Thoughts on Social Change. Reformists and Revolutionaries - Both Are Needed

One of my favorites quotes comes from Peter Sandman in “Risky Business.” He says

“Reformists get their power from the existence of revolutionaries. It’s clear that Martin Luther King Jr. had the impact he did in part because Stokely Carmichael was there accusing King of selling out. The AFL-CIO was successful because the Wobblies were there. The National Organization for Women became what it is because the radical feminist groups were around. In the ecosystem of social change, somebody’s got to be out there, very pure, very unreasonable, very unwilling to compromise. And somebody’s got to be inside cutting a deal. And the insider gets to cut a deal only because there are revolutionaries in the yard. There is no social change without revolutionaries, but the social change you get, if you’re lucky, is incremental, progressive reform —under the threat of revolution.