A personal anecdote. One of the first protests I went to.

[DetlefK]

I was a student. The city-council had made a new regulation we didn't like. We held a big meeting what to do next. About 1000 students.

There were several speakers, explaining what exactly is going on, what has been tried before, what the problems are and how it will affect us. The last speaker was a firebrand, a troublemaker. The kind of person you just know will become a politician one day. He tried to rile us up into doing a protest with a fiery, motivating speech shouted from the top of his lungs.

"WHO'S WITH ME?"

...

Nobody moved.

Perfect silence.

You could hear a needle drop.

In a room of 1000 people.

...

Then the organizer took over the microphone.

"Okay, thank you for the speech. We're gonna now hold a vote. Who's in favor of doing a protest?"

And just like that, WHOOSH, one thousand hands went up.





We did our protest and, okay, city-council didn't care, but the lesson to be learned is:

Never underestimate a crowd just because they are silent.

[rampartc]

1. my first protest (many years ago)

was against a new school policy against wearing blue jeans.

we were harassed by the jocks, bull horned by the principal and eventually arrested. the sentence was 30 days suspended until we graduated at which time all was forgotten.

many of us went on to protest against segregation and against the war. both eventually ended so yes, protesting against injustice is not futile but it does take time and a willingness to pay the penalty for civil disobedience.