power

Despite state violence, the people of Kisangani forced the Congolese authorities to honor their constitutional right to reliable electric power.

Principle

Know your community

Know your community

The more you know about the culture and psychology of your community, the more successful your campaign will be.

Principle

Know your cultural terrain

Know your cultural terrain

The first rule of guerrilla warfare is to know your terrain and use it to your advantage. This rule also holds true in the cultural jungle of words, images, memes, and pop songs.

Story

Kubatana’s yellow poster campaign

Kubatana’s yellow poster campaign

In 2014, after a disheartening election in Zimbabwe, despondent citizens were inspired by motivational posters around Harare to interact with each other via the online social justice site, kubatana.net.

Methodology

Ladder of engagement

Ladder of engagement

A community organizing framework for designing intentional pathways that guide your supporters from low-effort engagement, at the bottom rung of the ladder, to higher levels of engagement.

Tactic

Lamentation

Lamentation

Public mourning as protest.

Principle

Lead with sympathetic characters

Lead with sympathetic characters

Good actions tell a good story. Good stories revolve around sympathetic characters. The most sympathetic characters are members of the impacted community that outsiders can easily relate to.

Tactic

Legislative theatre

Legislative theatre

Legislative theatre, a tool for proposing and enacting legislative and policy changes at any level of government, takes Augusto Boal’s interactive forum theatre exercises from the stage into the real world.

Tactic

Light Brigade

Light Brigade

A method for creating visually-striking, illuminated protest messages (that work particularly well in site-specific, nighttime locations).

Story

Lysistrata Project

Lysistrata Project

To protest the Iraq War, the Lysistrata Project held over 1000 readings in 59 countries of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, which is about how women ended a war by refusing sex until the men quit fighting.

Principle

Maintain nonviolent discipline

Maintain nonviolent discipline

Time and again, unarmed masses of people have triumphed over armed-to-the-teeth forces using humble techniques like strikes, occupations, boycotts, and sit-ins. But only because people have remained nonviolent.

Principle

Make new folks welcome

Make new folks welcome

The more the merrier! But if new folks are going to stick around, you’ll need to put work into making sure they feel welcome.

Principle

Make the invisible visible

Make the invisible visible

Many injustices (and toxins!) are invisible due to distance, ideology, or simple chemistry. If you can’t see it, you can’t change it. So, the first task of an activist is often to make the invisible visible.

Story

Manich Msamah

Manich Msamah

After the revolution, Tunisian youth combined their wit and passion to demand “no reconciliation without accountability!” and prevent the corrupt business elite from escaping justice.

Story

Maraiwatsede: the land belongs to the Xavante

Maraiwatsede: the land belongs to the Xavante

During Rio+20, the Xavante indigenous people partnered with other organizations mastering a strategic intervention to regain the land that had been promised to them 20 years before.

Tactic

Mass street action

Mass street action

A large public protest that shows the scale of people power behind a cause.

Theory

Memes

Memes

Memes are self-replicating units of cultural information that spread virally from mind to mind, network to network, generation to generation.

Story

Mining the Museum

Mining the Museum

Artist Fred Wilson presented a museum’s collection in such a way that it called into question the entire worldview from which the collection was originally assembled.

Story

Miniskirt March

Miniskirt March

After a video circulated in 2014 showing the public abuse and harassment of a woman in Harare, Zimbabwe, women organized a miniskirt march to protest widespread street harassment and to push for safe spaces.

Story

Modern-Day Slavery Museum

Modern-Day Slavery Museum

To highlight abuses of farm workers and identify remedies, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (a community-based farmworker organization) created the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum.

Methodology

The Movement Cycle

The Movement Cycle

A framework that can help organizers identify what they need to be doing right now, by understanding, and thinking strategically about, the life cycle that social movements tend to follow.

Tactic

Music video

Music video

Social justice music videos combine the contagious power of music with compelling visuals to expose injustice and inspire potential allies into action.

Theory

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism, today’s dominant ideology, reduces the state to a handmaiden of transnational capital. In pursuing the relentless privatization of the commons, its policies inevitably spark popular discontent.

Theory

New Pan-Afrikanism

New Pan-Afrikanism

A continuation of the historic Pan-African struggle for freedom, justice, and dignity across the continent, renewed to tackle the particular challenges Africa faces today.

