WEBVTT - The Soul Force 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:06.640 Not long after Martin Luther King Jr. Was killed in 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.080 nineteen sixty eight, a cartoon ran in the Chicago Sun Times. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.600 It showed King standing next to a seated Mahandas Gandhi, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:18.080 another iconic leader, slain by an assassin's bullet. The cartoon, 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.560 Gandhi tells King the following, The odd thing about assassin's 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.360 doctor King is that they think they've killed you. The 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.280 American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that society punishes 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.120 those who try to improve it. King and Gandhi were 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.040 willing to take that punishment. In fact, they welcomed it 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.600 as the price of change, even when it meant losing 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.559 their own lives. And indeed, as the cartoon suggested, the 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.400 principles of love and nonviolence that they preached did not 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.360 die with them. What Gandhi called the Sole Force continues 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.520 to live on in the hearts of millions, challenging injustice 0:00:51.640 --> 0:01:07.200 all over the globe. All in we go to find 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:15.240 we have to we got to all up the good, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:22.640 save that we've got to all it up to wed. 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.880 I'm Sean Braswell, and this is the thread. This season, 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.840 we've traced the origins of a powerful idea, one that 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.960 has cross continence and transcended religion, class, and other barriers 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.440 to change the lives of millions of people during the 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:41.360 past two hundred years. That idea is non violent resistance, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.600 the counterintuitive notion that the best way to reform your 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.720 enemies is to love them. The best way to counter 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.320 their blows is to absorb them. Here's a quick recap 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.560 of where our journey through the history of non violence 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.000 has taken us this season. We began with the Reverend 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.920 Martin Luther King, Jr. The American most famous for you 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.920 a nonviolent protest. Well several weeks now were the Migro 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:10.120 citizens of Montgomery have been involved in a non violent 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:16.040 protest against the injustices, which we have experienced on the 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.440 busses a number of years. King, however, was standing on 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.239 the shoulders of giants, starting with his own mentor Buyer Rusting, 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.200 a tireless activist who organized the March on Washington and 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.679 transformed the civil rights movement into a powerful force from 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.880 behind the scenes. The man who believes in non violence 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.360 is prepared to be hard to be crushed, but he 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.240 will never crush others. Buyer Rustin's own arsenal of non 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.920 violent tactics, in turn, were borrowed from a remarkable Indian 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:52.280 I regard my tiv as a soldier Bill as a 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.200 young lawyer. Mahandas Gandhi learned about the potential of non 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:59.920 violence from another larger than life figure. After he accepted 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.480 passive resistance, he wanted to learn a little bit more 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.799 about it from Tolstoy, and so he started a correspondence 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.400 with him, which we went on for several years. Meccan 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.920 for Leo Tolstoy. In his youth, the Russian wrote two 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.920 of the most famous novels ever written. Then he underwent 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.040 an awaken one that led him to a means for 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.760 translating spiritual love into a force for political resistance. He 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:31.680 didn't want to really have to deal at all with 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.800 coercion at any level. And this is really the sort 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:40.640 of heart of the idea of non violence and what 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:45.280 so inspired him about William Lloyd Garrison too, the American 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.440 abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, the man who influenced Tolstoy, was 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.320 really the first thinker to realize the potential of mass 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.600 nonviolent resistance. But the launch of Garrison's big idea and 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:01.160 his influential anti slavery newspaper depended up on another made. 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.040 In this final episode of the Thread, we'll learn about 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.720 that man and the single act of love for an 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.840 enemy that kick starts our entire thread. We'll also tie 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.320 together some of the themes that unite our history of 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.320 non violence and find out about some of the surprising 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.680 traits shared by the historical figures we've covered this season. Finally, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:23.839 we'll look at the history of non violence in the 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.720 fifty years since Dr King's death and how this revolutionary 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:35.120 idea continues to change the world. In the last episode, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.080 we learned about how William Lloyd Garrison founded a newspaper 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:43.640 called The Liberator. In one historian Bruce Laurie, Garrison's Liberator 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.640 is the most important anti slavery newspaper in the United States, 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.080 some would argue, in the world. In the pages of 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.280 The Liberator, the white abolitionist argued not only for the 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.120 end of slavery in the United States, but also for 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.640 improving the treatment of all African Americans. To get his 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.760 messag joubt, Garrison depended heavily upon local black communities. At 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.560 least three quarters of readership is black, very unusual for 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:09.720 the time because he was one of the few whites 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:14.839 who openly espoused the quality. Garrison also cultivated relationships with 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:19.200 prominent black intellectuals, business leaders, and activists in northern cities, 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.800 and what would become the most important anti slavery publication 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.440 in American history would never have made it off the 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.040 presses if not for one prominent black businessman, in particular, 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:38.160 a salemaker from Philadelphia named James Forton. The twenty five 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.479 year old Garrison reached out to Forton for help in 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.640 December eighteen thirty. The mock up of the very first 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.520 issue of The Liberator was ready to print, but Garrison 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.320 had a big problem. He could not afford the paper 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.000 required for its first print run, and so had to 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.960 pay for it on credit. The day the bill came due, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.560 Garrison still did not have the money, but that very 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.039 same day Garrison and received a letter from the wealthy businessman. 