Find Opportunities to Get Involved
6. Civic Knowledge and Skills
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As we have said elsewhere in this Guide (and many others have reiterated this idea, democracy is not "a spectator sport," though many people treat it that way. They root for and some closely follow "their team," rejoicing in their victories and despairing in their defeats. But other than (possibly) voting for their team every two our four years, they don't get involved in "politics." That's other people's business, they assume.
If democracy is to survive in the United States or elsewhere, we must change this attitude and our approach to democracy. In his interview with us, long-time activist and citizenship trainer Harry Boyte suggested that democracy is a "way of life."
Nobody in the [civil rights] movement— all the older people who were my mentors — Septima Clark in the citizenship schools or Ella Baker or Bayard Rustin or King himself,— none of them thought democracy was mainly voting. They all used some version of the old formulation that it was a "way of life," which was pretty much the idea of Alexis de Tocqueville when he traveled across America in the 1830s and then wrote Democracy in America, which was the title of his famous book. He said democracy was about people doing things, self-organizing. So I always thought about democracy as much bigger than simply elections.
And the role of the citizen is much more serious and substantial than simply as a voter or someone who obeys the law, the constitutional version of "citizen."
Harry talked a lot about the "citizenship schools" in which Blacks, during the civil rights movement learned about nonviolence, and also about their roles and responsibilities as citizens of the United States.
Citizen identity was about being an active co-creative citizen, who was responsible for [their] communities, and who had a sense of ownership of [their] communities. And this was really striking, because these were African-Americans, who were disenfranchised and often in very disadvantaged positions. But the strength and the courage and the nonviolence that I saw with them had a huge impact on me.
If you want to improve your citizenship skills, we urge you to continue on through this Guide which will teach you a lot! Or you can jump to our page that lists "civic skill builders" to find a training organization that can help you build your civic skills. If you don't think you need help learning how to be an effective and engaged citizen, you can go directly to Citizen Connect to find a way that you can get involved and make a difference for your community and our democracy.
The links below will take you to much more information about how to be an engaged and effective citizen.
