My 2025 A to Z Challenge theme is activism. I’ve been a Black Lives Matter activist for over a decade. I’m not an expert. I do have experience to share and I’m hoping to learn from your experiences, too. We’re all in this together.

When someone is new to activism, it can be hard to figure out where to plug in. Community is a foundation of effective and sustainable action, but where do you find it? How do you find the place where your personality and skill set fits?

As far as I can tell, there isn’t a good step-by-step, top-down to approach this. My advice? Join all the groups. You can narrow it down later. The group that turns out to be your favorite group may be one that you hear about by attending a different group.

Join a congregation. Check the congregations in your area to see which ones have social justice committees. In the St. Louis area, there are congregations of many different religions and of no religion at all that provide both community and a home base for activism.

Join a local Democrat club. In our area, the Democrat club meetings are filled with new members who want to protect our democracy against the current Republican demonstration. These new people, I believe, also have the power to fundamentally change the Democrat party into one that better meets their needs.

Join a local civil rights organization. Find groups in your area that promote anti-racism work, immigrant support, women’s rights, or LGBTQIA+ rights. Don’t forget to consider old established groups like the League of Women Voters and NAACP.

Join a nationwide group and its local affiliates. Consider Indivisible, which formed after the 2016 election, and 50501, which formed after the 2024 election. I joined the Facebook groups for the national and the state and local “chapters” of these organizations. Keep in mind that this all feels pretty chaotic right now. That’s due to a sudden increase in interest, to the grassroots nature of all this, and to deliberate choices to be a leader-full movement, as Black Lives Matter has been. We all learned our history — when leaders are too identified with their movement, it’s easy to stall the movement by arresting the leader, or worse.

If none of that helps you find a group that feels like a good home for you, try these tips:

• When you attend big events, like the April 5 rally, introduce yourself to the people around you and find out what groups they are involved in.
• Form your own group. People I know from the rural area where I grew up formed a support group for blue dots in their red region.

Do you have other ideas for groups to join?