Theory

The NGO-ization of resistance

The NGO-ization of resistance

When frontline organizers spend more time writing grant reports than changing the system, something is wrong. People most impacted by injustice, not those working for big non-profits, should drive the movement.

Principle

No one wants to watch a drum circle

No one wants to watch a drum circle

Participating in a drum circle is amazing, transformative, and fun. Watching a drum circle, on the other hand, is torture. Don’t ask people to watch you have fun — get them involved!

Story

No vote, no sex

No vote, no sex

An opposition party candidate in Zimbabwe’s 2013 elections called for women to withhold sex from their husbands in order to pressure them to vote for change. The results were underwhelming.

Tactic

Nonviolent search and seizure

Nonviolent search and seizure

A direct action tactic that involves showing up with a “citizens’ search warrant” and attempting, nonviolently, to liberate important documents that are being kept from the public.

Story

Nuit Debout

Nuit Debout

In 2016 French citizens occupied the Place de la République for three consecutive months to expand democracy and protest attempts by the government to liberalize the labour market.

Tactic

Occupation

Occupation

Physically occupying contested space to create community and disrupt the functioning of power. Examples include: sit-ins, factory occupations, housing squats, occupations of public squares or at-risk land.

Story

Orange Alternative

Orange Alternative

The Orange Alternative was a 1980s-era underground protest movement in Poland that used street happenings and absurdist provocations to ridicule the Communist regime and promote independent thinking.

Theory

Palace coup

Palace coup

When civilian resistance threatens to depose a dictator, that dictator may try to short-circuit the people by handing over power to one of his own. This is known as a palace coup, or “faux-verthrow.”

Story

Panty power

Panty power

Burmese dissidents protested Myanmar’s ruling junta by encouraging supporters to mail panties to foreign embassies and top generals (who superstitiously feared that female underwear sapped their power).

Story

PARK(ing) Day

PARK(ing) Day

PARK(ing) Day is a worldwide movement to challenge and repurpose urban space by temporarily transforming metered parking spaces into public parks.

Theory

Participatory democracy

Participatory democracy

Unlike representative democracy, which is often a tame affair of choosing between the lesser of two evils, participatory democracy involves masses of people directly transforming their lives and society.

Theory

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

A theory of education by which, according to Paulo Freire, “men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

Story

Pedestrian death puppets

Pedestrian death puppets

Student activists hung full-sized human foam core cut-outs over a dangerous highway in Beirut to draw attention to pedestrian fatalities, successfully pressuring the city council to build an overpass.

Methodology

Peel the onion

Peel the onion

People & organizations are more complicated than their stated positions. By peeling back the onion on both friend & foe, we can discover potential allies and reveal power- holders’ hidden conflicts of interest.

Theory

The people’s shock

The people’s shock

Crises such as coups, wars, natural disasters, recessions, and pandemics are not just opportunities for the powers that be to impose their will, but for people power to win great victories.

Methodology

Perception box

Perception box

Use the perception box to understand your audiences better, so you can design effective campaign messages to reach them.

Theory

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will

The glass is half full and half empty. We need hard-headed realism and full-hearted idealism to change the world.

Tactic

Phone banking

Phone banking

Mobilizing the public to call or text a government or corporate target to pressure them into taking an action. It can be a contagious tactic for lobbying decision makers.

Tactic

Phone blockade

Phone blockade

When large numbers of people repeatedly dial the key phone lines of your target, you can tie up their service, and pressure them to comply with your demands.

Methodology

Pillars of power

Pillars of power

Identify the institutions that your target relies on for support so you can weaken or disrupt their power.

Story

Pimp My . . . Carroça!

Pimp My . . . Carroça!

In Brazil, artivists used humorous graffiti to decorate the carts of trash collectors, bringing them visibility and respect, while demonstrating the importance of their contribution to city life.

Principle

Play to the audience that isn’t there

Play to the audience that isn’t there

In a media-saturated world, the audience you care about is rarely the one witnessing your action, but rather the one you’ll reach through mass media and social media. Design your action with them in mind.

Methodology

Points of intervention

Points of intervention

Identify pressure points where you can take action to interrupt business as usual, and press for change.

Theory

Political identity paradox

Political identity paradox

Group identity creates a cohesive community for activists, yet tends to foster a subculture that can alienate the public. Balancing these two tendencies is key to sustaining our work and maximizing its impact.

