So you're ready to get involved!
The easiest way to give involved in activism is to join a group
already in existence. With the wonder of the internet, you can find out
about many groups in your home, and decide which is right for you. If
there is no group, start one.
Once you've chosen a group, you can start by going to a meeting or an
event. Offer to help out with something small - there's always something
to be done, and no amount of help is too little.
Many groups can be found from the links page
as well as by browsing the protest.net listings for
upcoming events in your area.
There are also books you can use to give you ideas for how to help you
chosen cause. They tend not to be very heavy in terms of why you should
become involved with an issue, but if you are already interested and are
looking for ways to help, these books can be quite useful. Not every idea
in every book is suitable for every person, but by looking through these
books, you can get an idea of how to help and can choose for yourself what
among these ideas works well for your situation and with your amount of
free time. Some books of this sort are:
The Activist's Handbook: A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond by Randy Shaw
Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky
Organizing for Social Change : A Manual for Activists in the 1990's by many authors
Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing by Linda Stout, Howard Zinn
Talking About a Revolution by South End Press Collective, Bell Hooks, Howard Zinn
Fight Global Warming : 29 Things You Can Do by Sarah L. Clark.
50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save the Earth by the EarthWorks
Group.
50 Things You Can Do To Save the Earth by the EarthWorks Group.
The Next Step: 50 More Things You Can Do To Save the Earth by the EarthWorks Group.
54 Ways You Can Help the Homeless by Charles Kroloff.
50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save Hawaii by Jerry Hopkins and
Susan Manuel.(environmental)
50 Things You Can Do To Promote World Peace by
Julianne H. Lira-Powell.
Save the animals! : 101 Easy Things You Can Do by Ingrid Newkirk.
50 Ways to Fight Censorship by Dave Marsh.
50 Things You Can Do About Guns by James Murray.
Global Rift: A History of the Third World by Leften S. Stavrianos
[ed. If you ever read any history book, read this one. It's has changed my
understanding of politics and economics more than anything else.
Reading it can be a radicalizing experience, not because of it's
retorical arguments, but it's clear and methodical explination
of the history of capitalism as it realates to the third world.]
The problem is, sometimes these books can be hard to find. Go to your
local bookstore and ask them to order one or two for you - bring the
names and authors. They're usually quite willing to help, but they can't
help if they don't know to. [ed. You can get to amazon's page for these
books by clicking on the links, if you have a local community bookstore that
has these books you should buy them their first. If you buy them
through the link above Protest.net will get a little kick back which
will help keep the site up. Oh and I have added some more books
that were not in the original Activism 101 listing.]
You may also be interested in calls to action, which are generally
shorter, give more background information and give several ideas about how
to solve the problem. A good collection of 18 is entitled
Call to
Action: Handbook for Ecology, Peace and Justice, edited by Brad
Erickson.
Good luck!
If you're interested in a problem which is not already being addressed,
(usually a local problem), you may want to start a
movement of your own.