Organizing America: Stories of Americans Who Fought for Justice

Historian Loomis (A History of America in Ten Strikes) profiles in this inspiring account 20 activists from the 17th century to today who each convey a specific lesson for political organizing. Among them is Benjamin Lay, an early-18th-century Quaker who fought against slavery “at a time when almost no white people thought it was wrong.” His solo crusade led to the American colonies’ first anti-slavery regulations, implemented through the political will of the Quakers, whose leaders Lay denounced and communities he galvanized until they agitated for change. Lay’s example inspired one of Loomis’s other subjects, Lydia Maria Child, a 19th-century suffragist who rejected the racism that pervaded that movement and similarly galvanized for change within its ranks. The takeaway, for Loomis, is that it makes sense to begin by shifting the perspective of an in-group, rather than taking on the whole public. Other lessons include making use of capitalism when expedient (he points to Maggie Walker, who helped freed Black communities in the post–Civil War South establish banks to build local power) and to not dismiss the need for armed self-defense (he cites Robert Williams, a Black WWII veteran who offered armed protection to civil rights organizers). Loomis’s biggest takeaway—that his subjects “were not above us or better than us... they just did the work”—is a winning one. Readers will be galvanized themselves. (Aug.)