"With Donald Trump set to take office after a fear-mongering campaign that reignited concerns about his desire to become a dictator, a reasonable question comes up: Can nonviolent struggle defeat a tyrant?

There are many great resources that answer this question, but the one that’s been on my mind lately is the Global Nonviolent Action Database, or GNAD, built by the Peace Studies department at Swarthmore College. Freely accessible to the public, this database — which launched under my direction in 2011 — contains over 1,400 cases of nonviolent struggle from over a hundred countries, with more cases continually being added by student researchers.  

At quick glance, the database details at least 40 cases of dictators who were overthrown by the use of nonviolent struggle, dating back to 1920. These cases — which include some of the largest nations in the world, spanning Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America — contradict the widespread assumption that a dictator can only be overcome by violence. What’s more, in each of these cases, the dictator had the desire to stay, and possessed violent means for defense. Ultimately, though, they just couldn’t overcome the power of mass nonviolent struggle.  

In a number of countries, the dictator had been embedded for years at the time they were pushed out. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, for example, had ruled for over 29 years. In the 1990s, citizens usually whispered his name for fear of reprisal. Mubarak legalized a “state of emergency,” which meant censorship, expanded police powers and limits on the news media. Later, he “loosened” his rule, putting only 10 times as many police as the number of protesters at each demonstration.  

The GNAD case study describes how Egyptians grew their democracy movement despite repression, and finally won in 2011. However, gaining a measure of freedom doesn’t guarantee keeping it. As Egypt has shown in the years since, continued vigilance is needed, as is pro-active campaigning to deepen the degree of freedom won.  

Some countries repeated the feat of nonviolently deposing a ruler: In Chile, the people nonviolently threw out a dictator in 1931 and then deposed a new dictator in 1988. South Koreans also did it twice, once in 1960 and again in 1987. (They also just stopped their current president from seizing dictatorial powers, but that’s not yet in the database.)  

In each case people had to act without knowing what the reprisals would be...

It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”  

Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign...

-via Waging Nonviolence, January 8, 2025. Article continues below.

East Germany’s peaceful revolution

When East Germans began their revolt against the German Democratic Republic in 1988, they knew that their dictatorship of 43 years was backed by the Soviet Union, which might stage a deadly invasion. They nevertheless acted for freedom, which they gained and kept.

Researcher Hanna King tells us that East Germans began their successful campaign in January 1988 by taking a traditional annual memorial march and turning it into a full-scale demonstration for human rights and democracy. They followed up by taking advantage of a weekly prayer for peace at a church in Leipzig to organize rallies and protests. Lutheran pastors helped protect the organizers from retaliation and groups in other cities began to stage their own “Monday night demonstrations.”  

The few hundred initial protesters quickly became 70,000, then 120,000, then 320,000, all participating in the weekly demonstrations. Organizers published a pamphlet outlining their vision for a unified German democracy and turned it into a petition. Prisoners of conscience began hunger strikes in solidarity.

By November 1988, a million people gathered in East Berlin, chanting, singing and waving banners calling for the dictatorship’s end. The government, hoping to ease the pressure, announced the opening of the border to West Germany. Citizens took sledgehammers to the hated Berlin Wall and broke it down. Political officials resigned to protest the continued rigidity of the ruling party and the party itself disintegrated. By March 1990 — a bit over two years after the campaign was launched — the first multi-party, democratic elections were held.

Students lead the way in Pakistan

In Pakistan, it was university students (rather than religious clerics) who launched the 1968-69 uprising that forced Ayub Khan out of office after his decade as a dictator. Case researcher Aileen Eisenberg tells us that the campaign later required multiple sectors of society to join together to achieve critical mass, especially workers. 

It was the students, though, who took the initiative — and the initial risks. In 1968, they declared that the government’s declaration of a “decade of development” was a fraud, protesting nonviolently in major cities. They sang and marched to their own song called “The Decade of Sadness.” 

Police opened fire on one of the demonstrations, killing several students. In reaction the movement expanded, in numbers and demands. Boycotts grew, with masses of people refusing to pay the bus and railway fares on the government-run transportation system. Industrial workers joined the movement and practiced encirclement of factories and mills. An escalation of government repression followed, including more killings. 

As the campaign expanded from urban to rural parts of Pakistan, the movement’s songs and political theater thrived. Khan responded with more violence, which intensified the determination among a critical mass of Pakistanis that it was time for him to go.

