By Rivera Sun
While the stories of nonviolence are plentiful this week [week of March 16] (see the Nonviolence News Research Archive for 73 articles), several of them are also an invitation to reflect in greater depth than we usually do. In this week’s Nonviolence News, I’ll take some time to reflect thoughtfully with you about a few themes of accountability and integrity.
For so many people, Cesar Chavez has been an iconic leader, renowned for his strategic brilliance in the United Farmworkers Movement and his commitment to nonviolence. But this admiration was shattered by the revelations of his sexual abuse of young girls published in the New York Times, along with a statement from 95-year-old labor organizer Dolores Huerta about how he sexually assaulted and raped her. The sense of betrayal, loss, repulsion, anger, and grief has whipped through many in the social justice circles. In her statement Huerta wrote, “I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”
This kind of devil’s bargain of a strategic assessment – to remain silent about some injustices while striving for change on others – has been painfully familiar through centuries of social justice organizing. It twisted the dynamics of racism and sexism to drive wedges between Black abolitionists and women’s suffragists in the 1800s. It splintered the early US labor movement into two camps – the unions that accepted women and non-whites, and those which did not. It forced Bayard Rustin to step back from his leadership role in the civil rights movement when he was outed as a gay man.
For too long, we have been divided and conquered, pitted against one another, taught to scramble out of oppression by in turn oppressing others. It is time to go beyond the strategies of sacrificing the rights of some in order to secure the rights of others. At this point, it is neither strategic nor moral to silence one type of abuse in pursuit of justice for another.
And so, the many strands of people who looked to Cesar Chavez as an inspirational leader are engaging in a reckoning of truth. Celebrations of Cesar Chavez Day on March 31 are being cancelled, postponed, or renamed. Schools, city streets, parks are in the process of removing his name from buildings and signs. These actions are a continuation of the fortitude that has changed offensive mascots, removed confederate flags, and taken down statues of colonizers and monuments to racist slave owners. Changing street and school names is about modeling accountability, even when – especially when – the person who caused harm is one of our own. It is also important to remember that the report on Chavez’ abuses was not released in a vacuum. It is happening at the same time as men in the most powerful positions in the world are covering up their involvement in the Epstein Files, perverting the course of justice in order to protect their perversions. Our willingness to show what accountability looks like throws into stark contrast the ongoing harm being committed by political power holders who not only have been involved in sex trafficking, but are also actively using their positions to deny rights, erode freedoms, and oppress millions of people on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, citizenship status, class, and political views.
Accountability is far too rare, and far too long delayed. It is one of the deep, yearning cries of all our social justice movements.
On this subject of accountability, let’s turn to immigration issues and former Border Patrol Head of Operations Gregory Bovino. Amidst the mass resistance to his violent occupation of the Twin Cities, Bovino was removed from his position and reassigned back to California. Now, he has announced that he plans to retire. This reframes this reassignment into a mere face-saving maneuver before his removal from all positions of power. Yet, for many of us, it isn’t enough. He should be held accountable for the acts of terror, violence, and illegal conduct of his officers. The thought of him relaxing in a cushy retirement doesn’t seem fair after the immense harm he has caused. And, along with Department of Homeland Security Head Kristi Noem being reshuffled to a sham position as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, it brings up a strategic question for the anti-authoritarian movement: what does a win look like?
We have to assess a ‘win’ in terms of two goals: stopping harm and gaining accountability. Holding the Trump administration officials and their institutions accountable for their crimes and harmful injustices is important. At the same time, removing abusive power holders like Noem and Bovino from their positions of power is both urgent and critical. A ‘soft exit’ (like reassignment or retirement) may not satisfy our deep yearning for accountability. However, it can stop immediate harm … and help us oust abusers from other positions, too. As the Trump administration is forced to make more concessions, we might see more of these kinds of face-saving maneuvers. Soft exits provide off-ramps that can make it easier to remove abusive officials from power. So, the first step is to prevent these officials from continuing to cause harm through their institutions. (Movements also need to keep an eye on their replacements–it’s a net loss if the new person is even worse than the old.) The second step is accountability for their abuses and that may require a longer struggle.
