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.

Media and social media can make it look like the main activity of activists is large protests. Sometimes it can be hard, looking from the outside, to understand how to contribute in other ways, besides showing up with a sign at a protest.

Photograph by Richard Reilly who has been photographing resistance events in St. Louis for more than a decade. This is the April 19 march in downtown St. Louis. Note the fogged-in Arch.

Choose an organization, whether it’s directly part of the resistance movement or has a related mission. Offer to do one or more of these things:

• Write copy for emails, media releases, public statements, and letters to the editor
• Take photos for groups to share
• Make shareable graphics for posts
• Post on social media sites
• Join a committee
• Scout venues
• Tend to an information table at community fairs and festivals
• Set up chairs and tables before events
• Clean up after events

Modern movements, since at least Occupy Wall Street, have been leader-full, with many leaders instead of one. The advantage of a leader-full movement is that it continues even if one or more leaders need to step back. A disadvantage is that it’s hard to know who to connect with when you want to engage in any of the above ways.

I would probably start with the Indivisible site, mostly because they have terrific information about how to do the work of resistance and they have been around since 2016. Drill down to find the local groups which will likely be organizing in private Facebook groups or on other social media.

Another possibility is the newer 50501 movement. Besides the website, search for 50501 <state name> on Facebook to find the group and/or page for your state. Most cities will have at least one group or page for the city, too.

Once you have found the group or page, message the administrators (they are listed on the About page on Facebook) to ask how you can tap in as a volunteer willing to do one or more of the above activities.

Speaking of social media, I suggest that we avoid engaging with posts that backseat drive about what an organization should be doing. Some of those are real complaints by real people. But if those people were fully engaged, they would be offering to volunteer to serve on a committee that makes the decisions that they’re complaining about. Some of those posts are from trolls and bots and they’re designed to make the impression that there’s infighting when there isn’t.

Do you know of other ways to volunteer?