After months of growing direct action met by repressive violence, the army decided its own reputation was being degraded by their orders from the president, and they demanded his resignation. He complied and an election was scheduled for 1970 — the first since Pakistan’s independence in 1947.

Why use nonviolent struggle?

The campaigns in East Germany and Pakistan are typical of all 40 cases in their lack of a pacifist ideology, although some individuals active in the movements had that foundation. What the cases do seem to have in common is that the organizers saw the strategic value of nonviolent action, since they were up against an opponent likely to use violent repression. Their commitment to nonviolence would then rally the masses to their side. 

That encourages me. There’s hardly time in the U.S. during Trump’s regime to convert enough people to an ideological commitment to nonviolence, but there is time to persuade people of the strategic value of a nonviolent discipline. 

It’s striking that in many of the cases I looked at, the movement avoided merely symbolic marches and rallies and instead focused on tactics that impose a cost on the regime. As Donald Trump wrestles to bring the armed forces under his control, for example, I can imagine picketing army recruiting offices with signs, “Don’t join a dictator’s army.”  

Another important takeaway: Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough. They may relieve an individual’s conscience for a moment, but, ultimately, episodic actions, even large ones, don’t assert enough power. Over and over, the Global Nonviolent Action Database shows that positive results come from a series of escalating, connected actions called a campaign — the importance of which is also outlined in my book “How We Win.”  

As research seminar students at Swarthmore continue to wade through history finding new cases, they are digging up details on struggles that go beyond democracy. The 1,400 already-published cases include campaigns for furthering environmental justice, racial and economic justice, and more. They are a resource for tactical ideas and strategy considerations, encouraging us to remember that even long-established dictators have been stopped by the power of nonviolent campaigns.

By: Isaac Newton Farris Jr.

Published: Mar 24, 2026

For my uncle, protest wasn’t a moral stance alone—it was a strategy, a discipline, and a craft. Today, we’ve lost all three.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The greatness of America is the right to protest for rights.” The freedom of assembly (protest) joins the freedom of speech, the freedom to petition, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of religion as the five essential freedoms granted to every American citizen. In the 20th century, it was the Civil Rights Movement’s nonviolent protests that finally made America a true democracy. Today, in the 21st century, it is violent protests that threaten to return it to autocracy.

Invoking Dr. King in any conversation about the act of protesting is appropriate because he is the Henry Ford of protesting. Of course, Ford did not invent the automobile, nor did Dr. King invent protesting. But Ford taught the world how to efficiently build a car by applying his assembly line idea to the process. Similarly, Dr. King taught Americans how to properly protest by applying his philosophy of nonviolence to the act of resistance.

The last few years have seen a potent number of protest movements sweep America: Black Lives Matter, the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, the “Free Palestine” movement, the “No Kings” rallies, and the ongoing protests against the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All claimed to be acting in the great spirit and grand tradition of Dr. King. But the only thing these have in common with the protest demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement is that they gathered a crowd of people together.

Black Lives Matter protests provoked property destruction. On January 6,, 2021, protesters attacked one of the seats of our government and temporarily shut down the certification of a national election. Pro-Palestinian protesters have seized campus buildings, scuffled with police, and physically stopped pro-Israel rallies. And many of us are aware of protesters committing vehicular attacks on ICE agents. These acts of resistance are anything but nonviolent.

The core principle of the Civil Rights Movement was voluntary conversion, never any compulsion or arm-twisting. Its protests were mounted as an appeal to the conscience and goodwill of both the protest target and the wider public. Protesters, never the protest targets, endured every consequence their demonstrations brought: physical assault, destruction of their property, restriction of movement, and imprisonment by law enforcement. For them, protest was a demonstration of their commitment to the cause; it was never a punishment of the people or institutions that were the protest’s target.

The core principle of today’s movements seems to be involuntary coercion and intimidation. Too often, they want to force others to adopt their perspective and support their cause by threat or physical attack. They seek to shut down any program, activity, or speech they disagree with.

[ A man poses in front of a burning auto parts store across from Minneapolis's 3rd Precinct during 2020 protests following George Floyd's death. ]

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, she didn’t attempt to interfere with the bus driver or to stop any other passengers from sitting down where they chose. Her message was not If I can’t sit where I choose, I will stop the bus from operating. Her message was I am prepared to subject myself to physical abuse and arrest, offering no resistance, in order to exercise my right as a human being and an American citizen to choose to sit in any available empty bus seat.

