Your America: Democracy's Local Heroes
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Your America: Democracy's Local Heroes
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Overview
Approaching the topic of civic activism on both a national and local level, Your America reveals essential lessons from twelve stories of ordinary citizens accomplishing extraordinary changes in their communities. Like Bill Graham, mayor of tiny Scottsburg, Indiana, who took on the telecommunications giants and wired his town for free wifi; or Katie Redford, a young law student who dusted off the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 and ended up changing the way American corporations behave overseas. Each profile is the result of a story on Now, the popular PBS show with a viewership of over 2½ million people. For fans of the show, community activists, and the blogosphere, this book provides a blueprint for working together locally to create a better global community.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780230613386 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 07/08/2008 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
John Siceloff is the creator and executive producer of PBS's NOW. An award-winning producer for such shows as 20/20, Primetime Live, and Dateline, he is also the recipient of the DuPont Award, Peabody Award, and Emmy Award. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post. He lives in New York, NY.
Jason Maloney is a news and documentary producer who has worked for NOW. His work includes reports for PBS' NewsHour. He was recently the editorial producer on the documentary on the AQ Kahn network entitled "Nuclear Jihad," which won the DuPont Award. He lives in New York, NY.
John Siceloff is the creator and executive producer of PBS's NOW. An award-winning producer for such shows as 20/20, Primetime Live, and Dateline, he is also the recipient of the DuPont Award, Peabody Award, and Emmy Award. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post. He lives in New York, NY.
Jason Maloney is a news and documentary producer who has worked for NOW. His work includes reports for PBS' NewsHour. He was recently the editorial producer on the documentary on the AQ Kahn network entitled "Nuclear Jihad," which won the DuPont Award. He lives in New York, NY.
Read an Excerpt
Your America
Democracy's Local Heroes
By John Siceloff, Jason Maloney
Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © 2008 JumpStart Productions, LLC.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-230-61338-6
CHAPTER 1
THE POLITICS OF EMPOWERMENT
How do you get started if you want to make a difference in America? That's the question we asked each of the people profiled in Your America.
What's fascinating is what we didn't hear. These folks didn't get their start working for political parties. Their credentials weren't burnished in think tanks—progressive, conservative or libertarian. They weren't on the payroll of advocacy groups.
They didn't become grassroots activists because somebody paid them or trained them to do it. These people began working for change in their communities because they cared passionately about an issue close to their lives. Something wasn't working, and they wanted to fix it. They became involved.
All of them share a special quality that's almost disappeared from public debate. They are authentic. They became involved because they were part of a community that was directly impacted by a problem. These folks didn't pull into town one day and start telling people what they had to do to improve their lives. They wanted to fix things because they wanted a better world for themselves and their families and others like them.
Their causes vary enormously. Wynona Ward helps abused women. Rueben Martinez gets books to young Latinos. Diane Wilson pushes chemical companies to stop polluting. They discovered within themselves the capacity to make change. Each became empowered.
With their actions, they help point the nation toward solutions for urgent policy issues. And that is what democracy is all about—people solving problems. Grassroots activists stand alongside the folks who get elected and make laws. Both are important. Right now, the civic activists are especially important because many of those elected officials have let us down in the democracy department. They're on the phone with the guys who sent them fat campaign contributions. When regular citizens dial up, their calls go to voice mail.
If you have ever spoken up at a PTA meeting, or volunteered at the local library, you've engaged in grassroots activism. It takes all kinds. Case in point: Diane Wilson. She took her shrimp boat out to the bay waters where a big company was discharging toxic waste. Her plan was to sink the boat and maybe die in the process. That didn't happen, thank goodness. But we're not all wired to be Diane Wilson. Many of us don't hear that clarion call for total sacrifice. The good news is that there are lots and lots of ways to make a difference that fit right into the life you are leading today.
