In Struggle

"Young people make history, young people push the process forward, and I think it’s important for the millennials to recognise that as much as the baby boomers did for America, they can do that times 50 because they’re going to be bigger and have better technology. It’s important for young people to know the history and story of other young people, and I really recommend that book and other books about the SNCC. I think it’s the ideal model for young people. It was decentralised, a little crazy, had a lot of courage and made a huge difference. That’s the point. You don’t have to have the perfect group, or the perfect people, or the perfect solutions. What you have to have is perfect commitment to a high goal, and then out of that you’re going to make all kind of mistakes, have all kind of problems and setbacks, but do something and get involved. Don’t assume that just because some of the things have been tried before, they won’t work. They might have been tried three years earlier, five years earlier, 30 years earlier, but the time wasn’t right. So young people shouldn’t listen too much to older people, who will say “don’t even try that, I tried it before”. But you didn’t try it today. I like In Struggle because it doesn’t hide the inevitable friction of young people, with a lot of energy and hormones and everything else raging, while they’re trying to change the society they barely understand. But we sure owe them a great debt. We live in the country that some of them gave their lives for."