When black college students first sat down at a Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counter and refused to move until they were served or arrested, they purposely didn’t occupy all the empty seats available at the lunch counter. They knew not to prevent other customers from entering and conducting business in the store, because their protest message was not If blacks can’t buy lunch here, no one will be allowed to buy lunch or shop here. The message was We will not move from this lunch counter until served or arrested, because the color of one’s skin should not prevent someone from being served.

The Birmingham, Alabama, schoolchildren who participated in a march on city streets in 1963 were attacked by police dogs and sprayed with high-pressure fire hoses. The images shocked Americans. Yet, regardless of the morality of their cause, had these children been armed with guns, knives, and lead pipes to resist their attackers, American sentiment would have been Yes, the police needed the dogs and fire hoses to put down violent thugs with weapons. Instead, the students met violence with nonviolence. Their only intention was to resist racism and possibly sacrifice their lives for justice, freedom, and democracy. As a result, American sentiment was moved, and in 1964, the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land, which made America a true democracy for the first time in its history.

The Civil Rights protesters also avoided violent speech. Never would you have seen a Civil Rights protest sign that read “Death to the KKK.” Even when it came to one of America’s most notorious racists, never would you have heard a protest speaker say, “George Wallace should be condemned to hell.” The only messages Dr. King would allow printed on signs and heard in speeches at protests were positive and affirmative: “I too am a human being,” “I am an American citizen entitled to equal rights,” or “We shall overcome.” There was never any violent speech directed to or about the protest targets. Yet today’s protesters frequently abuse their opponents, call down retribution upon them, and praise acts of horrific violence.

A nonviolent protester’s goal is to create a minimum degree of discomfort or inconvenience to draw attention to the protest cause. But the discomfort or inconvenience should never exist to the point of preventing a college class, a public speech, or a legal arrest. It must never deny its opponent’s rights.

A successful nonviolent protest generates sympathy for the cause, and it requires planning. Dr. King would have never sent out a social media message to meet him in an hour for a protest; instead, he would have sent out a message to meet him in an hour to plan a protest. He never led a march, organized a boycott, or convened a rally without first addressing all the necessary logistical questions and contingencies. A proper site must be selected and, if necessary, permits applied for. Plans must be made to deal with counterprotesters and any other attempts to interfere with the protest and for how law enforcement should be dealt with if and when they show up. Most importantly, protest organizers must insist on nonviolent protesting and explain its meaning. As Dr. King wrote in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, nonviolence is “a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love.”

Yet the passivity of the protester can only go so far. Denial of a permit does not mean a protest should not happen, because an act of civil disobedience or disobeying a denied protest permit can itself be a legitimate protest tactic. Dr. King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was written because he had been arrested for leading a march in defiance of a court order banning “racial demonstrations.” But attempting to obtain permission to protest is a necessary step along the Kingian path. Seeking permission to protest sends the message to all concerned that the intention is for the demonstration to be peaceful. Such a message could determine if the police or security forces show up wearing riot gear or their normal uniforms.

When pro-Palestinian students and activists took over Hamilton Hall on Columbia University’s campus in 2024, the spectacle drew the worst possible attention to the cause. The students caused damage to the building by breaking its windows and using its furniture to barricade themselves inside. Occupying a campus building to focus attention on a protest cause can be a legitimate protest tactic. But truly effective protest requires that no property is destroyed to facilitate the protest. Protesters can plan to use their bodies en masse as an obstacle to prevent entering or reoccupying the building. And they should never resist arrest—in 1968, when nonviolent protesters occupied the same Columbia University building, they did not resist removal.

But the way that pro-Palestinian college students occupied a Columbia University campus building in 2024, the way some BLM protests turned to property destruction, the way protesters violently invaded Capitol Hill on January 6, and the way some protesters impede ICE from doing their job is to adopt the means of tyranny and autocracy. Ironically, these protesters see themselves as genuinely resisting tyranny, but by doing so violently, they make their causes deeply unsympathetic. As Dr. King wrote in 1967, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that. The beauty of nonviolence is that in its own way and in its own time it seeks to break the chain reaction of evil.”