For those who want to make change happen, what are the lessons of the civic activists profiled in Your America? The first thing that leaps out is what they didn't do. They didn't start with banners and barricades. Protest wasn't their thing. Each found a route to change that was built around action. Some worked within a troubled institution. John Walsh transformed the treatment of foster care kids by working within the government system that was causing the problems. Bunny Greenhouse, as a top official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, demanded transparency and accountability in contracting.
Others worked from the outside to make reform happen. Peggy Buryj, mother of a U.S. Army soldier killed in Iraq, pushed the army to improve its handling of casualties. Robert Moses created a program to improve the teaching of algebra to poor and minority kids, and in the process, created a national model for transforming education and investing in young people.
How did they achieve success? They built movements. They knew that the power of one was only the starting point. They looked around for others who cared, and got them involved. And the involvement wasn't simply a matter of signing a petition, or forwarding an e-mail or writing a check for twenty bucks. They called on people to give time and energy—to be active.
That's how empowerment spreads and grows. The activists showed with the power of example that each person can make change happen. Each successful grassroots movement tilts the country toward a healthy future and away from partisan bickering and cynicism.
Who exactly did these grassroots activists recruit for their movements? They started with people in exactly the same situation. Lucas Benitez, immigrant tomato picker, got other tomato pickers to join the effort to get a better wage. But Benitez didn't stop there. He wanted people who could put pressure on the fast-food companies that bought the tomatoes. He found some unlikely allies: students and religious groups. The students created the "Boot the Bell" boycott movement against Taco Bell. The religious leaders condemned Taco Bell for exploiting workers and chipped away at its brand image. Moral leadership, consumer power and worker solidarity—together, they made a very effective movement.
Other grassroots activists found common ground across divisions of politics and ideology. Lynn and Devonna Owens wanted to save family cattle ranches in the high valleys of Montana. But they knew that ranchers were no match for the real estate developers. They needed allies. So Lynn and Devonna, ranchers who were the children of ranchers, made common ground with their ancient enemies, the environmentalists, in order to preserve their way of life. Ranchers, environmentalists and wealthy vacation homeowners joined together. They all valued the open range, even though their motivations varied. Some wanted a great view, some wanted a place to graze cattle and some wanted a habitat for predators.
For grassroots activists, how do you measure success? The goal for the Owenses was to save the ranching way of life in Madison Valley. Success was all about keeping the developers at bay.
Others found success in one community but didn't stop there. They wanted to scale up their activism and reach more people. After Lucas Benitez and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers triumphed over Taco Bell, they turned their attention to other fast-food companies. They've won against McDonald's and now they're setting up for new battles.
Bill Graham is using the power of example to spread the word. He turned around the town of Scottsburg, Indiana, by focusing on infrastructure for the digital age. Now he's on the road all over the country showing other communities how to do the same thing. John Walsh built the Foster Children's Project to speed troubled children through foster care. Now his project is serving as a "best practices" example for other communities.
Not everyone will hear the call to change the entire system, as John Walsh did. There are people who pitch in to help as after-school tutors or coaches for sports teams. Others volunteer as mentors for troubled kids. Service and volunteerism, powered by altruism, often achieve good things. But here lies an important distinction about how change happens. At its core, grassroots activism is not about altruism and helping others. It's about gaining power to help yourself and others like you to make a better world for all. The folks you'll read about in Your America told us they didn't become activists just to plug holes in an ever-more-leaky safety net. They went to work to help build a better way of doing things, to create an America where ideas, priorities and solutions percolate up from the grassroots.
The people profiled in Your America are among the hundreds of local heroes whose stories have appeared on the public television show NOW on PBS. For the dozen people who appear in the book, we (the coauthors) went across the country to do new interviews and investigate exactly how they had achieved success. We also asked NOW's producers and reporters to write first-person accounts about their encounters with these remarkable people. You'll find their verbal snapshots at the end of each chapter.
As we did our research, two themes emerged. These people embraced activism because of a deeply felt need, a personal mission. And they were determined to scale up because they wanted to help lots of people.
