2025 WWFOR Fall Conference - Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation

Please join us for Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Fall Conference:

Nonviolence:

Key Strategies for Times of

Rising Authoritarianism

Saturday November 22

8:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Pacific time, Zoom

This web page includes: Conference Features | Presenter Bios

Schedule | Info Contacts | How to Register

Flyers | Links to Previous Fall Events

CONFERENCE FEATURES

We are delighted that Mary Lou Finley and Pam Smith will lead a training with focus on Collective Noncooperation.

About the Training

Nonviolence trainers Pam Smith and Mary Lou Finley will be sharing what they have learned from recent trainings on nonviolent action for these challenging times. We will explore:

• Protest and noncooperation: how they work together, drawing on examples from the civil rights movement, current stories, and movements in other countries

• How ordinary people can work in their own ways to make a difference–and have made a difference around the world—especially with strategies of noncooperation —in times like these.

• Using tools like the Spectrum of Allies and more as we think about our work.

• Laying the groundwork now for the deepened collaboration we will need in the future

• Finding our way to the hope and empowerment we need to join with others to build our movement now— with joy and enthusiasm!

Nonviolence—and FOR’s century-long commitment to building a better world through nonviolence—is a gift we all need now!

Join us as we explore it together!

We will hear from several of the current or past youth activists in the Mike Yarrow Peace Fellows program.

Attendee participation: everybody has a role! We will have small breakout groups during the 2-hour training sessions; there will be a Q&A + comments as part of the youth activist segment; following the end of the conference, there will be an informal discussion.

Music – our musical interludes follow the long tradition of activism around the world.

This web page includes: Conference Features | Presenter Bios

Schedule | Info Contacts | How to Register

Flyers | Links to Previous Fall Events

PRESENTER BIOS and links to related organizations

TRAINERS

Mary Lou Finley and Pam Smith have been working together as co-founders (with two others) of the Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training, begun in Chicago nearly 10 years ago. They were also co-editors of the book The Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the North(2016) and are certified as Kingian Nonviolence trainers.

Pam Smith, a native Chicagoan, is an educator, public historian, genealogist and Kingian Nonviolence Trainer currently living in Portland, Oregon. Earlier in her career, Pam’s team conducted the feasibility study that set the stage for the Chicago Freedom School, now in its 17th year. Pam served as communications director for Rev. Jesse Jackson in his 1988 presidential bid and for Barack Obama in his primary campaign for the US Senate. She is producer of the forthcoming documentary “CURRENT: A Descendant’s Journey for Truth” (currentfilm.org).

Mary Lou Finley began her work on Martin Luther King’s staff in Chicago in the mid-1960s. She is now a retired sociology professor from Antioch University Seattle, and a Co-Director of the Mike Yarrow Peace Fellows program and has been working with the MYPF program since it began.

You can read more about the Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training and more about both our trainers at the Center homepage https://www.addiewyattcenter.org/ and their leadership page https://www.addiewyattcenter.org/who-we-are.

YOUTH ACTIVISTS

We will hear from several of the current or former youth activists (to be named later) and the projects they are working on as Fellows in the Mike Yarrow Peace Fellowship program. You can read more about this program of Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation at https://wwfor.org/mike-yarrow-peace-fellowship-4/ and you can read about the current trainees at https://wwfor.org/mike-yarrow-peace-fellowship-4/2025-mypf/.

FALL CONFERENCE PLANNERS

David Lambert, Planning Committee Chair, Jean Buskin, Jean Gant Delastrada, Mary Hanson, Tom Hathorn, John Repp, and Regon Unsoeld participated in planning and will have roles in the conference.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE (subject to change)

8:45 am Conference Opens with Music and Tech Help as needed

9:00 am sharp Formal Program begins

Welcome by Planning Committee Chair, David Lambert

Tech Notes by Tom Hathorn

Land Acknowledgement by Regon Unsoeld

Introduction of Trainers

9:15 am Training by Mary Lou Finley and Pam Smith

11:15 am End of Formal Program; Break with Music

11:20 am Presentation by Youth Activists in the Mike Yarrow Peace Fellowship Program followed by Q&A and Comments, facilitated by MYPF Co-Director Bruce Pruitt-Hamm

11:55 am Final Words and Acknowledgements by David Lambert

Noon. Break with Music

12:05 pm Informal Discussion facilitated by Mary Hanson

12:45 pm Informal Post-Conference End

This web page includes: Conference Features | Presenter Bios

Schedule | Info Contacts | How to Register

Flyers | Links to Previous Fall Events

INFORMATION CONTACTS

WWFOR at 206-789-5565 or wwfor@wwfor.org

EVERYONE IS WELCOME regardless of ability to pay!

REGISTRATION is easy! Choose any of these methods

ONLINE: Go to https://wwfor2025fc.brownpapertickets.com/ and select the level you want to pay, $0, $10, $20 and enter the number of people in the box. You can make an additional donation $0-$50 if you like. No payment is required, but if you can afford to pay it will help cover our costs. When you have made your selections, click Add to Cart, and in a few more easy steps you will be done. If you are making an extra donation, the payment has to go through PayPal, but you don’t need a PayPal account, you can use a credit card.
POSTAL MAIL: Our address is WWFOR, 225 N 70th Street, Seattle WA 98103. Send us your name, email address if available, phone number. If you are able to make a donation, checks to WWFOR, memo Fall Conference.
EMAIL: Send us your name, email address, phone number to wwfor@wwfor.org. If you are able to make a donation, please send a check to the address above
PHONE: Leave us your name, email address if available, and phone number at 206-789-5565. If you are able to make a donation, please send a check to the address above
OPTIONAL: REGISTER WITH ACTIVIST COLLEAGUES. However you register, you may opt to be in a “breakout room” during the training with people you plan to organize with. (Online there is a question about this in the registration process; by other methods just tell us who you want to work with.) This preference needs to be stated by Nov 17, and will only be available if enough people choose the option.