Not giving up: A group of social justice warriors sustains the resistance with community and meditation

RALEIGH, N.C. (RNS) — For nearly a decade, activists with the group Democracy Out Loud have been protesting at the North Carolina General Assembly, holding vigils for people who died in government custody, writing letters to their state and federal representatives and building coalitions of like-minded activists.

They admit: They haven’t been successful in pushing back the tide of what they see as growing authoritarianism across the nation.

But these battle-scarred social justice veterans, many with a long history of involvement in social and political causes stretching back decades, have been able to build one thing that has lasted: a growing community of people who care for each other and practice a form of spiritual grounding rooted in meditation.

The group’s founder and lead organizer Karen Ziegler, 72, an ordained minister, retired nurse practitioner and a devoted Buddhist, prioritizes regular check-ins and attention to people’s well-being.

“What we discovered, being on the street week after week after week, was that we weren’t making a dent in the things we were protesting,” Ziegler said. “But what we were doing was finding the others who felt the same and building…