10.
MOVEMENTS OF MILLIONS
“The ultimate measure of a [person] is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.1
I don’t know what injustice you want to see ended. I don’t know what motivates you, or what your passion is. But I do know that whatever it is, none of us can do it on our own. Big changes come when diverse voices sound together. If we want to make a difference, we need to be as effective as possible and demonstrate that there’s a better way so we can build massive movements. To make all this happen, you’ve got an important role to play.
How do I know this? Because that’s how Social Entrepreneurs have tackled society’s biggest problems since before America’s Founding.
The stories of movements fill our history books. The American independence movement gave rise to the first nation in history whose founding document—the Declaration of Independence—offered the promise of equal rights to all, not just those born to nobility. Decades later, the abolition movement got America to begin taking this promise seriously, ultimately ending the evil of slavery.
Throughout the nineteenth century, and especially after the turn of the twentieth century, the women’s rights movement shifted our country further in the right direction, although the progress was slow and painful and continues to this day. It transformed women’s ability to participate and contribute. Since then, there have been many more movements that have brought our country closer to America’s Founding ideals, making our country far better, from civil rights to antiwar activism to marriage equality and many others. We still have a long way to go, but the progress is undeniable.
We remember and celebrate these movements for good reason: they ended some of the worst injustices of their day, breaking down the barriers that prevented so many from rising. They empowered millions, bringing to life the promise of America, by practicing the principles of individual dignity, equal rights, and openness—that is, by recognizing the essential conditions for a society based on mutual benefit, where every person can realize their potential.
While each movement has been different, they have all followed a similar course. They were all built from the bottom up, starting in relative obscurity, with a small number of people, or in different and disparate places with little to connect them. Success was never assured, sometimes unlikely or seemingly impossible, as all faced strong opposition.
Yet in all of them, what started small became bigger and more effective with time. They suffered defeats, then won small victories, which led to bigger victories, which led to the transformation of our country. They succeeded because they motivated millions to demand change that empowered millions more to participate in society and contribute to its success.
THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT
The women’s rights movement is instructive. Not long after the Declaration of Independence and the Founding of America, courageous women began to demand that their rights be respected. They saw that their treatment was both unjust and harmful to society. They were not content to be written off as second-class citizens or merely their husband’s helper.
Can you imagine taking up that cause at the turn of the nineteenth century? Women were ignored, ridiculed, punished for their so-called insolence, or worse. Their demands for justice were often met with more injustice, a vicious cycle. But the leaders among them—Social Entrepreneurs all—refused to back down.
The process was slow and uneven, but it steadily moved forward. In 1842, Maryland gave married women the right to earn and keep their own money instead of forcing them to give their earnings to their husband. Other states followed suit.2 In 1848, New York and Pennsylvania granted married women the right to own property. Others, once again, took similar action.3
More victories began to accumulate. In 1850, Tennessee banned violence against women.4 Other states began allowing women to hold trade licenses. California ratified a state constitution in 1879 banning employment discrimination based on gender.5 While many of these laws were far from perfect, they nonetheless represented big steps in the right direction.
In 1890, Wyoming became the first state in America to give women the right to vote and hold elected office. The territory of Wyoming had allowed women to vote since 1869. When Congress tried to get the territory to restrict the vote to men as a condition of statehood, the state legislature responded with a telegram: “We will stay out of the Union a hundred years rather than come in without our women.” Congress backed down.6
Women made progress in other institutions too. Before the nineteenth century, women were generally banned from attending college. The assumption was that they didn’t need higher education, if they needed any education at all. Then, in 1837, Oberlin College admitted four women—a revolutionary move. The first woman to graduate from medical school did so in 1849.7 Slowly but surely, new colleges for women began to open, and existing schools stopped admitting only men. (Shamefully, many elite universities continued to discriminate against women until the 1970s.8)
Behind each of these victories was a diverse group of principled people demanding justice. What started with women inspired men to join the cause. Their actions in some states spurred similar action in others. The women’s rights movement snowballed until it achieved what was then the greatest victory. Come 1920, the nation as a whole recognized women’s right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment.
RICH TAFEL
ON THE FRONT LINES
RICH TAFEL IS A PASTOR, AN EARLY AIDS ACTIVIST, AND FOUNDER OF LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS. THROUGH HIS DECADES OF LEADERSHIP RICH HELPED PAVE THE WAY FOR THE VICTORY OF MARRIAGE EQUALITY IN 2015.
We all have our own moments of courage. We often don’t recognize them at the time, but they become clear in retrospect.
