Marching with a New Pack: Reflection from a Sunrise Training
Written By Emma Zimmerman in collaboration with the Sunrise Movement Boston hub
On winter weekday mornings, I would walk the mile to the redline, one little ant enveloped in a sea of identical little ants. Eyes down, white buds in ears, backpacks zipped, phones in hands, arms pumping, walk, walk, walk, move, move, move, just keep moving. Slowly new ants would file off their side streets and join our ant pilgrimage, eyes down, white buds in ears, move, move, move. At Massachusetts Ave and Wendell Street, a white car would lie sandwiched between two blue cars, all unable to move and honking at the lack of movement. When they reached their parking spots, the drivers would grab their briefcases, glance down at their phones, slam their doors shut, and move to join the other little ants.
If Boston were full of little ants, weekends were my only time to be my non-ant self. That’s why when I read the words “10am to 8pm on Saturday and 10am to 4pm on Sunday” I felt as if I were being tossed into a honking car, with its GPS set to Harvard Square or the Prudential Center or any place, it didn’t matter as long as everyone moved. Never mind that the 20-somethings who had written those words seldom drive cars and spend their Saturday nights convincing Cory Booker to back a DNC climate debate.
I had been involved with the Sunrise Movement since early March, but until that point, had yet to find a free weekend to join a Sunrise training. It turns out, Sunrise’s Boston hub had chosen the perfect weekend to hold their July training. That Saturday, a heatwave had swept over Boston, the warm humidity swelling around me as I opened the door to the Boston University building. As soon as I entered the classroom where the training would be held, a harsh blast of cold air rushed around me, causing me to pull a sweater out of my backpack. It was during a weekend of extreme heat, in a classroom of extreme cold, that I joined the other Sunrisers in a circle of chairs, ready to learn about fighting climate change and the forces perpetuating our fossil fuel driven economy.
After introducing themselves, the four trainers acknowledged the Massachusett Native Americans from whom the land below us had been stolen. Then, they held a moment of silence, inviting us to fill the silence by extending a welcome to anyone who might otherwise feel unwelcome in the space. I welcome anyone of any level of education…I welcome anyone of any gender…I welcome anyone of any race or ethnicity…age…economic background…political affiliation or lack thereof.
I immediately found myself grateful that the majority of the trainees appeared to be around my age. It was the type of procedure that would make Baby Boomers roll their eyes in exasperation: waste of time,those touchy-feely Millennials.Then, immediately, as if clutching an invisible net, I caught that thought mid-air, and focused my mind back to the circle. Maybe my own biases demonstrated the exact reason for the Sunrise Trainers’ welcoming ritual.
I didn’t know much, if anything, about the people that surrounded me in that room. Most appeared to be Millennials, some Gen-Xers, and some could even be Baby Boomers. They had different stories, different educations, different financial situations, and different families. Still, each and every one of us in that room wished to combat the all-encompassing threat of climate change, and to do so, we knew we must come together. We must remain aware of our different identities, and how society has often used them as a means to separate us. We must welcome each other into the Movement with the clearest language possible. Otherwise, how would we ever win?
As the day went on, the room became a history classroom where we learned about the roots of the fossil fuel industry’s influence on politics. It became a movie theater where we watched clips that outlined the effect of climate change on different communities. It became a studio where we worked in groups to create our own protest songs, which we would later teach to the rest of the trainees. It became a story circle, a lunch hall, a place to talk, and a place to listen. I cried when one of the leaders shared his climate story. I laughed in small circles at lunchtime. In the air lingered something intangible, something familiar, something that I had missed for some time, but had long forgotten I was missing.
It was a feeling I had left behind in the classrooms of my small, midwestern liberal arts school. It was the feeling of people measuring their words before speaking, as if words held dissimilar weights and depths, and did not just exist to fill the spaces between our mouths. It was the feeling that when I spoke, people listened, and not just to create a gateway for their own responses, but to truly immerse themselves in what I said. It was the feeling that the people around me had something important to say, so I must immerse myself in their words too.
Sure, it is important to acknowledge the privilege evident in each of our abilities to attend the training. In reality, many people may not have the resources — be it child care, transportation, or simply free time — to commit a full weekend to training. In fact, the people most affected by climate change, low income folks and people of color, are the individuals least likely to access these resources. In acknowledgement of this reality, the trainers discussed how they hoped to make Sunrise involvement more accessible in the future, such as by offering a consolidated one-day training.
Despite our common, privileged ability to attend the training, the people in that room held two things in common: they wanted to combat climate change, and they were anything but ants. They were thinking outside that file of ear-budding wearing, honking, ant-hood that swarmed the streets of Boston each morning and night. At the end of the training, I sat in a circle of twenty passionate people, legs crisscrossed in a circle, and certainly not marching in a line.
I have often wondered if people are the truest of pack animals, whether it is inherent in our very nature to follow each other; to mindlessly move. While I still consider the likelihood of humans’ pack-mentality, it no longer scares me. In Sunrise Movement, we move in a pack, but we move towards a better tomorrow. As we move, our pack leaves space for new movers, regardless of their education, gender, race, ethnicity, age, economic background, political affiliation or lack thereof. Each member of our pack looks different, comes from diverse backgrounds, and thinks unique thoughts. But together we move.
With this new understanding, I call on all the little ants filing down Massachusetts Avenue each day: join me in reaping the benefits of our pack mentality. Take those buds out of your ears and move your hands off the horn. Yes, something is urgent, and yes, you need to move fast, but many of you are moving with the wrong pack.
