George Lakey’s cam­paign to pre­pare non­vi­o­lent activists for a pos­si­ble coup attempt has made New York­er and Buz­zfeed.

In August, Lakey helped form a group called Choose Democ­ra­cy that has been cir­cu­lat­ing a pledge com­mit­ting peo­ple to “non­vi­o­lent­ly take to the streets if a coup is attempt­ed,” which has more than thir­ty thou­sand signatures. 

Lizzie Wid­di­combe’s descrip­tion of George in the New York­er inspired a spit-take from me:

Lakey, who has white hair and bushy white eye­brows, is a Quak­er, and brings a cheer­ful, Sunday-school-style deliv­ery to lessons about over­throw­ing author­i­tar­i­an regimes. 

To get a taste of that deliv­ery, here’s a Quak­er­S­peak inter­view from last year:

I wrote about the Choose Democ­ra­cy project a few weeks ago. Check out their web­site at choosedemoc​ra​cy​.us

Update: The Boston Globe.