I got to be on a panel of “elder” activists speaking to a small group of middle school students. In preparation the coordinator asked that we speak for 5-10 minutes about a time in which we had to “meet the moment.” I puzzled about that time in which I had to “meet the moment.” Was it when I stepped onto my first clearcut? Was it first seeing the waters run orange with acid mine drainage? Maybe it was when I heard a childhood friend speak at a rally about being molested growing up or possibly when the cars tried to make their way through the strikers line that I stood in.

I don’t know that there is any one moment that I could call on. My life as an activist is made of a thousand moments in which I had to act. I suspect that’s true for many activists. Instead I spoke of the inspirations, the moments that taught me and made me question.

For me it goes back to being a little girl looking out the kitchen window into the darkness and seeing the flames in the distance. Those flames were that of neighbors barns burning. It seemed to happen so often then. Things were hard for farmers, especially dairy farmers then, much as they are now I suppose. Barns burnt when there were no other options. The stories were always arson, and maybe it was, but I always wondered if it was simply a sad and desperate way to save all that could be saved. I just knew it wasn’t fair.

I remember too the planes that sprayed the fields, the strange bright colors of the corn seed, all the chemicals, and then what happened. My mom was the first that I knew who cancer attacked and stole from us. She wasn’t the only one. Almost every family we knew had someone fighting the battle and far too many had someone who lost their lives to cancer. I was just a child and had no flag to pick up to lead the way. I just knew it wasn’t fair. I knew something had to be done.

Growing into adulthood opened the windows allowing me to see out into a much broader world and to meet the teachers who would guide my being for the rest of my life. There were and continue to be so many who’ve wandered in and out of my life. Some I’ve known and befriended in person, others I’ve only heard stories of. I thank them all. There are just a few that I want to mention here, to thank individually and to share what I learned and what defines me.

The first is Walt Bresette, an Anishanaabe leader from the Red Cliff reservation who I got to know back in the 1990’s. Walt was, among other things, a powerful speaker. He spoke to crowds everywhere telling us to look down that long tunnel to see that child way down at the end, that child that is the seventh generation. He reminded us that if we do right by that child we’ll be doing right for today. While he’s long gone, I continue to hear his voice echoing on the wind, reminding us to always be keeping that seventh generation in our minds, our hearts, our souls, letting it guide our every action.

The second is Frannie VanZile, another Anishanaabe leader, this one from Mole Lake. I will never forget that moment standing outside the state capitol in Madison as we fought together to protect the waters of our state from the destruction of mining. She stood there on the steps, surrounded by young Native women, and called out in a powerful voice “You women, you women out there, you are the keepers of the water.” She gave this young woman wandering lost in the world, a direction, an understanding of who I am and why.

The last is Myles Horton who I never had the good fortune to meet, though I once got to talk with his son. Myles worked in the hills of Tennessee, long before I lived there in the late 1990’s, but his legacy remained and is still there today. It is the Highlander Center. Myles believed in grassroots organizing. He understand that the people of the community knew that place better than anyone else and that it was not the job of someone outside to come in and fix them or the place that they were. Instead it was our job, those of us who were gifted the role of being organizers, to ask questions, to learn, and to support the community in recognizing its own power and ability to create change.

There are so many moments to meet, so many inspirations to help us meet them. This was what I was able to come up with the share with those middle schoolers. I hoped it helped them a bit as they launch their own lives as activists. I dream that it might help someone else too.