Rosario Dawson in Do It Anyway

That age-old quest for meaning—Who am I? What is my calling? How can I make the world better?—gets a 21st-century makeover. Courtney E. Martin abandons the empty “save the world” rhetoric and ’60s nostalgia that her generation was raised on and doggedly pursues the gritty truth about social change in contemporary America. It’s complicated. It’s challenging. And, yet, it’s still possible.

In DO IT ANYWAY (Beacon Press, 2010), Martin deeply explores the lives of eight activists—not superhuman heroes, but ordinary young people searching for their own way to make a difference. Among others, we meet Raul Diaz, a prison re-entry social worker at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles; Nia Robinson, an African American climate change activist out of Detroit; Maricela Guzman, a former soldier fighting to end violence against women in the military through the Service Women’s Action Network; and Rosario Dawson, an actor struggling to use her celebrity for social change while staying authentic in her activism.

In direct opposition to an older generation’s cry that young people are apathetic and disengaged, DO IT ANYWAY reveals a new generation of activism and calls on young people to transcend school-required community service and paper-pushing nonprofit jobs in favor of the kind of work that keeps you up at night because you believe in it so deeply.

For more information please visit: http://www.doitanywaybook.org/

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