Alternatives to Violence with Virginia Floyd by Carol Hiltner

In a world that professes to want peace yet goes to war, Quakers have sought for 300 years to live "in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars."

To implement this intent, they actively reach out to the world, selflessly teaching tolerance and forgiveness, with remarkable effectiveness, in prisons, schools, shelters, refugee camps, and in our own Congress.

In return, those who teach receive the gift of peace in their own lives.

We interviewed Virginia Floyd, a Quaker who has for nearly three decades been facilitating prison workshops on alternatives to violence. Here, she tells the inside story of how prisoners are using the radically effective Transforming Power of the "Light within" to find forgiveness, self-esteem, and respect for others in the most difficult situations.

Carol: I know that the Quakers have, in their 300 years of history, been teaching tolerance and forgiveness. But I would like to know specifically how you are doing it. You have been involved in the Alternatives to Violence Program or AVP. Can you please tell us about this?

Virginia: This is a program teaching creative conflict resolution through experiential workshops.

It started through a request of some prisoners in New York State, where there was already a Quaker worship service. The prisoners themselves, knowing something about the Quakers, asked for this kind of workshop because they wanted to help some younger people, to keep them from ending up in prison, too. So a group of Quakers got together and developed a program called Alternatives to Violence.

It's experiential. It takes three days to present, usually 20 hours, and it's done completely by volunteers. It was started in the prison back in the 1970s, and rather quickly went nationwide. It's done not just in prisons but in community settings, women's shelters, rehab centers, drug treatment centers, schools, and churches. Sometimes people just take part for their own further development. In recent years, it's gone worldwide, including Rwanda, Australia, Europe, and Canada.

Carol: Is it possible to synopsize what you do in this program?

Virginia: We start with a group of about twenty volunteer participants. The workshop leaders are volunteers, as well.

Various exercises are done. There are no lectures. People do the exercises together, experiencing listening to one another compassionately. We foster self-esteem and respect for one's self and respect for others. Through the dynamics of this program, those who are in it are led to trust and respect themselves and one another.

We have community building, cooperation, and communication exercises that help with listening, attending, and caring. And at the end of the workshop, we do role-playing, using scenarios that the participants themselves have decided on. In this role-playing, all kinds of attitude changes and trust and self-worth that have come through the exercises are put into action. Role-plays are the nearest one can come, in a workshop setting, to the real thing.

Carol: The roles are different for each group?

Virginia: Oh, yes. Each group would have their different ideas for what roles they would want to play. The purpose is to help them to understand and use what we call "Transforming Power" — the core concept of AVP.

Carol: Please say more about that.

Virginia: This is based on the basic Quaker concept of the "Light within" — something good in everyone. Every single person, no matter how we may perceive them, has within something that wants to do good, that wants to do what's right. Maybe it's dormant. We learn to trust in this Light within, in ourselves and in other people.

So Transforming Power is wisdom from within, inner wisdom that — well, we can't say that we use it, but it uses us, if we're open to it.

So at the end, when we are doing the role-plays, we have an expectation that attitudes have actually changed during the workshop. Because of the dynamics of these three days, when people are together in very intimate exchanges, working in pairs or groups of three or four, they come to a point where attitudes change.

Really, if you could experience it, you could understand it. Just telling about it doesn't convey the wonder of it.

So we have people playing out all kinds of conflict situations, and trying to transform the situation creatively, through the recognition that there is something within each person that's good, helpful, and can be brought out.

Carol: It sounds fascinating. It sounds like it would be an addictive thing to do — uh, I guess that's not the right word.

Virginia: Well, that word could be used, that they would become "addicted" to the idea of Transforming Power and to the idea of caring and respect for themselves and others, for every other person, and expecting the best. A magnificent obsession, we could say.

Quakers speak about "letting your life speak." Instead of talking about what we believe and what we should be, we let our lives speak through the things that we do.

