From the video "We were warriors".

From behind the stools, white men start taunting the mixed row of mostly black students who had the audacity to sit there. "He's so dark the whole room is darkened." "Nobody ain't gonna sit beside them dirty niggers." Those on the swiveling seats at the counter answer only with an unshakable look of dignity.  Frustrated, the men from behind start pushing and shoving. Still no response from those on the stools. Then they launch the attack: hurling obscenities, throwing milk shakes and live cigarette buts, grabbing and punching. Lenses capture the scene. The whole world watches in shock. 

Part of the famous A Force More Powerful series, the  video is called "We were warriors". It documents the story of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins that ushered a new phase of black liberation campaigns in the US known as the civil rights movement. I have seen this movie many times, a staple resource I use in nonviolent action trainings. But never before had I watched with such intense emotion. This time, I really couldn't hold back the tears. 

With over thirty international participants including New Tactics Project director Nancy Pearson, I am attending the Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict for a whole week of presentations and seminars on the conceptual fundamentals and exciting developments in the field of unarmed struggle. Why was seeing "We were warriors" so different this time? As I waited for the movie to start, there in the room was the main trainer and strategist behind the Nashville sit-ins of 1960, Rev. James Lawson.

The young adult featured in the documentary is now a respectable elder. As he addressed our group after the screening, I felt vibrant energy tingle up my spine. History — living History electrified the room.

Completely debunking the myth of the spontaneous sit-ins, Rev. Lawson told us about the long nights of strategizing, the months of investigation, planning and training that went into the deliberate actions and boycott campaigns that took down the "Whites" and "Coloured Only"  signs throughout the US. He spoke also of the inner cultivation of hope and persistance, of how we must take care of our own lives as leaders and participants in protracted struggles. He ended on the true and unique power of nonviolent strategy to reshape relationships based on respect for all. 

One of the featured resource practitioners in this month's New Tactics Video Advocacy dialogue, independent documentary video producer Alexandra Halkin is also attending the Fletcher Summer Institute. She is the founding director of the Chiapas Media Project/ Promedios de Comunicación Comunitaria. I had a chance to talk with her.

Alexandra knows anger at injustice can fuel meaningful action for change. She has witnessed phenomenal evolution in her 25 years as video maker and as the technology went from cumbersome cameras that weighted on your whole body, the cord at all times attached to huge reel to reel equipment that had to remain flat, to present-day High Def cameras that you can hold to your eye with one hand, like a glove.

She has spent the better part of the last decade sharing her video production skills with men and women in indigenous communities throughout the Mexican states of Chiapas and Guerrero: how to work the equipment, how to define and edit a story, how to get around and present the production.

Apart from its obvious documentation and dissemination role, the camera in intense conflict situations can become a human rights weapon in its own right. "The simple act of filming is sometimes enough to significantly reduce the intensity of the repression", she says. "Video documenting has been used successsfully in court cases to win legal restitution, for example."

"We point cameras at them. They point cameras at us", she quips with the sardonic chuckle of veterans who have seen real action. "It's the battling of video cameras. It's about learning how to shoot and not get shot at."

As the US-dominated "tittytainment" mass culture seeks to permeate the last confines of the world, the self-representation of marginalized peoples — allowing them to put their own words, their own skin, their own lives on the screen — becomes a revolutionary act. 

As she engages in discussions with us after an informal screening of dramatic videos shot in Mexico, I am reminded of how beautifully the two — video screening and public speaking — complement each other and make both methods more engaging. How lucky it is to see great video documentaries become alive with the flesh and blood testimonies of the key people involved with the drama of failed tactics, and the excitement of winning strategies.

Philippe Duhamel, interTactica.org 

What other ways does video making contribute to the global fight for human rights? Join the June 2008 dialogue on video advocacy with Alexandra Halkin and these other experienced resources.