Wynona Ward didn't want anybody to endure the abuse that she had suffered. She found a way to help abused women with legal advice and transportation to and from court. She could have kept her activism small scale and personal, driving around in her SUV and working by herself. But she wanted to help more and more women. She built Have Justice Will Travel into a major force in Vermont and a national example. She spends half her time fundraising and now has a budget that supports five full-time lawyers. Her group has been able to assist thousands of women.
Katie Redford, as a novice lawyer, came up with a new legal approach to go after an American corporation doing business in Burma, a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world. When she won tens of millions of dollars for Burmese villagers, lots of folks would have stopped right there. After all, it took Redford years and years of work and endless legal maneuvering to prevail. But for Katie Redford, that was only the beginning. She and her husband, Ka Hsaw Wa, continued to expand the work of their group Earth Rights International, and now have an annual budget of over $1 million. They are using the power of the law to stop unsavory conduct by U.S. corporations all over the world.
Jackie Thrasher's successful run for the Arizona House of Representatives is an example of activism on a national scale. Her victory wouldn't have happened without years of groundwork to get the money out of politics with a system of publicly financed, clean elections. There are organizations that promote clean elections all over the country, and they have been prime movers in the successful referendum campaigns in Arizona, Maine and elsewhere. Thrasher and other citizen legislators who have been the beneficiaries of clean elections are the muscle that keeps the movement alive and growing. Thrasher divides her time between teaching middle school and debating laws in the state capitol. You couldn't invent a better example of a grassroots activist. She and the dozens of others who won by running clean show all the good things that happen when the torrent of private money is eliminated from elections.
How did Robert Moses scale up his work helping poor and minority students learn algebra? As a young man, Moses worked all over the South as an organizer in the civil rights movement. But decades later, when he created the math program, he started out slowly. He spent years in a couple of schools, fine tuning the approach. He networked with teachers and administrators and parent organizations and educational foundations. With these groups, he created a broad, diverse base for the movement. From the beginning, Moses's aim was to make the Algebra Project into a national movement. He laid the groundwork by training facilitators and teachers and securing funding sources. When he had all the parts in place, he rolled out the program across the country. The growth has been explosive. The Algebra Project went from helping a handful of schoolkids to working with over 10,000 children a year. And Moses says that's only the beginning.
You have to hand it to Moses—the man knows how to take a good idea and make it grow. But there's another lesson at the very core of Moses' approach. He has always believed in the transformative power of the individual. He doesn't look at students as "units" that passively accept new information. He believes change only happens through empowerment. In his view, students first have to embrace their own ability to make a difference. He is creating a "culture of change" where students themselves push for more learning, more resources and more opportunities.
For half a century, Robert Moses has helped people discover that empowerment is the key to citizenship in our democracy. He is pushing the country toward a better place, and at the same time he is creating a new generation of activists and cocreators of democracy. It's an approach that can work for all of us, in communities across the nation. The local heroes of Your America point the way forward.
CHAPTER 2HAVE JUSTICE, WILL TRAVEL
WYNONA WARD
WHAT SHE'S DONE:
Ward has helped thousands of women in Vermont to confront domestic violence and abuse.
LOCAL HERO HIGHLIGHT:
She went from driving trucks to getting a law degree to inventing a new way to help rural women in trouble.
How do you get started in civic activism? You become empowered. You believe that what you do will make a difference in the world. That's a difficult leap for many Americans. How do you even begin pushing for change when the forces of the status quo are so enormous and so powerful?
Wynona Ward has an answer for that. In fact, the challenge for her was even greater. How do you become empowered if you grow up in poverty, if you have an inadequate education, if you have a job that barely supports you? Wynona Ward was able to overcome all of that and achieve amazing things. She built on what would have destroyed most people: She was abused as a young girl. Now she has become a forceful and effective advocate for others who have experienced violence and abuse at home.