By the way, workshops are never religious presentations. We don't speak much about the Quakers. We just say that it started with Quakers. Quaker ideas are incorporated into many of the things we do, but we're not promoting Quakerism.

Carol: My impression of Quakerism, so to speak, is that it's not really an "ism."

Virginia: [laughing] Right. It's not an "ism." I guess we should call it Quaker love.

We spoke of forgiveness before. Volunteers can go into a second phase of AVP, the advanced workshop. In that, they choose a theme for themselves. There's always choice for the participants. They might choose forgiveness for their theme, or it might be Transforming Power. It might be further information about communication skills, or cooperation. But if they do choose forgiveness, this can be a very powerful workshop.

I facilitated such a workshop in a women's prison in New York City. About a third of the women in that workshop were there because of homicide, because they'd killed their partners, and that was because their partners had threatened to kill or had abused their children. A woman whose children are in danger will go to the utmost to protect them.

There's a tremendous amount of guilt for that, and the women focus on forgiving themselves and forgiving those who threatened their children. A forgiveness workshop is very, very powerful.

Carol: Yes. What a life-changing opportunity.

Virginia: The workshops are life-changing. That's why they've gone worldwide.

Carol: It sounds as though you offer choice, the idea that people can choose. Is that right?

Virginia: Definitely. Yes, choose "once again," because maybe all your choices kept you in a rut in the past. Now you can see alternatives: alternatives to violence, alternative ways to live, different ways to do things, to see the world, to see people you're interacting with — to see your family.

Carol: Can you give us an example from your experience?

Virginia: One exercise that we do helps a person to put himself in an adversary's place, and was incredibly effective with a man in prison who had a sixteen-year-old son who would come to visit him. First, the man played himself, the role of the father. But then he was asked to switch roles, switch chairs, and play the role of his son.

That was so enlightening to him. He said that the next time he met with his son he interacted with him in a totally different way, because now he could put himself in his son's shoes and see things differently. It resulted in an entirely different relationship with his son.

Carol: I would imagine that this group of people is not into "soft" solutions, that they are facing truly core issues.

Virginia: Yes, they are. And forgiveness, of course, is one of the core issues. If we can forgive ourselves and forgive others, life can be totally different. An ongoing anger can disappear when the cause is forgiven.

Someone can say, "There's no reason to be angry any longer with the person who landed me in prison or the person I had a relationship with that led me to make to a wrong decision and I landed in jail. I can forgive myself for what I did, I can forgive them for what they did, and go on, overlook it."

Compassion is a great part of what we're looking at — learning to be compassionate.

Carol: So forgiveness is the first step?

Virginia: It's certainly one of them. But not everyone is in jail because of homicide or manslaughter. Unfortunately, many are there because of possession of a little bit of heroin. With get-tough laws like "Three Strikes and You're Out," young people end up in prison. Needlessly, I think.

Carol: And you speak from experience on this.

Virginia: Yes, because such young people have been participants in workshops I've done since 1976. But now I'm not facilitating workshops. I'm working on an AVP tangent, helping in the preparation of a book of true stories of Transforming Power in action, stories that facilitators use in explaining the nature of that Power.

Carol: Are there particular anecdotes that jump out as your best successes?

Virginia: Yes. Here is one from the book, so you have a little preview.

When I lived in Brooklyn, in about 1980, with my husband, Larry, there was a young woman in our building, Dolores, who was being threatened and beaten by the new man in her life. He was an angry, surly-looking, six-foot giant of a man who had moved in with her and apparently taken control. We could hear shouting and crying.

One evening when Larry was gone, I heard Dolores sobbing and coming downstairs. I went out to the hallway and talked to her. She said, "He says I'll have to leave. I'll have to go to my mother's."

"Wait a minute," I said. "It's your apartment. He's the one who has to leave. I'll go upstairs and talk to him. Wait for me in my apartment."

