Do It Anyway

That age-old quest for meaning - Who am I? What is my calling? How can I make the world better? - is about to get a twentyfirst century makeover by one of the most widely read young writers on social change.In Do It Anyway, Martin explores the lives and motivations of eight activists - not superhuman heroes, but ordinary young people searching for their own way to make a difference. Among others, we meet Raul Diaz, a prison re-entry social worker at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles; Nia Robinson, an African American climate- change activist in Washington, D.C.; and Rosario Dawson, an actor struggling to use her celebrity for social change while staying authentic in her activism.

Courtney E. Martin is a senior correspondent for the American Prospect and an editor of Feministing.com. A 2002 recipient of the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, she is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters and coauthor of The Naked Truth. Her work frequently appears in the Christian Science Monitor, Alternet, and Publishers Weekly, and on Alternet, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.