What is a Movement?
On Thursday I attended a workshop/meeting/thingy put on by Adam Fletcher of the Freechild Project. Since Adam is from Washington state, and was only in town for a few days at a conference the thing was hosted by Youth Service America. Unfortunately it wasn’t as well attended as some of the other things Adam had facilitated around the country. Some new people, which was good, and then a few old, familiar faces: Andrea Felix, Rob Bisi, and Ben Smilowitz.
While we didn’t entirely resolve some of the questions posed to us, namely what was the common principles and beliefs that underlie and can tie together the youth voice, youth service, and youth rights movements, we did have some good discussion. One interesting question that was discussed is what is a movement?
Are we inaccurate in saying “youth voice movement” or “youth rights movement”? I’m not sure. It was suggested that unlike the women’s rights movement or civil rights movement there isn’t a common set of goals that everyone works towards and accomplishes. Plus there aren’t any highly visible and unifying leaders to guide the movement. I’m not sure either of these are needed to be a movement, and I’m not sure either were entirely present in the civil rights or women’s rights movements either.
Much of the qualities of “movement” I believe get tacked on later when the volumes of facts, events, leaders, victories, and failures get whittled down and funneled into one limited, universal common knowledge.
Did civil rights and women’s rights have a common set of goals? Not entirely. There were great tensions and differences of opinion within the movements. Many goals were advocated for by many different individuals and wings of ‘the movement’. Early on there was the division between Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Dubois. Later, the well known different approaches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.. Each group and each faction in the movement had their own set of goals and their own leaders. Were there separate civil rights movements?
So where does that leave the various youth movements? I tend to see things like youth voice and youth service as the modern manifestation of the Booker T. Washington approach of serving one’s role in society so well that it earns the respect and gratitude of your oppressor. There may be some wisdom to that approach, and it probably complements the work of youth rights, but I strongly agree with Frederick Douglas, in that “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will”. This was the understanding of Dubois, and is a perspective I share. Without a driven, persistent demand, youth will never be granted their rights, no matter how many model citizens are in their ranks.
Ultimately, I believe movements are just easy categories created by historians. If youth rights is successful, we will be heralded in history books as the youth rights movement, if we fail, then we will be a mere footnote, and never called a movement. It doesn’t matter what we are called, all that matters is that we move, and let future historians decide whether to label us as a movement or not.
February 7th, 2005 at 2:26 pm
“Without a driven, persistent demand, youth will never be granted their rights, no matter how many model citizens are in their ranks.”
Completely agreed. One thing I find lacking in many current spheres, from the inheritors of the Civil Rights movement to our own Youth Rights movement, is an understanding that work done to improve oneself does more than simply gain respect and gratitude from those holding you back. Seeing the struggle as one class holding down another may be the most pervasive, but I think it is deeply flawed. It may more be the byproduct of the competitive process. In the case of youth, I would say the lack of youth taking their own lives seriously… the absence of being strivers in their own right for their own self determination and self improvement… is a bigger cause for the lack of youth rights, than anything “big people” do to actively hold youth down. It is more that the absence of youth self responsibility leaves a gaping hole and a vulnerability that allows for the secondary effect of an oppresive older society restricting those who say and do little in their own defense.
If we look at our society today, youth have every tool imaginable at their disposal to make a difference in their own life, but more often then not it is our peers who reject their own importance and freedom well before we ever bring up the matter with the older members of society.
I do not mean to say that restriction of youth by society at large isn’t real and isn’t miserable. I just think that if we are going to be able to change it we must be strong in ourselves just as much as we must stand up and actively voice a demand for recognition of common rights.
Freedom is something we live. That must be our demand.
February 9th, 2005 at 11:09 am
I think the part that I take away with me the most is your observation about movement-making, Alex. I think that there is some degree of necessity in collaborative efforts among organizations and individuals who are attempting to create movement, but… maybe naming something a movement is a little too much like VH1’s “I like 2004″ - it ain’t done being what it is, and don’t name it that until its come and gone. I dunno.
Thanks for having me at your workshop, too. It was good for me to go.
February 10th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
What is a Movement?
On Thursday I attended a workshop/meeting/thingy put on by Adam Fletcher of the Freechild Project. Since Adam is from Washington state, and was only in town for a few days at a conference the thing was hosted by Youth Service…
July 18th, 2005 at 3:54 am
http://private.holmacollege.org/cartersville/ gentilitywelcomingwhereupon
October 4th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
http://horsefucking.dickensfoundation.org/4gw4cerq/ capgrandnessreturns