The struggle is long, broad, and deep. We’re in it for the long haul.
In other Nonviolence News, immigrant rights advocates are cheering the bold action of the city council in Social Circle, Georgia, which cut off the water supply to a proposed ICE facility that failed to present a reasonable plan for housing 10,000 people. It opens up a new strategy for detention center resistance campaigns to pursue. Meanwhile, employees at a top architectural firm revolted against the company designing immigration detention centers, and force the firm to back out of the contracts. Lequaa Kordia, the last pro-Palestinian student activist still being being held in an immigrant detention center after being swept up in Trump’s campus crackdown a year ago, has now been released. However, there’s still a long road ahead for her, Mahmoud Kahlil, and others targeted by the administration. In a fitting tribute, the residents of the Twin Cities have been honored for their mass resistance by receiving the prestigious Profiles In Courage Award from the JFK Library Foundation.
Here’s a few more bits of heartening news: Less than 10% of the US populace smokes cigarettes, though 18% still smoke e-cigarettes or cigars. Edmonton, Canada, slashed disposable plastic bag use by nearly 80%. Nepal’s first elections following last year’s mass protests were an utter rout for the old guard, with more than 125 of 165 elected seats going to the progressive party led by the new 35-year-old rapper/prime minister. In a win for women’s rights and gender justice, county government workers in Nairobi, Kenya, have the right to two paid days off a month for menstruation-related pain or discomfort. Pakistan’s solar boom – initiated as the Ukraine War spiked oil prices – is now buffeting the populace from oil price surges due to the Iran War. And they’re not the only nation reaping benefits from renewables right now.
Some of the most robust resistance to the Iran War is coming from European nations who are withdrawing military cooperation from the United States. To uphold its principles of neutrality, Switzerland has halted weapons exports to the US. Due to Spain and France’s non-cooperation with the United States military, a B-1 bomber jet was forced to avoid going through European airspace as it returned from a bombing run in Iran to base in the UK. Trump’s top counterterrorism official resigned in protest over the war. Pope Leo called for the warring nations to seek a ceasefire. An 8-hr blockade across four cities in Italy halted a weapons shipment as part of a campaign against the construction of a military base. As drivers get sticker-shock at the gas pumps, people are putting stickers on the pumps of Trump pointing to the fuel prices and saying: I-Ran your fuel price up.
In more Nonviolence News, Thailand is returning 284 tons of the US’ illegal e-waste garbage. CBS streaming services worker launched a 24-hr walkout for a better contract. Women in Pakistan defied brutality extreme repression to demonstrate on International Women’s Day, with more than 35 activists arrested during the demonstration. Chilean women flooded the streets in protest of right-wing President José Antonio Kast. Tunisian detained 7 activists involved in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. A US campaign called Free the Future is using ‘non-permission slips’ to prepare public schools educators, students and administrators to resist Trump’s unjust policies. Extinction Rebellion UK has launched a water bill boycott over the disgusting raw sewage problem. There’s a lot going on and all these stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive.
Explore 73 stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive>>
The theme of accountability runs strong through so many of the stories this week. At its heart, nonviolence is a practice of standing in one’s integrity in pursuit of social accountability. We can see this in Thailand’s decision to return illegal e-waste to the United States. It’s present in each person who joins the UK water bill boycott and refuses to pay for dumping raw sewage into rivers and oceans. It’s at work in Switzerland, France, and Spain when they won’t assist the US military in waging an illegal war. And, as the reckoning around Cesar Chavez’ abuses shows, this kind of accountability is not without sacrifice. We have to relinquish false truths, comforting lies, or easy relationships of complicity in order to stand in our integrity and in solidarity with others. Embodying nonviolence takes us out of passive involvement in injustice and propels us into the cauldron of active, transformative, difficult – yet ultimately healing – change.
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Activist/Author Rivera Sun has written numerous books and novels, including The Dandelion Insurrection and The Way Between. Her study guide to nonviolent action is used by activist groups and university courses. She is a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements. Her essays on nonviolence and social justice issues have appeared in hundreds of journals. www.riverasun.com
This article was sent to The PeaceWorker on March 21, 2026 by Rivera Sun. It was published on that day at nonviolence news.