My own happened in the 1980s. That’s when I came out as gay, even though I risked losing friends, family, and my career. As I watched a generation of mostly gay men dying in Boston, I became an “AIDS Buddy,” which meant visiting a person with AIDS weekly. Nothing taught me more about sacrifice, love, compassion, death, and the importance of civil rights.
Those two decisions helped me find my life’s work. I wanted to devote myself to the fight for inclusion, tolerance, and love. Having graduated from Harvard Divinity School, where I served a stint as assistant minister at the Harvard Memorial Church, I began to speak out, from whatever pulpit or podium I could.
In the years that followed, I founded the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization to give voice to gay and lesbian members of the GOP. I knew it would be an uphill battle, but I had no idea what I was in for.
I spent the better part of a decade debating the religious right. You’d have thought that would endear me to the progressive left. Nope. They only saw a Republican—too interested in “straight institutions” like religion and marriage. But slowly, surely, we were building a movement that would soon attract people from all different perspectives and walks of life.
There are many moments that stand out in our struggle. None as vivid as a sequence of events in 1998 during what would come to be known as the “summer of hate.”
As part of Rich Tafel’s tireless advocacy for equal rights, he testified before Congress in 1995.
Those were dark days. The gay and lesbian community was reeling. We were losing battles at the ballot box. We were losing legislative fights.
Jim Lehrer asked me on national television: Will the gay issue ever be resolved? I said yes, we would win. But words have consequences, I told him, as I looked across the table at the representatives of the so-called moral majority who had come on his show to debate me. It was their bigoted words in particular that I was referring to.
Three months later, Matthew Shepard—a gay 21-year-old student in Wyoming—was tortured and brutally murdered. His death would come to signify one of the lowest points in our movement’s struggle for equality.
Such was the atmosphere we were living in. But amid it all, the growing group of activists who were beginning to join forces didn’t lose hope. They embodied courage. I saw it firsthand in Fort Worth, Texas, during that horrible summer.
One day in particular will stay with me as long as I live. It was 100 degrees outside, and the men in front of me were boiling with rage. About 30 or 40 of them had been brought in on buses by an anti-gay group. They were screaming as loud as they could.
They were trying to shut down a rally being held by the Texas chapter of Log Cabin Republicans. A few days earlier, the chapter had been banned from participating in the state party’s convention. Texas had turned into the frontline of our struggle. So I got on a plane and flew down to help them hold a rally.
None of us expected the counter-protesters.
Looking out at that crowd, the words of the local sheriff were still fresh in my mind: “A lot of people carry guns around here. My men can’t protect you. We would not advise you to continue.”
Sure enough, when yelling didn’t work, the protesters tried to rush the stage. We blocked them. The longer we went, the angrier and more aggressive they got. But their rage only strengthened our resolve.
My turn came to take the stage. I was planning to give a prepared speech, one I’d given a dozen times before. But in the heat of the moment, I threw it away. I spoke straight from the heart.
As I came to the close, I drew on my faith and spoke with all the conviction that I had.
“We know that when we fight for the voiceless, when we fight for people who want to love each other, when we fight for people to be honest, we know that our cause is just, we know that God is on our side. And we know something very powerful. They may have more numbers, but numerical strength never, never will beat moral strength. We will win this battle. We will win this struggle!”
In the years that followed, we never gave up. We made our case, showed people the justice of our cause, that we shared values with them—whether straight or gay, Democrat or Republican. Our shared commitment to love and inclusion was far more important than the areas on which we disagreed.
As we reached more people, our movement swelled—and then, we hit a tipping point. All of a sudden, people who just a few years before had kept quiet, or worse, found their own courage to stand with us and speak out.
First we changed the culture. And now marriage equality is the law of the land.
— RICH TAFEL
Discover more stories of activists tackling injustice at BelieveInPeopleBook.com/stories
The struggle continues, but from that point on, there was no question that discrimination against women is wrong and unacceptable, and that progress on this issue is non-negotiable. We are all better off for it.
Securing the right to vote for women took the better part of a century. But progress can also happen much faster. Less than 20 years elapsed between the passage of the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 and the enactment of marriage equality in 2015. The marriage equality movement transformed America for the better at an unprecedented speed, driven in large part by principled Social Entrepreneurs.
THE MECHANICS OF MOVEMENTS
Of course, the challenges we face today differ greatly from the injustices of the past. They are not as brutal as slavery or as blanket as a prohibition on women voting. They nonetheless ruin individual lives and injure society. They will continue to do so until enough people unite to overcome them.
