Organizing and Mobilizing. WHOA!!!
March 23, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
This appears on the Students & Youth Organizing page at stopmassincarceration.net.
From a H.S. student in North Carolina
To the average student those may sound like intimidating words, but if you are even looking at this page I can already make the assumption you are not the average high school student. You are not oblivious to the injustices amongst the Black and Brown people on our communities. Well let me get into detail about how I a 18 year-old Senior in one of the worst High Schools in the west corridor took action.
Coming into this I was a little apprehensive, but just like you I had a goal in mind. This entailed talking to people. Talk to people you know or those you could change; and, they would care within a substantial amount of information. Talk to your ministers, student council, any on campus clubs, any organizations within your community. But, also be prepared for let-down. I was let down many, many times before I found the right people to help organize. I made a lot of different calls annoying a lot of different people. YOU HAVE A NATIONWIDE SUPPORT SYSTEM. I actually started with a woman in another who linked me to a community organizer, there was my foundation.
The next question was how was I going to approach my peers. YOU know YOUR peers best. You eat and get educated the same with your peers each and everyday of school. YOU KNOW HOW TO REACH YOUR PEERS BEST. As I mentioned earlier I was pretty apprehensive, but I had a choice: be scared of failure or try to help carry out a curve in history. So when I got to school the next day I asked my teacher if I could talk to the class. He willingly said yes.
The speech consisted of what I knew and the things that made me cringe while living in America. TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW!!! Basically all the things that caused your interest to simple question of “who was with me” at the end. All while doing so I got informed of some of the police brutality occurring in our neighborhood. I compiled a group of 6 people out of the 18 students that were there.
After all the rejection prior I was very satisfied with the very modest achievement. That gave me enough courage to talk to more people and express my concerns and by the end of the week I gained 4 more people and one student that I definitely believe will be a prominent leader during the movement in my area. You’ll have people trying to put you down, but just stay true to what you stand for. BE CONSISTENT, FUCK RESISTANCE
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