Especially as a teenager, I was always being racially profiled by the police. You just see all this injustice, and you want to do something about it, but you don’t know how.
It’s important to realize that we all need to work together. With Weaving Movements, we are all interdependent and we all have to work together. If we could just realize that and understand that, we’ll keep our country strong.
I had been a Girl Scout from the time I was 8 to the time I was 18 years old. I had belonged to my church organization and youth groups. But, you never really found a way that you could make a change.
People would say ‘Who is a leader?’ A leader is a person that does the work. It’s very simple. It’s a personal choice for people who choose to put in their time and their commitment to do the work. It’s a personal choice.
I want to say to mothers out there, you know, take your children to marches. Take them to meetings because this is a way that they can become strong, and they understand what politics is all about because they are actually living it.
In fact, the corporations are driving out the competition and it is not getting better, especially when they are not paying income taxes. Thank goodness for the social media out there, because we sure can’t count on the corporate media to get the word out.
As organizations, we have to find ways to create more opportunities, especially for our young people. A lot of corporations, they have to make opportunities for young people – create internships, for example, even if it’s only half-time.
People can take power over their communities and over their lives. Some people don’t realize they can do that. They think ‘It’s OK for other people, but I myself can’t do it.’ Hopefully, that will come out of the film.
I think we brought to the world, the United States anyway, the whole idea of boycotting as a nonviolent tactic. I think we showed the world that nonviolence can work to make social change.
As we’ve focused more on our food and where it comes from, people now have greater awareness of what’s being put onto our food, pesticides, labeling issues, and consumer health.
I was very fortunate to have known Fred Ross Sr., who was organizing the Community Service Organization (CSO) way back in the late 50’s and early 60’s. I was able to work with him.
Giving kids clothes and food is one thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people.