Olivia: Most of us think of history as a straight line, always moving toward progress. But what if our biggest wins, the moments we celebrate most, are actually the triggers for our most devastating setbacks? That's the unsettling idea we're exploring today. Jackson: That is a deeply unsettling idea. It feels like for every two steps forward, we're programmed to take one, or maybe even three, steps back. It’s a bit of a downer to start with, Olivia. Olivia: It is, but it’s also the central, bracing reality at the heart of our book today: Make Change: How to Fight for What's Right in a World Gone Wrong by Shaun King. And it’s crucial to know that King isn't just an activist; he's a trained historian from Morehouse College, specializing in revolutionary movements. That academic background gives his arguments a unique and often challenging weight. Jackson: A historian. That makes sense. It’s not just a feeling he has; it’s a pattern he’s observed. But wait, are you really saying that winning is a bad thing? That sounds incredibly bleak. Olivia: It’s not that winning is bad, but that we're often unprepared for the ferocious backlash that follows. King has a name for this pattern. He calls it "the dip."

Jackson: ‘The dip.’ Okay, that sounds like something you’d want to avoid at a party. What exactly does he mean by that in a historical sense? Olivia: It’s a period of systemic suffering and oppression that predictably follows a moment of major social progress. And the most powerful, and frankly heartbreaking, example he uses is the Reconstruction era after the American Civil War. Jackson: Right, I remember that from history class. Slaves were freed, things were supposed to get better. Olivia: Better is an understatement, Jackson. For a brief, shining moment, it was a revolution. Formerly enslaved people were not just voting; they were winning elections. The book points out that over two thousand African Americans were elected to public office. Sixteen went to Congress. There were Black senators, governors, and state legislators. It was an unprecedented surge of political power. Jackson: Wow. I honestly didn't know the numbers were that high. That’s a huge win. So where does ‘the dip’ come in? Olivia: The dip was the violent, terrifying, and systematic backlash. The status quo, the white power structure of the South, felt threatened and responded with overwhelming force. This is when the Ku Klux Klan was born. It’s when Jim Crow laws were meticulously crafted to strip away every single one of those gains. The progress didn't just stall; it was violently reversed. It took nearly another century, until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, to even begin to reclaim that lost ground. Jackson: A whole century. That’s staggering. It’s like the system has an immune response to progress. Okay, but that was a long time ago. Surely we've learned. Look at the election of Barack Obama—wasn't that a huge, undeniable step forward? Olivia: It was a monumental step. But King argues it triggered a modern, psychological ‘dip.’ Almost immediately, the ‘birther’ movement emerged, a widespread conspiracy theory designed to delegitimize the nation's first Black president. It was a backlash rooted in the exact same anxieties about shifting power dynamics that fueled the end of Reconstruction. The form changed, but the underlying fear and resistance were the same. Jackson: And that backlash was amplified by another one of King's examples, right? The "War on Drugs." Olivia: Exactly. King cites the stunning admission from Nixon's domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman. He openly confessed that the War on Drugs was created with two enemies in mind: the anti-war left and Black people. By associating hippies with marijuana and Black people with heroin, they could criminalize and disrupt those communities, raid their homes, and arrest their leaders. It was a policy designed as a backlash to the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson: So the dip isn't just a historical accident. It's often a deliberate, strategic counter-attack. Olivia: Precisely. And that’s the macro level, the huge historical tide. But King argues that for individuals, the fight doesn't start with a history book. It starts with a moment that breaks your heart. A moment you can't unsee.

Jackson: A moment you can't unsee. That feels very true. There are images or stories that just get burned into your brain. What was that moment for Shaun King? Olivia: It was July 2014. The death of Eric Garner in Staten Island, captured on a cell phone video. Police confronted him for allegedly selling single cigarettes. The situation escalated, and an officer put him in a chokehold, a maneuver banned by the NYPD. Jackson: And his last words… Olivia: His last words were "I can't breathe." He said it eleven times. Those words became a global rallying cry. For King, watching that video was the catalyst. He was a pastor and entrepreneur at the time, but he writes that he couldn't continue with his life as it was. He felt compelled to dedicate his life to fighting that kind of injustice. Jackson: That’s an incredible weight to take on. And the book makes it clear this wasn't his only brush with that kind of pain. He connects it to his own personal story, which is just brutal. Olivia: It is. He describes growing up in a small Kentucky town and being the victim of a horrific, racially motivated assault in high school. A group of students attacked him so severely that he was left with spinal injuries requiring multiple surgeries. He missed nearly two years of school. He talks about that experience not as something that broke him, but as something that forged in him a deep, visceral understanding of injustice and a lifelong commitment to stand up for victims. Jackson: Wow, that's incredibly heavy. To carry both your own trauma and the trauma of others... how do you not just collapse under that weight? It seems like a recipe for complete and total burnout. Olivia: It absolutely is, and the book is very honest about that. King talks about the toll it takes, the hate mail, the death threats, the emotional exhaustion. And he offers a solution that I think is one of the most important takeaways from the book: the idea of "revolutionary self-care." Jackson: Revolutionary self-care. That sounds more intense than a bubble bath and a face mask. Olivia: It is. He quotes the great writer and activist Audre Lorde, who said, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." The idea is that the systems of oppression want you to burn out. They want you to be exhausted, depressed, and hopeless. So, taking care of your mental, emotional, and physical health isn't a retreat from the fight; it's a necessary strategy to stay in it for the long haul. Jackson: That reframes everything. So, if you manage to not burn out, what do you do? How do you move from anger and pain to actual, tangible change? Olivia: That brings us to the book's core action plan. King argues that being good, being right, and being passionate is simply not enough.

