A dozen towns are strung like worry beads along the Lake Michigan shoreline from Milwaukee to Chicago. Worry has been particularly palpable in three of those towns—Kenosha, Waukegan, and Evanston—this year. Violence erupted in Kenosha in August after police shot Jacob Blake during an arrest. Peaceful marchers in Waukegan have decried the October police shooting death of Marcellis Stinnette. Citizens want answers, accountability, and action from their local police departments. The protests springing from Northwestern University (NU) in Evanston are nominally about racist, or perceived racist, police violence, as well. But as I began to untangle this snarl, I realized that the NU protests are a (wild)cat of a different stripe.
On June 3, 2020, perhaps energized by the racial unrest in Chicago to the south, a petition was circulated demanding that NU abolish its police force and also sever ties with the Evanston Police Department and the Chicago Police Department. The petition demanded that NU instead invest those monies in the health and well-being of the black community. Shortly after June 3rd, the student group, NU Community Not Cops (NUCNC), was formed. More than five months later, this relatively small group of students continue to belligerently insist that the private university meet their demands. As reported by The Daily Northwestern and The Chicago Tribune, they seem surprised and offended that the university hasn’t agreed to their ultimatums.
Whether one agrees with the university or agrees with the protestors on the merits of the demands, it appears that the NUCNC students don’t understand how to effect change. Are the on-going protests in Evanston driven by indolence, ignorance, or immaturity?
Posting on Instagram while marching, chanting, and defacing property is relatively easy. Researching, gathering facts, and preparing compelling briefings is a lot more work. A raucous parade is less time consuming than a series of one-on-one conversations, over coffee or a beer, to enlist others to the cause.
Or maybe the protestors don’t know where to find the facts, how to distill them into a coherent argument, and how to identify the people who can help them make their case. Maybe they don’t understand the most effective ways to persuade people of differing opinions. Are they unaware that the private university they attend is subject to the laws of the land, but not to their personal whims?
Judging by some of the cringe-worthy quotes in news stories and meeting transcripts, perhaps the students are still immature. Demanding an immediate seismic shift in university operations illustrates an inability to delay gratification and a troubling naiveté. Like a toddler who throws a tantrum at the grocery store, demanding candy at the checkout counter, they increase their cries of outrage, spew hyperbole, and begin to smash stuff within reach.
Perhaps these students, inspired by the civil rights unrest of the 20th century, have the erroneous, romantic notion that a protesting minority imposed its will on the intransigent majority during a single season of discontent. After all, the searing events that unfolded over the course of a decade—the Montgomery bus boycott, the Greensboro sit-in, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, Bloody Sunday in Selma—get compressed in memory to a tidy chapter in a U.S. History book. And yes, thousands marched and protested. But hundreds, and dozens, and sometimes only a handful did the truly difficult work. They built coalitions, drafted legislation, cut deals for votes, prepared court briefs, and argued cases. Then, and only then, did a majority pass the laws that converted the ephemeral to the enduring: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Marches and protests are like marketing campaigns. They overflow with humanity, thrills, and potential danger. They arouse emotions; they trigger reactions. But ultimately, a marketing campaign is only as successful as its product. And production requires research and development, procurement, assembly, and distribution, all with a tedious reliance on detail. There’s a reason Hollywood makes movies about protests, but not about legislation and legal briefs.
Thurgood Marshall, one of the great black icons of the 20th century, understood the difference between “marketing” and “production.” Long before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he argued cases in the nation’s courtrooms. In the two decades between his first Supreme Court victory for racial justice and his crowning achievement—Brown v. Board of Education—he put in the time: traveling, fact-finding, investigating, researching, networking, preparing, and ultimately arguing and winning cases. He viewed marches and protests, and even Martin Luther King’s speeches, as street theater. He thought Malcolm X’s violence was destructive and counterproductive. In his mind, the law was the only effective tool for ending legal racial discrimination.*
Today’s protestors argue that discrimination, although now illegal, still exists; it has not been completely dismantled. Those who ache for the end of racism want lasting change, and they want it now! Then I would urge them to quit pouring all of their energy into “marketing” and get started with the work of “production.” If today they do not begin the diligent, informed, and mature work required to effect enduring change, by tomorrow, they will be yet another day removed from achieving their goal.
*Juan Williams. Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. New York, New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998