Theory

Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism

Postcolonial theory forces us to acknowledge that oppression occurs not just in economic relations, but also in the very categories of meaning-making that produce reality as we know, understand, and live it.

Theory

Poverty

Poverty

A focus on “poverty” relies on a charity framework that can never bring justice. To counter the process of impoverishment requires political action against those who cause and benefit from impoverishment.

Methodology

Power mapping

Power mapping

Map the power dynamics at play to identify your primary target and design a winning campaign strategy.

Principle

Practice digital self-defence

Practice digital self-defence

To protect against digital surveillance and online attacks, activists should get comfortable with digital security tools and protocols.

Principle

Praxis makes perfect

Praxis makes perfect

Theory without action goes nowhere. Action without reflection is ineffective. That’s why we have praxis: a cycle of theory, action and reflection that helps us analyse our efforts so we can be more effective.

Theory

Prefigurative politics

Prefigurative politics

By creating in the now — via visionary direct action and living our values — the future world we wish to see, we can experience for ourselves how a better world is not only necessary but possible.

Theory

The propaganda model

The propaganda model

The propaganda model suggests that media outlets operating within a capitalist economy will consistently produce news content that aligns with the interests of political and economic elites.

Story

Public Art Nanny Hotline

Public Art Nanny Hotline

A hilarious fake talk show that domestic workers in the U.S. dialed into for information on overtime wages, tax requirements, trafficking, and more.

Tactic

Public filibuster

Public filibuster

In a public filibuster, a group of people interrupt and seek to shut down a public hearing or government vote by standing and speaking, one after the other. It’s confrontational, but polite and constructive.

Story

Public Option Annie

Public Option Annie

In 2009, at the height of the Obamacare fight in the US, a band of creative activists snuck into a major health insurance industry gathering and did a guerrilla musical that got national attention.

Principle

Put your target in a decision dilemma

Put your target in a decision dilemma

Design your action so that your target is forced to make a decision, and all their available options play to your advantage.

Story

Pyramid of Shoes

Pyramid of Shoes

As part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, marchers built huge pyramids of shoes to visualize the number of people still being killed or injured by landmines in lapsed conflict zones.

Story

Québec Student Strike

Québec Student Strike

In 2012, Québec students managed to reverse a major tuition hike and a draconian anti-protest law through direct democracy, creative tactics, and mass demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people.

Principle

The real action is your target's reaction

The real action is your target's reaction

When challenging a more powerful target, the key to success often isn’t what you do, but how your target reacts to what you do. Therefore, anticipate your target’s response and write it into your script.

Principle

Recapture the flag

Recapture the flag

We can’t deny that the symbols of one’s nation provide a meaningful feeling of social solidarity. To be effective as change agents, we need to engage, claim, and contest the meanings of these symbols.

Story

Reclaim the Streets

Reclaim the Streets

Reclaim the Streets began as creative activist group in London, but its tactics, blending party and protest, soon spread around the world.

Principle

Reframe the issue

Reframe the issue

The surest way to win an argument is to redefine the terms of the debate — by highlighting voices, values, and solutions that have been left out of the dominant story.

Story

Replacing Cops with Mimes

Replacing Cops with Mimes

Faced with a notoriously corrupt traffic police force, chaos on the roads, and many traffic deaths, Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus disbanded the corrupt cops and offered to retrain and rehire them… as mimes.

Tactic

Reverse graffiti

Reverse graffiti

Instead of spraying paint, clean away grime to make your “reverse graffiti” message. All you need are stencils, a water pump, and some courage.

Theory

Revolutionary nonviolence

Revolutionary nonviolence

Revolutionary nonviolence emphasizes dialogue among radicals of different stripes and seeks to build unity around a shared commitment to revolutionary social transformation via mass civil resistance.

Theory

Revolutionary reform

Revolutionary reform

Revolutionary reforms are smaller, more achievable changes that can lay the groundwork for more systemic and lasting change.

Story

Round Dance Revolution

Round Dance Revolution

In 2012, a movement combining flash mob tactics and traditional Indigenous round dances rose up to defeat a bill that would have eroded Indigenous sovereignty and environmental protections across Canada.