American democracy cannot survive without the right to protest. Yet in the 21st century, 23 states have enacted at least 55 laws to limit how people can exercise their constitutional right to protest. Protesting in the way of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights activists he led is the way to protect one of America’s greatest rights, the right to protest for rights. If a just protest is to succeed, its advocates must walk in Dr. King’s footsteps.

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(Getty Images)

In 2016, a 34-year-old man named Kim Sung-min waited inside a unisex restroom outside exit 10 of Gangnam Station, Seoul South Korea. Six different men came and exited through the restroom over the span of an hour, until a 23-year-old woman entered, and Kim proceeded to stab and kill her with a 12-inch-long sushi knife. In court, Kim stated, “I did it because women have always ignored me.” Kim’s actions and thoughts are not out of the ordinary amongst Korean men—violence against women is extremely common in South Korea. 

(BBC)

South Korea has a long record of female subjugation. Between 1953 and 2021, abortion was illegal in almost all circumstances, and current law allows a woman to get an abortion only if she has consent from a male relative or her boyfriend/husband/partner. A 2015 South Korean government survey revealed that almost 80% of women had been sexually harassed at work. A survey released by The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family found that 57.8 percent of women felt vulnerable to misogynistic violence. Digital crime and sexual harassment are extremely common— “molka”, up-skirt photos, and secret cameras hidden in restrooms are rampant, so much so that any cellphone purchased in South Korea has a mandatory chime when photos are taken. The World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Index ranks South Korea at number 99 out of 146 countries for gender equality. Legislation actively works against women trying to report sexual assault. Men accused of stalking or harassment can “ask” their victims to drop charges, and in 2022 a man murdered his former colleague after she refused to drop charges against him for stalking her since 2019. South Korea has the highest gender pay gap of all the OECD countries—the top wealthiest 37 countries, globally, with women earning on average a third less than men. These alarming statistics have come years after the “Gangnam Station” murder, and South Korean women continue to be targeted for their gender.

(Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images)

Despite Kim’s own testimony, government authorities explicitly denied the misogynistic motive, and the prosecution announced that the case was not being investigated as a hate crime. Kim was eventually sentenced to 30 years in prison. In response to the murder, women took to the streets outside Gangnam station and the surrounding areas in protest. The women, many of whom had never considered themselves feminists or activists, but the nature of the crime and the misogynistic motivation, as well as the court's refusal to acknowledge it, outranged them. The murder incited intense debates about misogyny within the country, and the gender inequities women faced both socially and economically. Five months after the murder, Cho Nam-Joo’s novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was published. The book devastatingly details an everyday woman’s daily experiences of nonstop sexism, inequality, and misogyny in contemporary South Korea, and served as another enraging eye-opener that would develop into what would become known as the 4B Movement. 

The four B’s (or “Four No’s”) of the movement represent the four major components that women of the movement are rejecting; Bisekseu (sex), Bichulsan (child-bearing), Biyeonae, (dating) and Bihon (marriage). South Korean feminists define the 4B movement not as a fight against the patriarchy, but a complete step away from it— leaving it behind. In 2017, the Escape the Corset campaign swept across the country. The word “corset” is used by Korean feminists as a metaphor for the societal mechanisms that control and repress women, for example, the extreme and toxic beauty standards. Both 4B and Escape the Corset condemn and reject the influence that beauty holds within every aspect of South Korean life. Pioneers such as feminist author Cho Nam-Joo, and photographer Jeon Bo-ra, who photographed women who shaved their heads in rebellion. Social media has played a large role in the 4B movement, with bloggers and beauty influencers like Lina Bae speaking up against unattainable beauty standards and societal pressures, and Summer Lee who was inspired to cut her hair, throw away her hyperfeminine clothes, and post pictures of herself without makeup. 

(Jean Chung/Getty Images)

Despite increasing conversation on women’s rights, feminism is still considered a taboo, contentious, or even “dirty” word for many South Koreans. It is often associated with “man-hating” and perceived as overly aggressive. The country's current president Yoon Suk-yeol has promised to close down the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equility and Family, and any other organizations that fund or support women and victims of sexual violence, claiming they “treat men like potential sex criminals”. A January 2023 article in the South Korean newspaper The Sisa Times reported that 65% of women in the country do not want children, 42% do not want to get married, and over 80% of those cite domestic violence as their key reason. As a result, concerns regarding the rising average population age and declining birth rate in South Korea have increased greatly. The country's birth rate is less than one per woman as of 2021, and the country saw less than 200,000 marriages. In recent years, the South Korean government has commissioned a number of soap operas and reality TV shows to promote an idyllic view of romantic heterosexual love, and to encourage marriage and reproduction. 

