THE BUS TOUR IS POSTPONED
Picture courtesy of Politico
The coronavirus has upended our lives. Hopefully, we will return to some semblance of normalcy soon, but in the meantime, we are a nation of social distancers. The National Children’s Campaign (NCC) is committed to doing its part to “flatten the curve”. For example, NCC and Zero Hour have postponed #Vote4OurFuture, a campaign urging bold climate action and environmental justice on behalf of America’s 74 children. This youth-led undertaking includes grassroots activism, community-led organizing and initiatives aimed at increasing voter turnout among first-time voters, young, black, brown, indigenous, low-income, LGBTQ+ and disabled people by focusing on the Green New Deal.
The campaign’s kickoff was supposed to be the #Vote4OurFuture bus tour, which was slated to travel to New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Flint, and Milwaukee from March 20 to 30. If the coronavirus is contained in the coming months the bus tour will likely occur between Independence Day and the Democratic National Convention later that month.
However, if the social distancing dynamic continues into the summer we will have to fully embrace online tools, which a Politico article called “Climate activists shift gears in an age of ‘social distancing’” claims climate activists are already doing. For example, NCC and other like-minded groups could:
- Use Facebook Live and Instagram Live to broadcast events to the masses in real time.
- Generate Twitter hashtag campaigns to raise awareness about specific issues.
- Produce video conferencing events and webinars through products like Zoom.
- Take advantage of smart phone cameras and laptop editing tools to create professional-caliber online videos that can be upload to YouTube.
- Buy digital advertisements for news and social media websites.
- Create opinion pieces that can be published on sites like Medium.
- Mobilize the grassroots to contact local, state and federal elected officials about policies they should embrace.
- Respond to articles of interests with letters to the editor.
- And yes, write blogs like this one.
I could go on and on, but the point there are no real limits to what you can do to stay engaged and remain relevant. The coronavirus might have temporary halted face-to-face activism, but virtual activism can fill the void and be used in an aggressive fashion going forward regardless of what is happening in the world. Heed the words of Albert Einstein, who once said, “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” We can emerge stronger from the coronavirus by capitalizing on what online tools bring to the table.