Over my years as a political agitator, a special joy has been getting to know and learn from so many other practitioners of the agitating arts who dare to stand up to moneyed elites.

Yes, if you push for a little more fairness and democracy in our “Land of the Free” you will certainly be labeled an agitator. But so what? Wear that proudly, for mavericks and agitators are the ones who’ve advanced America’s democratic possibilities. As Jesse Jackson put it, “the agitator is the center-post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out.”

Indeed, it’s those everyday people who do the hard travelling and heavy lifting to produce grassroots change. For an exemplary model, consider the life of Dolores Huerta. This jewel of a human being died last week after 96 years in the field, inspiring, organizing, and mobilizing supposedly powerless, mostly-impoverished people.

I got to know and occasionally work in her shadow as she crisscrossed the country again and again, organizing farmworkers, immigrants, women, outcasts, and others who’ve been knocked down, held back, and routinely-abused by a morally-corrupt power structure. Astonishingly, despite political disappointments, repeated arrests, brutal beatings by corporate thugs, and devastating personal abuse – she never lost her deep belief that an organized, focused, people’s movement will prevail. Si se puede was her inspiring mantra: “Yes we can do it!”

She was a momentous labor leader and progressive icon, but for me she remains a touchstone for those seeking a life of grassroots agitation. You don’t need to become Dolores Huerta, but see if you can find her spirit inside you.

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