Wynona Ward grew up in the 1950s in a rural, remote part of Vermont. Her family lived in what she describes as a four-room, tarpaper shack in a tiny hillside town called West Fairlee. When you drive through West Fairlee today, you'll find a single gas station–general store that sits near the junction of Route 113 and Beanville Road. Imagine, then, what it was like half a century ago. The nearest big shopping district is still across the Connecticut River in Lebanon, New Hampshire, a drive of about thirty miles. You lose your cell phone signal as soon as you exit the nearest interstate, fifteen miles away. The only signs that modernity might have reached these parts are the forests of satellite dishes that cling to the sides of houses to bring in a television signal. Until Ward was in high school, her home had no television, not even a telephone.
Ward's childhood was not a happy one. Her father, who worked on and off as a miner, ruled the household through intimidation, violence and abuse. Ward vividly remembers an incident in her youth, in 1957, when she and her siblings watched in horror as her father, enraged that their mother did not have dinner ready and had not stocked the fridge with beer, nearly choked her to death right before their eyes. The children were able to pull him off and save their mother's life. They earned a beating of their own for their trouble, but were all damaged far more and far longer by the trauma of what they'd witnessed.
And there was also sexual abuse. Ward, trapped in an impoverished family in rural Vermont, says she made it through one day at a time. She felt no one was there to protect her or help her. Looking back, she says nothing was as difficult as the helplessness and hopelessness she felt watching her mother be beaten almost to the point of death. "When my father sexually abused me, it was very traumatic. But what was much more traumatic for me and much more difficult for me to deal with was when I watched him beat my mother, choke my mother, throw things at her," remembered Ward in 2002 when NOW on PBS first met up with her.
When Wynona was seventeen, Harold Ward, her sweetheart since eighth grade, asked her to marry him. Wynona didn't think twice. They couldn't afford a place of their own, so she moved up the hill to the converted single-room schoolhouse Harold shared with his family in neighboring Vershire Heights. Harold's mother was ill, and the family welcomed Wynona's assistance and embraced her as a new member of the family. For years, Wynona never told Harold of her ordeals, obeying a code of silence that she says was an unspoken rule of rural Vermont life at the time. They cobbled together money for an eighteen-wheeler and began life on the road. Wynona and Harold hauled cargo that ranged from refrigerated food to parts of the sets of Broadway musicals such as Les Miserables. Together they logged over a million miles and visited every one of the lower forty-eight states.
It was on one of these treks across the country that Wynona's past caught up to her. She received a call from back home saying that her brother, Richard, had sexually abused his and Wynona's nine-year-old niece. The news hit Wynona with a jolt: She couldn't believe that her brother, who had often tried to protect her from abuse when they were young, was doing the same thing their father had done. The victim's mother—Wynona's sister—was calling for advice as to what to do. Wynona insisted her sister go to the police, even though she knew that would bring down the wrath of their father. She immediately made plans to return home to see how she could help.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Your America by John Siceloff, Jason Maloney. Copyright © 2008 JumpStart Productions, LLC.. Excerpted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction David Brancaccio 1
1 The Politics of Empowerment 5
2 Have Justice, Will Travel: Wynona Ward 11
3 Tomatoes of Wrath: Lucas Benitez 29
4 Corporate Cruelty: Katie Redford 49
5 Helping the Children: John Walsh 69
6 A Literary Movement: Rueben Martinez 85
7 Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!: Robert Moses 101
8 Tell Me the Truth!: Peggy Buryj 119
9 A Loud Whistle: Bunny Greenhouse 137
10 Demanding the Future-Now: Bill Graham 155
11 Power to the People: Jackie Thrasher 171
12 Greening the Gulf: Diane Wilson 189
13 A River Runs Through It: Lynn and Devonna Owens 213
14 An American Story 229
Afterword John Siceloff 235
Resources 237
Acknowledgments 239
Index 241
Reading Group Guide
So you'd like to make some changes. Congratulations. You're taking on the greatest role that any citizen in a democracy can assume: You're participating.
Many of us think that voting is the primary responsibility of a citizen. While voting is important, it is by no means the only thing we can do to participate in our community or country. Writing letters, organizing communities and staging public protests are all valuable ways of participating. And citizen participation is at the very heart of our democracy. America was founded by people who were unhappy with the way things were and decided to do something about it. You can make changes too.
