Three Months After Parkland, Five Lessons Learned
Written by Toni Adleberg, Director of Research at Animal Charity Evaluators.
In the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, some young survivors turned their grief into resolve. They rallied at the Florida Capitol, planned nationwide school walkouts, and organized a march on Washington. These confrontational tactics — protests, demonstrations, and marches — are typically the last resort of aggrieved groups who lack any traditional source of power. If one high school student can’t capture the attention of lawmakers, maybe one hundred can. And if they can’t reason with those lawmakers, maybe they can cause enough disruption to gain the leverage necessary to demand change.
As a researcher who studies the factors that make social movements successful, it seems to me that these young activists did everything right. They were smart and compelling enough to hold the nation’s attention for months (which, in the current political climate, is no small feat). But it’s more than just charisma and precociousness that kept them in the spotlight. They made strategic choices that history tells us are associated with successful movements — choices that other movements often struggle with. Here are five lessons we should all try to learn from the students of Parkland, Florida:
1. To achieve systemic change, target institutions — not individuals.
Even when emotions ran high after the shooting of their classmates, the students of Parkland never publicly blamed particular individuals. From the first, they were laser-focused on challenging powerful institutions. In a rare op-ed from one of the survivors that does discuss the shooter at length, author Isabelle Robinson was careful to point out that she was not “writing this piece to malign Nikolas Cruz any more than he already has been.” She wrote that blaming individuals is “a weak excuse for the failures of our school system, our government and our gun laws.”
The choice of a target is one of the first decisions activist groups have to make. It can be all too tempting to target individuals with guilt — but as professor Jennifer Jacquet argues, the real power for activist groups lies in targeting institutions with shame. Unlike guilt, which only affects the psychology of each individual, shame is an effective tool that the powerless can leverage against the powerful to achieve systemic change.
2. Using a variety of tactics can mobilize a larger, more diverse group of activists.
In addition to organizing protests, marches, and school walkouts, our young anti-gun activists have engaged in media outreach, have written op-eds, and have met with legislators. One thing I’ve consistently heard in my work with social movement activists is that different types of activism draw different types of activists to a cause. Some activists thrive on the energy of protests, while others excel in one-on-one conversations with potential allies.
Using a diverse set of tactics mobilizes a diverse community of activists, and mobilizing a diverse community of activists leads to a greater diversity of tactics. This cycle can only help a movement succeed. In a large-scale study of nonviolent resistance movements, sociologists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan have shown that a movement’s diversity of tactics and level of mobilization are both associated with success. Higher levels of mobilization increase the chance that some activists will have personal connections with people in power, and using diverse tactics increases a movement’s chances of effectively putting pressure on their opponent.
3. To capture and hold the nation’s attention, spotlight activists with media (and social media) savvy.
It can’t be a coincidence that many of Parkland’s most high-profile young activists are theater students. They are comfortable with their emotions, even in front of crowds. They are confident and well-spoken on camera. Certainly not every student from Parkland is so eloquent and composed; rather, the students seem to have shrewdly selected the most media-savvy students to field press inquiries.
Nothing is more important for controlling a movement’s public image than media relations. After all, the vast majority of the public will never witness an anti-gun protest in person or speak with an activist face-to-face. The majority of the public will learn about the movement strictly through following the news or engaging on social media. Yet not all media coverage is equal. Some researchers have argued that securing media attention through “extreme” or shocking tactics can reduce public support for the movement. The Parkland students had no need to engage in shock tactics for attention; the event that launched them into the spotlight was shocking enough. They have maintained a professional and relatable image, which has helped them attain support.
4. Activists with privileged identities and activists with marginalized identities can (and should) work together.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the post-Parkland anti-gun movement is the way in which relatively privileged students from Parkland and relatively marginalized students from other schools have worked together. As Emma Gonázlez explained on Twitter, “[t]hose who face gun violence on a level that we have only just glimpsed from our gated communities have never had their voices heard in their entire lives the way that we have in these few weeks alone.”
When they are working for the same cause, privileged and marginalized activists need each other. The Parkland students seem to understand that they need to highlight the voices of students whose lives have been entrenched in gun violence to show that gun violence is an epidemic — not a one-off tragedy caused by some disturbed individual. Students with more marginalized identities no doubt understand that making alliances with more privileged activists is a relatively safe way to get their voices heard. Though protesting can be an effective way for powerless groups to make change, it comes with the risk of violence, arrest, and in some cases, deportation. Such risks are felt most intensely by activists from marginalized communities. In any high-functioning social movement, relatively privileged activists can engage in riskier activities while everyone ensures that there are safe and effective ways for more marginalized activists to participate.
What makes this collaboration so impressive is that it has rarely been pulled off so well by other movements. For instance, organizers of the Women’s March have repeatedly faced criticism from activists of color and trans women, who argue that talking about inclusion is not enough; “we have to show it by putting [trans women and women of color] in leadership positions and building pipelines to leadership.” Similarly, the animal advocacy movement has been criticized for excluding people of color through the use of racist messaging. Both the feminist and animal advocacy movements have experienced a level of divisiveness and infighting that it seems the post-Parkland anti-gun movement will largely avoid.
5. When social movements work in solidarity, everyone wins.
The Parkland students don’t just collaborate with other groups when it serves their own agenda. When David Hogg found himself in the public eye due to a recent clash with Laura Ingraham, he used the opportunity to actively support other movements, drawing attention to her “bullying” of Black athletes and an LGBTQ+ group at Dartmouth University.
Using one’s platform to show solidarity with other movements is the right thing to do. It’s also smart. Too often, activists maintain a single-minded focus on one issue. Some may feel that every cause is in competition for the spotlight, and that devoting resources to one cause necessarily detracts from others. On the contrary, when social movements work together, everyone wins. The Parkland students are building a coalition that will advance their own cause as well as others’.
These young anti-gun activists have taught us valuable lessons about effective activism, and I hope participants in all social movements are taking notes.
