Love, Joy, and Hope

Abstract What does resilience look like in social movements? How do activists keep going when times are hard? What tools have people used to form movements that could thrive despite constant setbacks and repression? This digital history piece examines these questions through the life of Kipp Dawson, who built coalitions for over sixty years in some of the nation’s largest movements for freedom and equality. Her astonishing career stretched from the frontlines of the US Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam anti-war movement to the women’s movement, gay liberation movement, labor movement, and education justice movement. She helped to lead some of the largest and most well-known sit-ins, marches, and campaigns that led to crucial victories. Yet the movements sustained devastating defeats, and Dawson’s own marginalized identities—as a lesbian, Jewish, working-class woman from a multiracial family—frequently meant she confronted government surveillance, intra-movement bigotry, and even violent resistance. However, Dawson and her collaborators persisted. They drew strength from each other and were buoyed by a sense of possibility for the future. This digital piece demonstrates the significance of love, joy, and hope as tools of resilience through a re-creation of a larger multimedia, open educational site (KippDawson.com) built using interactive platforms from the digital humanities.