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Decolonizing Community Organizing & Activism KIRA SMALLS
O
n any given day you might observe a neighborhood mural bringing attention to the effects of pollution on the world’s oceans, a group of animal rights activists holding a demonstration while facilitating educational conversations, or social media posts with various consciousness-raising messages about race or sexuality. Activism has many different forms, but is defined specifically as action rendered to sway the public in regards to a social cause. Activism is also usually the result of community organizing, the intentional mobilizing of individuals to engage in collective, persuasive action. Some of the first instances of community organizing in the U.S. extend back to the colonial period. Shoemakers went on the first recorded U.S. strike for higher wages in
1786. During the industrial revolution, factory workers went on strike and began to organize the first unions to advocate for labor rights. Long before what is now know as the Civil Rights Movement, Black people in the U.S. organized to fight against racism and slavery. A few examples include Nat Turner’s 1831 Rebellion and Harriet Tubman’s efforts to free slaves and work within the Underground Railroad. However, much of what comes to mind for Americans in regards to community organizing and activism occured much later. The Women’s Suffrage movement of the early 1900’s fought for the right to vote for women. The Civil Rights Era of the 1950’s and 60’s included the organizing of Black activists in community spaces such as churches, to develop strategies of activism