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:07.560 This is Forton biographer Julie Wench. He sends Garrison a 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.760 draft for fifty four dollars, which is a substantial amount 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.840 of money for Garrison. It was a life raft at 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.000 a critical moment in his new venture. He often credited 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.400 Forton with making the Liberator possible. But fort in support 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.479 of Garrison, did not stop with that first issue. And 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.720 he is just always there for Garrison, and that is 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:34.839 so important. Garrison doesn't have that many friends, black or white. 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:40.120 He is from a fairly poor background himself, so he 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:45.320 does not have inherited money and inherited connections to rely on. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.640 And that is what Forton really comes out for for 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:55.640 him and assists him with. And not just once, but repeatedly. 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.960 Garrison and Forton became close friends, and fort never refused 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.760 his friends please for help. So this is somebody who 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:10.680 gives everything he has, uh just being generous in terms 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:15.840 of money, but giving energy and moral support and friendship 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:21.120 two people black or white, whose support what he thinks 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.960 will make America a better place. Forton had been a 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.280 leading figure in Philadelphia's black community and had been fighting 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.720 to end slavery before Garrison was even born. He had 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.120 overcome incredible odds as a black man to make his 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.280 way in the business world in a mass of fortune. 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.440 But despite the obstacles he had encountered in his life 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.000 and his hatred of slavery, Forton was a devoted patriot 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.320 who believed in the ideals of the young nation he 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.960 had grown up in. When the American Colonies went to 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.280 war with the British, Forton enlisted to fight. He was 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.640 just fourteen years old, and it was during the Revolutionary 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.440 War that the man who made William Lloyd Garrison's career 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:02.080 possible nearly became a slave himsel elf. Indeed, Forton's fate 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.320 and that of our entire thread, turn on a single 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:15.240 game of marbles. When the Revolutionary War began, the young 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.480 James Forton joined the war effort as a sailor in 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.920 the ship he was aboard was pursued and attacked by 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.840 a British vessel just off the coast of Virginia Julie Winch. Again, 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:30.000 the British vessel is bigger, more heavily manned, and the 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:34.160 American vessel is forced to surrender, at which point Foughton 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.480 and all the other people on board become prisoners of 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.839 the British. Fort knew fullwell what happened to most black 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.640 men who were taken as prisoners of war by the British. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.160 They were shipped off to the West Indies and doomed 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.400 to a life of slavery. Luckily, for the teenage Forton, 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.560 Captain John Baisley, the man in charge of the British 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.040 ship that had taken him prisoner, had his own problem, 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.920 his twelve year old son, Henry. And apparently the twelve 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.480 year old is board and his father is trying to 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.560 find somebody just to keep an eye on him. He 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.320 cannot have any of his own sailors do this. He 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.560 can't take men out of a gun crew and have 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.040 them babysaid as kid. So he's going to use one 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.640 of the prisoners to do it. And he's obviously looking 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:28.040 for somebody close to his son's age, and he lights 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.559 upon Forton, and so Captain Baisley enlists Forton to keep 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:33.760 his son company and keep him out of trouble on 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:39.360 the warship. The two youngsters hit it off and fought 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:45.679 in apparently, cements his friendship with the young British boy 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.840 through a game of marbles on the gun deck. That 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.160 game of marble's captures the boy's imagination, and the captain 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:55.720 is impressed by the good influence that Forton is having 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.079 on his son. The friendship between Forton and young Henry 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.880 aboard the ship deepens in the coming weeks, and when 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.359 it comes time for the British prisoners to be offloaded, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.640 and the black ones among them to be shipped off 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.000 to the West Indies. Captain Baisley intervenes to ensure that 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.200 Forton is not among them. He never forgot Captain Baisley's kindness. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:19.040 The story that James Funton tells friends and relatives is 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:24.680 that he really believed that had the baseless not taken 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:29.599 a liking to him and this friendship that's really cemented 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.720 by this play of a game of marbles, uh that 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.760 he could have been sold into slavery in the West End. 