People's Plaza

Sixty-Two Days of Nonviolent Resistance
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8265-0497-5
Verlag: Vanderbilt University Press

Buch, Englisch, 156 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 254 g

From June 12, 2020, until the passage of the state law making the occupation a felony two months later, peaceful protesters set up camp at Nashville's Legislative Plaza and renamed it for Ida B. Wells.

Central to the occupation was Justin Jones, a student of Fisk University and Vanderbilt Divinity School whose place at the forefront of the protests brought him and the occupation to the attention of the Metro Nashville Police Department, state and US senators, and Governor Bill Lee. The result was two months of solidarity in the face of rampant abuse, community in the face of state-sponsored terror, and standoff after standoff at the gates of the people's house with those who claimed to represent them. In this, his first book, Jones describes those two revolutionary months of nonviolent resistance against the state's soldiers who sought to dehumanize its citizens.

The People's Plaza is a rumination on the abuse of power, and a vision of a more just, equitable, anti-racist Nashville—a vision that kept Jones and those with him posted on the plaza through intense heat, unprovoked arrests, vandalism, theft, and violent suppression. It is a first-person account of hope, a statement of intent, and a blueprint for nonviolent resistance in the American South and elsewhere.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jones, Justin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Interessengruppen, Lobbyismus und Protestbewegungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Foreword by Reverend William Barber
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. We’ve Been Here Before
- 2. Lay Your Burdens Down
- 3. “Do not underestimate your opponent.”
- 4. Shift Change
- 5. Power Washing
- 6. “Wait in the Plaza, children”
- 7. Capitol Hill
- 8. Back the Badge?
- 9. “It was like we were being hunted.”
- 10. Night Terror
- 11. Aggravated Littering
- 12. State of Tennessee vs. Justin Jones
- Conclusion
- Timeline

Über Autor(innen)

Justin Jones is a prominent activist, speaker, commentator, and community organizer in Nashville, Tennessee. Born in Oakland, California, he grew up in the East Bay, where he attended public school and learned the importance of speaking up for equality for all. Jones came to Fisk University in 2013, where he received the John R. Lewis Scholarship for Social Activism. He has chaired the Nashville Student Organizing Committee and is a recipient of awards from the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, ACLU of Tennessee, Tennessee Alliance for Progress, Fisk University Alumni Association, the Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate Students, and the Nashville NAACP.