Slavery would not have been abolished by bumper stickers and annual marches with hashtags. The struggle for civil rights was powered by people who were unrelenting in their on-the-ground activism, who toiled in the trenches without reward, who did dangerous and unpleasant work with humility and grace. These fights were waged block by block, city by city, to rally public consciousness to the cause. There were no shortcuts to legislating a more just society. More often than not, winning a political battle first requires winning the public argument.
