nonviolent resistance
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Mahatma Gandhi urged and practiced nonviolent resistance during the efforts to win independence for India from Britain in the early twentieth century.
African-Americans in the civil rights movement often practiced nonviolent resistance in the South in the 1960s — for example, by sitting-in at segregated lunch counters to provoke arrest and draw attention to their cause. (See segregation and sit-ins.)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The article suggested Christians should embrace nonviolent resistance and the tradition of martyrs.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 26, 2026
But what we can do is call attention to the forms of nonviolent resistance that challenge our prevalent culture of rage and alienation.
From Salon • Oct. 13, 2025
Wong, who spent decades teaching a doctrine of nonviolent resistance, died Wednesday at a hospital in Los Angeles at the age of 69, due to cardiopulmonary failure with complications from endocarditis.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 10, 2025
Farris helped Coretta Scott King build The King Center and helped to teach King’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 14, 2023
They committed themselves to the spirit and practice of nonviolent resistance as a means of challenging segregation in all its forms.
From "Because They Marched" by Russell Freedman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
