On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting: Oral Histories, Strategies and Conflicts

Conflict and resolution are the lifeblood of social movements. How, and with whom, do we find lasting friendship, support, and joy in a world in need of so much repair?

In On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting veteran organizer and social worker Benjamin Heim Shepard traces a pressing dynamic of social movements: friendship and conflict. The project builds on oral histories with more than thirty movement organizers--from AIDS, queer, trade union, community, Occupy, and harm reduction-based movements--reflecting on the lessons, meanings, and future directions of movements and collective organizing efforts. ＂There is a hunger for radical history - to give credit to past struggles, to learn from our mistakes and to improve our strategies for the future,＂ writes Lesley Wood. Oral histories trace the stories of these movements.
The book goes in depth into the reasons and ways the interviewees became involved in activism, the friendships they formed, and the conflicts they faced. This includes asking questions such as: where do friendships support or undermine these efforts? How can conflicts be resolved? And where do people find lasting support?

Benjamin Shepard, PhD, LMSW, works as Professor of Human Services at City Tech/CUNY. He has organized protests for leading social reform groups: ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power ), SexPanic!, Reclaim the Streets, the Clandestine Rebel Clown Army, Absurd Response, CitiWide Harm Reduction, Housing Works, More Gardens Coalition, Time’s UP!, Right of Way, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy the Pipeline, Resist AIM, Public Space Party, and the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York, where he is a chapter chair at New York City College of Technology.

Shepard has authored or edited ten books: White Nights and Ascending Shadows: An Oral History of the San Francisco AIDS Epidemic (1997), From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (2002), Queer Political Performance and Protest (Routledge, 2009), The Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York’s Public Spaces (with Greg Smithsimon, SUNY Press), Play, Creativity, and Social Movements: If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution (Routledge, 2011), Community Projects as Social Activism (Sage, 2014), Rebel Friendships: ＂Outsider＂ Networks and Social Movements (Sage, 2015), Sustainable Urbanism (Roman and Littlefield, 2017), Brooklyn Tides with Mark Noonan (Transcript, 2017), and Narrating Perspectives on Childhood and Adolescence (Columbia University Press, 2018).

In 2010, he was named to the Playboy Honor Roll as one of twenty professors ＂who are reinventing the classroom.＂ He was trained at the University of Chicago School of Social Services Administration, the City University of New York Graduate Center, and the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology. Today, he remains involved in organizing efforts around transportation, HIV/AIDS, labor, public spaces, environmental policy, and efforts around sustainability.