ABSTRACT
In 2019, two young Harvard University alumni created an organization whose goal was to get five environment-friendly candidates onto the slate of candidates for the Harvard Board of Overseers. News of their campaign eventually reached the author of this book who replied that she was 1,000 percent in favor of pushing Harvard on divestment and other environmental issues and believed she could get as many as 50 signatures. Four days later she handed over 62 signatures for each of Harvard Forward’s five environment-friendly candidates. These were a drop-in-the-bucket but nation-wide there were enough drops to get “The Environment-Friendly Five” onto the ballot. Three members of the group were then elected and two Septembers later Harvard started phasing out its fossil fuel holdings. Harvard Forward’s campaign was no more the cause of the about face than Gandhi’s Salt March was the cause of the British change of heart. But in both instances the convergence of direct mass actions that contributed to large-scale changes, and each direct mass action was itself a result of amplification.
