If you ever find yourself pondering the health of the environmental movement, take a few minutes to read this fascinating story that appeared in the Washington Post on Saturday about the changing face of the civil rights movement.
Reporter Daryl Fears reveals that big name organizations such as the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Council are stagnant or declining. The problem: younger African-Americans respect the old guard but they are they are choosing to involve themselves in a wide variety of newer organizations. Among the challenges:
A proliferation of black organizations with niche audiences — lawyers, enginieers, accoutants, journalists — took away middle class members.
And:
Today, radio deejays, Internet groups such as Color of Change.org and organizations such as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights are orchestrating bus rides, marches and other ations once performed by civil rights groups.
Has the same thing happened to the big names of the environmental movement? Would it be a bad thing if it did?
Click to read (free registration required): Civil Rights Groups Seeing Gradual End of Their Era
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Check out the book “Blessed Unrest.” The author makes a point that a “movement” (still yet to be named) is under way that combines environmental, social justice and human rights issues. They are all connected — consider access to clean water as a human right. This larger concept empowers our actioins as small organizations because we really have a much larger impact through our informal and indirect overlaps in missions.