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.400 Is So, this is something he really sees as one 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:44.480 of those events in his life that's absolutely pivotal, and 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.280 it's pivotal to our threat as well. Think about it. 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.440 In a game of marbles between two boys takes place 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.160 aboard the deck of a British warship in the Atlantic Ocean, 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.400 a friendship ensues. As a result, a young black man, 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.320 James Forton, is given in his freedom through a single 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.880 act of love and understanding from a sworn enemy, sparking 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.720 a series of events that will culminate two centuries later 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.720 with another young black man, Martin Luther King Jr. Becoming 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.840 the embodiment of the idea that loving one's enemy is 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.400 the best way to achieve one's freedom. In that way, 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.480 our story comes full circle from the American colonies of 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.120 the eighteenth century to the civil rights movement of the 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.920 twenty Indeed, the non violent idea that James Forton helped 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.960 unleash did more than just change the way that ordinary 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.880 citizens protest injustice. It helped to redeem the promise of 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:39.400 an entire nation. Up next, we find out about some 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.560 of the surprising traits shared by the historical figures we've 0:11:42.559 --> 0:12:03.800 covered this season. From its beginning, the history of America 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.400 has been one that is steeped in blood and violence, 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.760 and in the end, the question of slavery in the 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.360 US could only be resolved to the massive loss of 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.280 human life. Martin Luther King, by Ed Rustin, and the 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.840 leaders of the U s Civil rights movement chose to 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.360 pursue widespread social change in a different way, one that 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.160 required the difficult decision to jettison violence and choose love 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.280 over hate. This is King in nineteen sixty six talking 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.199 about the message that non violence sends to one's opponents. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.720 We will match your capacity to inflict suffering our capacity 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.720 to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.400 soul force. Do to us what you will, and we 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.880 will still love you. King had a name for the 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.240 redemptive potential of non violence, the power of love to 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.480 redeem not only the oppressed, but the oppressor as well. 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.680 He called it quote a double victory. And one day 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:03.960 we will win our freedom, but we will not only 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.120 win freedom for ourselves. We will show appeal to your 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.360 heart and your conscience that we will win you in 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.679 the process, and our victory will be a double victory. 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:18.320 And that is what made the nonviolent protests of the 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.240 civil rights movement such a remarkable force for change in 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:26.120 American history. King Ruston and others succeeded where previous activists 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.319 had failed, and what they accomplished through non violence, imperfect 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.199 and incomplete as it was, was in many ways more 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.120 impressive than any American war victory because it was a 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:41.720 double victory. Indeed, those who fought and struggled peacefully to 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.640 win both their rights and the hearts of their oppressors 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.760 deserve a special place in history. King and the famous 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.560 letter he wrote while imprisoned in the Birmingham jail claimed, quote, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.800 one day the South will recognize its real heroes. He 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.720 did not mean its Confederate war heroes. King meant the 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.240 grand mothers who walked miles to work rather than to 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.520 ride on a segregated bus, The students who refused to 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.480 give up their seats at a lunch counter, the demonstrators 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.800 who faced down the hoses and the police dogs. What 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.880 King and Rustin and before them William Lloyd Garrison accomplished 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.720 through non violence was not just the redemption of their 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.440 immediate opponents, but the redemption of the very idea of 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.520 a nation dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.800 So where does such a capacity for helping others, including 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.880 one sworn enemies come from? How did Gandhi, King, Rustin 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.560 and other leaders managed to adhere to their message of 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:44.400 love even when confronted with overwhelming violence and hatred. Well, 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.800 it starts with a trait that we don't usually praise, 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:52.680 one we even stigmatize, maladjustment. King often talked about this. 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.120 Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.360 than any other word in psychology is a word maladjusted. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:03.520 This is King at U c l a in n. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.760 Certainly we all want to live the well adjusted life. 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.360 In order to avoid new rotican schizophrenic personality. And I 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.240 must honestly say to you this afternoon, my friends, they're 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.320 some things within our world, in our nations, of which 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.040 I'm proud to be maladjusted, but I never intend to 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.160 become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. King would go on 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.560 to add the quote human salvation lies in the hands 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.880 of the creatively maladjusted. He was right, and even more 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:45.880 than he ever knew, Martin Luther King Jr. Believed that 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.960 being maladjusted to the world and to the status quo 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.640 was essential to the fight against injustice. But it was 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.840 also a big part of what made King the leader 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.520 he was. This is the Seer Gami. He's a psychiatrist 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.040 at Tufts University and Harvard Medical School who studies depression 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.760 and bipolar illness, and who has written about leaders who 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.840 have suffered from manic depressive illnesses. So I think King's 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:13.000 idea was that we need to be maladjusted enough with 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.720 the world to want to change it for the better. