Norton Says Today’s Peaceful Protesters Have Found Their Own Way

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following President Trump's use of federal authority to tear gas peaceful protestors in the nation's capital, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a veteran of the civil rights movement, today said peaceful protesters are finding ways of their own to protect themselves from blame for disruptive tactics and violence by interlopers and the police.

"Innocent, peaceful protestors are showing that they can take steps to protect themselves against violence – and blame for violence done by rioters and looters – and that they can take peaceful steps against the use of violent or disruptive tactics by the police.

"There are precedents that have proved useful under even more dangerous conditions and could be useful today.

"During the civil rights movement, nonviolent protesters were often confronted with formidable opponents. Armed Southern racists and violent Southern police had the power. But they were confounded, even bewildered, by nonviolent resistance. The peaceful tactics used by civil rights protesters made clear who was engaged in violence and who was not. Among the tactics used by the civil rights movement were kneeling in prayer instead of running or confronting, standing our ground with hands up or simply sitting down in the streets with open hands on our laps. They have simply stood their ground peaceably, often long after curfew. The reaction here has been the same as police from the 1960s: No response.

"There are ways to fight back without fighting. The three groundbreaking civil rights acts of the 1960s, the result of sit-ins and other nonviolent actions by the civil rights movement, are the nation's best evidence that nonviolent resistance not only works but also produces results."