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Fasting every day on water only to defeat Trump, as I’ve done since October 3, has led me to research other political fasts, or hunger strikes. There’ve actually been a lot of them.
Mohandus Gandhi is the most well-known person to have fasted. He engaged in 17 of them, the longest for 21 days, between 1913 and 1948. Two were in South Africa; the rest were in India.
Cesar Chavez is the most well-known of those who have engaged in political fasts in the USA. He fasted three times, the longest for 36 days. His most famous fast was for 25 days in 1968 directed in part towards members of the United Farmworkers Union to urge them to remain nonviolent in their multi-year campaign for union recognition from California large growers.
The most dramatic hunger strike was by Irish freedom fighter Bobby Sands and a number of others inside British-run prisons in Northern Ireland in 1981. He and nine others died as a result of this action, for Sands after 66 days consuming only water and salt.
During the Vietnam War African American comedian and anti-war activist Dick Gregory fasted for 40 days on water only in 1967, and he did a very long fast from solid foods, consuming a variety of liquids, for two years. According to an article by Vinay Lal in 2017, “Across the decades, he went on dozens of hunger strikes, over issues including the Vietnam War, the failed Equal Rights Amendment, police brutality, South African apartheid, nuclear power, prison reform, drug abuse…
