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Note: This is the first of two Chronicle opinion pieces to explore direct action and movements in the wake of the protests in Los Angeles of federal immigration raids. The second argues that philanthropy has retreated from funding protests.
Like many veteran organizers, the two of us grapple with the current debates about the way forward for our country. When pundits urge Americans to unify around the hallmarks of pluralism — free speech, tolerance for unpopular ideas, principled political disagreement, and new cultural practices — we strongly agree. But we are alarmed by the increasing tendency to blame national divisions on “radical” social movements — the organizations, leaders, and ideas that represent the most vulnerable Americans and fueled the recent No Kings marches and the protests against federal immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Pluralism advocates, it seems, want to build bridges to those on the right. They evince a curiosity about the views of the MAGA faction and reach out to its adherents in efforts that feel like a recruitment drive to win over President Trump’s supporters to “nonpartisan,” social-cohesion efforts.
But these advocates seem much less interested in — and curious about — those who organize to protect the most vulnerable and fight loudly for our freedoms. At best, movement leaders are sidelined, the left’s cancel culture denounced as a danger equivalent to the authoritarian faction consolidating power on the right. At worst, these social movements for racial, gender, and environmental justice are vilified as too divisive, a critique that fuels the authoritarian fire. Blaming groups like immigrants or transgender individuals for society’s problems is a well-worn, dehumanizing tactic of autocrats around the world.
Some narratives you will hear from the pluralism sector include: Black Lives Matter shouldn’t have called for defunding the police; the pro-immigrant movement overestimated support for undocumented people; the LGBTQ movement should drop the T; the climate movement should not engage in provocative civil disobedience; the demands of the reparations and Land Back movements are too complex and unrealistic.
Social justice leaders are told that their solutions, ambitions, aesthetics, and tactics feed polarization by forcing questions, via controversial tactics, upon a public that isn’t ready to answer affirmatively. And that, the argument goes, prevents us from uniting to protect democracy itself.
But a polarized society can still be a pluralistic one. Not all polarization is bad. It is when we fall into dehumanization and toxic othering that our divisions hinder pluralistic, democratic change.
The Rocky Road of Social Change
History is full of examples in which public opinion, courts and lawmakers rejected disruptive tactics and goals seen as polarizing, only to embrace them after the movements won historic changes. Gallup polls show that 60 percent of white Americans didn’t favor the 1963 March on Washington. By 1966, as the implications of the Civil Rights Act became clear, 69 percent of white people held a negative view of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet today, Dr. King is revered by much of the country, and we celebrate him every January.
Castigating justice movements for stepping outside their lane also has a long history. Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech linking the anti-war and Civil Rights movements drew backlash. The New York Times called his argument “disastrous for both causes,” and President Johnson’s White House abandoned him.
The AIDS movement in the 1980s also followed this pattern, facing fierce initial opposition, then winning support. Disgust for people who had contracted the fast-moving, deadly HIV was such that the number of Americans reporting that they avoided places where they might encounter gay men rose from 28 percent to 44 percent in the span of a year. President Ronald Reagan refused to say “AIDS” in public until 1985, and Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote the first federal AIDS report secretly in his basement to prevent press leaks.
Then, in 1987, the founding of ACTUP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) added sustained direct action to the movement’s strategy, firing up the discourse with tactics like die-ins and confrontations with the Catholic Church. ACTUP went on to contribute to many changes — in health care, housing, research on women, and civil rights protections, among others.
Today, the nonprofit and philanthropy sector is divided over interpretations of how change happens — this at a moment when we need our combined talents and networks to fight for a functional and fair multiracial democracy. From the pluralism field’s perspective, people build change by getting to know each other and talking through conflicts to find common ground, including agreements with the state. In this theory of change, cross-partisan dialogue is central to social cohesion. In another mode, people build power through movements, make demands, and embrace direct action to force institutions to negotiate. In this second method, the tone is often more confrontational and urgent — compromise comes when the community feels its voice is respected through enforceable laws or policies.
In our pro-democracy movement at this critical moment, these two modes must work together in an inside-outside strategy. If we pursue pluralistic, multiracial democracy with such a two-pronged approach, some will work to create the conditions for dialogue across issues and identities. Others will “raise the heat,” disrupt complacency, and bring public attention to injustices and harms to our communities. Inside and outside modes of work feel different in pace, tone, and urgency, and people will naturally react differently to them. So discomfort is inevitable, but we need to avoid vilifying each other’s strategies.
Disruptive tactics to stop injustice are central to a pluralistic democratic system. The White House has labeled as “unAmerican” recent movements to oppose the war in Gaza and to demand due process for U.S. immigrants accused of being terrorists and insurrectionists. It has met peaceful protest with military force. Such attacks directly threaten free speech and the right to assemble, without which there is no pluralism.
Good That Comes From ‘Failure’
Although protest is the most visible part of civic organizing, social movements do far more. They create systems of mutual care and collective responsibility, often quite literally keeping people alive. They make sure the populace is educated about how governance structures and policies are built and could change.
Even “failed” movements generate profound change in collective thinking, which then shapes policy. The anti-war movement during the Vietnam era ended the draft. The Black Panthers free-lunch program connected early-childhood education to health, setting the stage for school-based breakfast and lunch programs.
Through the pursuit of a common good, social movements create paths to civic action, the beating heart of democracy. They have fueled civic participation and expanded the hallmarks of our pluralistic society. Additional examples include:
- The Black Freedom, immigrant rights, and suffragist movements have made it possible for all eligible citizens to vote and for all children to go to school.
- The LGBTQ movement protected the right to privacy through its 40-year campaign to end sodomy laws. It also safeguarded the right to protest through the Stonewall uprising of the late 1960s and the AIDS crisis.
- The Labor and Progressive movements in the early 1900s successfully fought to outlaw child labor
- The second wave feminist movement of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s made domestic violence a public issue and advanced pay equity.
- The more recent racial justice movement expanded the scholarship and public knowledge of all communities, making America multicultural as well as multiracial.
At its best, pro-democracy organizing is grounded in broad-based, community-led mobilization in which people stand together for our values and create the world we want. The right to be seen in public. The ability to rely on the rule of law, or to break it when it is unjust. The right to be civically active, the right to protest, the right to redress inequity — these are the values that make a society pluralistic. When they come under attack, every part of a pro-democracy ecosystem must find common cause and work for change.
To make a society in which everyone belongs because all can live with peace, dignity, and freedom, we must appreciate the diversity of tactics, including both dialogue and resistance, needed for our pluralistic future.
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