Of course, you don't have to be revolutionary. Working to save a park, to organize a reading program, or to make government more accountable are all ways you can make the world-your world-a better place.
Activism is patriotic. You're helping to improve your town or your country. Some believe that activism is a duty. The writer Gunter Grass said, "The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open."
Activism is not necessarily political. In the 1960s activism was associated with the political left. Activists
protested against the Vietnam War, or for women's rights. By the 1980s it was activist conservatives who had come to the fore, working to lower taxes and shrink government. But activist acts like bringing the internet to your town or improving conditions for foster children are neither left nor right. They are simply making things better. And that, at heart, is what activism is all about.
So again, congratulations on your desire to be an activist, to participate. This handbook will give you a framework on how to get started. But it's just a start. We hope that within a few months of beginning your career as an activist you'll know more about it than we can ever tell you.
How to Be an Activist
Being an activist isn't rocket science. It takes a great deal of dedication and hard work, but it doesn't take special knowledge or training to get started. You'll learn as you go and you'll find that many of the skills you need are skills you already have. And many of these skills are based in common sense rather than any specific technical know-how.
But there are specific steps you can take to get started as a change-maker. We'll discuss these steps here. Keep in mind as you read, that every situation is different. You'll need to choose your tactics and tailor them to your specific circumstances. We'll look at some case histories and see how these tactics were used in the real world. And we'll look at the lessons to be learned from successful activists.
Find Your Issue
The first step in becoming an activist is easy: Find an issue that is important to you. This is easy because there is so much that needs changing, and because more often than not the issue will find you. Perhaps something is happening at your child's school that really bothers you. Maybe a developer wants to build a skyscraper in your favorite park. Or maybe you've realized that global climate change is about to cause your beach house to be flooded by an ever-rising sea. It's time to do something about it.
Whatever the issue, it has to be something you care about deeply. Making change happen isn't easy. It could take years. You'll need stamina and dedication that comes when an issue is close to your heart. You don't have to want to change the whole world; It makes more sense to start changing something close to home, in your town or community.
Learn About It
Learn everything you can about your issue: Who are the interested parties? Who are the key personalities? What is the history? What laws or regulations pertain to it? What are the finances behind your issue?
Learn in every way possible: use the internet, talk to neighbors, contact elected officials, etc. Chances are that you are not the first person to address your issue. You may be able to find other people who are willing to share both specific information and their valuable experience.
The bottom line: become an expert. You'll be challenged and you need to be able to answer questions accurately.
Corporate Cruelty: Katie Redford
While studying law, Katie Redford traveled to Burma (Myanmar) and was shocked by the human rights abuses she saw there. Inspired to make a change, she came up with an innovative way to make corporations accountable for their involvement in atrocities outside American boarders by reviving an arcane law. Katie Redford took on U.S. oil giant Unocal scoring a huge victory for Burmese villagers. Redford and her nonprofit Earth Rights International continue to take up battles to hold corporations accountable for crimes committed overseas.
- The target of your activism is not your enemy. Ms. Redford says that she supports the international scope of American corporations. She is not anti-corporation. She just wants them to do business the right way.
- Believe in yourself and your goals. Redford's legal strategy was based on an arcane law, an approach her law school professor told her would never succeed. It did.
Become Empowered
This is at once both the simplest and the most difficult step in becoming an activist. Becoming empowered simply means realizing that you can make change happen. You don't need to be rich, educated or powerful. You may have to do things you've never done before, talk to people you've never dreamed of talking to, and perhaps even rearrange major parts of your life. You'll need willpower, dedication and a good deal of energy. But you can effect change. Once you've realized that, you've taken the biggest step. You're empowered. You're on your way.
