ABSTRACT
Unfortunately [activism] has its toll. It takes its toll on the family. It takes its toll on myself, physical well-being, emotional, and mental health-wise. It takes its toll in a lot of ways, fi nancially and so forth...But currently at the time, the more that I discover what’s wrong, the more that it seems that I dig in. (Andrew, 44-year-old African American working-class male)
I know that oppressive forces will do everything they can to stop you even include getting at your loved ones. They [gang members] know that I am not afraid...and I can handle myself because I am a third degree black belt in jujitsu and hand-tohand combat. He [gang leader] sent a man at me once to attack me and it wasn’t a contest even though he had a two by four I took the two by four and put him down on the ground. They don’t try that anymore. So they know they can’t intimidate me but they might try to do it with my wife so I don’t have her get involved. (Cornel, 44-year-old African American middle-class male)
It’s kind of hard to say “I’m going to get out of the fi ght,” I mean...the mother fuckers are still running the show! (Jack, 58-year-old white middle-class male)
I had a meltdown this weekend. I work to balance it. I am at least two people. But I have often said that if there weren’t so much injustice in the world, just blatant injustices-it just makes me itch, and I have to do something to scratch it-I would be home making biscuits. I love to cook. I love kids. I love to act silly. I love to tell stories. I write; I’m a poet...That’s what I would do all the time. I would be my maternal grandmother. I would be Mama Lula. You know? I would make a homemade pie every day and put it on the table and gather people around it. But it is that same, like, big mama spirit that won’t let, you know, won’t let shit just go on. (Regina, 51-year-old African American working-class female)
In terms of a social life, I didn’t know how to have one. [The activism in town felt] like I was in a glass box. I was center stage-it’s how I felt. So, could I go
to a bar and go home with somebody and never call them again?...I didn’t know how to date. I didn’t know how to have sex. I didn’t know how to have a life. (Rich, 25-year-old Portuguese American working-class male)
This work is only possible through community. If my wife and I we’re trying to do this as a private couple, logistically we couldn’t do it, try and support ourselves. Spiritually we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t have kids we’re working with be murdered and not lose our minds. We’re able to continue because of the community: people sharing their resources, their physical resources, their human resources, their time, their understanding. That’s an incredibly kind of countercultural idea in twenty-fi rst-century America...We’re in this for the long haul. And, we need to support each other and care for each other. If things really get overwhelming, then we can cover for when someone goes away on retreat...or goes for a walk in the woods, or what not. We have each other’s back in a way that would not be possible if we weren’t living in community... if there was nobody to cover for us. Community is essential. (Chris, 38-yearold white working-class male)
Sometimes the internal politics [makes you burnout], and, you know, when we fi ght within our own communities and with our own organizations, that can be so much more frustrating and draining than fi ghting with the perceived enemy. (Ann, 43-year-old white middle-class female)
When I told you I was a lethal weapon, that’s probably what burnout was. When I told this city council guy that “I wanted to rip the shit out of you” (laughs)... defi nitely burned out...It got to a point that it was too much. It really got to me. I had neglected my personal life. I have a child. Too many stuff that I had to do. It’s not like I had therapy. I had no idea what it was. It was kind of cold turkey. Dealing with all the frustration so it affected me emotionally....Everything went down...I got a job....Took a training in accounting from the Data Institute again, those rip-off people. They fucked up my life because of the student loans...Never had a steady job after I left [the community organization]. I think it affected me. I was on welfare and did volunteer stuff...getting involved with [citizens’ action group] and work with the lead safe house, and got involved in the coalition with Cuba. I was on welfare that’s my pay. (Luz, 52-year-old Latina working-class female)
As far as my friends now, the activism came fi rst, and then eventually, my social life and my work life melded together. I mean, it was like seven days a week job. (Adam, 22-year-old white working-class male)
The fi rst six years, everybody was a volunteer, and then we got a grant that paid me, and then fundamentally things started to change. And part of that is my own internal “stuff” about no longer being willing to ask people to do scut
work since they weren’t getting paid for...I know that I’m a workaholic, I’m doing what I love doing in lots of ways, and in order to do what I love, I have to do all this other stuff that takes a lot of time, so I end up working late a lot of nights and stuff, or working weekends. (Robin, 47-year-old white middleclass female)
I was in a unique position in that I had some fi nancial resources that allow me to do this. I have such great respect for people where [activism] is their only income, and they’re choosing to have a lot less fl exibility in their life, and, you know, a lot of comforts and things that people who make more money have and they’re not going to have. (Ann, 43-year-old white middle-class female)
We get the impression from reading the scholarship that activists sustain almost heroic levels of commitment to social movements, experience little confl ict between this commitment and other aspects of their lives or do not have any other lives outside their activism. If and when activism wanes, it is caused by external events such as a shift in political opportunities and a decline in resources which takes the social movement into the “doldrums.” As the movement ebbs, activist enthusiasm, commitment, and participation also ebbs.1