(Yonhap)

The 4B movement and Escape the Corset campaign have had a tremendous impact on the way young South Korean women view the countries cultural grip on women’s appearances and lives. Between 2015-2016 and 2017-2018, Korean women spent over 5 billion Korean Won less on beauty products and cosmetic surgeries, instead investing their money in cars and choosing independence over objectification. The movement is calling for boycotts of any business that uses sexist advertising, and encouraging women to eat at women-owned restaurants, drink in women-owned bars, and shop at women-owned stores—women’s money goes into the pockets of other women. Women’s universities have also been on the rise in South Korea, with most cities housing one or several women-only institutions. Similarly, women’s only spaces have begun to expand, women’s parking spots closer to entrances and exits in parking garages, women’s only hotel floors and common rooms, and women’s only subway cars. These spaces allow feminism to spread and flourish, and give Korean women the ability to find community with other women without the interference of men. 

(Ian Baldessari/CityLab)

Since 2016, Exit 10 of Gangnam Station has become a symbolic site for South Korean feminism. The South Korean feminist movement developed out of particularly misogynist conditions within their country. The 4B movement represents a radical way that women have sought to create an online and offline world devoid of men—rather than engaging in arguments and altercations, they simply refuse to interact with men in every aspect of their lives. These actions have had a profound impact on the functionality of South Korean society and have opened an uncloseable door too the discussion of women’s rights. 

McCurry, Justin. “Calls for Stalking Law Overhaul in South Korea as Woman’s Murder Shocks Nation.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 Sept. 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/23/calls-for-stalking-law-overhaul-in-south-korea-as-womans-shocks-nation.

Teehan, Katie. “What Is the 4B Movement?” Service95, 16 Apr. 2024, www.service95.com/4b-movement-explainer/.

Izaakson , Jen, and Tae Kyung Kim. “The South Korean Women’s Movement: ‘We Are Not Flowers, We Are a Fire.’” Feminist Current, 16 June 2020, www.feministcurrent.com/2020/06/15/the-south-korean-womens-movement-we-are-not-flowers-we-are-a-fire/.

Lee, Min Joo. “Why so Many South Korean Women Are Refusing to Date, Marry or Have Kids.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 15 May 2023, news.yahoo.com/why-many-south-korean-women-123250959.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHmBVorK4v6bdzwcJMRyRdXkKtzUlpQYWn5Ot-BPzs-YRNNZFW5JBwC65OTaPrRImn3F3G56r0gfNydadUzlQtPS61hOi6uggk_OkwZqqvLvS-YN4HbPrpwKvK9_7g0e9yqu9fiRRvOVJkGRv__L7AZGoYtfHVxjKLLPDi9DI2fu.

Park, Seohoi Stephanie. “Murder at Gangnam Station: A Year Later.” KOREA EXPOSÉ, 2 Mar. 2023, koreaexpose.com/murder-gangnam-station-year-later/.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was in his 30s when he gave this speech. Full of timeless wisdom. He truly was a messenger. And his message is still alive and relevant today. 🔥✊🏾

America’s soul at risk King warned that America could lose its moral compass if it continues to ignore injustice. In A Time to Break Silence, he states: “Let me say finally … I speak out against the war in Vietnam because I love America. … I speak out … with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world.” His worry stems from that love and from seeing contradiction between America’s ideals and its realities.

“Two Americas” — deep inequality In The Other America, King draws a stark contrast: “There are literally two Americas … One America is beautiful … But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. … This other America has a daily ugliness …” Grosse Pointe Historical Society+1 His worry is that so many live the second, more painful “America” while the other remains idealized.

Triple evils: Racism, materialism and militarism He saw these three interconnected threats. He wrote: “I am disappointed with America. There can be no great disappointment where there is no great love. … Our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, extreme materialism and militarism.” CRM Vet So when he says “I’m worried,” he means: “I love this country, but we’re at risk of failing its promise.”

Urgency for action and truth King rejected passive optimism and glib declarations of victory. In an earlier speech he said: “We have come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go…” Ohio Northern University+1 His worry is essentially: “We can’t rest. The conditions demand work, truth, and justice.”

“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.” — V.I. Lenin, State & Revolution