tag:theconversation.com,2011:/institutions/lycoming-college-4654/articlesLycoming College2022-11-07T13:35:16Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1926802022-11-07T13:35:16Z2022-11-07T13:35:16ZFundraisers who appeal to donors’ fond memories by
evoking their emotions may get larger gifts – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492668/original/file-20221031-11-7tkotm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=121%2C93%2C6119%2C4061&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Feelings can influence your state of mind.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/declutter-your-mind-clear-your-brain-to-royalty-free-illustration/1349161222?adppopup=true">Nuthawut Somsuk/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>The emotions donors feel when they decide whether to give money to nonprofits can affect the size of their gift.</p>
<p>That’s what <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11238-022-09884-x">my research team found</a> when we partnered with a small liberal arts college during its fall fund drive.</p>
<p>Fundraisers used their standard phone pitch when they asked around 100 alumni to chip in. During another 100 calls, selected randomly, the fundraisers first asked the alumni to reflect on “a person or event in their past that had particularly benefited them since graduating.”</p>
<p>We found that people who were asked to reflect on things that have benefited them were not more likely to make a pledge. But the average pledge they made increased by about 90% to US$27 from $14.</p>
<p>As fellow economist Steven Furnagiev, college student Rebecca Forbes and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=PBPAsKkAAAAJ">I</a> explained in the academic journal Theory and Decision, we found that the emotions these donors felt when making their pledge was responsible for this difference. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Nonprofits advance many causes by engaging in activities like conserving nature, reducing poverty, protecting human rights and strengthening education. Figuring out what leads people to give more to support these groups could help these organizations raise more money and accomplish more of their goals.</p>
<p>Prompting alumni to reflect on things they feel grateful for is what’s called a “nudge” in <a href="https://theconversation.com/economist-who-helped-behavioral-nudges-go-mainstream-wins-nobel-85430">behavioral economics</a>. One explanation for why the nudge we used with one group led it to pledge bigger gifts is that most people are inclined to focus more on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000066">their difficulties rather than their good fortune</a>.</p>
<p>Our study suggests that when people are thinking about what’s gone right in their lives, they are more willing to donate more money.</p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1942">researchers</a> have also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39307-5_3">found</a> that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.10.017">feelings can play a role</a> when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2016.04.003">donors make decisions</a>. Those studies had similar results but were largely done in less realistic settings.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Despite this research’s being conducted in a real-world situation, it is still limited in scope. We don’t know, for example, whether donors might respond the same way if they weren’t being asked to support their alma mater. We also can’t say whether evoking different emotions, aside from gratitude, might have different effects.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Forbes received funding from The Joanne and Arthur Haberberger Fellowship at Lycoming College for this research.</span></em></p>Asking alumni to reflect on ‘a person or event in their past that had particularly benefited them since graduating’ resulted in larger gifts.Michael Kurtz, Associate Professor of Economics, Lycoming CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1649142021-08-24T12:18:02Z2021-08-24T12:18:02ZStudents from struggling economic backgrounds sent home with food for the weekend have improved test scores, study finds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416352/original/file-20210816-28-1b908yp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=114%2C0%2C4380%2C2673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the United States, at least 6 million children live in a household where at least one person is food insecure. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/child-is-handed-a-free-meal-prepared-by-the-cetronia-news-photo/1158414510?adppopup=true">Anna-Rose Gassot/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>When food banks work with schools to send children home with a backpack full of food over the weekend, they do better on reading and math tests, I found in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.102040">recent study</a>. These effects are strongest for younger and low-performing students.</p>
<p>In the peer-reviewed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.102040">study</a> published in December 2020, my co-authors – <a href="https://paulcollege.unh.edu/person/karen-conway">Karen Conway</a> and <a href="https://paulcollege.unh.edu/person/robert-mohr">Robert Mohr</a> – and <a href="https://www.lycoming.edu/profile/faculty/kurtzMichael.aspx">I</a> explored how weekend feeding programs, also known as “backpack” programs, affected end-of-grade tests in reading and math for third, fourth and fifth graders in North Carolina. These types of programs began independently in 1995 in a single school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Since then, Feeding America – a national network of food banks – has created its <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/hunger-relief-programs/backpack-program">BackPack Program</a> to help students “get the nutritious and easy-to-prepare food they need to get enough to eat on the weekends.” The program now <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/hunger-relief-programs/backpack-program">serves more than 450,000 students annually</a>. </p>
