You’ve probably heard it a thousand times, that definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Google, et al. tell us the saying is often attributed, incorrectly, to Albert Einstein and that the saying is actually found in the 1983 novel, Sudden Death, by Rita Brown.
In this New Year, we will be confronted, especially in the first month or two, with the invitation or demand or opportunity to change a practice or a policy. The question will be, “Do I keep on doing ‘the same thing over and over again,’ or do I do something different?” Some of those things are worth keeping and some of them need to go.
In the winter of 1972 or 1973 a few members of the Quaker Fellowship of Amherst, Massachusetts began a silent vigil on the Town Commons. They were protesting the Viet Nam War. My wife and I would see them every Sunday when we drove downtown to pick up our copy of the Boston Globe. There they were, standing on South Pleasant Street, rain or shine, sleet or show, facing the former First Baptist Church building and silently holding their protest signs.
I don’t know what results they had in mind other than ending the war, but I do know that I’ve remembered them some 50 years on and have sought to emulate their moral courage. They did it “over and over again,” and Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. Those members of the Amherst, Massachusetts Quaker Fellowship did not believe that “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” was the definition of insanity.
Neither did those early foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement who launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott on December 5, 1955. Every day for more than a year they did “the same thing over and over again:” not using the buses of Mongomery City Lines, the private company that operated the city’s buses. Instead, the Women’s Political Council stepped in to coordinate the boycott, and the Montgomery Improvement Association organized carpools and other boycott-supporting actions. Some taxi drivers chose to charge the same as the buses (10 cents a mile). Bicycles and even horse drawn wagons were pulled into service to support the boycott.
Those courageous Black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama did “the same thing over and over again”—and guess what: their persistent repetition resulted in the “different results” that they expected. A federal district court declared segregated buses to be unconstitutional in June 1956, a decision that was confirmed by the Supreme Court the following November. King declared the boycott successful and over on December 20, 1956. The decision was decisive for the Civil Rights Movement, momentum grew, and 20 years later came the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan did not believe that saying about insanity either. At 8:00 am, December 30, 1936, the Flint Sit-Down Strike began. Rather than setting up a picket line outside the plant, the workers barricaded themselves inside. A labor dispute in a Cleveland, Ohio plant triggered the strike. The work stoppage quickly spread to GM plants in Norwood, Toledo and Janesville, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan.
For 44 days, until February 11, 1937, the auto workers did “the same thing over and over again;” they occupied the plant facilities, kept the police at bay, and did not work. Their actions achieved the results they were expecting--recognition of The United Auto Workers as the sole bargaining agent for General Motors workers. It was a major victory for the union movement nationally, and the next year UAW membership jumped from 30,000 to 500,000 across all car makers.
Truly, doing “the same thing over and over again” has a prominent place in American history. The examples above have nudged the nation ever closer to that “more perfect union” envisioned in the Constitution. Now is the time to draw on the inspiration and courage provided us by that history.
When you attend or see or read about those No Kings Protests or 50501 Rallies, know that those people stand on the shoulders of thousands of Americans who have stood up for the Constitution and the democracy it has allowed us to create; for the rule of law and common decency; for the right to live, in the words of President Roosevelt, free from want, free from fear, with freedom of speech and freedom of religion. It’s a New Year. What are you keeping? What are you leaving behind?
