It is often a source of frustration to me that our society does not teach the history of social change in our school systems. In fact we barely teach civics. Most Americans cannot correctly name the three branches of government: Congress, the Presidency and the Courts - let alone describe how they operate as checks and balances on each other. It is little surprise then that people miss important elections and are surprised then by court decisions that happen because of Presidential appointments to the courts. But as history is written by the victors it is also the case that when social movements like the suffragette's or the abolitionists or the civil rights workers win - that the history of how they win is sort of sanitized. It is turned into a "strong (wo)man" version where a charismatic leader like Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony, or Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln are accounted most of the credit - ignoring the faceless thousands that made up a movement. Little is written about the many many campaigns, including the ones lost on the way to victory. (And yet every battle of the Civil War is told in detail.)
We are kept therefore from the amazing details of how ordinary people can affect change. The public has vagish ideas that you march on Washington and that you might have to get arrested. But even that belief usually does not understand the significant genius of how people in the civil rights movement or suffragette movement were arrested doing the things they were prohibited from. (Not sitting down blocking traffic or blocking a door.) The inability to list even a few of the 100 tactics that Gene Sharp listed in his famous work on non-violence keeps us feeling helpless and disempowered. Since we are taught a little bit about Congress passing bills - we are left thinking our only power is to write Congressional Representatives which we can tell from the form letters that come back are not listening and don't come from our class background (a huge class of millionaire and billionaire aging white men) and to try to persuade them to pass the bills we want. This again leaves us feeling helpless and disempowered.
Even for those who make it through some protest marches or rallies into longer term volunteer roles and involvement in ongoing campaigns we often find ourselves wondering? What good does this do? If I spent more time at it - would it actually do any good? These are important questions to answer.
One of my answers is social change takes time and it may not be seen in your lifetime. Susan B Anthony did not live long enough to see women get the vote and she knew that likely but stated publicly that "failure is impossible" her own statement of faith that it would happen. Martin Luther King said shortly before his assassination: "I may not get there with you but I have been to the mountain top and I know what is there." Lincoln also died before seeing post war peace. Yet each of these individuals took actions that were critical to success and without with success would not have been possible - and each of them did those actions with the support and work of hundreds and sometimes thousands of others.
Mostly the ripple of our actions is not visible to us. Protesters during the war in Vietnam surrounded the White House on an almost continuous basis demanding an end to the war. Nixon never acknowledged them and the protesters often felt frustrated that they could not reach him. And yet years later accounts by his private advisors revealed that when he was being pressured to increase the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos - he stated: "I am not going to do that when the White House is surrounded by protestors." It is also clear that both JFK and Johnson gave in on certain civil rights issues that they had not intend to give on, because of a nation riveted by scenes of lunch counter sit-ins, bus boycotts and police dogs and fire hosed turned onto peaceful protestors. George Lakey writes extensively in his book How We Win about the kinds of campaigns that can build momentum and get traction. He also commonly comments that one off protests do not achieve that. We have to have a goal and a strategy for getting there. Martin Luther King, Jr had numerous campaigns happening in different states, both overlapping and building upon each other. At probably the most powerful moment of social change in our country the 70's the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement and the environmental movement achieved a powerful intersectionality where they began to recognize each other as fighting for the same cause - justice.
History often refers to the fact that Quakers did not own slaves and were abolitionists. What that history does not tell is it took Quakers 100 years to arrive at that position. That a dozen Quakers impassioned about the evils of slavery traveled among Friends pleading with and emploring them to stop owning slaves - till eventually their Meetings were able to reach unity on that position which was accomplished in part by disowning the Friends who did not willing comply with ceasing to own people. (and some simply complied by selling their enslaved people rather than freeing them.) Thus it took a movement within Friends to bring them to any place of leadership in a wider social movement.
Individual actions can have a surprisingly bigger ripple effect than we would think. Not only did some individual Quakers influence others on ceasing to own slaves, but whistle blower Chelsea Manning relates that is was hearing Vietnam area whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg that gave Chelsea the courage to speak out. Daniel Ellsberg tells that is was hearing draft resister Randy Kehler speak out that eventually gave Daniel the courage. Randy drew on the traditions of Quaker opposition to war to burn his draft card. Thus the ripples can cross generations and inspire strangers. My own life was radicalized by the influence of many many activists words and actions that stirred my soul. We do not know when we do something for peace or justice what its long term effects will be.
What would happen now if Black Lives Matter, Right to Choose, Climate activists and Defenders of Democracy and voting rights all joined forces?
No comments:
Post a Comment