As with so many leaders who emerge at the grass roots level trying to right a wrong, I began at the level of an activity, graduated to thinking about tactics, and struggled to understand how to shape strategy, with only limited notions of the tools that were available to me.
— Douglas A. Johnson, in The Need for New Tactics
(First in a three-part series on moving from activity, to tactics, to strategy.)
How does one become an activist? How does someone grow from being oblivious to larger issues to caring about them? And, how does one move from being a “concerned citizen” to the crucial step of devoting precious time and energy to taking determined, organized action for a cause?
These are serious questions, so let me look for an answer in my own “How to become an activist” reference.
Almost 25 years ago, I was in college, minding my own business. As I walked by, a fellow student asked me to sign a petition against nuclear weapons. I stopped and listened. I may have asked a question or two.
I was given a few reasons, like how many times the Earth could be blown over with current stockpiles, and how many thousands of warheads they were being built right at that time.
So I signed.
Next thing I knew, the student told me she had to catch a course and would I please take over the table. In a flash, she had disappeared.
So how does one become an activist? You get stuck holding a table.
— Sorry, you say, but could you please replay this in slow motion?
Glad you ask.
Let’s break down that experience into steps:
1. Hard-hitting information is allowed to sink in.
2. Some concrete small step is asked (like sign a petition).
3. Soon after the first opening, a greater, achievable challenge is proposed.
Not all beginner’s steps need to be small. My next activity was civil disobedience training, including a “hands-on” practice on how to go over an 8-foot barb-wired fence using old blankets and sleeping bags.
But let me be honest here. What really helped get me started was a warm, open and lively person — convincing, but not overbearing — who asked me to do something I could.
So how does one become an activist? There are thousands of possible answers. But it helps when you meet a real-life activist who has convincing arguments, and another class to catch.
— Philippe Duhamel, interTactica.org
Tell me your own story. What was your first “activist” thing ever? How did your own sequence of events unfold in becoming an activist?
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