Students Learn About Cultivating a Beloved Community

Mr. Ian Elmore-Moore, director of the Beloved Community Leadership Academy, spoke to middle and upper school students about how they can cultivate a beloved community mindset.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center’s Beloved Community Leadership Academy works to develop compassionate, courageous, conscientious, nonviolent leaders who think critically to solve world issues.

“We’re in the process of becoming,” Elmore-Moore told students. “We’re here to share our world together. To speak up when there is injustice.”

As such, he challenged students to be the change. 

“Change starts with me. Change starts with you,” he said. For example, recent violent events have been linked to violence at an early age, especially through the use of violent video games. He challenged students to think of ways in which creators can make video games and social media platforms to be nonviolent. 

“That’s what the beloved community leadership academy is doing,” he said. They are using the Kingian Nonviolence philosophies to provide people with the knowledge to resolve problems and conflicts peacefully using the six steps below.
  1. Information gathering: This is the way you determine the facts, the options for change and the timing of pressure for raising the issue is a collective process
  2. Education: This is the process of developing articulate leaders who are knowledgeable about the issue
  3. Personal Commitment: This means looking at your internal and external involvement in the nonviolent campaign and preparing yourself for long-term and short-term action
  4. Negotiation: This is the art of bringing together your views and those of your opponent to arrive at a just conclusion or clarify the unresolved issues, at which point the conflict is formalized
  5. Direct Action: This occurs when negotiations have broken down or failed to produce a just response to the contested issues and conditions
  6. Revolution: This is the mandatory closing step of a campaign, when the opponents and proponents celebrate the victory and provide joint leadership to implement the change
 
Learn more about the King Center Beloved Community Leadership Academy here.
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