Michael Randle is Chair of the Commonweal Trustees. In this two-part post, we share some of the details of his extraordinary life and work.
Read Part 2 here

Michael Randle greeting Bayard Rustin at the War Resisters International Triennial in India in 1985 ©Michael Randle
You were born in the 1930s, Michael. What would you say has changed most about the world during your lifetime? What hasn’t changed at all?
I was born in late December in 1933. Some of the major events in my lifetime have been the Second World War, followed immediately by the start of the Cold War, and with it the threat of a nuclear holocaust.
Then in 1989 came the collapse of authoritarian-style communism in Eastern Europe, followed by the break-up of the Soviet Union itself, and the end, for a time at least, of the Cold War.
Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing the revival of the Cold War in what is in some respects a more threatening form.
No less significant historically has been the dissolution of empires – the British Empire among them – and the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
On another level there have been transformative social and political movements, such as the worldwide campaign against nuclear weapons, the US Civil Rights movement, the campaign for women’s equality, and anti-discrimination campaigns in various fields.
Particularly striking about so many of the campaigns against oppression and injustice has been the central role of civil nonviolent struggle. Continue reading 7 decades of nonviolence activism: Introducing… Trustee Michael Randle – PART 1