As you have seen in the last few chapters, if we are to go beyond fighting injustice one person at a time, then the core institutions of community, education, business, and government must be transformed. Each one must consistently empower people to find their own unique ways to contribute and succeed. That won’t happen until enough people demand better and then combine to make it happen, changing how our country thinks about, talks about, and tackles the biggest challenges we face.
But a movement? That still sounds like a tall order, even for the most talented Social Entrepreneur. How can you, as a single individual, help galvanize a massive number of people to take action on a specific issue? How can you possibly make a difference given the size and strength and sheer number of the barriers around us?
If we are to go beyond fighting injustice one person at a time, then the core institutions of community, education, business, and government must be transformed.
For the answer, look to the lessons of history. Think back to Frederick Douglass. Think back to all the remarkable people you’ve met in this book. They, along with my decades of study and experience, have taught me three main things about building movements. Each applies to every Social Entrepreneur, regardless of your passion or project.
The first lesson is the most important. It’s simple: you can’t manufacture a movement. The movements that will succeed have already begun. They’re already there, hiding beneath the surface. They just need help in coalescing and aiming toward a common goal.
One of the great lies in America today is that nobody agrees on anything. False. On the biggest issues of our time, there is often clear common ground.
Take immigration, a perennially unsolved crisis.
If you recall from chapter nine, most Americans support finding a way for Dreamers to stay, and a remarkable 76 percent think immigration is good—an all-time high.9 This historic level of agreement comes at a time when most would think of immigration as one of the most, if not the most, divisive issues of the day. Yet the vast majority of people reject the idea that we must choose between welcoming new immigrants and securing our borders. Americans know we can have both, even though the groups on the fringes (fewer than 15 percent of people) say we can’t.10 The extremes are drowning out the majority.
Or consider education. Only 19 percent of parents give America’s schools an A or B grade.11 That means at least 81 percent of families know we can do better at teaching our kids.
On poverty, over 75 percent of Americans are unsatisfied with how our society helps the least fortunate.12 They know—they see—that the current approach continually fails tens of millions of people.
One of the great lies in America today is that nobody agrees on anything. False. On the biggest issues of our time, there is often clear common ground.
More than two-thirds of our fellow citizens realize that the economy is rigged, as we discussed in chapter eight. A stunning 84 percent say politicians have too much power in the economy, picking who wins and who loses.13
The same trend holds on issue after issue. More than 60 percent of Americans—and more than 70 percent of veterans—want to end the war in Afghanistan.14 When it comes to America’s role in the world, a plurality of citizens reject the false choice between isolationism and being the world’s policeman.15 They know we can choose to have a more realistic foreign policy, which starts by ending the primacy of the military option (aka bomb first, ask questions later).
And when it comes to the two major political parties, at any given time, anywhere from one-third to nearly one-half of Americans don’t identify with either.16 Moreover, about 60 percent say they don’t feel represented by either party.17 People see what’s happening to our country. They know that partisanship is tearing us apart.
Each of these numbers should give us great hope. The American people are much wiser than they are often given credit for being. Our country is ripe for major change. People want societal transformation.
So why don’t we see this broad agreement turn into action?
The answer involves a phenomenon that social scientists call “preference falsification,” a concept pioneered by Duke economist Timur Kuran.18 It simply means that people are reluctant to publicly speak out about their true beliefs when they feel that few others agree with them.
Research by Gallup and Todd Rose, the author mentioned in chapter seven and founder of Harvard University’s Laboratory for the Science of Individuality, has shown that about two-thirds of people think that most others see the world through a zero-sum lens. They also overwhelmingly assume that most people believe that one person’s success means another person’s loss. Yet when you ask Americans how they see success, 90 percent say they want personal fulfillment more than they want to be better than others, and that each person’s success can benefit those around them.19
What an enormous mismatch! The data say that the great majority of people are contribution motivated. Most folks just assume they’re the only ones. This colors how they approach issue after issue. They don’t speak up for fear of being the only one, but if they realized that they are not alone, they would be much more likely to voice their true beliefs. And as experience shows, when people do so en masse, the result can be progress, quickly and on a momentous scale.
Think back to the marriage equality movement. It turned out that most Americans already agreed with its aims and calls for equality before those goals were realized.20 They just assumed that no one else felt the same way, so they didn’t say anything. Neither did their friends and neighbors, who probably shared their views. Things began to change when people realized that many others felt the same way they did and began to speak up.