Have Justice, Will Travel: Wynona Ward
Wynona Ward was a truck driver based in Vermont. When she was forced to face the domestic abuse she had experienced as a child it was like lightning struck. She knew she had to help others who were still the victims of abuse. She went to law school and then founded an organization called have Have Justice Will Travel--part law firm, part counseling service, part taxi fleet. She's helped helped thousands of hard to reach women in Vermont break the cycle of domestic abuse. And her organization just keeps growing.
- You don't need to be rich, powerful or politically connected to make change.
- Finding an issue from your own life experience is the most powerful motivator.
- Who do you help? Civic activism, as we use the term, is not about altruism, but rather about acting to help those in your own community. Community can have many definitions: it can be a physical community; it can also be people who are all affected by the same conditions.
Find Allies and Alliances
You can't do this alone. Begin by enlisting the help of like-minded neighbors, friends and community groups. You may start your own organization dedicated to your cause. Ask people for small bits of their time and build a core group. Then, spread your net. Look for other organizations, businesses and elected representatives who share your interest.
Again, the internet can help. Activismnetwork.org will give you tips on how to start a campaign for change and how to build a network. It will allow you to share contacts, event information, and tactics. Idealist.org helps you find people with similar interests who might want to collaborate with you. There are many other useful sites on the web.
A key point about alliances: Be willing to look anywhere for support. You may be surprised at who your allies are. For example, Environmentalists and Evangelical Christians, who have been at odds on many issues, have recently found common ground over environmental issues.
A River Runs Through It: Lynn and Devonna Owens
Lynn and Devonna Owens have been cattle ranchers in beautiful Madison Valley, Montana for four decades. But as part-time wealthy residents moved in, including some of Hollywood's brightest stars, development boomed and the sweeping vistas and open spaces of the valleys were threatened. The Owens feared that traditional ranching would become a thing of the past given Montana's permissive laws on land use and development. So they banded together with fellow ranchers and teamed up with their former enemies--environmentalists--to create a world-class community alliance.
- The Owens, like so many activists, found their cause in their own back yard.
- The ranchers grew their movement by appealing to unlikely allies. The Owens reached out to their traditional enemy. Both groups cared about open space, and found new ways to work together.
Strategize
Decide exactly what it is that you're trying to achieve. Do you want to save a single park in your neighborhood from development or do you want to restrict all development anywhere in your town? Is your goal to get a local company to clean up a specific hazardous waste site, or to change federal regulations that would apply to any manufacturing process that produces that waste? Know your goal, and know what success would look like.
Then, determine the best way to achieve your desired outcome. An extreme action like a hunger strike may not be the best way to ask your local Department of Public Works to put a new "Stop" sign on your corner. A small letter writing campaign may not have much effect in getting a multi-national corporation to clean up a hazardous waste site in your town. Your job is to learn about the many tactics available to you and to find those that are most appropriate.
Helping the Children: John Walsh
John Walsh knew first-hand the overwhelming problems facing the foster care system in Florida. As a lawyer for the Department of Children and Families, he saw how the state was doing a poor job of intervening when children were at risk. And its system of placing kids into foster care was a mess. As a result children were suffering--some even dying--and it broke his heart. Walsh wanted to get kids out of foster care and into a better place--the quicker the better. From inside the belly of the beast Walsh came up with a way to cut case time in half. His approach has salvaged many young lives and is now being adopted by counties across Florida and across the nation.
- Our image of activists is that of the outsider forcing change. But John Walsh shows that civic activists can accomplish great change from within an institution.
- Know your subject. Walsh could not have created change without knowing the intricacies of a very complex system and knowing how and where to apply pressure.
- Choose your tactics wisely: You don't always need to be confrontational.
Publicize
Publicize your cause, your organization and your events. Hand out fliers in your neighborhood. Curry favor with local reporters. Get your picture in the paper and your story on local radio. Contact national media outlets--they are looking for stories. Do what ever you need to do to get the word out. This will serve two purposes. It will bring attention to your cause (helping to bring in more support) and it will bring pressure on the subject of your action.
