Make Change: How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future

"A captivating memoir of change. A hope-filled sermon for change. A tactical blueprint for how we can each make change. Make Change is all three and all the more towards an equitable and just world." -- Ibram X. Kendi , National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist "During my life in public service, I have always believed that nothing is more powerful than the power of organizing. Our opponents have organized money, but organized money can be defeated by organized people -- and this book is about how we can all throw our lives into organizing to make this world a better place together. Shaun understands that change does not just happen out of thin air. It's made." -- Bernie Sanders , United States Senatorxa0"So many of us do the work we do to make the world more humane and just. The best path is learning from other people's experiences. Here, Shaun not only transparently shares his journey of fighting for change, but gives readers courageous action steps to consider in our own lives." -- Rashida Tlaib , United States Congresswomanxa0"Thank you, Shaun, for being a natural humanitarian who always stands up for marginalized communities. In Make Change, Shaun brings awareness to problems big and small around the world--then shows us exactly how we can work together to actually solve them." -- Cardi B , Grammy Award-winning rapperxa0"Shaun King is unapologetic in his commitment to fighting for our people. In this book, he shares his experience and tools to empower all of us to create impactful movements that force real change." -- Sean 'Diddy' Combs , Entertainment Mogul, Entrepreneur and Philanthropistxa0"Shaun King delivers the same powerful voice that led to his emergence as a national leader of the movement for police accountability and to end mass incarceration...a must read for anyone seeking to understand--or better yet join--the reform movement sweeping the country." -- Chesa Boudin , District Attorney of San Franciscoxa0"We are at a crucial, pivotal time in our world, and every one of us has a responsibility to take actions that make a difference. Make Change breaks down for us what this actually looks and feels like so that we can all walk our talk." -- Megan Rapinoe , Activist and Captain of U.S. Women's Soccer Team "An impassioned guide...this fervent exhortation succeeds in making the case that the time for progressives to act is now." -- Publishers Weekly "A vigorous complement to other primers in political activism and social justice... [which] shares the spirit of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals." -- Kirkus Review "Instructive...Prominent commentator and activist King is a magnet for many seeking a way forward to a more equitable America." -- Booklist Since the Black Lives Matter Movement began, I've traveled to 47 states organizing people and teaching them how we actually MAKE CHANGE . In my new book, I want to teach you the hard lessons I've learned from my own successes and failures so that you can begin to actually tilt your life toward making this world so much better.What I know is this - the world needs you - and it needs you to make a decision today - to refuse to accept the world the way it is. The beauty of life is that we have a chance to use our imagination and craft a vision for society that is more just and equitable than what we've seen our whole lives.You may not believe this, but you actually have everything you need, right here, right now, to begin changing the world. Let me teach you what's next! I love and appreciate each of you! Your friend and brother,Shaun SHAUN KING was recently named by Time magazine as one of the twenty-five most important people in the world online. One of the most followed activists and journalists on the planet, Shaun has served as the Senior Justice Writer for the New York Daily News , Writer-in-Residence at Harvard Law School, and the Justice Writer for The Intercept. He has authored an astounding 1,500 articles on the intersection of issues of race and justice and has now traveled to 47 states teaching and organizing. His popular daily podcast, The Breakdown , continues to not only inform hundreds of thousands of listeners, but break ground with engaging action steps. As an activist, Shaun co-founded and helps lead the work of Real Justice and the Grassroots Law Project - two highly effective organizations on the frontlines for deep systemic change in the United States. Above all, Shaun is a husband and proud father of five children from elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. They call Brooklyn, New York home. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. It was a beautiful, cloudless Friday morning in July of 2014. I could smell the ocean and hear the soothing sounds of its waves crashing as I took the first step out of my beat-up Hyundai and slammed the door shut. It was about 7 a.m., and Santa Monica was quiet. Rush-hour traffic in Los Angeles could be maddening, so I had left home super early that morning to beat the snarled highways and make my way to the offices of Global Green, an international environmental organization where I served as the director of communications. I was tempted, as I often was, to walk the extra block to the Pacific Coast Highway and stare out at the blue water that stretched as far as my eyes could see. Something about the ocean centers me. Seeing it never got old, but I was behind on several tasks at work, and the mounting pressure of deadlines overruled my inclination to be contemplative that morning, so I made my way inside. The job was a major change of pace for me after years of spearheading my own philanthropic projects. I had become known in charity circles for my use of social media and email listservs to build awareness and raise funds for causes, but doing it for an organization like Global Green was a new challenge, bringing me into a more corporate setting. As I climbed the steps to our cushy second-floor office, I had no expectation that this would be the day that would change the entire course of my life. Everything about it felt just like the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. Routine. But as I reflect back on that day, and over my forty years on earth, I now see my life as split in two, existing one particular way before that Friday and in an altogether different way after it. For nearly a decade, Global Green had partnered with Vanity Fair to host its annual Oscars gala. The entire budget for the organization hinged on the success of the event. That morning, I organized our donor database, mundane but necessary work that consisted of cutting and pasting and entering data for hundreds of donors. As the hours crept along that morning and my colleagues filed in, I received a push notification on my phone from a former classmate of mine from Morehouse, where I had attended college fifteen years earlier. It was a Facebook message. 'shaun," my friend wrote. 'somebody posted something horrible on YouTube, man. The police are harassing this middle-aged brother on the street corner in New York and the dude is just begging them to leave him alone. He tells them over and over that he didn't do anything. The man wasn't armed. He wasn't violent. None of that. And all of a sudden, this plainclothes cop comes up behind him, and starts choking the shit out of him, like UFC rear naked choke-style. The cop chokes the man while the brother was still standing up'?''?then wrestles him to the ground and continues choking him. And Shaun'?''?you can hear the man yell out over and over and over again, 'I can't breathe'?''?I can't breathe.' He says it a dozen times. And the guy dies right there on the sidewalk, man." When I read those words, my stomach dropped. My first thought was that I couldn't click on that link in the Global Green office. Don't get me wrong: the people there were nice. But nobody ever talked about civil rights or police brutality or racial justice. I just didn't know if I was ready to explain to them what my friend told me I would be seeing. And I'm ashamed to admit this, but a small part of me thought that he must've left out a key detail somewhere along the way. What he described for me was cold-blooded murder in broad daylight, with witnesses, caught on film. I wondered whether my friend had left out an essential chunk of the story. He hadn't. Such videos have spread across the world in the years since, but before that day in July, a viral video of someone being killed by police simply did not exist, and so the reality of it was confounding. I waited until my lunch break to watch the video, turning the volume down on my computer before clicking the link. What I saw was shocking. It was just as my friend had described, but worse . . . much worse. Read more