On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech in Harlem’s Riverside Church. In it, he spoke of being confronted with “the fierce urgency of now.”
He went on to say that, “there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time … We must move past indecision to action.” He warned us that if we do not move into action, “we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”
Almost 50 years later, this country is once again faced with the “fierce urgency of now.” Within hours of his inauguration, Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin the process of repealing Obamacare, and the White House website was updated to reflect his administration’s views: the site’s sections on climate change, civil rights, disabilities and LGBT issues were removed.
And many around the country have feared what this administration is going to mean for our Muslim friends and others of Middle Eastern descent, immigrant communities and those who are already marginalized. What will this administration mean for the movement for black lives, for Standing Rock, for our struggles against patriarchy, income inequality and so many critical issues of our time?
Yes, we are in an urgent moment in history, and we need to respond accordingly. We need to organize harder than ever, mobilize more people than ever, knock on more doors than ever, and fight like we’ve never fought before.
And that brings us to what I believe is a critical question for our movements to answer today: As we confront the urgency of the moment, how do we ensure that we are not organizing from a place of panic?
Oftentimes, when we get caught up in momentum and the urgency of the moment, our energy begins to shift and we enter a frenzied panic state. And organizing from that place can deeply impact both our external work as well as in our internal process through which we do the work.
I can still hear the voices of the elders at Standing Rock, reminding us that we need to slow down. That for indigenous peoples, struggle is nothing new. We’ve been here before. That for them, everything they do is ceremony, prayer, ritual. And those are not things that you rush. You do it with intention, with all of the time and respect that it deserves.
When we move from a place of panic, our work happens with less mindfulness. We miss steps. We don’t have the right information. Our strategies aren’t as tight. We react as opposed to respond. We aren’t as prepared. We are easier to counter. We make mistakes.
We also are much likelier to perpetuate the same systems of violence that we are trying to resist when we work in a frenzied pace. Those with the loudest voices tend to take over, and we often lose the voices of those who are marginalized. We are more likely to emphasize actions over process and relationships, and we begin to distrust each other. Newer activists have a harder time finding a way in, feeding the exclusivity of activism. We are less careful with our messaging, which can turn potential allies away.
The work of social change is stressful enough on its best days. But if we are moving without intention, without mindfulness and without awareness of how we are moving, it can easily add to what is already a challenge.
So we need to learn to slow down, while acknowledging the urgency of this moment.
There is no doubt that this is not a moment to procrastinate, but a time to act, as King reminds us. But the frenzied pace that we do our work in is oftentimes a habit that has been ingrained in us by a capitalist system functioning with a different time frame than we do.
We have always known that this was a long-term struggle. The struggle towards social justice is not one of multiple election cycles, but of multiple generations.
Another piece of wisdom from our indigenous teachers reminds us that the work we do is not for ourselves, but for the seventh generation that will come after us. And the work we do now stands on the shoulders of the seven generations that came before. That is a lot of wisdom, and a lot of time.
It is with that long-view approach that we need to tackle the urgency of today. Trump and his agenda is one urgent thing that we need to resist. But the tendency to come from a place of panic and move too fast is, ironically, just as urgent of an issue that needs to be addressed.
We need to act, but addressing this crucial moment cannot come at the expense of strategy, process, intention and remembering to slow down enough to breathe.
So, what is our work moving into 2017? Organize, breathe, repeat. Organize, breathe, repeat. Organize, breathe, repeat.
Thanks, Kazu. Slowing down is key in the meditation system I practice!! So it’s cool to hear someone write about this in this kind of a context of urgency, where the dynamic can be hard to express. You nail it: it’s not the same as procrastination. It’s the long-term commitment.
Absolutely correct! In the same spirit as Kazu’s counsel, I’m advancing a 3 point strategy– Heal, get SMART, then take Action. 1) Heal by discharging the fear and depressing feelings that have arisen given the Trump times. 2) Get SMART (Spiritually Motivated, Action-Oriented, and Respectfully Tough) which reminds us to develop a personal practice to ensure our ability to be in our full love and resourcefulness for our daily living and activist work, and 3) Take Action– do what we can as we can with as many as we can!
Gratefully taking in Kazu’s words, I could resonate with the heart beat of the indigenous drums and be profoundly moved by the slow, steady dance steps around the Medicine Wheel. What a gift is the deep centering and grounding breath balancing our “fierce urgency of now” with the living dream of Building The Beloved Community…
Many thanks, Kazu, for sharing this wisdom at exactly the right moment! I’ve felt the pull recently toward a frantic pace rather than an effective and sustainable pace. I’m 79 years old so I’m supposed to know how not to burn out (!) but your article addresses not only sustainability but also how mindfulness and intention support high quality of work moment by moment.
There’s a connection to tactics that occurs to me. One reason I was attracted to the civil rights movement’s preference for campaigns rather than one-off reactive protests is exactly your point — how can we generate the drama and excitement of what the Englers call the “whirlwind” and not fall into the frantic trap? At their best, the civil rights workers chose to organize a campaign, with a beginning, middle, and end, like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, or (with national impact) the Birmingham and Selma campaigns. Activists could commit, big-time, to the campaign with its own rhythm, knowing it would end and they could return to rest and go to the dentist and re-acquaint themselves with their families!
Our present-day experiment with nonviolent direct action campaigning in EQAT supports the same rhythm of intense commitment in phases with R & R and more attention to inner work. The end of our winning campaign Bank Like Appalachia Matters! produced that kind of thing. We’re also experimenting with ways of organizing inside the campaign that offer a rhythm of intensity/rest/intensity/rest.
I’m just saying that, in addition to your wisdom about an integral lifestyle (echoed by your commenters), I’d add choice about the form of action to take, guarding against — in the Trump years — a series of one-off outraged reactions and substituting campaigns in which the pro-activity is expressed by using direct action to achieve elements of our vision.
George
Thanks for adding your comments. I totally agree with you, and I think this is something that happens a lot even before this current momentum/”moment of the whirlwind.” I often talk about how for many movements, it seems like organizing a protest or a series of protests becomes the goal in and of itself, which to me feels like a waste of resources and a waste of whatever leverage is created from that protest/direct action. Actions can’t be one-off or outside of the context of a larger campaign, imo. I like thinking about/mapping out vision/goals/strategies/tactics, which I think is something you may have talked about when we were together. Really important to see those things in context of each other. Thank you!
My favorite quote on this”Because we have so little time, we must move very slowly” (Buddhist)…. Always a challenge i face, and a reminder I need! Thanks for the article Kazu.
350.org has built wide coalition that is calling for a march on climate change on April 29th, 2017. It’s not just another spontaneous action. The list of organizations on the steering committee alone is both broad and inclusive of all the local and national groups active today. The list of other groups who are signing on is very long and inclusive. Climate change is an issue that can unite a wide spectrum of people who want to be part of a resistance, a successful and far-sighted resistance. When national coalitions like this are formed they are unlikely to go away after one event.