Over the years, I’ve shared a lot of resources related to activism, organizing, and “showing up and doing something.” I share this stuff not as an expert, or as any kind of full-time, in-the-trenches organizer, but as a writer and performer who regularly works with young people and other folks who aren’t already activated within movement spaces.
When I’m performing at a college, for example, I don’t want to just shout about all the bad things in the world; I want to be able to offer something concrete that lifts up our collective power and agency to *do* something about all those bad things.
This page is set up to be a landing page—not for ALL of that kind of content, or for every resource anyone could ever need, but for a few potential starting points, especially for people just diving in for the first time. Please feel free to explore, find something useful, and share it with others.
The Short Version
Of What Future Are These the Wild, Early, Days? Resources for Emerging Movement-Builders is collection of some of my favorite quotes, resources, books, and insights on taking that first step into activism and what it can mean to “find your political home.” I put it together as “the thing I wish someone would have handed me when I was just getting started,” and I offer it here as an invitation. It’s free to read online, and I also usually have physical copies of it with me at my events or performances.
Recommended Readings + Resources
This list of books, resources, and readings is not meant to be exhaustive; I am trying to curate a list that is short and digestible, with a focus on content that might be relevant to new and emerging movement-builders.
Five Books
- Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba)
- Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (adrienne maree brown)
- Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection (Deepa Iyer)
- All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (ed. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson)
- Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility (ed. Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua)
- A million other good books, of course. For newer folks, I’d also recommend autobiographies like Assata’s and Howard Zinn’s, or anthologies like “No Pasarán: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis” or “Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis” …this list could go on and on, but hopefully these are all good starting points.
Five Online Resources
- Making An Activism/Organizing Plan: A zine from the One Million Experiments project, featuring a template for people to explore their interests, capacity, and community.
- Tending The Soil–Lessons For Organizing: A fantastic series of videos and zines from Ricardo Levins Morales; these are expanded on in RLM’s book, The Land Knows the Way: Eco-Social Insights for Liberation
- The Movement Memos Podcast hosted by Kelly Hayes, featuring in-depth conversations with on-the-ground organizers with a focus on action and agency.
- Letters to Young Organizers: Loving Missives Across Time and Space: A collection of insights and perspectives both to and from young activists.
- We Can Be a Village: a searchable database of activist organizations, organized by state.
Five Action Idea Links
- 26 ways to be in the struggle, beyond the streets (Disability Visibility Project)
- Some Actions That Are Not Protesting or Voting (big, crowdsourced list of ideas)
- Don’t Just Do Nothing: 20 Things You Can Do to Counter Fascism — Yes, You! Yes, Now! (Sprout Distro)
- How to Become an Activist: Zero Hour’s Jamie Margolin Offers a Step-by-Step Guide
- Mad? Sad? Motivated? 60+ MN Orgs Working to Make the Next 4 Years (and Then Some) Suck Less. (this Racket MN piece is focused on MN, but I’m including it here as an example of the kind of resource to search out, wherever you live. It may be a big list like this, or something more informal, but there are good people doing good work everywhere)
I’ve collected a number of these action idea points in this printable, shareable zine: Something to Share with Friends and Neighbors Asking “What Do We DO?”
A Link Specifically For Artists and Culture Workers
Check out Resources for Creative Troublemakers
More of My Writing + Resources
Collecting a handful of things I’ve written + resources I’ve put together over the years:
- Hope Does Not Glimmer; It Burns: Quotes on Hope, Resistance & Possibility (zine)
- What’s next? Things to do after a big march
- Resources for Getting Involved Beyond Election Day
- My Tedx Talk: Five Things Art Taught Me About Activism
- For Artists and Musicians Who Want to Speak Out About Palestine But Aren’t Sure How
- Planting seeds vs. planting crops: a new year’s narrative writing prompt
- The Role of the Artist in Times of Authoritarian Brutality: A Panel Discussion
- All of my zines, on topics from consent to abolition and beyond.
- POEMS AND SONGS RELATED TO ACTIVISM:
- No Kings, All Bricks
- A Pragmatist’s Guide to Magic
- Tension and Release
- When It Really Is Just the Wind, and Not a Furious Vexation
- To Throw a Wrench in the Blood Machine
- Matches
- All Dressed Up, No Funeral (a concept album with a big focus on the power and possibility of collective action)
- Ragdoll (coming soon)
Finally, here’s an example of what I discuss in this piece, Five Activist Resources Artists Can Share at Our Merch Tables. Find even more printable/shareable materials in that link.
I hope something here can be useful. Thanks for reading.
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