Integrity can drive individuals to challenge existing structures and practices in various ways – campaigning against them, separating from them, or exemplifying alternative lifestyles. Under this theme we explore how personal integrity has compelled non-conformists, utopians, activists and reformers to act only according to their conscience. Thomas More, Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi used integrity as a political tool. Edward Carpenter and Leo Tolstoy stressed personal integrity as the remedy for an unjust society. All challenged their readers to act honestly in their social, political and and commercial lives. Twentieth century campaigns for peace and for civil rights have been characterized by refusal to comply with the unacceptable and assumption of the obligation to confront it. Integrity is important to the origins of protest but also to its ends and means. We explore the ways integrity has shaped debate over strategies of protest, how it has governed action as well as intention, and how the forms of organization and collective action are negotiated to preserve the integrity of the actors.
Related Portraits
Related events and resources
Integrity & Activism workshop
Mapping Tyneside Radicalism
The Integrity Project 