<p>Each Friday, students enrolled in the program are given a bag of mostly nonperishable food at school to help nourish them through the weekend. The packs typically consist of grains, fruits and vegetables, some sort of protein and milk. </p>
<p>We used BackPack Program data from a Feeding America food bank in North Carolina and student data from the state. This allowed us to compare how economically disadvantaged students – those most likely to enroll in the program – performed on math and reading tests before and after the program was adopted at their school.</p>
<p>We then compared this with the performance of all other students at the same school and with that of economically disadvantaged students at schools that had a similar percentage of economically disadvantaged students but nevertheless did not participate in the BackPack Program. </p>
<p>Our analysis shows economically disadvantaged students at schools that adopt a BackPack Program improve their reading and math scores by an amount similar to that of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21759">students at schools</a> that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.12.003">adopted a school breakfast program</a>.</p>
<p>Adoption of a BackPack Program appears to shrink the gap in test scores between economically disadvantaged and advantaged students by about 15%. We also show the program is more effective for the youngest students in our study – third graders – and for students with the lowest test scores. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Weekend feeding programs fill a gap in many economically disadvantaged students’ nutritional needs between school lunch on Friday and school breakfast on Monday. In the United States, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2504067">6 million</a> children live in a household where at least one child is food insecure. Approximately <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2504067">540,000</a> of those live in households that report very low food security – that is, where children are not eating or not eating enough because there was not enough money for food.</p>
<p>Local food banks operated by Feeding America work with schools and community members to identify the most needy students and make sure they have enough food for the weekend.</p>
<p>The food bank is able to provide these food packs at a cost of approximately US$5 per student per week. This suggests the program is a cost-effective way to decrease hunger and improve academic outcomes.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>There are many different kinds of weekend feeding programs with different goals, funding and community support. They may have different criteria for who can participate. The food packs may be distributed differently or contain different amounts or types of food. Some programs <a href="https://outofthegardenproject.org/programs/operation-backpack/">target the entire family</a> rather than a single student. Some organizations may actively seek out partnership with certain schools. Others may wait for motivated administrators or community members to initiate the program. It is not yet known how the effect of weekend feeding programs may be different under these varied circumstances or in different areas of the country.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>My co-authors and I have begun work on understanding the factors that lead a particular school to adopt a BackPack Program in the first place. We think that understanding how the program spreads will help researchers better understand the effect of the program itself.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Kurtz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When kids have enough food to eat over the weekend, they do better in reading and math, a December 2020 study finds.Michael Kurtz, Associate Professor of Economics, Lycoming CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409062020-07-07T12:13:37Z2020-07-07T12:13:37ZThere are many leaders of today’s protest movement – just like the civil rights movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345824/original/file-20200706-21-1uqzj83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C3%2C2447%2C1901&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators march in the Black Mamas March to protest police brutality, June 27, 2020 in Washington, D.C. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-march-to-support-black-lives-matter-during-news-photo/1223100922?adppopup=true">Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent wave of protests against police brutality and systemic racism has inspired numerous comparisons with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. </p>
<p>Commentators frequently depict the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-are-the-african-american-leaders-131282">charismatic leadership</a> of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in sharp contrast with the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/how-black-lives-matter-changed-way-americans-fight">decentralized</a> and seemingly leaderless nature of the current movement. </p>
<p>Despite the efforts of <a href="http://stproject.org/from-the-field/blacklivesmatter-lessons/">activists</a> and <a href="https://www.colorlines.com/articles/ella-taught-me-shattering-myth-leaderless-movement">historians</a> to correct this “leaderless” image, the notion <a href="https://youtu.be/PVW2eaCyC5c?t=1083">persists</a>. Such comparisons reflect the cultural memory – not the actual history – of the struggle for Black equality.</p>
<h2>Heroic struggle led by charismatic men</h2>
