The Power of the 1%—But not that 1%

On Social Movements and the Spirit of Defiance in an Age of Despair

When hope is hard to find, we gotta go fishing for it. I fish for hope in the lives, love, and laughter I share with my family and friends. I have committed to relishing my life with those I love everyday. I fish while I sit on the back row of my church among people who sing, shout, and sway in a way that soothes the wounds that bring us together. And I fish when I open books searching for the best words of wisdom available to us from the living and the dead.

A couple of weeks ago, a wonderful surprise from my agent waited for me on my doorstep. It was the historian Linda Gordon’s newly released book Seven Social Movements That Changed America. I headed upstairs, opened the book, and cast my line. This is Gordon’s first sentence: “Social movements have changed our world as often and as profoundly as wars, natural disasters, and elections.” I shut the book and slowly headed back downstairs grappling with the vast range of the implications that resided in her sentence.

As the political power and economic might of the wealthiest 1% align to resurrect an American Reich, Gordon forces us to examine the power of a different at 1%—those who dare to give their lives to bring into reality social changes often deemed impossible. Gordon’s account demands we recognize that power surrounds us all—and that the first question of social movements is simply whether or not we are ready to wild the risk of learning to unleash it.

There is nothing sentimental about social movements. They are made of toil and tribulation—of brilliance and blood. They face cold hard facts, but rather than bow in awe before those who believe that they control the game, social movements know that there is power beyond what throne rooms and board rooms can generate.

Throughout our history, powerhouses for social change have resided in nearly every thread of our nation’s social fabric—from those who refused to allow their wealth to lead to indifference, to those whose very desperation fueled their determination. The power of social movements resides in imaginative ideas and people whose courage, creativity, and character commit them to fight for the eternal truths of democratic ideals.

Within four years and only forty miles apart, two powerhouses were born in slave cabins in Maryland. Their names were Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. And despite the wealth from the South’s cotton fields and the industries of the North, despite the racism of the white political and intellectual guilds, they helped form a movement that shattered chattel slavery’s chains. And as was the case for abolition, so too for the causes of suffrage, social security, public education, civil rights, gay rights, and Black Lives Matter: social movements knit together Americans across racial, economic, and regional divides to make visions of the future that seemed impossible become inevitable.

At each and every turn that made our nation more democratic, more equitable, humane, and inclusive, social movement leaders faced impossible odds. But instead of waving the white flag of surrender, they burned it. They chose defiance over despair.

Today we too have choices to make as we face cold hard facts. The fact is that the American Reich has always been with us. The fact is that the American Reich seemingly has our nation’s government by the throat. The fact is that many of the most important victories social movements made are proving fragile. And perhaps the hardest fact— it could have been oh so different.

We are facing a disaster of our own making—and to really understand the crisis facing us means understanding that most of us are far from innocent. However, the most lethal aspect of our current context is not the odds we face or the mistakes we made but the lies we are tempted to trust. The lies that things cannot change, that the tyrant can not be toppled, that the fight is too dangerous, and that we are safer on the sidelines. It is precisely such lies that slay social change. But these lies only have power if we chose to believe them.

So what should we do? Should teachers begin striking to protect the education that they can provide to our children? Should Amazon, Tesla, and Facebook employees begin a strike that threatens the oligarchy in which they participate? Should courageous faith leaders and organizers overwhelm Washington with mass demonstrations?

The truth is that I don’t know. But I do know this: our calling is clear. We are to be people who hold onto hope and kindle the spirit of defiance. Defiance is an antidote to despair. It is not about having solutions. It is about a determination to stand for decency and democracy. Defiance is about knowing that truth and justice never lose their power. Defiance is the spirit that fuels the movements that remake America because they dare to believe that the best is yet ahead.

Joel Edward Goza is the Professor of Ethics at Simmons College of Kentucky and the author of Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America and America’s Unholy Ghosts: The Racist Roots of Our Faith and Politics.

Seven Social Movements that Changed America is available now!