Where are the Walks Going Now?

Brief Reminder: The Power of Small Groups of Actors

Where are all these walks going?

That question—posed originally as a training SJQ module—carries new weight. As the landscape of witness and resistance shifts constantly beneath our feet; steadfastly, walks continue, but they are no longer alone. What began as pilgrimages of memory, reparation, and peace testimony now converges with a broader movement: coordinated networks of solidarity, nonviolent civil resistance, and direct action against state violence. At heart of it all, quietly thumping, lies a quiet but insistent truth—small, committed groups of actors, organized and sustained, have always been the engine of transformation and change.

Where are the Walks Going Now?

The National Peace Walk—the third pilgrimage organized by Quakers from Brooklyn since early 2025—continues the centuries-old tradition of walking in public witness. Following the Walk to Washington (solidarity with migrants during heightened ICE encroachment) and the Peaceward pilgrimage (collecting stories from Quaker activists), the National Peace Walk will reach Minneapolis in November 2026, carrying a message developed through five months of worshipful discernment. Its destination is deliberate: the communities that have had the most prolonged confrontation with ICE agents since 2025. The walk arrives as the weather turns—and as the resistance intensifies.

At the same moment, White Men for Racial Justice, Organizing White Men for Collective Liberation (OWMCL)—a national network mobilizing white men to take action against white supremacy and patriarchy—and allied groups including Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) are organizing ICE resistance and the cohesive training needed to match the mass development of ICE and militarism. SURJ and the Solidarity Organizing Initiative have trained over 3,000 people on how to show up against ICE. This is not spontaneous protest; it is strategic, sustained infrastructure-building for civic participation and nonviolent resistance. The “Above Ground Railroad” is becoming real—transparent networks of sanctuary and support, visible and unashamed.

The 3.5% Rule: What the Numbers Tell Us

Political scientists Erica Chenoweth (Harvard) and Maria Stephan studied 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Their findings:

• Nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to succeed as violent ones.
• Four times as many people will join a nonviolent movement than a violent one.
• Active, sustained participation by just 3.5% of a population means a movement will almost certainly succeed in bringing down an authoritarian regime or radically changing government policy.

In the United States, 3.5% is roughly 12 million people. The “No Kings” protests in October 2025 drew over 7 million participants across more than 2,700 events—more than halfway to the tipping point. Chenoweth herself cautions that 3.5% is “not a magic number”—it’s a descriptive statistic, not a hard law. Strategic leadership, organization, and momentum matter enormously. But the pattern is clear: mass, sustained, nonviolent participation works.

Power of the Vermont 11: A Case Study in Small-Group Power

On February 9, 2026, eleven people—including Dartmouth student Roan Wade and Geisel School of Medicine professor Donald Kollisch—entered an office building in Williston, Vermont, that houses ICE’s National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center (NCATC). The NCATC “analyzes data in numerous law enforcement and immigration databases to develop leads on removable noncitizens”. Around 25 protesters attended; 13 stayed inside; 11 were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Power and ICE melted.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbl425Zne-u/

The group—organized by Upper Valley activists without a formal name or organizational structure—read names of “dozens of people” killed by ICE violence. The singular goal: Get arrested; you will continually have a marker on the arc of justice. We raise awareness about a facility doing “the most direct, concrete work for ICE” just an hour from Hanover.

Why does this matter? The Vermont 8—like the Quaker walkers, like the 3.5%—demonstrate that small, committed groups can disrupt the machinery of state violence. They did not need a national organization, millions of dollars, or mass participation. They needed clarity of purpose, disciplined nonviolence, and the willingness to accept arrest. Their action was covered up—not because it failed, but because it succeeded in exposing what the state prefers to keep hidden. The sit-in at a federal ICE facility, the arrests, the names read aloud—these are the seeds from which larger movements grow.

The 0.035% Corollary: Small Groups as Catalysts

If 3.5% is the tipping point for mass movements, then 0.035%—one-hundredth of that—is the catalyst. Small groups of well-organized, committed actors:

• Model the possible (the Vermont 8 showing that ICE facilities can be confronted)
• Create the conditions for larger participation (the National Peace Walk building relationships and stories)
• Sustain the movement through difficult periods (SURJ and OWMCL training thousands for the long haul)

The Vermont 8 did not topple a major world’ power’s funded and ‘well oiled’ regime. But they demonstrated that this regime can be strategically confronted, that its facilities can be entered, that violence can be named. Demonstration is what makes 3.5% possible.

So: Where Are All These Walks Going?

They are going toward the alpha omega convergence—toward a moment when the pilgrim’s staff meets the protester’s sign, when small groups of Quaker walkers and ICE resistor body recognize each other as fellow travelers on one same road and at home. Walks are going: to Minneapolis, to Vermont, to every community state violence creates organized resistance. We are going toward 3.5%—not as target, as a NEW day’s horizon.

Are they are going anywhere; or, have they always been here? Peace Pilgrim, Civil Rights, Quaker Walks, small groups of powerful interlocutors: ICE resistor groups refuse as we always have, one step at a time—carried by ancestor witness refusing to look away.

Next Steps for Friends, Sibling Meetings, and Small Actor Actions

1. Support the National Peace Walk when it reaches New England and Minneapolis—logistically, financially, and spiritually.
2. Connect with SURJ, OWMCL, and allied groups already doing work of training and organizing white allies for collective liberation.
3. Discern what an “Above Ground Railroad” looks like in your region—transparent, public sanctuary and accompaniment.
4. Prepare for #40milesfor40acres when it arrives in 2026 for sustaining broader work of African American, indigenous, and land-based reparation.
5. Remember the 0.035% : your small group, Meetings, faithful witness—this is where change begins.