<p>Through collective remembering and forgetting, societies build narratives of the past to create a shared identity – what scholars refer to as <a href="http://www.iea.usp.br/en/news/cultural-memory-the-link-between-past-present-and-future">cultural memory</a>. </p>
<p>The civil rights movement is remembered as a heroic struggle against injustice led by charismatic men. That is not the whole story. </p>
<p>King’s soaring <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf">rhetoric</a> and Malcolm’s unflinching social <a href="https://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/blackspeech/mx.html">critiques</a> have supplanted recollection of the significant work performed by legions of local leaders, whose grassroots organizational style more closely resembled the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists and other contemporary social justice groups to build movements <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reclaiming-our-movement-l_b_6498400">full of leaders</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html">iconic images</a> of 1950s and 1960s Black protesters marching, kneeling and being arrested while dressed in their “Sunday best” illustrated the <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-rise-of-respectability-politics">respectability politics</a> of the day. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345848/original/file-20200706-25-121vsvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., flanked by Rev. Ralph Abernathy (center left) and Nobel Prize-winning political scientist and diplomat Ralph Bunche (center right) during the third Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march for voting rights, March 21, 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/high-angle-view-of-american-civil-rights-leader-dr-martin-news-photo/106162063?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These efforts, designed to cultivate white sympathy for civil rights activists, relied on conformity with <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1266&context=uclf">patriarchal gender roles</a> that elevated <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1048809">men</a> to positions of visible leadership, confined <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/women-in-the-civil-rights-movement/">women</a> to the background and banished <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=historydiss">LGBTQ individuals</a> to the closet.</p>
<p>Yet the movement could not have happened without the extraordinary leadership of Black women like veteran organizer <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/ella-baker/">Ella Baker</a>. Baker’s model of grassroots activism and empowerment for young and marginalized people became the driving force of the <a href="https://snccdigital.org/inside-sncc/the-story-of-sncc/">Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee</a>, known as SNCC, and other nonviolent protest organizations, past and present.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flyer announcing a Youth Leadership Meeting, that was to be held at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina, on April 15-17, 1960, and bearing the names of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ella J. Baker, the president and executive director, respectively, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, April 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flyer-announcing-a-youth-leadership-meeting-to-be-held-at-news-photo/505860232?adppopup=true">New York Public Library/From the New York Public Library/Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).</a></span>
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<p>The decentralized structure of the current movement builds on this history of grassroots activism while working to <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/">avoid replicating</a> the entrenched <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sexism">sexism</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/homophobia">homophobia</a> of an earlier era. </p>
<h2>Amplifying voices</h2>
<p>SNCC transformed lives by recognizing talent and empowering marginalized people. As Joe Martin, one of the organizers of a student walkout in McComb, Mississippi, <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/47qng2nh9780252065071.html">recalled</a>, “If you had a good idea it was accepted regardless of what your social status was.” </p>
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<span class="caption">Ella Baker, NAACP Hatfield representative, Sept. 18, 1941.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photograph-of-miss-ella-baker-naacp-hatfield-representative-news-photo/557322103?adppopup=true">Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Endesha Ida Mae Holland, a teenage prostitute, found purpose as a SNCC field secretary, organizing and leading marches in Greenwood, Mississippi. Facing down Police Chief Curtis Lary “made me feel so proud,” she <a href="https://clarityfilms.org/freedom.html">recalled</a>, and “people start looking up into my face, into my eyes” with respect. Holland went on to become an award-winning <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-08-ci-55362-story.html">playwright</a> and distinguished <a href="https://news.usc.edu/11287/A-Very-Long-Way-From-the-Mississippi-Delta-Endesha-Ida-Mae-Holland-Ph-D-Open/">university professor</a>. </p>
<p>Black Lives Matter co-founders Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors also encourage strategies that place marginalized voices at the center.</p>
<p>Elevating “Black trans people, Black queer people, Black immigrants, Black incarcerated people and formerly incarcerated people, Black millennials, Black women, low income Black people, and Black people with disabilities” to leadership roles, they <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reclaiming-our-movement-l_b_6498400">wrote</a>, “allows for leadership to emerge from our intersecting identities, rather than to be organized around one notion of Blackness.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thelily.com/teen-girls-organized-nashvilles-largest-protest-they-joined-a-long-history-of-black-women-activists/">Black women</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/06/05/teens-protests-george-floyd-tear-gas/">teens</a> have played a critical role in organizing, leading and maintaining the momentum of recent protests. </p>