A Loud Whistle: Bunny Greenhouse
Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse was a top civilian procurement officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers supervising billions of dollars in work assignments when she discovered something was seriously amiss. She believed that Halliburton and its subsidiaries were able to get preferential treatment, including billion dollar contracts, for rebuilding projects in Iraq. She could not keep quiet, no matter what the consequences. Greenhouse helped bring accountability and transparency to a giant government organization. Her reward for whistleblowing? A demotion from her job. But this woman has absolutely no regrets.
- Change can stir up powerful opposition. Know that there may be a cost for your efforts.
- The press, and Congress, can be powerful allies.
- Greenhouse is an example of creating change from within. She relied on the rules of the institution itself to promote reform.
Take Action
This, of course is the heart of the matter. For it is only by your actions, and the actions of those whose help you've enlisted, that the situation you wish to change will change. An "action" can be almost anything as long as it moves you closer to achieving your goal. It can be a public protest, handing out leaflets to educate the public, or a letter writing campaign. It can be entering into a negotiation. It can be lobbying politicians in your hometown or in Washington, D.C. There is no single action that is appropriate for every scenario. Find the ones that are appropriate and execute them. Repeat if necessary.
A Literary Movement: Rueben Martinez
As a child, Rueben Martinez loved to read. As an adult, he used his barbershop in California to advocate literacy to his clients. Martinez filled his barbershop with classics by heavyweights like Tolstoy and Hemingway. As he cut hair, he shared his love for literature with his clients. Many of them didn't read English and despite a large Hispanic population it was hard to find books in Spanish. So Martinez made book runs to Mexico to pick up Spanish language titles. Demand was overwhelming, so Martinez transformed his small barbershop into a major bookshop and community center. Along the way, he has put over two million Spanish-language books into the hands of schoolchildren and adults.
- Civic activism has no age limit. Martinez didn't embark on his career in civic activism until he was in his mid-fifties.
- Tough it out. Rueben believed so much in his bookstore that he was willing to lose everything to keep it going.
- Change happens in many ways. Martinez supports more resources for schools. But he chose to go in a different direction in his effort to create change.
- Change does not always involve opposition. When you point your life in the right direction, good
things can happen.
Persist
Persistence is key, because real change rarely happens quickly. It may take years for you to achieve your goal. Keep at it, and make the journey worthwhile. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Tomatoes of Wrath: Lucas Benitez
Lucas Benitez worked picking tomatoes in Southern Florida for wages that were barely enough to live on. Conditions were deplorable and workers faced a climate of intimidation, fear and violence right here in the United States. Lucas Benitez rose up to create an alliance of workers and consumers that forced fast food giants McDonalds and Taco Bell to change their ways. He was able to transform the lives of some of the worst paid people in America by bringing concrete change to their working conditions.
- Growing the movement requires reaching out and building a coalition--not a partisan group, but people who share interests.
- Making change requires the long view. Benitez and his group of workers have been working for over a decade to raise wages for farmworkers. They have had great success, but progress is measured in years.
- Even the largest most powerful organizations in the country can be swayed by the right tactics.
The Real World
These steps toward activism may seem abstract or idealistic. In these and the following case studies, you'll meet some remarkable people who used these tools to bring about change. In each case they found, by trial and error, just the right combination of tactics to be effective. None of their paths are identical, and you'll have to chart your own course. But in their stories you'll find valuable real-world lessons, and draw inspiration to get out there and do it yourself.
Greening the Gulf: Diane Wilson
Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fishing boat captain, took on a giant chemical company and forced it to stop dumping chemicals along her beloved Gulf Coast. But change did not come easily. Wilson held hearings and protests, tried to mobilize her town's residents, and urged her elected officials to help. None of that worked. So this mother of five went on a hunger strike, her first of many acts of civil disobedience. Wilson's actions led to death threats, the loss of her job, as well as fights with family and friends. But in the end her determination did more than curtail a corporate polluter in her community: it pointed the entire environmental movement in a new direction.