Transforming Power was in effect at that moment, but I didn't know it. A clue to its presence is fearlessness in the face of danger. The rational mind which experiences fear is not directing our actions. Intuition is.

Upstairs, I looked up at the giant and said, "You'll have to leave."

"I'm not leaving! And send her back up here. I've got more to say to her," was the answer.

We went back and forth: You'll have to leave, I'm not leaving, You'll have to leave...

Then I was inspired to stop. I looked into his eyes, and I said, "I know you want to do what's right."

Seconds passed in silence. Something seemed to hang in the air between us. All this time, we were looking into each other's eyes. And I think the words had touched his heart.

Finally, he said, "All right. I'm going." He got some things that belonged to him, and we went downstairs. He left, and that's the last that anybody in the house ever saw of him.

That's Transforming Power.

Carol: What a great story!

Virginia: We have about seventy others like that.

Carol: In relation to your facilitating, what is one of your more challenging experiences?

Virginia: There are times in a workshop when a crisis arises. We have a motto, "Trust the process." Go ahead with the workshop and put all its principles to work, trusting that things can turn out right through practicing what we preach. We've been talking about how to communicate, how to trust, so let's do it in this crisis situation.

About ten years ago, I was doing a workshop in a medium security prison here in Maryland. The group was mostly Black men, with a couple of Hispanic young men and three or four Caucasians. Unknown to me, two of the white men were neo-Nazis.

Carol: And they had volunteered for this?

Virginia: Yes, they were volunteers. We always ask them if they are, and if not they have the right to leave.

So there they were. Sometimes prisoners have come as provocateurs: "Let's just see how they'll handle this. We'll just challenge them." So these two neo-Nazis must have had that in mind.

We often do exercises in pairs, with random pairing done by counting off by twos so that you aren't with the pal who came in with you.

The Hispanic young man and one of these neo-Nazis were paired off. They were to listen to each other without interruption, then each would repeat his partner's statement. This exercise was designed to develop listening skills.

Suddenly, I became aware that somebody in the group had stormed out of the room. When I got the facts together, something had been said that deeply offended the Hispanic young man, some neo-Nazi piece of racist propaganda. He stormed out and went to the volunteer services coordinator.

She decided that the whole workshop must end, they'd all be locked down, and I must leave.

I pleaded with her. I said, "I know a way that we can get to the bottom of this, and maybe we can resolve it. Just let me get everybody back together.

"Oh, no," she said. But finally she agreed.

[laughing] I used what the American Indians call the "talking stick" circle, letting everyone who wants to speak be heard in turn without interruption. There were about twenty-four people, including both participants and facilitators.

I asked the volunteer coordinator if she would sit in, too. First, she didn't want to, but she finally agreed.

We went around the circle at least twice, with each person saying what he or she believed. Those who didn't want to speak just listened. After the second time around, the neo-Nazi young man said, "Well you know, I changed my mind. Now I don't believe we should kill them all. I think we should work together to try to have rights for everybody."

Carol: Wow.

Virginia: Yes, he decided not to kill them all. [laughing] It's not funny, but I can laugh about it now. It's so bizarre. But he changed his mind.

That's what came out of this wonderful process of carefully listening to what's being said, and then having your turn to say what you think. It changes everybody, everybody who's speaking and everybody who's listening.

We all learn together. Those who go in as facilitators are always learning from those who have volunteered as participants. That workshop was dynamic.

Carol: It's a fabulously simple idea.

Virginia: Yes, it's a simple idea. Yet parts of it are so important to life — respect for one's self and respect for others, trust, willingness to change, willingness to forgive. There are some principles which are written out and given to participants at the end. One of the principles is, "If you see that you are wrong, be willing to change without trying to save face."

They become believers in these kinds of ideas. It's just so remarkable to see this happen in the course of three days. It's three full days, breaking for lunch and supper. So we have a group of people coming in, not even knowing one another and looking at each other warily. And they all go out friends, hugging one another, and saying, "When are you coming back?"