<p>Kimberly Jones <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/83572-ya-author-s-video-on-racism-goes-viral.html">captured the nation’s attention</a> with an impassioned <a href="https://youtu.be/sb9_qGOa9Go">takedown</a> of institutional racism and debates over appropriate forms of protest. After repeatedly breaking the social contract to keep wealth and opportunity out of reach for black communities, Jones concludes, white Americans “are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge.”</p>
<p>Women have organized family-friendly demonstrations, including the “<a href="https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article243502031.html">Black Mamas March</a>” in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a “<a href="https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-childrens-black-lives-matter-march-20200619-53pcaad6tncjvp4njhgfyyybxu-story.html">Black Kids Matter</a>” protest in Hartford, Connecticut. </p>
<p>Six young women, aged 14 to 16, organized a peaceful protest attracting more than 10,000 people in <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/06/04/teens-lead-nashville-march-protest-george-floyd/3151774001/">Nashville, Tennessee</a>, while 17-year-old Tiana Day led a march on the <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/578133-2/">Golden Gate Bridge</a> in San Francisco. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345854/original/file-20200706-21-7t4hsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seventeen-year-old Tiana Day leads a march on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, June 6, 2020, to protest the death of George Floyd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/America-Protests-San-Francisco/bb4abc9301234a56be4276d30cbd6633/2/0">AP Photo/Jeff Chiu</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Full of leaders</h2>
<p>The adaptive “<a href="https://changeelemental.org/resources/leadership-spectrum-what-it-looks-like/">low ego/high impact</a>” leadership model, in which leaders serve as coaches helping groups build their own solutions, has become popular among current social justice organizations, but it is not new. </p>
<p>Baker <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807856161/ella-baker-and-the-black-freedom-movement/">encouraged</a> civil rights organizations to “develop individuals” and provide “an opportunity for them to grow.” She praised SNCC for “working with indigenous people, not working for them.” </p>
<p>“You don’t have to worry about where your leaders are,” <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/moses.html">former SNCC organizer</a> Robert Moses <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674447271">reflected</a>. “If you go out and work with your people, then the leadership will emerge.”</p>
<p>Campaigns are <a href="https://www.theroot.com/leaderless-or-leader-ful-1790860733">exhausting</a> and external recognition as a “leader” can take a heavy toll. Spreading leadership around helps to protect any one person from becoming a <a href="https://youtu.be/PVW2eaCyC5c?t=1169">target</a> for retaliation while advancing a stream of talent to rise as individual energy wanes.</p>
<p>Returning from a citizenship training program in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1963, <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer">Fannie Lou Hamer</a> was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-hamer/">arrested and severely beaten</a>, leaving her with permanent injuries. Holland’s mother died when their house in Greenwood, Mississippi, was <a href="https://snccdigital.org/people/ida-mae-holland/">bombed</a> in 1965 in retaliation for her activism. </p>
<p>Civil rights worker <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/anne-moody-1940-2015/">Anne Moody</a> <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/116457/coming-of-age-in-mississippi-by-anne-moody/">recounted</a> how the physical and psychological toll of constant harassment by white supremacists in 1963 forced her to leave a voter registration drive in Canton, Mississippi, saying “I was on the verge of a breakdown” and “would have died from lack of sleep and nervousness” had she stayed “another week.” </p>
<p>In a 2017 <a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/946436687588192257">interview</a>, Erica Garner, who became a tireless campaigner against police brutality after her father, Eric Garner, died from a New York police officer’s chokehold in 2014, echoed Moody’s comments.</p>
<p>“I’m struggling right now with the stress and everything. … The system beats you down to where you can’t win,” she said. Just three weeks after that interview, Erica Garner <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/nyregion/erica-garner-dead.html">died</a> of a heart attack at the age of 27. </p>
<p>Comparisons to the romanticized cultural memory of charismatic leadership in the Civil Rights Movement devalues the hard work of today’s activists – as well as those who worked hard outside of the limelight in the earlier movement. Social change – then and now – derives from a critical mass of local work throughout the nation. Those who cannot find leaders in this movement are not looking hard enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Silkey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some lament that today’s anti-racism movement has no charismatic leaders like the civil rights era did. Such comparisons don’t reflect the real history of the struggle for Black equality in the US.Sarah Silkey, Professor of History and Social and Economic Justice, Lycoming CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.