Blog written by Claire Hamlett, a freelance journalist and contributor

What is non-violent direct action (NVDA)?

Direct action is a type of activism that aims to achieve a specific goal. Strikes, blockades, sit-ins, and sabotage are all types of direct action. It can be violent or non-violent and tends to fall outside of state-approved forms of protest like organised marches. Activists who employ NVDA tactics may live by principles of nonviolence, working to transform political, social, and economic systems from violent and oppressive to peaceful and just.

What is the purpose of non-violent direct action (NVDA)?

NVDA broadly aims to call public and political attention to a systemic problem or to a possible solution, and to affect change in that area. It might target specific institutions like a company, a particular activity or development like new infrastructure, or policies set by governments and other authorities. It can also call attention to a lack of action on some issues, such as government inaction on climate change.

Historical successes through non-violent direct action 

Activists have won significant victories through using NVDA tactics across different issues, fighting for equality and for the abolition of unjust practices. 

Civil rights movement

In his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’, the leader of the U.S. civil rights movement Martin Luther King Jr. explains why non-violent direct action such as sit-ins and holding marches without a permit was necessary for the movement. “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue,” he wrote. “It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” Direct action was one of the “four basic steps” he saw as part of any non-violent campaign, with the others being “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification,” meaning ensuring one could accept violence without retaliation and being accountable for one’s actions.

Black people all over the U.S. participated in NVDAs in the 1950s and 1960s in order to achieve equality and an end to racist segregation laws. For example, over 70,000 people held sit-ins at ‘white’ businesses like restaurants between 1960 and 1961, including the ‘Greensboro Four’, four college students whose sit-ins at the Greensboro Woolworths resulted in the department store ending its policy of segregation in the southern states. 

Suffragettes

The suffragettes employed both violent and non-violent direct action to win the vote for women and bring about gender equality in other areas of civic life. Among the non-violent tactics they used were tax evasion and census boycotts to make the point that women shouldn’t have to pay taxes or be counted on the census if they were not considered citizens with a political voice. The Women’s Freedom League mobilised women to boycott the 1911 census, either by not filling it in or by leaving messages of political protest on the forms.

But there are other tactics that the suffragettes used which are generally considered violent, though may not be if you don’t believe violence can be done to inanimate objects. These include smashing the windows of thousands of shops and offices, cutting telephone wires, carving slogans into golf courses, and slashing paintings in art galleries. Similar tactics have been employed by climate activists in recent years, but while people may find them outrageous it can be hard to see them as violent.

Shutdown T&S Rabbits

The campaign to shut down several rabbit farms around England which operated as part of an unregistered company ‘T&S Rabbits’ secured a final victory when the last of the farms closed in August 2022 and the remaining 202 rabbits liberated. The activists deployed a number of tactics, including NVDAs such as a blockade of the quarry run by the owner of the rabbit farms, which disrupted business there for a whole day. Some activists also broke rabbits out of the various farms on several occasions. 

These tactics boosted public and media attention on the farms and resulted in hundreds of people objecting to planning applications for new farms by T&S Rabbits, leading to them being rejected.

Animal Justice Project non-violent direct action

We’ve used NVDA many times to successfully draw attention to the problems with animal farming. At the National Beef Association’s ‘Beef Expo’ in May 2022, activists scaled the roof of Darlington Farmers Auction Mart, a brand-new state-of-the-art building where the ‘Beef Expo’ was its first major event since opening. They unfurled a massive banner and held up smoke flares, managing to remain on the roof for several hours. There was significant media coverage of the action, including in the farming press, bringing our message that there is no future in animal agriculture to a huge audience.

In December last year, our activists were at it again, climbing up headquarters of the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in London, wearing hazmat suits to unfurl a giant banner highlighting the public health risks of animal agriculture due to the current bird flu crisis. The banner also featured a picture of a chicken suffering inside a chicken shed on an average British farm to call attention to the animal suffering involved. Again we received lots of press coverage on the alarming spread of bird flu and our clear message about the dangers of animal farming.

Pros and cons of non-violent direct action 

Although NVDA is a peaceful form of protest, it does carry the risk of arrest. Particularly now, as the current UK government is pushing through ever more draconian laws against our democratic freedoms, even ordinary forms of protest like marches are being criminalised. Arrest is not guaranteed, nor does it always result in charges, but anyone taking part in NVDA needs to know the risks and be ready to be accountable for their actions.

But NVDA wouldn’t be such a popular tactic among activists fighting all sorts of injustices if it didn’t work. In the best case scenario it can bring about actual tangible change, such as the closure of T&S Rabbits, but it can also go a long way to getting an issue into the consciousness of the public and the media. Being creative and visually impactful in your NVDA is a great way to achieve this, since the press will be drawn to spectacles that will look great in photographs. An NVDA doesn’t necessarily require lots of people to achieve this either–only two activists climbed the DEFRA building and dropped our banner. But whatever the scale of the action, no activist needs to do it alone either.

As always,

For the animals.