There’s a myth in our society that real change requires force, strength, and domination. We celebrate athletes, CEOs, and politicians who crush their opponents. But history tells a different story. Lasting social change has often been triggered by humble people whose weapons were passion, principle, and an unwavering commitment to justice and the truth – not the truth we see on TV or read in print media, but rather the truth that we feel deep inside ourselves. Research demonstrates that nonviolent resistance campaigns are more than twice as effective as violent campaigns in achieving social change.

Rosa Parks wasn’t a seasoned politician when she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. She was a quiet, unassuming seamstress who had reached a point where she could no longer participate in her own diminishment. “I was not tired physically,” she later wrote, “or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Her act wasn’t aggressive. Rather, it was an act of dignified refusal, and it sparked a movement that reshaped American society.

Mohandas Gandhi may have understood this principle better than anyone. A small man who wore simple clothing, he liberated his country from British rule, not thorough armed rebellion, but with satyagraha, “truth force.” He demonstrated that real power doesn’t come from the ability to harm others but from the willingness to suffer for truth. When he led the Salt March in 1930, walking 240 miles to the sea to make salt from seawater, he deliberately violated British colonial law that prohibited Indians from producing their own salt. Gandhi was met with brutal violence, yet his humility and nonviolent resistance exposed the moral bankruptcy of colonial rule in a way........

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