Voices of Change: The People’s Oral History Project Interviews with Monterey County Activists and Organizers 1934-2015

The book you are holding in your hands is not all about leafleting in front of the factory gate at dawn. There’s another slice of life here. It’s the real deal salted with a dash of humor, peppered with a pinch of wisdom and a rub of romance. Interviews were conducted with 63 local risk-takers, troublemakers, change agents, and community and labor union organizers who have been active across the Salinas Valley and the Monterey Peninsula since 1934. These stories are told in the context of the importance of effective and nonviolent community organizing and progressive advocacy that promotes personal and institutional change in human affairs. Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world. — DOLORES HUERTA, President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation ,Co-founder of the United Farm Workers The weight of cruelty’s consequences lands heavy on our heads and without warning or training, we become organizers. We organize in offices, in fields, the halls of government. We write, we picket, we debate, we leaflet, we sing. We feel scared, lonely, foolish, discouraged and exhausted. We win a little victory that beckons us on, that gives us hope. And we look back and say, “Look what we did? We did that!” — Holly Near, singer, songwriter, activist, and actress To the organizers who, with hopeful heart, critical eye, and skillful hand, bring us together to change ourselves, our communities, and our world. — Marshall Ganz, veteran organizer and Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, author of Why David Sometimes Wins When I lived in Monterey County, I became acquainted with several contributors to this collection who inspired me with their courage and perseverance. These stories are packed with history as it was being made, personal and revealing. The human dimension of being an activist is often overlooked but very much alive in these accounts. — Dr. Charlie Clements, human rights activist, public health physician, and author of Witness to War