Frances Fox Piv­en: What Move­ments Do — The rul­ing class is orga­nized and well-fund­ed. What can be done to con­front and defeat con­cen­tra­tions of pow­er? As a vet­er­an activist once said, ​“Orga­nized peo­ple can beat orga­nized mon­ey.” There is a rich his­to­ry of ordi­nary peo­ple get­ting togeth­er and doing extra­or­di­nary things. Take the dis­abil­i­ty rights move­ment. Who gave that a chance? Oh, we can’t build ramps and put in ele­va­tors. It’ll cost too much. Or anoth­er exam­ple is the civ­il rights move­ment. African Amer­i­cans achieved vot­ing rights after over­com­ing fierce resis­tance from entrenched white seg­re­ga­tion­ists. There are con­tem­po­rary move­ments such as Black Lives Mat­ter which protest against police killings of African-Amer­i­cans. Teach­ers in Ari­zona, Okla­homa and West Vir­ginia orga­nized, went on strike and demand­ed bet­ter pay. And they got it. Move­ments to be effec­tive embody the immor­tal words of Muham­mad Ali: ​“Float like a but­ter­fly, Sting like a bee.”