No, I wasn’t alive in 1968. In 1968, my mom wasn’t probably even able to have children yet. But this is an ongoing segment on Democracy Now! and it’s gotten me to thinking.

I grew up on music from the 60s. If you know me at all, you know that I was obsessed with the Monkees. I still love them. But they were my life from when I was 12 until sometime in high school (when I discovered the Weakerthans, ha). I’m not talking the “Last Train to Clarksville” and “Daydream Believer” hits (although that was a pretty radical subject to have a pop song about back then), but their lesser known songs. “Mommy and Daddy” (especially the unreleased version). “Ditty Diego“. They were anti-war, pro-love, anti-conformity, and I wanted something like that.

Along with the other “Swooning Hippie Chicks”, I lamented the fact that we weren’t living in that magical period between 1967 and 1969 when everything was happening and the music was amazing. We devoured any old records we could get. We watched documentaries about the war and civil rights movement. We imagined being at Woodstock, the Isle of Wright festival, anywhere but here and now. We had the unpleasant experience of being born into a time and place where nothing happened.

Of course, we couldn’t have been more wrong. But I grew up in a very sheltered, small town where the big event was getting a stop light put in. Our one and only! So I wasn’t entirely exaggerating… but wouldn’t it have been nice if that had really been the case? That there were no social justice movements to participate in because everything really was perfect?

In high school, I became involved in the Gay/Straight Alliance. Once I knew that things such as gay existed. But I didn’t realize that there were state, national, and international conflicts about it. When I went to the Pride parades and conferences, I thought it was a celebration… not a tactic.

Same with women’s rights. Women were equal to men in my town; wasn’t it like that everywhere? When I went to college, I found out about the “real world”. First I took women’s studies classes but they focused on the history of the movement, which only perpetuated my thoughts that these issues were long past. But then I participated in the March for Women’s Lives and learned a lot through conferences and joining Women in Action (Hofstra’s student group). I was also active in Student Organization for Animal Rights (SOARs) but that was mostly social so I didn’t get involved in animal rights activism like I could have.

When I transferred to UMass, I was sadly way too busy with classes and working full time to devote any time at all to activism, and it fell by the wayside. Which I wish hadn’t happened, because Amherst has an amazing culture for it, but these things happen.

Then I came to Chicago. And everything came together. Ever heard of intersectionality? I had never had a term for it. I didn’t know that feminism, veganism, anti-racism, pro-queer, anti-war movements were all related. I just figured that the people I knew who were all involved in these movements were smart enough to see through each form of oppression for what it was.

I’m fulfilling my thirteen year old’s desires. I am an Activist. Forty years after 1968, we still have a hell of a lot of work to do.