Jackson: Not enough? That feels counterintuitive. I think most people believe that if you have enough passion and you're on the right side of an issue, you'll eventually win. Olivia: And that, King argues, is why so many movements fail. He says that to make real, systemic change, you need a combination of three essential things: Highly Energized People, Deeply Organized People, and Sophisticated Plans. Jackson: Energy, Organization, and a Plan. Okay, that sounds like a business strategy. Olivia: It is, in a way. He uses a brilliant analogy from a preaching class he took. His professor told him his sermon had a huge, beautiful "front porch" but a tiny little "house." He spent all his time on the introduction—describing the problem in great detail—but had almost no plan for the body of the sermon, the solution. He says most activism is like that: a giant front porch of outrage with a tiny house of a plan. Jackson: A giant front porch. I love that. I can picture so many protests or online campaigns that feel exactly like that. All energy, no endgame. Does he give an example of what a good 'house' looks like? Olivia: He gives one of the most dramatic and inspiring examples I've ever read: the fight to save Rodney Reed. Jackson: I remember that case. He was on death row in Texas, and there were huge doubts about his guilt. Olivia: Huge doubts. And in late 2019, his execution date was just nineteen days away. The situation seemed hopeless. King and his team at Action PAC decided to intervene. This is where the three pillars come to life. First, Energized People. They launched an online petition. It didn't get a few thousand signatures, Jackson. It got millions. Celebrities like Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and Dr. Phil got involved, amplifying the message to tens of millions more. The energy was explosive. Jackson: Okay, that's the energy. What about the organization? Olivia: That's the second pillar: Organized People. The petition wasn't just for show. It built a list of millions of supporters. They then organized those people, giving them a simple, direct task: call the Texas Governor's office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles. They created a tool that made it easy. Hundreds of thousands of calls flooded their offices, shutting down the phone lines for days. They organized rallies on the steps of the Governor's Mansion. They were no longer just a crowd; they were an organized force. Jackson: That's like a movie script. So the petition, the calls, the rallies—that was the energy and organization. But what was the 'sophisticated plan'? Olivia: That was the third, crucial pillar. It wasn't just about public pressure. Behind the scenes, they had a Sophisticated Plan. They worked with Reed's legal team. They hired conservative, Republican lobbyists in Texas to make the case to the Republican governor and board members, framing it not as a liberal cause, but as a pro-life issue of not executing a potentially innocent man. They were fighting on multiple fronts: public, political, and legal. Jackson: A multi-pronged attack. And the result? Olivia: With just days to spare, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended a stay of execution. And less than an hour later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals officially halted the execution and sent the case back for review. They won. An energized, organized movement with a sophisticated plan had stopped the state of Texas in its tracks.

Jackson: That story is incredible. It perfectly illustrates what he means. It wasn't just one thing; it was all three working in concert. Olivia: Exactly. And that's the core message of the book. It’s this powerful trifecta. You need to understand the historical reality of 'the dip' so you're not naive about the backlash that will inevitably come. You need to find that personal 'why'—that moment of heartbreak that fuels you through the pain and exhaustion. And most importantly, you need to channel all of that into a plan that's as smart, strategic, and relentless as the systems you're trying to change. Jackson: It makes you realize that just being on the 'right side of history' is a passive stance. The book is really a call to stop waiting for someone else—the government, a leader, anyone—to fix things. Olivia: That's it exactly. King is known for being a polarizing figure, and his work has certainly drawn its share of controversy, but the central message of this book is a direct challenge to helplessness. He ends by quoting his friend and fellow activist, Lee Merritt, who would look at a new case of injustice and say, "It's on us." Jackson: "It's on us." That's a heavy responsibility, but it's also incredibly empowering. Olivia: It is. And King's final challenge to the reader is to find their own "it." He asks you to think about the one single problem in the world that breaks your heart more than anything else. The one thing that brings tears to your eyes or anger to your bones. Jackson: And once you find it? Olivia: Then you take the first, small, organized step. Because as the book makes clear, that's how real change begins. Jackson: So the question the book leaves you with is: What is the one problem that breaks your heart? And what's your first, small, organized step? Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.