Story

The Salt March

The Salt March

In 1930, Gandhi famously led a march to the sea to collect salt (which Indians were banned from producing), forcing the British Raj into a classic decision dilemma and paving the way for Indian independence.

Story

Santa Claus Army

Santa Claus Army

A radical theatre collective dressed in Santa costumes took to the streets of Copenhagen to demonstrate the true meaning of Christmas. Hilarity ensued, and a legend was born.

Story

Schools of Struggle

Schools of Struggle

Students occupied over 200 schools in São Paulo to protest the governor’s plan to close schools, forcing him to reverse course, and igniting a wave of student resistance across the country.

Principle

Seek common ground

Seek common ground

To transform a political culture, we must seek out common ground with those we disagree with.

Principle

Seek safety in support networks

Seek safety in support networks

When activists are threatened, it’s important to harness national or international networks that can provide support and deter violence.

Principle

Shame the authorities by doing their job

Shame the authorities by doing their job

Fix a problem as best you can in order to pressure authorities to fix it properly.

Theory

The shock doctrine

The shock doctrine

Neoliberalism treats crises such as wars, natural disasters, and recessions as opportunities to impose privatization, deregulation, and cuts to social services. Social movements must contest these moments.

Principle

Show, don’t tell

Show, don’t tell

Use metaphor, visuals, and action to show your message rather than falling into preaching, hectoring, or otherwise telling your audience what to think.

Story

Sign Language Sit-in

Sign Language Sit-in

Deaf activists in Zimbabwe stood up (and sat-in) to demand access to information in sign language, successfully pressuring the national broadcaster to include sign language interpretation in news broadcasts.

Principle

Simple rules can have grand results

Simple rules can have grand results

Rather than trying to script everything out, often a few simple rules — say, “come to Wall St; bring a tent,” or “bang your pots and pans at noon” — are enough to spark a surprisingly effective mass action.

Methodology

SMART objectives

SMART objectives

Strong campaigns are built on a series of short- and medium-term SMART objectives that function as intermediary steps towards a more ambitious campaign goal.

Theory

The social cure

The social cure

The actions of our peers are more likely to motivate us to act than either information or an appeal to fear. The social cure shows us how to harness this power of social groups for social change.

Theory

Society of the spectacle

Society of the spectacle

Modern capitalism upholds social control through "the spectacle" — the use of mass communications to turn us into consumers and passive spectators of our own lives, history, and power.

Theory

Solidarity economics

Solidarity economics

A tradition of radical economic organizing emerging from Latin America that strives to replace dependence on exploitative economic relations through “solidarity chains” linking community-based alternatives.

Principle

Solidarity, not aid

Solidarity, not aid

Grassroots leaders around the world must support each other to set local and global guidelines for NGO intervention in order to guarantee sustainable community empowerment and leadership.

Methodology

Spectrum of allies

Spectrum of allies

Locate allies and opponents along a spectrum from active opposition to active allies in order to increase your own support, as well as to shift support out from under your opponent.

Tactic

Spoof website

Spoof website

Creating near-identical websites to those of our targets, but altering them to illustrate our target taking a certain action, such as announcing a new initiative that supports our campaign goals.

Story

Standing Man

Standing Man

Sometimes one person standing in defiance of police repression is enough to galvanize a movement of millions. That’s exactly what happened in Turkey in 2013.

Principle

Stay on message

Stay on message

When we exercise message discipline, we stay focused on our core message; create harmony between our words, visuals, and actions; and communicate exactly what we want our audience to know.

Story

Stolen Beauty

Stolen Beauty

The Stolen Beauty boycott campaign targeted the Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava, causing economic damage, a tarnished reputation, and ultimately, a promise to move the factory out of historic Palestine.

Story

Stolen Gas Campaign

Stolen Gas Campaign

Grassroots Jordanian activists mobilized popular opposition against a $15 billion deal with Israel to import natural gas, both before and after the deal was signed.

Story

Stop Prawer Plan

Stop Prawer Plan

In response to a draft Israeli bill that aimed to expel 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins from their ancestral land, Palestinians organized a massive campaign that led to the withdrawal of the proposed bill.

Methodology

Story of self, us, and now

Story of self, us, and now

Move large numbers of people to action by exchanging personal stories that help build a sense of community around shared values & experiences.

