Activism and Coaching

Not all activists and social action groups come from the same mold. And you probably have your preferences for what, when, how, why, and with whom you act for social justice, whether it be for reparations, racial justice, or some other vital cause.

Several characteristics, some unique to you, will significantly influence your activism and how you up your game while ensuring self-care and group cohesion, all parts of the life of sustainable activism.

To explore this further through one lens, let’s take a look at some roles in social action. Bill Moyer, a Quaker activist, holds that there are four roles which serve at various stages of social movements.

All four roles are needed for movements to succeed. But each individual is not suited to all four roles. To illustrate each role, I offer a brief explanation of it, frame that in the context of activism for reparations, and share some of Moyer’s characteristics of the role.

Moyer’s Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements states, “Activists need to become aware of the roles they and their organizations are playing in the larger social movement… Each role has different purposes, styles, skills, and needs…” Each has strengths and potential areas of growth. Coaching can leverage the strengths and provide practices to foster desired growth in areas of your choice. Synopses follow of each roles strengths and potential areas of growth.

Which role attracts you most? Which do you least favor? What might that imply for you in a coaching program intended to up your activism game and/ or sustain greater resilience, generally?

CITIZEN is drawn to direct service, personally doing what they can to remedy the situation. Much of mainstream community life is marked by this type of service. However, in situations where more privileged people are oblivious to the impacts and means of systemic oppression, the mainstream often needs to be educated about the condition of the margins before they come on board.

In regard to reparations, this might include educating people about what the United Nations Human Rights Council calls a “long-overdue need to confront the legacies of enslavement … and to seek reparatory justice” and various ways to make reparations.

Strengths

Grounded in mainstream society so can more readily appeal to masses
Promotes positive societal values, principles, symbols, e.g. democracy, freedom, justice
Promotes active citizen-based society where citizens act with disinterest to assure the common good
The active citizen is the source of legitimate political power

Possible growth areas

Naïve citizen: Believes the ‘official policies’ and does not realize that the powerholders and institutions serve special elite interests at the expense of the majority and the common good

Super-patriot: Gives automatic obedience to powerholders and the country

REFORMER focuses on communication with people and institutions who can change policy or practice.

This role could be represented by advocates of the HR40 bill. The legislation would establish a 13-person commission to study the lasting effects of slavery and racial discrimination throughout the country’s history. The panel would submit its findings to Congress and recommend any remedies, including compensation to Black Americans. Introduced at every congressional session since 1989, the bill cleared a House committee in a historic April 14, 2021 vote, making its way to the full House for the first time more than three decades after it was introduced. HR40 faces a full House vote. Should it pass the House, the measure would go to what is now an evenly divided Senate.

Strengths

Well-skilled at using and infiltrating official mainstream system and institutions, e.g. courts, legislature, city hall, corporations to get the movement’s goals, values, alternatives adopted into official laws, policies and conventional wisdom
Uses a variety of means: lobbying, lawsuits, referenda, rallies, candidates etc.
Coalition and consensus building

Possible growth areas

Domination/patriarchal model of organizational structure and leadership
Organizational maintenance over movement needs
Domination style undermines movement democracy and disempowers grassroots
“Realistic Politics”: Promotes minor reforms rather than social changes
Co-optation: may identify more with official powerholders than with movement’s grassroots

REBEL injects fire into new or renewed initiatives and seeks, particularly at flashpoints, to raise awareness in and action from others.
The Black Economic Development Conference’s (BEDC) 1969 “Black Manifesto” resurfaced reparations to descendants of Africans enslaved in the U.S. by laying out “a prophetic version of how we see change and revolution inside the U.S.” They demanded $500 million in reparations from U.S. churches and synagogues to create a southern land bank for Black farmers forced from their land, 8 communication centers (publishing and audio-visual), communication skills training centers, and a “national black labor strike and defense fund.”

Strengths

Protest: Says NO! to violations of positive, widely held values
Direct action and attitude to create “trigger” events
Target: Powerholders and their institutions e.g. government, corporations
Puts issue and policies in public spotlight and on society’s agenda using actions and strategy
Empowered, exciting, courageous, risky, inspiring
Holds relative, not absolute, truth

Possible growth areas

Anti-authoritarian
Self-identifies as militant radical, a lonely place on society’s fringe
Any means necessary, can include disruptive tactics and violence to property and people
Tactics without realistic strategy
Can become closed system isolated from others, such as grassroots mass-base
Victim behavior: Angry, dogmatic, aggressive, powerless
Asserts absolute truth and moral, political superiority; self needs before movement needs
Irony of negative rebel being similar to agent provocateur

CHANGE AGENT experiences joy from organizing people who may not know each other to form a cohesive force for change. They often believe that numbers of people alone will create change because they believe those in dominant authority fear other sources of power and, therefore, may concede some demands to dissuade others from joining the movement.

Perhaps, the role of change agent is served by congregational members who thrived on gathering their faith communities together to consider the Black Manifesto, who lobby for HR40, or who, today, offer educational opportunities for people to learn about and press for reparations in various ways.

Strengths

Organizes people power and engaged citizenry, creating participatory democracy for the common good
Educates and involves majority of citizens and whole society on the issue
Involves pre-existing mass-based grassroots organizations, networks, coalitions, and activists on the issue
Promotes strategies and tactics for long-term social change and paradigm shifts
Creates and supports grassroots activism and organizations for the long term
Puts issue on society’s political agenda
Responds to new powerholder strategies

Possible growth areas

Promote only minor reform
Movement leadership and organizations based on hierarchy and control rather than participatory democracy
Too utopian: Promote visions of perfectionistic alternatives in isolation from practical political and social action
Tunnel vision: advocates single issue or way to achieve goal
Ignores personal issues and needs of activists

So, now that you’ve explored these four roles, what do you think? Which role attracts you most? Which do you least favor? What parts of your activism are not contained by any of these four? What might any of that imply for you in upping your activism game and/ or sustain greater resilience, generally?

To schedule a free 30 minute exploratory coaching call to explore this further, click the Book a Call button below.

For more details of Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan read Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements. Also on the Commons Library: a summary of the MAP’s 8 Stages of Social Movements and Surviving the Ups and Downs of Social Movements (MAP Stage 6).