In the face of ever-widening fascism and the steady assault on the poor, the planet and the remnants of democracy, I risked arrest as part of a modest, Gandhian campaign at the White House on Sept. 22.

The action was part of Campaign Nonviolence’s national week of action, which registered 2,668 events, marches and actions across the United States, in all 50 states, and 24 other nations. Over the course of a week, tens of thousands of people connected the dots between racism, poverty, greed, war, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction, and called for justice and a new culture of nonviolence.

The centerpiece of the campaign began on the afternoon of Sept. 21, in a church center in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where a nonviolence training session was held, followed by an evening panel discussion on the power andmethodology of Gandhian/Kingian nonviolence through grassroots movements.