Good Friends Make Good Works – The Relationship that Drives Social Movements

Friendship is a powerful, unacknowledged driver of struggles for freedom and human rights, providing a deeper, more enduring relationship than solidarity or allyship. Most people take their first social actions after being recruited by a friend, and concern for the common good is featured in ancient and spiritual definitions of friendship. But building fair friendships across lines of power and identity can be fraught as well as rewarding. This session shares tools for avoiding exploitation in the name of friendship while elevating joy, reciprocity, and our visions of a better world. Participants engage in affirmations and movement meditation on friendship, see examples of historic friendships, such as that between Dr. Martin Luther King and Thich Nhat Hanh, hear the facilitators reflect on the joys and challenges of their own cross-class, cross-race, interfaith friendship, and develop guidance for cultivating curiosity, humility, consent, and reciprocity.