Tactic

Storytelling

Storytelling

Storytelling is far more than telling a tale; it’s a way of organizing reality — and political power. A good story can build group solidarity, develop a shared analysis of a social problem, and up participation.

Theory

Strategic nonviolence

Strategic nonviolence

A framework for broad-based direct action emphasizing openness, accountability, and agreements on "how we want to work together this time," designed to build large, inclusive, diverse, and effective movements.

Story

Street Graduation

Street Graduation

Graduates across Zimbabwe creatively turned their unemployment into a daily protest routine, instilling a clear link in public consciousness between unemployment, the financial crisis, and corruption.

Story

Streets Into Gardens

Streets Into Gardens

In 1999 New Yorkers turned the tables on the mayor’s attempt to auction off hundreds of their beloved community gardens by turning the streets themselves into gardens and staging a “festival of resistance.”

Story

Stripping Power in Uganda

Stripping Power in Uganda

Female elders in northern Uganda invoked powerful cultural taboos by removing their clothes in front of two government ministers who were attempting to grab their land, successfully chasing them away.

Tactic

Subversive travel

Subversive travel

Subversive travel seeks to defy and subvert unjust travel restrictions. It can be used to facilitate freedom of movement, challenge militarized borders, break a siege, deliver aid, or attract media attention.

Methodology

SWOT

SWOT

Cross-reference internal & external factors in order to identify potential campaign scenarios.

Story

Taco Bell Boycott

Taco Bell Boycott

In 2005, farm workers in Florida, US, led a nationwide boycott of Taco Bell. They eventually won a historic victory, raising wages and setting an inspiring example for farm worker organizing.

Theory

The tactics of everyday life

The tactics of everyday life

We often think of activist tactics as serving a larger campaign strategy. Instead, it might be more liberating and agile to think of tactics not as a subset of strategy, but as a democratic response to it.

Principle

Take risks, but take care

Take risks, but take care

Direct action is inherently risky. The point is to minimize the risk, not needlessly (or unilaterally) endanger your safety or that of the people around you by trying to prove that you are “hardcore.”

Story

Taxi drivers strike against taxation

Taxi drivers strike against taxation

To protest continued harassment and exorbitant illegal charges by tax collectors, taxi drivers and conductors throughout Kampala parked their vehicles and stopped working.

Story

The Teddy Bear Catapult

The Teddy Bear Catapult

In a tit-for-tat of escalating absurdity, anti-globalization activists found themselves lobbing teddy bears at police with a toy catapult, and police found themselves mocked for taking it seriously.

Theory

Temporary autonomous zone

Temporary autonomous zone

A T.A.Z. is a liberated area “of land, time or imagination” where one can be for something, not just against, and where new ways of being human together can be explored and experimented with.

Theory

Theatre of the Oppressed

Theatre of the Oppressed

A set of theatrical games and exercises that empower people to explore collective struggles, analyze their history and present circumstances, and then experiment with inventing a new future together.

Methodology

Theory of change

Theory of change

Lay a solid foundation for a campaign by working backwards from long-term goals to identify the conditions that must be in place in order to achieve those goals, and why.

Principle

Think narratively

Think narratively

Sometimes the best response to a powerful enemy is a powerful story.

Principle

This ain’t the Sistine chapel

This ain’t the Sistine chapel

If the pursuit of perfection is undermining the effectiveness of your action or campaign, then do only what is strategically warranted, and save your sanity and energy.

Story

#​This​Flag

#​This​Flag

One individual’s outcry for a better future inspired the citizens of Zimbabwe to find their courage and overthrow a ruthless dictator.

Principle

The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself

The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself

What’s better than waging a campaign and winning? Not waging a campaign and still winning! You can do that by making a (credible) threat your opponent gives into without a fight (or even calling your bluff).

Story

Trail of Dreams

Trail of Dreams

In 2010, four US immigrant youth leaders walked 1,500 miles to Washington, D.C. to put a human face on the immigration debate and pressure politicians to fix the broken and unjust US immigration system.

Principle

Training for the win

Training for the win

Training is not a distraction from the struggle; in fact, it’s critical for cultivating three key elements of social movement success: unity, strategic planning, and nonviolent discipline.

Tactic

Trek

Trek

A long journey (often on foot, though sometimes by bike, bus, or boat) towards a centre of power or other key point of intervention, that rallies geographically dispersed people to a common cause.