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.480 My view is that this is not a purely intellectual 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.520 concept or even a purely spiritual one, although it certainly 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.600 has aspects of both. I think it's also emotional and 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.520 psychological in that King himself, being depressed as well as 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.640 having manic symptoms as part of his personality, was maladjusted 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.520 to the world as it was as a human being. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.160 That's right, Martin Luther King Jr. Almost certainly suffered from 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:46.360 manic depression. He was clinically maladjusted. King experienced depression during 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.680 his adolescence, which manifested itself in two suicide attempts, but 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.640 it went beyond that. He had periods of depression throughout 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:55.840 his life where he would, for a few days to 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.880 a few weeks, often need to go into a medical hospital. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:03.800 He was hospitalized for exhaustion was the diagnosis that was 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.480 frequently given, but he never had any physical medical cause 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.040 for his hospitalizations. King was often in despair. Near the 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.600 end of his life. He lamented that his dream had 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:15.760 turned into a nightmare and he was likely in the 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.440 grips of a deepening depression when he was murdered fifty 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.879 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee. King was not alone in 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.879 his battles with depression. Mahandas Gandhi also suffered several bouts 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:29.480 of severe depression in his life, starting in adolescence when 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.200 he was around twelve years old. He decided to kill 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.439 himself and went with a friend to a temple with 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.200 poison and was on the verge of taking it until 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.360 he backed out at the last second, and as with King, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:42.800 it did not end there. And then later in his 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.439 life he would have periods of time where for a 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.760 week or a couple of weeks, he would just take 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.879 to his bed. He would feel very sick physically, and 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.359 doctors would tell him that there was nothing medically wrong 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.080 with him, but he would describe how he would go 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.679 to bed at night and be convinced that he was 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.800 going to die. Another champion of non violence who could 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.920 identify with such experiences was Leo Tolstoy. This is Tolstoy 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:13.439 biographer J. Parini Tolstoy was bordering on bipolar. He he 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.399 seemed to have, you know, periods of extreme exhilaration with 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.560 periods of very dark depression, and he often talked to 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:24.120 his friends about wanting to commit suicide. Tolstoy's own psychological condition, however, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.800 is also arguably what made him such a good novelist, 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.160 and like Gandhi and King, it gave him a profound 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.440 sense of empathy. Why is empathy so important? Because it 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.520 is the secret ingredient of non violence. Gandhi once said 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.399 three four of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.560 will disappear if we step into the shoes of our 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:50.280 adversaries and understand their standpoint. Stepping into the shoes of 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.199 your adversary is not an easy thing to do, but 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.320 it wasn't as hard for individuals like King Gandhi and Tolstoy. 0:18:57.600 --> 0:18:59.919 And we are starting to understand why that's the King. 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.679 So there's research that shows that people who have depression 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.800 are more empathic than people who don't have depression. The 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.400 year got me again. We know that. What we don't 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.359 really know the how and why we know that people 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.480 are depressed or more empathic. Um. Now, if I were 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.600 to speculate about it, I've talked to patients of mind 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.720 who have had depression, and they describe that when they're 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.639 depressed and in amount a great deal of psychological pain, 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.560 and they can understand the pain of others more they 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.840 feel the pain of others. One patient of mine once 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.959 said that when she was really depressed, she could barely 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.040 walk outside because she could feel every blade of grass 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.439 crumble under her feet. And um. Most of us who 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.040 are not depressed most of the time, just ignore those things. 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.919 In other words, dealing with depression is painful, but in 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.920 some ways, depressed people see reality more clearly than others do, 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.880 and that experience deepens their natural empathy for those around them. 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:05.359 I think of non violence as radical empathy. And Um, 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.840 you can turn the other cheek and not strike back 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.439 because you care about the other person who's hitting you. Uh, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.400 that's a very hard thing for a human being to achieve. Gandhi, 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.360 King and Tolstoy not only shared a philosophy of non violence, 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.560 but also a very similar psychological profile. My thinking is 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.480 that that these aren't coincidences, that the reason they took 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:32.520 this political philosophy of nonviolent change has to do in 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.240 part with the fact that they had experienced depression repeatedly 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.480 in their lives. Enhanced empathy, though, is only part of 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.639 the equation. J Parini again, people who live on the 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:48.240 edges like Gandhi, Um, Martin Luther King. These are people 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.160 who are visionaries and who can see both the very 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.880 bright sun and the very dark sky. And I think 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.080 that they they swing between yes and no all the time. 