George Lakey

George Russell Lakey (born November 2, 1937) is an activist,sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.

George Lakey was the son of a slate miner. He was born to Dora M. and Russell George Lakey in Bangor, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cheyney University in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He also studied at the University of Oslo, Norway where he married Berit Mathiesen in 1960. and taught at an Oslo high school. He continued his sociology studies at the University of Pennsylvania

In the late 1950s Lakey was active in the ban-the-bomb movement, then added participation in the civil rights movement where in 1963 he was arrested in a sit-in. The following year he was a trainer for Mississippi Freedom Summer and co-authored his first book, A Manual for Direct Action which was widely used in the South by the civil rights movement. In 1966 he co-founded the national A Quaker Action Group (AQAG) which took him in 1967 to Vietnam to participate in the sailing ship Phoenix's protest action in South Vietnam seeking to give medical supplies to the anti-war Buddhist movement there.

In 1970 Lakey was active within AQAG in the successful direct action in the Puerto Rican struggle to stop the U.S. Navy from using the island of Culebra for target practice. In 1971 he helped found Movement for a New Society (MNS), a network of autonomous groups working for a nonviolent revolution. The network featured living collectives and co-ops as well as participation in national movements of the 1970s and '80s. The network's training program at the Philadelphia Life Center Association became highly influential in the US and abroad in spreading Paulo Freire's Popular education and other participatory training methods.

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