Nonviolence Training, February 4, 1987
The APT nonviolence training, for the Feb. 5th demonstration, took place on the 4th in Heritage Hall at (the ironically named) Nucleus Plaza, in the West Side neighborhood of Las Vegas, Nevada.
An all day event, the training included discussions about nonviolence tactics, the layout of the rally site at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site, and role-playing of situations that people who risked arrest may face.
The APT staff got up in front of the group and said that they wanted to gather together representatives from the participants to act as a quick response group, with three people from the crowd, and two from the APT staff. The idea was that if there were a problem at the rally site, during the action, that required a decision for everyone, then the five members would come together, assess the situation and make a decision. It was an effort to make the decision-making more inclusive of the participants, not just a top-down, from-the-staff structure. The group was never required to come together, but two of the three became very active with APT over the next five years.