Principle

Turn the tables

Turn the tables

Sometimes the most compelling way to expose an injustice is to flip it around and theatrically re-visit it upon the perpetrator (say, by dumping sewage outside the company that's polluting your community).

Principle

Use humour to undermine authority

Use humour to undermine authority

Especially when the powerful rule through fear and intimidation, it is often humour, laughter, and absurdity that can help to undermine power and embolden dissent.

Principle

Use organizing strategies that scale

Use organizing strategies that scale

Once your movement has a clear story, structure and strategy, you can scale up quickly by finding ways for people to start organizing using the resources already available to them in their daily lives.

Principle

Use others' prejudices against them

Use others' prejudices against them

Your opponent’s prejudices against you are a weakness that you can exploit to your advantage.

Principle

Use the Jedi mind trick

Use the Jedi mind trick

The Jedi mind trick worked for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and it can work for you, too. Believe in yourself hard enough, and others will too. “Act like you belong,” and most people — even the police — will assume you do.

Principle

Use the law, don’t be afraid of it

Use the law, don’t be afraid of it

So you’ve received a threatening letter from a corporate lawyer. Congratulations!

Principle

Use the power of ritual

Use the power of ritual

Rituals like weddings, vigils, and pilgrimages are powerful experiences for participants, and familiar narratives for observers. You can use their symbolic power to give actions greater depth and resonance.

Principle

Use your cultural assets

Use your cultural assets

By drawing on the traditional practices, rituals, and symbols of the community, organizers can deepen the involvement of participants, disorient opponents, and shift the cultural terrain in their favour.

Principle

Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window

Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window

By strategically pushing the far edge of what is considered acceptable within a range of policy options, you can slide public opinion in your direction, making what was once fringe, seem like common sense.

Tactic

V-formation

V-formation

Inspired by migratory birds, this is a technique for sustaining activism for the long haul. Rotate roles to share burdens, and allow members to step back from frontline roles without guilt, and you’ll go far.

Principle

We are all leaders

We are all leaders

Let’s all be leaders. Let’s be leaderful, not leaderless.

Story

Welcome to Palestine

Welcome to Palestine

Hundreds of international solidarity activists staged a “fly-in” at Ben Gurion airport demanding to visit Palestine in protest of Israel’s racist border policies and de facto siege of historic Palestine.

Story

Who Would Accept?

Who Would Accept?

After Egypt’s 2013 coup, when the only safe way to criticize the regime was to focus on poor economic conditions, ten Egyptian women held up banners with messages like, “Who would accept… such high gas bills?”

Story

Whose Tea Party?

Whose Tea Party?

On Tax Day in 1998, fair tax campaigners cleverly pranked a GOP media event on the Boston Tea Party Ship Museum, stealing the day’s headlines, and offering a master-class in the tactic of media-jacking.

Story

Wisconsin Capitol Occupation

Wisconsin Capitol Occupation

In 2011, tens of thousands of workers and students filled Wisconsin’s state capitol with a non-stop protest to protest Governor Walker’s attempt to strip civic unions of collective bargaining rights.

Principle

Would you like some structure with your momentum?

Would you like some structure with your momentum?

Success comes from incorporating the strengths of both mass protests and structure-based organizing — so that outbreaks of widespread revolt complement long-term organizing.

Story

Yellow Pigs in Parliament

Yellow Pigs in Parliament

In 2014, to protest government corruption and high rates of youth unemployment, young activists painted two pigs yellow (the colour of the ruling party), and let them run wild in Uganda’s Parliament.

Story

Yomango

Yomango

The ethical shoplifting, culture jamming, direct-action movement Yomango turned the impulse to shoplift into a movement and an art form.

Story

“You’ll never have a home in your f***ing life!”

“You’ll never have a home in your f***ing life!”

Housing rights activists organized this participatory publicity stunt to reframe the housing crisis as a shared problem that would require record-breaking collective action to resolve.

Story

#​You​Stink

#​You​Stink

In 2015, in Lebanon, more than 100,000 protesters took to the streets in response to a garbage crisis, triggering a resistance movement that told the corrupt government “You Stink.”

Story

Zapatista Caravan

Zapatista Caravan

In 1994, university students organized educational brigades to break the information blockade and rumours about the uprising of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN).