Today marks two opposing parts of American History
Note: This was written and sent on inauguration day. But yesterday I discovered that none of my posts since January 8th have been sent out. Technology! Aarrrgggh! So if the sequence of events and dates seem kinda off, that’s why. My apologies. So today and in another couple of days I’ll send the 3rd post that went to Never Never Land. Thanks for understanding.
This post today, below, was written for the members of an organization called Third Act, by one of Third Acts’ members, Rebecca Solnit. It’s worthy of re-publishing here. Third Act is an organization founded by author, activist, and friend Bill McKibben for folks 60 and over - thus in their Third Act of life - dedicated to saving our democracy, climate change, and racial equality.
From me on January 20th: Today and on the days leading up to this day, as you might imagine, I’ve struggled. My fellow Americans voted to put a racist back into the White House and today, on a day set aside to honor Doctor King, that racist was sworn into office. So I’ve struggled. Who to write about? What to write? I struggled to find the motivation to write about either. But Rebecca Solnit evidently had no such struggle writing for Third Act, an organization that I belong to for people who are over 60 to advocate and take action for the Big Three: Climate change, preservation of our American democracy, and racial justice. Third Act was organized by my friend Bill McKibben. You’ve probably heard of him. They’re just ramping up on their advocacy for racial justice and I’m proud to be lending them my support and involvement..
Rebecca Solnit
“I'm writing because today, January 20th, marks two opposing parts of American history. The inauguration and the day we honor Martin Luther King, Jr., who chose to stand up and risk and ultimately lose his life for what he believed in. His life as an activist began with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955-56, when to use his own language he had not yet been to the mountaintop, not yet seen the promised land, not yet had evidence that Jim Crow could be dismantled and the 1964 Civil Rights Act was not on the horizon. A few thousand mostly disenfranchised people in a midsized southern city acted on faith and conviction anyway, and that grew into the nationwide Civil Rights Movement. Their work isn't finished, but they inspired transformative movements for justice within this nation and around the world, and their shining example lives on.
We don't do what we do because we're going to win. We do it because it's the right thing to do––and if we do it right and stick with it, we might win. Being politically committed isn't like picking the winner in a race, because some of these races are long and unpredictable, and the finish line is nowhere in sight. But also because the winning side isn't always the side you want to be on, when the win is practical and literal and not moral.
Take the recent presidential election, won by the slimmest of margins, culminating in today's inauguration parade tromping past the Capitol where he launched an insurrection against four years earlier. He won that race, but it's up to you, me, and us to not let him win against democracy in any way we can.
There has been, and there will be, so much we can do for those sacred things going forward, and it will matter more than ever. It will matter to uphold our principles, to be vocal about what we believe in, to be courageous in the face of repression, and honest in the face of lies. There will be on the practical level lots that can happen at the state, regional, local––and international levels––whatever reckless inanity is going on in the capital. But each of us living as boldly and honorably as possible opens up room for others to do the same on these issues - and so many others that matter.
There's a passage by Vaclav Havel that's kind of famous, about hope and not just trying to pick a winning racehorse. But what's often forgotten about this playwright, who in 1989 helped overthrow an authoritarian regime and afterward became the first president of the Czech Republic, is that he wrote this when it would have seemed more likely he'd go back to prison than forward to revolution and the presidency. That didn't stop him. He wrote:
The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope with-in us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
We have something good and we have the ability to work for it. Let us do so with all our hearts and all our wisdom and resources.
We are an organization founded by Bill McKibben, who has been at this since before there was much of a climate movement, before renewables became such a powerful alternative to fossil fuel. Bill didn't do it because he was joining a winning team––there wasn't really a team when he started. He eventually formed some teams that won more than a few things. And they were mostly marathons, not sprints––stopping the Keystone Pipeline took more than a decade (while people on the sidelines told us we couldn't win all those years before we won). I think I'm mixing my sports metaphors here, with teams and sprints and stuff but here's the takeaway:
We're not stopping. We're not stopping our work. And we're not stopping being a "we": being a community of shared values, a network of elders, a group of people who together have great power. I'm in, and I hope you are.”
See you around,
Rebecca Solnit
Author and Third Act Advisor
If you’re struggling and feeling overwhelmed…feeling like your effort to right the Good Ship America is just not worth it, remember two things: If you do nothing, it’s a given how much you’ll accomplish. Nothing. And then there’s what JFK said years ago, “Not every person can make a difference, but every person can try.”
Imagine an America without our thing with race.