Discover New Roles

Becoming A Mosaic

All photos by Don Pierce, unless noted otherwise.

The civil rights movement was a powerful river that flowed towards justice. Its tributaries, like the people who fought to change it, were diverse. The diversity of tactics and strategies gave the civil rights movement its power. It mirrored the resilience of ecosystems where each organism plays a part in maintaining balance.

Engaging creativity

1. Discover New Roles: Becoming a Mosaic
   The civil rights activists embodied many contributions. Some activists were voices, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer, whose speeches reverberated as a call to justice. Some were the hands who crafted protest signs, cooked for marchers or sewed clothes for those arrested. Today, switching roles could mean that you are both the organizer and poet of a rally.

2. Learn new skills: Weaving fabric
   Activists today can strengthen their cause through skills that promote cohesion, just as they learned to weave community by attending church meetings, organizing grassroots, and arguing in court. Social networking can create a digital quilt with supporters, and conflict resolution can bring people together.

3. Participate through Different Formats : The Changing Seasons of Justice
   Modern activism thrives when it embraces a variety of formats, just as the civil right movement did. Direct action marches are like the summer sun, bright and bold, while strategic planning or quiet research is like winter, when reflection and preparation is key. The movement is alive and well through all seasons with balance.

4. Strength in Diversity: Mirroring Ecosystems
   Diversity in activism is like a forest, where each tree, shrub and bird contributes towards a healthy whole. Without artists to inspire and plan, without everyday citizens to be witnesses, a civil rights movement would be as barren as monoculture. Diverse engagement helps to strengthen the roots of activism and ensures that it will endure through storms.

Call for Action

Use your imagination to change the course of a river so that it can flow freely. Bring your imagination and skills to activism. Every role, skill and effort, whether loud or quiet, adds to the overall resilience. Diversity is not just strength, but beauty as well. It's a testament to collective action.

HumaNatureConnect Activity

Outdoor Activity: "River of Diversity Walk"

Theme: Exploring the flow of human and ecological diversity through the metaphor of a river.