In 1968, Doug McAdam was an aspiring basketball player and occasional anti-war activist when he heard the devastating news: Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated. He pulled over to the side of the road and started bawling. But things only got worse that year. Within months, Bobby Kennedy, who many believed would be the next President of the United States, was also murdered. And when the Democratic National Convention ignored the wishes of primary voters and selected a pro-war candidate, riots broke out on the streets.
The nation was gripped by fear, anger, and violence. And yet, the period after the 1968 convention was a period of positive change: an end to the Vietnam War, the passage of the groundbreaking Clean Water Act, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.
As an acclaimed sociologist at Stanford, Doug has now spent a lifetime understanding how change of that sort happened. And it turns out that anger — often seen as an emotion that stifles progress — was central to the social transformations of the 1970s. In fact, anger is one of the two central emotions that have driven social change for generations.
That is perhaps good news for those who seek change today. The anger, and deep sense of injustice in the world, are palpable; and that feeling crosses the political spectrum, from Tucker Carlson to Bernie Sanders.
There was another emotional ingredient in 1968, however, that Doug believes is missing in movements today: hope. You see, anger without hope for change is counterproductive; it leads people to cynicism and even inaction. And despite the killings and riots of 1968, the 1960s were a time of immense hope. People felt that all the tumult was building toward something better.
That’s not true today. Whether the issue is wage inequality or the climate crisis, most people don’t see much hope for change. This is one of the reasons that, despite the fact that we have not seen the violence of the 1960s, Doug believes the present moment to be the most intense crisis he’s personally experienced in American history – even more than the tumult of the 1960s!
But that does not mean all is lost. Skilled movements through history have found hope in crisis. And it can be done again. This conversation is about a lot of things – the pitfalls of social movements, the evidence on how movements grow, and the challenges of activism in a digital era – but perhaps the most important topic is the question of how we can inspire hope.
And, without giving things away, there’s a one-word answer: community.
This was a fascinating conversation with one of the deepest and most evidence-based thinkers on the question of social change. And many of you contributed to it, by offering questions (including audio recordings) in advance. Let me know what you think, and thanks, as always, for listening.
Doug’s pioneering study on social ties and activism
Doug’s book on the Freedom Summer, a historic effort to register Black voters in 1964
Music by Moby: Everything That Rises