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.520 And I think Tolstoy was always hovering between the yes 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.280 and the no. And if the no side of things 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.560 led such visionaries into a greater sense of empathy, the 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.240 yes side, the manic side drove them to excel in 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.080 an entirely different way. Many people don't understand what mania means, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.119 or the term to them is um pejorative. All it 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.720 really means is that you talk fast, you move fast, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.479 you think fast, you have a lot of energy. Usually 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.040 such persons are very productive. Take Martin Luther King. Usually 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.280 Dr King was very high energy, both physically and sexually. 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:33.960 He only needed about four hours of sleep at night 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:36.840 or buyer d resting, So generally he was a high 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.600 energy person with a high sexual drive, who spent a 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.680 lot of money, who was very flamboyant and very talkative, 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.159 and very creative. In fact, steadies show that having manic 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.800 symptoms as part of your personality can help make you 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.560 both more creative and more resilient. You are less likely 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.160 to experience major traumas or stress even in the face 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:00.160 of incredible adversity, and that is precisely what you need 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.240 in a nonviolent leader. One thing you can say about 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:05.280 all of them is that they had a lot of courage, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.880 and you can especially say that about Dr King perhaps 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.520 the most, but also Gandhi certainly and Rusten. They had 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.440 a lot of personal courage. They were not scared by 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:20.080 people easily um or if they were scared, they didn't 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.200 let that fear stop them from being true to their principles. 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:26.640 And they were able not only to channel their own 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:30.920 energy and aggressive impulses into the courage needed to resist violence, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.240 they were able to show their followers how to do 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.280 the same. But their examples teach us about much more 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:40.280 than just how to battle injustice. So Gandhi and King 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.960 and Rusten are important because they were trying to to 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.520 change our mindset on race and and sexuality. But at 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.960 the same time, if we understand them well, we have 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.760 to change our mindset around psychiatric illness. And I think 0:22:55.800 --> 0:23:01.200 that's an important, important aspect of really knowing who they were. 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.399 The legacy of non violence continues to be felt today. 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:08.880 Up next, we look at some of the most powerful 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.840 examples of non violent protests in the fifty years since 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.640 Dr King's death, and here about new scientific research confirming 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.919 just how effective non violence is as a means for 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:42.320 accomplishing social change. The twentieth century was an extremely violent one, 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.199 almost two million people died in war by the end 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.320 of it. But the century also witnessed the emergence of 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.400 non violent protests on a whole new scale, and well 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:54.359 beyond those we have covered in our particular Threat of History. 0:23:54.400 --> 0:23:58.080 This season, in the wake of Gandhi's Indian Independence movement 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:01.600 and the Civil Rights Movement, peaceful demonstrations seemed to break 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:05.440 out everywhere. This is Bayard Rustin talking about the impact 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:09.320 of the Civil Rights movement. I think the movement contributed 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:16.560 this nation a sense of universal freedom. The fact that 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.960 the people who were against the war in Vietnam saw 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:24.160 us go into the street and win made it possible 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:26.080 for them to have the courage to go into the 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:31.320 street and win. Thousands of demonstrators opposed to the Vietnam 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:34.760 war assembled in the nation's capital for a mass protest, 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:37.760 convinced they could take to the streets and win. Millions 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:40.280 of American women started a new movement during the nineteen 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:49.639 seventies to demand change. Across the world, non violent scored 0:24:49.680 --> 0:24:53.760 major victories. During the late nineteen eighties, non violent protesters 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:56.520 in the former Soviet Union gathered in the streets to 0:24:56.560 --> 0:25:00.560 sing band patriotic songs and defiance of their occupiers. It 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.600 became known as the Singing Revolution and it worked across 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:07.200 Eastern Europe. Millions of people from the Baltic States to 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:11.600 Hungary and Czechoslovakia also refused to cooperate in their own oppression. 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:15.560 This is Mark Kurlansky, author of non Violence, The History 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:18.600 of a Dangerous Idea. The whole downfall of the Soviet 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:22.600 Union was done without violence. You know, the Soviet Union 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:30.080 was a powerful and violent force that was completely destabilized 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:34.360 and overthrown without the use of violence. By non cooperation. 0:25:34.760 --> 0:25:38.000 In some places, non violent protests has become the new norm. 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:42.800 Most of the political movements in the US since the 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:47.400 Civil Rights Movement have been essentially non violent movements. There 0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:51.600