Pillar 3: Defining a Courageous and Interconnected Community through History

Pillar 3:

Courageous and Interconnected Community Defining a Courageous and Interconnected Community through History

"“It is so strange to me that we have learned to fly in the air like birds, learned to swim in the ocean like fish, shoot a rocket to the moon, but we have not yet learned how to live together in harmony with one another.” - John Lewis

Throughout our history we see conflicts and those who work towards creating peace and understanding.

Here we will deep dive into the history of the influences that guide this pillar's mission: Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy, Kingian non-violence, and UCSC Professor John Brown Childs's work on Transcommunality.

Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy

"Through the confederacy, each of the nations of the Haudenosaunee are united by a common goal to live in harmony."

Throughout our country's government, you can see the influences of the Haudenosaunee on our democracy, from our constitution to our symbolism. Despite the fact that our constitutional framers viewed the Indigenous people of the Iroquois Confederacy as inferior, that did not stop them from admiring their Federalist principles and drawing inspiration from them as a model for contemporary democracies. Due to public awareness of this connection increasing for the 200th anniversary of the Constitution in 1987, the 1988 resolution Links to an external site. was passed to formally acknowledge the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the U.S. Constitution while also reaffirming and acknowledging the legitimacy and sovereignty of Native nations and their governments.

Take a closer look at the founding of the Haudenosaunee confederacy below in the story of its creation:

Additional Resources:

Kingian Non-Violence

"Nonviolence is a love-centered way of thinking, speaking, acting, and engaging that leads to personal, cultural and societal transformation."

A breakdown of each of the Six Steps of Kingian Non-Violence:

Learn more at The King Center: THE KING PHILOSOPHY - NONVIOLENCE365® Links to an external site.

Get involved at The Resource Center for Nonviolence - Santa Cruz Links to an external site.

Additional Resources:

Transcommunality

"Transcommunal cooperation emphasizes coordinated heterogeneity across “identity lines”—not only of “ethnicity,” “race,” “class,” and “gender,” but also of organizationally, philosophically, and cosmologically diverse settings."

John Brown Childs is a distinguished professor emeritus of sociology and serves on the advisory committee for John R. Lewis College at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As a scholar-activist and Black Native American sociologist, Childs has played a pivotal role in producing and developing “trans-communality” theory and practice. Childs defines transcommunality as “a way of thinking and acting that respects differences among individuals, communities and cultures, while also seeking to coordinate those individuals, communities and cultures so that we work together.”

"In this original and collaborative creation, John Brown-Childs offers unique insights into some of the central problems facing communities, social movements, and people who desire social change: how does one build a movement that can account for race, class, and gender, and yet still operate across all of these lines? How can communities sustain themselves in truly social ways? And perhaps most important, how can we take the importance of community into account without forgoing the important distinctions that we all ascribe to ourselves as individuals?

Borrowing from the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois federation, Brown-Childs offers a way of thinking about communities as coalitions, ones that account for differences in the very act of coming together. Using the Iroquois as an example of transcommunality in action, he also offers specific outcomes that many people desire racial justice and peace are two examples as points of focus around which many disparate groups may organize, without ever subsuming questions of identity as an expense of organizing.

In addition to Brown-Childs' own exegesis, twelve scholars and thinkers from all walks of life offer their own responses to his thinking, enriching the book as an illustration and example of transcommunality.

In an age of fractured identities and a world that is moving toward a global community, Transcommunality offers a persuasive way of imagining the world where community and individual identity may not only coexist, but also depend upon the other to the benefit of both."

Additional Resources:

Lookout Santa Cruz - John Brown Childs on why transcommunality resonates with Soledad prison students Links to an external site. [Article]

Moving Forward

Ahead, you will get a look at John R. Lewis and his history involved in creating a Courageous and Interconnected Community.