Reading list: Activism essentials

The size of issues tackled in these reads may weight heavily on the readers' shoulders, revealing our sense of individual powerlessness. But I think they also help connect the scattered dots of the big unknowns thrown at us in 2020. Being equipped with this knowledge will help the individual activist mentally prepare for what is to come. For the activist today, the biggest danger is burnout. The key to the victory of the righteous cause will be maintaining stamina, not being shocked, or distracted by more 2020-like events to come in the future.

1. Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything,” blew my world open to environmentalism back in 2016. I most appreciated how she connected her female body with the illness of the Planet body, in discussing infertility and sterility of our economic systems.
2. In “This is an Uprising” Mark Engler and Paul Engler decipher how nonviolent civil movements are sparked, spontaneously grow, and achieve social transformation. After reading this around the time of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, it’s been easy to predict that this bottled up energy was waiting for one more “trigger event” to outburst into massive nationwide protests that indeed occurred this past summer. More importantly, this book touches upon the necessary next steps and organization required to reach the goals of non-hierarchical movement like Black Lives Matter.