By giving people the permission to say what they already believed, a huge pent-up demand for change was unleashed. America went from a situation where none of the mainstream candidates for president dared advocate for marriage equality in 2008 to a celebration that lit up the White House in the rainbow colors of the movement for equality in 2015.21
Similar movements are possible today. Look for the issues on which the majority of people disagree with how things are but keep that disagreement under wraps out of concern that few feel the same way. That’s where you’ll find the quiet but widespread desire for change. Something, someone must turn that silent sentiment into action.
SHOW A BETTER WAY
Which brings us to the second lesson I have learned: as a Social Entrepreneur, you need to show people a better way.
This gets to the heart of the latter half of this book. To transform society for the better, we must believe that we can do better. We have to show what’s possible. People will choose bad ideas if that’s all that’s on offer. Remember the choice between the lesser of two evils in chapter nine?
As history shows, the best way to beat a bad idea is with a better idea. Successful movements don’t just criticize what’s wrong. They elevate and celebrate what’s right.
The beauty of a better way is that once you see it, you never forget it. It’s so obviously superior that you want it for yourself, your family, your friends, your community, your country. You can’t go to sleep until you see it happen. You can’t stand the sight or thought of the old way of doing things, because it’s so demonstrably wrong. Its very existence is offensive. You know what could be, what should be, and you’re willing to sacrifice to achieve it for yourself and those you care about.
This lesson holds across progress of every kind. When people were first introduced to the automobile, it wasn’t long before settling for a horse and buggy was unacceptable. The first people to hold an iPhone never wanted to pick up a landline again. (This change happened fast. Indeed, you may be reading this and thinking, “What’s a landline?”) In so many cases, the advantage is so apparent that change can sweep society in what seems like the blink of an eye.
Successful movements don’t just criticize what’s wrong. They elevate and celebrate what’s right.
Similarly, with social progress, change happens when something is so obviously superior that it’s unimaginable that a person would settle for what they have now.
This is not to say that it will be easy. America’s Founders experienced freedom, so they demanded to be released from British rule. They succeeded, but only after fighting a brutal war for independence. As women claimed more of their rights, people saw how much they added to our society, but it took most of a century of struggle to make this a reality. As leaders like Frederick Douglass revealed what all people were capable of, a growing number of Americans demanded the end of slavery. It took the Civil War to make that happen.
Additionally, shameful periods like Jim Crow show that progress is anything but inevitable. The defenders of the status quo, no matter how unjust, will often try to stop progress, sometimes with violence. Others may oppose change simply because it makes them uncomfortable.
None of this is insurmountable. So long as courageous people stand for something better—for justice over injustice—there will always be momentum, however slow it may seem. The struggle for empowerment is never-ending. We can expect to make meaningful progress, but our work is never done. Perseverance is a necessary virtue for every Social Entrepreneur.
Think back to the last few chapters. In each one, you saw a better way.
We can fix communities not by controlling people but by liberating and empowering them, and by supporting Social Entrepreneurs closest to the problem as they implement their own bottom-up solutions.
We can ensure that every student has access to a world-class education by abandoning a rigid one-size-fits-all system for an open, individualized approach.
We can transform business into a powerful force for good by showing that creating value for others is far superior to taking from others through corporate welfare.
Finally, we can move government toward mutual benefit and partnership and away from partisanship, opening untold doors for policy progress.
In each case, there are people and projects that show the way forward. These Social Entrepreneurs are helping millions and growing their effectiveness exponentially.
Ask Scott Strode. Ask Antong Lucky. Ask Michael Crow. Ask Melony Armstrong. Ask Van Jones. They will all tell you that they aren’t settling for the way everyone else does things. They’ve chosen a different path, one that makes transformational change a reality. Their actions demonstrate that they believe in people. If you do the same, anything is possible.
UNITE WITH ANYBODY TO DO RIGHT
The third and final lesson follows from the first two. If people are demanding change, and if a solution to the problem is clear, then the movement can succeed. But only if it unites a diversity of voices.
Let’s unpack this further. A movement can’t gain the momentum required to transform society if it consists of only one type of person, one homogenous group, or one set of people who hold the same views. Instead, they must bring together many who respect each other’s differences and see the bigger picture.
Truly successful movements are inclusive, uniting people with varied perspectives and complementary abilities. Each person has a distinctive and vital role to play. Each person makes the movement stronger. As Abraham Maslow said, “The best way to help the society [is to] first find out what you can do best and then offer yourself to do that.”22 The more who do, the better the outcome for everyone.
