Kazu Haga
Main profile
Kazu Haga is the founder and coordinator of the East Point Peace Academy and is a trainer in Kingian Nonviolence, a philosophy developed out of the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the organizing methodologies of the Civil Rights movement. Having received training from elders including Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Rev. James Lawson and Joanna Macy, he teaches nonviolence, conflict reconciliation, organizing and mindfulness in prisons and jails, high schools and youth groups, and with activist communities around the country.
Kazu has been active in various social change movements since 1998, when at the age of 17 he participated in the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, a 6-month walking journey from Massachusetts to New Orleans to retrace the slave trade. He has since spent a year studying nonviolence in South Asia, has over 10 years working in social justice philanthropy and played leading roles in various movements such as the Global Justice Movement, Occupy Oakland and the Movement for Justice for Oscar Grant.
He is a co-founder and board chair of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), sits on the Board of the OneLife Institute and Peace Workers, and is a member of the Metta Center for Nonviolence’s Strategic Advisory Council.
He currently resides in Oakland, CA.
If we carry intergenerational trauma, then we also carry intergenerational wisdom. By maintaining a relationship with our ancestral wisdom, we can build a truly peaceful world for future generations.