Translator: Silvia Rivera Reviewer: Denise RQ
I am asking you to change the world.
But I'm not asking you to do it alone,
I'm asking you to do it by joining a social justice movement.
Social justice movements are sustained, collective actions to challenge injustice
in which ordinary people, like you and me, participate.
And maybe some of us are not so ordinary in this room,
but we can still all participate.
No, I not even always believe that social movements were
this wonderful catalyst for change in the world,
I blithely walked through my twenties entering corporate doors
that had been knocked-opened
by the Black Freedom Movement and feminist movement that preceded me,
and while I did that so easily, I didn't fully understand my own history,
and I didn't understand how those movements had shaped my choices
and the choices of an entire generation.
And this is in part because I didn't even know my parents' story,
I had to learn my parents' story in order to understand
how much these movements had shaped my life and had shaped my choices.
This is a picture of my mom and dad.
Is the only picture I have of them together
and I believe it is their wedding day.
You'll notice it is ripped and torn.
I taped it together when I found it in my baby book.
I needed to go back to understand their story.
My mother was the oldest daughter of a prominent surgeon
in Michigan City, Indiana,
and my father was the oldest son of washing machine factory workers
from Connersville, Indiana.
They both attended Ball State Teachers College
in the late 1950s.
And independently, they both chose to attend a Lutheran Camp
promoting interracial harmony that was part of the Civil Rights Movement
that was fomenting at that time.
They met there and they fell in love,
and they committed to being part of a movement
that would make the world a welcome place for their children.
They continued to do ordinary access part of their movement participation.
They voted in every election,
they participated in consciousness raising meetings
for the Black Feminist Movement and the Black Freedom Movement,
and they taught their children that what you do in your life
to make the world a better place, matters.
Unfortunately, my parents both died young.
My father died when I was six and my mother died when I was 27.
And I hadn't had the sense to ask them about their story
to understand how their choices had shaped mine.
So, I had to take a bit of a journey, it started with the baby book,
and it started with talking to friends and also studying social movements
to understand these things that charged you to be the change
and to answer the question: Well, what change did I want to be anyway?
So, as I pulled together the fragments of my life,
I learned a few things about social movements
that I'll like to share with you.
Movements are messy, iterative, and innovated.
They require individuals and organizations
who would create new ways to disrupt the status quo,
to challenge us to reach a vision we haven't seen,
they are leaderful and require leadership.
Every single one of us who participates in a social movement
is demonstrating leadership,
but they also require individuals
who can set a vision, who can chart a course
for that which we can not yet imagine in our day-to-day world.
And finally, movements ask more of you not less,
they are not a marketing gimmick
that asks you to buy one thing and then you are done,
they're a life-time commitment.
I learned that my sweet spot, my biggest contribution
was in supporting the individuals
who were leading the social movements of today and tomorrow.
And I hit the jackpot in 2005 when I was hired to be
the Director of the Prime Movers Fellowship Programme.
This programme supports individuals
who are emerging and established leaders in the United States
and who are designing, driving, and dreaming
of the movements of today and tomorrow.
They ask you to join them, and you'd say: "Well, how can I do that?"
What's the easiest way in?"
The first thing is to ask yourself what breaks your heart.
Or conversely, what pisses you off?
Those two things are different sides of the same coin
because what pisses you off is often what is breaking your heart.
The second thing you can do, is find your tribe.
Once you've figured out what breaks your heart
or what moves you from anger, find those who share that same feeling,
who have that same vulnerability in their heart, and do it face to face.
And in so doing, you will find what it feels like
to be part of a collective actor who is seeking change.
Three possible options for that concrete action,
something to do that will take you forward,
use your consumer power, tell your story, and use your feet.
First, all of us go out to dinner, all of us buy things,
in those dollars we have power,
and we can exert those as part of the movement.
This is Saru Jayaraman, she is the founder of rocunited.org,
and of course, one of the Prime Movers Fellows.
Rocunited works with restaurant workers across the country to organize
for fair wages, paid sick-leave,
and the opportunity to be promoted across race lines.
For those of you who go out to dine,
you can download an app called The National Diners Guide App
which rates national restaurant chains across the country
on how well they are performing on taking the high road
and taking care of their employees.
It's an easy step to start to get involved in this movement.
Another option, tell your story.
Movements require master story tellers
who help us make sense of our individual stories
and see them as part of a larger tapestry
of what's happening in the world that may need to be changed.
This is Judith Browne-Dianis,
she is the co-founder of the Advancement Project.
They have a campaign called the "I Dream a school" Campaign.
In this campaign, you can upload a video
that features your child or a young person describing the experience of their school
and then finishing the sentence "I Dream a school".
One young woman who's on the site already,
spent two years in High School as a homeless girl.
She describes living out in her car trying to get to school on time,
and trying to figure out how to do her homework.
At the end, she says: "I dream a school that did not only provide academic support
but emotional support too, because we all need to succeed.
Telling your story helps being a part of the collective
and inform those who might shape the education and reform movement.
Finally, use your feet.
From Selma, Alabama in the 60s
to the people's climate change march in New York,
and globally, to Ferguson in October,
marching in a movement is a key opportunity to show collective power.
But even more than that, as you march on the street
as part of a swath of humanity who shares the same values that you do,
you feel yourself empowered and transformed.
It is a both a classic and current method from movement building.
Next, make a commitment.
You have to commit for the long haul.
Big change many or may not happen in your lifetime,
but you can contribute big things through your life.
I think about my parents radical act,
to get married across race and the class lines in the late 1950s,
and I know that they could not have imagined or foreseen
the impact of that choice in the work that I do now
to support the movements of social justice movements.
They could never have known.
But their commitment was to teach me to do something,
and they did, and now, I do.
This is my daughter's first voting experience in 2008.
She will vote in every election, I promise you.
(Laughter)
And she will also carry this forward into generations,
just as I have carried it forward from my parents.
As we think about these moments, I really am asking you to change the world
and in so doing, to mend, potentially, your own broken heart.
To join a social movement that is working to create
a more inclusive society for us all,
and in so doing transform yourself
from an individual fragment to a contributing force for social justice.
And in all cases, you can find your way in,
it is actually pretty easy.
But as you join in a work to change the world, you may find, like I did,
that you, yourself, will be changed.
You'll be transformed into a bigger version of yourself,
one that stretches backwards through generations
who bent the arch of history toward justice into today,
and reaches forward to shaping the future.
Thank you.
(Applause)