Had dinner with an old friend this evening, and we were speaking about the Occupy Oakland activism that has been taking place in our city. Our conversation brought up the question of the similarities and dissimilarities between the civil disobedience and arrests that took place during the Civil Rights Movement and the civil disobedience and resulting arrests at the Occupy encampments and marches. The comparisons merits much consideration, I think, as 21st-century Americans try to figure out a path to social change, using lessons and examples from the past and linking them with new technologies and other contemporary tools and approaches. I think we’ll all have to stay tuned as the Occupy movement develops…

Ajuan Mance