And you'll have one prisoner say to another, "You know, I always saw you in the hall, and I thought you were a real mean guy, but gee, I can see you're okay." They've even gotten friendships alive. Wonderful things happen.

We've been talking about prison, but wonderful things also happen in community workshops, when they are done in shelters for battered women or church groups, or in business settings where the staff wants to have this sort of workshop.

Carol: Do you have proof of these transformations in people?

Virginia: I've often been asked that, and until ten years ago I had to say, "No, we don't. We believe that we are having an effect, but we can't prove it."

But then I was doing a workshop in Hagerstown, Maryland, in a maximum security prison where men were serving out long terms, thirty years or maybe life. The prison psychologist had once given an MMPI[*], and at some point a few years later he had occasion to give it again. And he discovered that there were positive changes in those who had taken AVP workshops, changes that were detectable in the MMPI results.

We always knew it was so, but now we had proof.

Carol: I am sure you also have testimonials from the people whose lives have been profoundly shifted.

Virginia: Not written testimonials, but participants sometimes say something about a particular episode in a workshop, maybe something that was said or done by another participant that was like a flash to them of reality: a revelation.

Not only participants but facilitators, too, are changed. We learn so much from what we do, and bring it into our lives.

In my own case, after all these years, I think my outlook is gentler and more accepting of everything and everybody. Tolerant is not a good enough word. It's something beyond tolerant, something very accepting and caring, and seeing the best in everyone. Knowing that there's so much good there that just needs to be brought out.

Quakers in Action Creating Peace

A number of other Quaker programs were described for us by Elizabeth Segal, a long-time practicing Quaker who currently works with Peace Child. These programs include:

Children's Creative Response to Conflict (CCRC)

This program was started by Lee Stern. While Stern was in prison as a Consciencious Objector, he refused to follow the rules on segregation and sat with Black prisoners. This led to integration in that prison. He also did a lot of education there. The difference between CCRC and AVP is mainly that one is for children and the other is mainly for prisoners. It works very well for both.

Peace Teams

The Peace Teams are international groups trained in conflict resolution and listening. This is a newer program started by Elise Boulding (see Boulding interview in our February 2001 issue). She also started a program called "Imaging a World Without Weapons," a workshop in which one considers all the possibilities and differences there could be in the world if that were so. It is based on the concept that nothing can happen unless someone can imagine it.

American Friends Service Committee

There is an AFSC in Washington, D.C. and an AFSC International. They work for peace and justice while providing relief overseas. The Listening Project, in which people are trained to be good listeners, is part of AFSC.

Quakers at the United Nations

The purpose of the Quaker presence in the United Nations is to bring the diplomats together in informal settings, so that they can interact without being "on stage." Usually meetings at the UN are recorded and formalized, and delegates have to check out everything they say with their countries' officials. These informal meetings offer delegates opportunities simply to interact as human beings, and begin to understand one another.

Peace Child and City of Peace

Although it's not strictly a Quaker program, Elizabeth Segal has worked with Peace Child for a number of years, bringing to it her skills in using drama in the teaching environment. Peace Child is about making the world a safer place for children, and was the precursor of City at Peace, in Washington, D.C., a very intense program in which young people choose issues common to them and share with each other in order to make a musical play out of their life experiences.

Virginia Floyd has been an AVP lead facilitator and coordinator in the Alternatives to Violence Program (AVP) for 27 years, working in prisons and community settings, mostly in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. She is currently one of a team of three working on an upcoming book about "Transforming Power," the core concept of AVP.

The AVP program is much more far-reaching that the role it plays in American prisons. Their website reports: "An entire small town in Colorado has chosen to go through our program. In 1994, the UN sent our facilitators to work with youth in the refugee camps. In Nicaragua the national police force receive our training as part of their efforts to defuse violence." See Alternatives to Violence Program, USA.

*The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is a widely respected test for psychological profiling that has been in use by psychologists and psychiatrists for many decades.