Energize Book Blog

Paul Revere earned his living as a silversmith. But what do we remember him for? His volunteer work. All activism is volunteering in that it’s done above and beyond earning a living and deals with what people really care passionately about. Remember, no one gets paid to rebel. All revolutions start with volunteers.
- Susan J. Ellis

To me, it seems that most people think of words like “advocacy,” and “activism” as being quite different from words like “volunteering” and “service.” I like the quote above because it shows that this is a false dichotomy. Activists are “volunteers in the vanguard,” helping to change public opinion and pave the way for needed reforms.  One important element of even the most traditional service opportunities is that they can open volunteers’ eyes to broader social problems and create articulate advocates for your organization’s cause.

Below is an excerpt from Susan J. Ellis and Katherine H. Campbell’s By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers that illustrates this concept.  Since February is Black History Month in the United States, this part of the volunteer story seemed especially relevant:

Typifying the intensity and commitment of all those engaged in the civil rights struggle was the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs in August 1963.Sponsored by more than four hundred national organizations, it brought over two hundred thousand black and white Americans to the capital in a reaffirmation of the nation’s democratic principles.

An effort that brought together all the major civil rights organizations, plus many church groups, the March was a climax and beginning. It served notice that Black Americans were no longer willing to wait generation after generation for rights that other citizens took for granted. And it brought America face to face with her full responsibilities as a nation. *

From that point on, events moved rapidly. Legislative gains, King’s march from Selma to Montgomery, the abolition of literacy tests for voter registration, the formation of black student unions and heritage-awareness groups such as the American Society of African Culture—all contributed to a growing sense of black power and black pride.

Self-help projects became more numerous, harnessing the creativity and energy of black volunteers. Operation Bootstrap in Los Angeles, Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) in Philadelphia, and the National Economic Growth and Reconstruction Organization (NEGRO) focused on employment and business development. Black churches sponsored commercial enterprises, ran daycare centers, and opened job placement centers… Public education about the nature and effects of all types of prejudice was the concern of several volunteer organizations, notably the National Conference of Christians and Jews. NCCJ inaugurated National Brotherhood Week in an attempt to draw attention to the need for racial and ethnic understanding.

Civil rights and the rights of poor people were intertwined. The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was the most visible grassroots effort reflecting this connection. Formed in 1966 by an interracial coalition of middle-class organizers, church workers, and members of CORE, the backbone of NWRO was poor, black women. During the next few years, NWRO organized demonstrations in welfare offices and lobbied legislators in an effort to reshape public policy relating to poor families.

As an assertion of the strength and competence of poor women; as a demonstration of the potential power in the fusion of race, class, and gender; as a channel for helping poor women transform their ideas of welfare into entitlement …NWRO remains a remarkable and significant episode in American social history.*

*Both citations from: Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Making of America, rev. ed. (New York: Collier Books,1969).

Who were the “revolutionaries” that originally championed your organization’s cause? How has their legacy affected your work? How are you assuring that all volunteers in your setting become advocates?

In honor of the just-passed American July 4th holiday, here are excerpts from the first chapter of the book, By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, by Susan J. Ellis and Katherine H. Campbell. It’s easy to forget the critical role volunteers played in the fight for independence, so what better time to remember? (For our friends to the north – you can read about the history of volunteering in Canada in this free PDF.)

There were a number of ways that the average citizen could play an active part in the growing rebellion. Economic pressure on England was an important weapon. The Boston Tea Party was but one of many citizen efforts. Though the colonists had grown dependent upon the goods of the mother country, boycotts of British products were attempted, usually successfully, all over the colonies…

After the Stamp Act, colonists resolved to abstain from buying and using such diverse items as loaf sugar, coaches and carriages of all types, imported hats, gold and silver lace or buttons, diamonds, clocks and watches, muffs, starch, women’s stays, velvet, gauze, silks, and many other luxury and basic articles imported from England. Colonial women were the natural participants in such boycotts and eagerly exercised their might in this arena of political activity…

The military strength of the colonies was directly dependent upon voluntary action in the most basic sense. In the 1600s, there was no army to protect citizens from the dangers of the wilderness. This meant that all settlers protected their own families and property and assisted their neighbors when called upon. As the colonists began to develop a greater sense of community, they felt the need to create more unified defense measures. Laws were enacted in several colonies as early as the 1630s requiring all citizens to hold arms, to be called up as needed to carry out the governor’s orders. As time went on, more permanent companies of those willing to volunteer for active duty were formed…

As the preceding pages demonstrate, the “average citizen” was critical not only to the success of the War of Independence but, more basically, to the formation of a new society. The simple cooperation among neighbors that made life in the early wilderness tolerable was succeeded by more structured forms of joint community effort. The scope of government responsibility increased as population grew, but on the frontier “pioneer conditions put a high premium upon personal work, skill, ingenuity, initiative and adaptability, and upon neighborly sociability.”¹ In the cities, voluntary associations supplemented governmental action by making needs known and by organizing volunteers to implement solutions.

What is most important in this era is the pervasive attitude of cooperative volunteering. Individuals actively sought a role in their growing communities, beyond the basic demands of survival. Involvement on the local level expanded with a developing sense of common purpose with neighboring settlements. This, in turn, broadened into an emerging loyalty to the colonies as a whole. In this way, person-to-person volunteering was linked to actions supporting the cause of patriotism. As Nathan Hale said:

I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward; I wish to be useful, and every kind of service, necessary to the public good, becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that service are imperious.²

Endnotes:
1. John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1927), cited in Frank Freidel and Norman Pollack, eds., American Issues in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), 148.
2. Ford, Peculiar Service, flyleaf.

We’ll be posting short, useful book excerpts regularly on the blog. If you’d like to suggest an excerpt you found particularly helpful, leave a comment.