- The power of one. Government failed the residents of Calhoun County, Texas. Elected representatives were in cahoots with the companies doing the polluting. Local residents cared more about jobs than the environment.
- Diane started out thinking of the companies that were polluting the water as the enemy. But she came to appreciate their need for branding and public relations in order to expand. Her new approach helped convince Formosa Plastics to adopt a "zero-discharge" system.
- Wilson shows the new face of environmentalism. Many groups use email and direct mail to solicit donations and then they hire lobbyists to work in Washington. In contrast, the Diane Wilson model is to grow a movement on the ground of people who are passionate and active.
Demanding the Future - Now: Bill Graham
Bill Graham wanted to bring high speed Internet to his small Indiana town in a bid to save it from economic doom. The telecommunications companies weren't interested so Graham, the town's mayor, developed plans to wire the town on his own. Just as he was on the verge of success, the telecommunications companies cried foul. They reached out to their political allies to strangle Graham's service. Although the odds were stacked against him, Graham spearheaded a technology revolution that has helped his town blossom into the 21st Century.
- Being an activist may be part of your job. Graham became an activist while he was mayor of a small town in Indiana.
- He's still the mayor--and still getting things done. Empowerment moves you forward from where you are.
- Activists are not all anti-corporate left-wingers. Graham is a Republican. He takes the view of business--that support of local communities and creating more jobs helps everyone, including companies both big and small.
Tell Me the Truth!: Peggy Buryj
Peggy Buryj's son, Army Pfc. Jesse Buryj was killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq. She was first told that he was killed when a truck hit his vehicle. Later it was "friendly fire" by foreign troops, and then a soldier told her yet another version. She needed the truth. Thanks to her efforts, the Army is doing a better job of investigating and reporting military deaths.
- The target of change is not the enemy. Peggy Buryj made sure that the Army knew she respected what their soldiers were doing; in fact, she supported the war in Iraq.
- The combination of authenticity and empowerment is a lever that can create enormous results. A handful of women changing Army procedures? Not remotely possible--until and unless you factor in that all these women had lost sons in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Buryj learned how to work her way through a complex military bureaucracy and to file Freedom of Information requests. She even got a message to the President in her effort to find out what happened to her son. It paid off.
Power to the People: Jackie Thrasher
As a school teacher for more than two decades, Jackie Thrasher knew that there were problems with Arizona's education system. But when she found out that her state came in last in the country in public education funding per student, she began asking questions and following the money. She found out that the plight of Arizona's schools was the responsibility of the state legislature. But what could Jackie Thrasher, the music teacher, do to change the situation? The surprising answer: run for office. Thrasher became part of a new movement called "clean elections" that allows ordinary citizens to run for political office. Today, she is fighting for better schools and more pay for teachers as a member of Arizona's House of Representatives.
- The clean election movement is a great example of the intersection of civic activism and electoral politics.
- National efforts to get money of politics have taken hold in Arizona, Maine and other localities. That has enabled schoolteachers and other people who aren't well-connected or rich to run successfully for state office.
- Thrasher is another example of choosing tactics wisely. She could have held demonstrations and tried to force change from the outside. But she achieved success by becoming an insider.
Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!: Robert Moses
Robert Moses, a former civil rights activist, knew that children from poor and minority backgrounds didn't always receive the quality education they deserved. He developed The Algebra Project, a program that helps disadvantaged children in math. His initiative didn't just make math fun. It's had positive ripple effects throughout communities across America with former students leading the way.
- The people who you want to help must be empowered.
- Leading doesn't mean telling people what to do. Moses' approach was to develop methods of empowerment and techniques of algebra instruction, and lift up the work of parents, teachers and administrators and above all students to make a plan and make change happen.
Using This Guide
You can print this out and record your own thoughts and goals on what you would like to undertake as an activist. Or your can use it electronically. Whatever method serve you best will stand you in good stead as you seek to enact change.
Just remember:
- Find Your Issue
- Learn About It
- Become Empowered
- Find Allies and Alliances
- Strategize
- Publicize
- Take Action
- Persist