Activist Bree Newsome Looks Back

[struggle4progress]

BY MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY
JUN 23, 2016

~snip~

What are the most important lessons you have learned from studying this history?

I have begun to realize just how long it takes to make change. When I first got involved in political organizing I was frustrated that we were doing all this work, having meetings, showing up at the Capitol, getting arrested, and nothing was changing. People were dying. It seemed liked every month we saw another tape of another black boy or man being killed. We protested. Nothing changed. Nine people massacred in their church and we can't even get the Confederate flag lowered to half-mast! It was and is so frustrating. But the more I study history the more I realize change is really slow.

Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 and the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Ten years. A full decade. Trayvon was killed in 2012. I wish our movement had made more progress, but we are only four years since his death, not even halfway through a decade. Reading that history has given me some perspective.

But I am still impatient. This doesn't mean we just sit and wait for ten years! We have to keep agitating. We have to agitate every single moment of those years. It is the only way to make any progress. Just like the struggle to climb that flagpole. We have to keep moving.

~snip~

http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/news/a37315/bree-newsome-confederate-flag/

[saidsimplesimon]

1. Thank you for the update

I was wondering how both Bree and Melissa are doing. Having worked for change during the past 40 years, it is difficult to accept the pace.