What Type Of Activist Are You?

Throughout history, African American women have played a significant role in the canon of civil and women’s rights movements.  In the ever-evolving world we live in, I ask myself, what does activism look like for me? I know what it looked like for the older Boomer generation who’s had a front-row seat to riots, student protests, and dissension regarding civil and voting rights, anti-war sentiment, and school desegregation. I know what it looks like to Millennials and youth who came of age on the cusp of social evils such as the death of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and a resurgence of school shootings.   

I am a black woman shaped by the post-civil rights era. A Gen Xer raised in the seventies who came of age in the eighties and the early nineties. The decade known for a famous basketball player testing positive for HIV, a federal building getting bombed in Oklahoma City, the ravages of crack cocaine, and a million men marching in Washington, D.C.

Gen Xers are often referred to as the invisible generation, the generation least populated amongst Boomers and Millennials.  The generation that may never produce a president. Yes, Obama is a Boomer. 

To activists of all ages who’s been on the front lines, behind the lines, and between the lines, for as long as you can remember this isn’t for you. This piece is for those wondering where they fit in this ever-expanding landscape of activism and what they can do now to become a change agent.

In the past decade, much regard has been made of activism efforts, in part, fostered by younger generations. The rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement, founded in 2013, as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, has left an indelible mark on the current landscape of activism as we know it. 

In my hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, it was a high schooler, Myra Richardson, who in 2016, organized a protest rally on the heels of the gut-wrenching tragedy of Alton Sterling, a black man killed by Baton Rouge police officers responding to a report of Sterling allegedly threatening a man at a convenience store. 

Most recently, in Baton Rouge, four youth organized a rally to denounce police brutality and the killing of George Floyd.   

Baton Rouge is no stranger to activism. The Baton Rouge Bus boycott held in 1953 served as a paradigm for the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.  Louisiana is steeped in the history of women activists like Sadie Roberts- Joseph, Ruby Bridges, and Oretha Castle Haley. Women who put their life and liberty on the line in the name of fighting injustices. 

It’s a triumph and a tragedy that across the world protestors, incited by the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor  who were killed by quick trigger fingers and noxious knees, are risking life and liberty, masking up to protest a racial pandemic amid a deadly, viral one.  One that is disproportionally killing black people.     

Our elders protested, putting their lives on the line so we wouldn’t have to. But we’re having too. I recently marched, demanding justice and condemning police violence. The police did not disturb the protests I participated in. However, marchers across the country, in recent days, have been assaulted, sprayed with tear gas, and maimed with rubber bullets by the ones who vowed to serve and protect. 

Activists aren’t monolithic. There are opportunities to engage in meaningful ways conducive to your personality.  If marching, for whatever reason, isn’t workable, donate to bail funds, hand out water at protest rallies, provide a safe space for marchers, or become a conduit to educate others.

More ways include supporting black businesses, aiding HBCU’s, getting involved in neighborhood associations, attending city council and school board meetings, voting, running for office, and providing community service. 

Lastly, share your gifts. Do you make art, jewelry, write poetry, or have a business where you can offer specialized services? Are you a person of faith? If so, prayer is a weapon.

What does activism look like for you?  On a recent AM Joy, the MSNBC show hosted by Joy Reid, activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham, co-founder of Campaign Zero, and an NBC & MSNBC contributor, looked steely eyed in the camera and uttered, “If  I can take off my commentator hat and put on my activist hat…and frankly just my hat as a black woman with breath in her body…” 

She then began to beseech Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer to hold police officers accountable for the death of Breonna Taylor, the 27-year-old black woman killed by Louisville police officers as she slept when they entered her apartment while serving a no-knock warrant. Cunningham’s pleas were moving and wrought with the emotion of a person seeking justice for someone presumably forgotten. 

No matter what generation you’re a part of, this is what activism should like for us all.