Amos Sawyer, former president of Liberia

Here in the United States, we haven’t heard much about the power of nonviolent resistance, at least not since various social movements here used it to such great effect in the 1960s and 1970s.

All that changes tonight when UNLV welcomes former Liberian president Amos Sawyer, who’ll speak about the nonviolent resistance women in his homeland used to help end a civil war in 2003 and force the exile of dictator Charles Taylor.

Sawyer led Liberia before Taylor, the former guerrilla leader, grabbed power in a military coup there before formally winning election as president in 1997.

Sawyer, whose interview with CityLife will run in part next week, will talk about the state of his nation and how he believes his county is back on the path to peach.

His talk and panel discussion with UNLV women’s studies and political science professors will start after a screening of Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a 2008 documentary about those successful, nonviolent protests which changed Liberia.

The event starts Friday at 6:30 p.m. in UNLV’s Greenspun Hall Auditorium. For more information, call the William S. Boyd School of Law at 895-3671 or visit their website.