This means Social Entrepreneurs need to go out of their way to find a diversity of allies and get them engaged.
Practically speaking, this means Social Entrepreneurs need to go out of their way to find a diversity of allies and get them engaged. So what if you disagree with someone on this, that, or the other thing? You agree on the need to defeat at least one injustice, and by uniting, you’ll be able to make real progress.
By contrast, the agree-with-me-on-everything approach means movements shrink, not grow. Instead of movements of millions, you’ll get movements of me, myself, and I. After all, you can always find a reason to disagree with someone. No two people agree on everything.
Imagine if Frederick Douglass had refused to work with Abraham Lincoln because they disagreed about the right time to abolish slavery. (That was the case.23) Or imagine if Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony divided the women’s rights movement over their views on religion. (They disagreed.24) In every movement, you’ll find plenty of people who had plenty of quarrels. But they didn’t let their differences stand in the way of ending an injustice.
When you think of a movement, it’s easy to think about one group winning over another. Yet there’s a fundamental difference between a movement that unites people to achieve change and one that divides people in pursuit of the same end. Even if a divisive approach succeeds in the short term, it will likely fail in the long term. Bowling over your opponents will sow the seeds of resentment, which will bear ugly fruit long after you’ve “won.”
We become what we do. If your means are exclusive, controlling, and hurtful, then you can expect your ends to reflect that. But if you act in an inclusive manner, treating everyone with respect, welcoming all comers who share a vision for overcoming injustice, then you will achieve an inclusive society. Not despite your differences, but because of them!
Successful movements also invite people not only to join together but to act together. Consider the story of civil rights. For years, African American communities struggled to break the barriers that stood in their way. The vile system of “separate but equal” seemed impervious, despite the obvious injustice that accompanied it. It was so oppressive and pervasive that its victims often felt powerless.
Martin Luther King Jr. proved the opposite was true—that the people held the true power. He inspired Americans to forsake “comfort and convenience” and lend their voices to “challenge and controversy.” He convinced millions that their daily actions were essential to progress, and that together they could break monstrous barriers.
Dr. King’s nonviolent vision inspired thousands of people to boycott the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. It caused four college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, to sit at a lunch counter at a local department store, spurring other sit-ins across the South.25 Whereas once people assumed that separate-but-equal could not be broken, now they came to see that they could break it through countless individual actions, united by a deep belief in people. And so they did.
What started small grew larger and more successful with every passing week. Restaurants and department stores began to desegregate, until segregation became unthinkable.26 The combination of individual actions fundamentally changed how the institution of business operated, ending a major barrier and chipping away at a larger injustice.
Meanwhile, the campaign for equality continued to pick up speed, such that it could no longer be ignored in the halls of government. When landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed, it was because millions of individual people—especially those who had suffered—found a way to use their talents in the fight for justice. As they improved lives, they inspired others to stand with them, empowering still others.
The movements we need today must also give people the chance to act in concert and contribute based on what they have to offer. Not everyone can be a Dr. King, but anyone can spend a day doing the equivalent of a sit-in at a lunch counter. Everyone has a part to play in bottom-up social change.
Maybe it means working with fellow parents in your neighborhood to enact changes at your kid’s school. Maybe it’s uniting customers to boycott a business that advocates for corporate welfare. Maybe it’s sharing on social media the success of a community organization that empowers people to overcome poverty. There are plenty of options. As more people come together, they’ll find more ways to move the ball forward. You’ll be part of a growing movement. It will take you further than you think.
Remember the multifaceted movement behind criminal justice reform? Since the First Step Act passed in 2018, its members continued to push for even better reforms at every level of government. We’re building toward more transformative victories in the near future.
And success begets success. The cynic will say that criminal justice reform was one in a million—a unicorn accomplishment, never to be seen again. They couldn’t be more wrong. Many of the same people who participated in the coalition to reform the criminal justice system are now working together on immigration. Similar coalitions are forming to improve K–12 education, foreign policy, and other major issues.
I’ve never been more excited at the prospect of real progress on the issues that matter most, or more optimistic about transforming every institution to end injustices and empower people across the country.
The demand for change is there, on every issue. A better way exists, in every case. And across the nation, people of every belief and background are willing and able to unite to do right.
It’s up to you and me and all of us to make it happen, uniting and forging the movements that will empower people and fulfill the promise of America. When you get engaged in a cause larger than yourself, you will find the kind of fulfillment that most people spend a lifetime yearning for—the kind that comes from truly contributing to an unlimited future for our country and all who call it home.