As weíve seen, there are powerful forces that can keep ordinary individuals from "meddling" in public affairs. Despite countless opportunities every day to get involved, to take charge of social problems, weíve all learned to "mind our own business." Fortunately for all of us, however, there are many brave souls among us who refuse to succumb to those conditions. Some make it their business to step in whenever they disagree with the way things are; others play along until they canít take it any longer. 

All of us have our opportunities for heroism. Some of us take those opportunities, others donít. This chapter salutes some of those who have risen to the opportunity for greatness. Some of the heroes weíll consider are people youíve heard of, others will be strangers to you. Yet each of them offers proof that individuals like you and me can take on public problems and make a difference in the quality of life for everyone.

Liberty and Justice for All

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Montgomery seamstress, was riding the city bus home after a hard dayís work. In Alabama at that time, blacks were required to sit in a special section in the bus, and thatís what Mrs. Parks was doing. As the bus became more crowded and the "white section" was filled, the bus driver ordered Mrs. Parks and three other blacks to give up their seats to whites just getting on the bus. 

Now itís worth noting that Rosa Parks was not responsible for segregation in the South; she didnít create the system, nor was it her job to address the issue. 

And yet Rosa Parks didnít give up her seats. She simply refused and in so doing took a stand for human rights that sparked a revolution in black-white relations in America. The opportunity for heroism appeared, and Rosa Parks took it.

Mrs. Parkís refusal and her immediate arrest drew national attention to the situation prevailing in Alabama, showing other blacks that it was possible to challenge the system. Her act of courage that December day set the stage for countless acts of heroism in the years to come.

Montgomery blacks chose to dramatize their outrage at Mrs. Parksís arrest by staging a nonviolent boycott of the city bus system. Leadership for the boycott fell to the black clergy of Montgomery. A new minister in town, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was selected to organize the one-day boycott. No one had any special skills or training for the job, but someone had to do it. King agreed to be the one.
 

To the surprise of everyone-black and white alike-the boycott was virtually total. Montgomeryís black citizens formed car pools, walked to work, rode bicycles-anything but rode the buses. Blacks were organizing their own system of race relations. The boycott continued. Soon the white establishment felt the need to act. Car-pool drivers were harassed and ticketed by police. And the boycott continued. King and other boycott leaders were put in jail. Yet the boycott continued.

The with resistance grew more violent and drew international attention to the boycott, and support for the blacks in Montgomery came from around the world. In November 1956, black vision of equal treatment took on the force of law when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of buses was unconstitutional. 

The heroism of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the others who took a stand for human rights created a sharp break in history. None of them had had special training for the job they took on, nor was heroism expected of them. All they had in their favor was the willingness and courage to step out of line and take a stand.

For Martin Luther King, Jr., that December first in Montgomery marked the turning point in his life. From that day on, his life was devoted to personal responsibility for American public life. Now the concern was not just for blacks but for all human beings. In the last years of his life, he would take on the cause for ending the war in Vietnam. Injustice in any form or color was to challenged. Kingís courage was to earn him attacks on his character, governmental violation of his privacy, physical assault, jail-and the 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace.

On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his final public speech in Memphis. He had been warned that he would be killed in Memphis. King chose to go anyway, and part of his speech concerned death and also his vision for the possibilities open to humans.

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s provides countless examples of real heroism. For some individuals, their heroism cost them physical injury and even death. On March 25, 1964, for example, Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights worker from Chicago, was shot and killed by terrorists on the highway between Montgomery and Selma. Many others paid the same price. Other heroes of the civil rights movement were imprisoned, others suffered financially, and many suffered disapproval from family and friends.

At the same time, each person who dedicated his or her life to the civil rights movement demonstrated the power of individuals to change the course of history. Sometimes, a relatively small act of courage made a dramatic statement. 

On May 4, 1961, an integrated group of thirteen "Freedom Riders" boarded a bus in Washington, D.C., for the purpose of testing the desegregation of public facilities between Washington and New Orleans. Their troubles began in the town of Anniston, Alabama.

Anniston, the seat for Calhoun County in northeastern Alabama, lies about fifty miles from Birmingham. It was first established as a private company town in 1872 for the manufacture of iron and textiles, and became a public town in 1883. Originally named Woodstock after the Woodstock Iron Company, it was later renamed after the company presidentís wife Annie. This was clearly a town that looked after its own affairs and didn't feel it needed any interference form outsiders.

Five miles outside of Anniston, the Freedom bus was forced to the side of the road by a mob of three hundred to four hundred angry whites. The bus driver was allowed to leave the bus, locking the door as he did so, thus offering a minimum degree of protection to the riders.

Unable to get inside, the mob began beating on the bus and threatening to kill the riders. After about five minutes, some form of incendiary device was thrown into the bus, and it began sparking, smoking, and burning. At first, the Freedom Riders chose to take their chances on the bus, since the mob outside looked like sudden death. Eventually, the smoke and fire in the bus was too much to take, and they began stumbling off the bus. 

Outside the bus, the people of Anniston, dressed in their Sunday best for Motherís Day, began beating the riders with baseball bats, driving them to the ground, and kicking them. When someone yelled, "The bus is going to explode!" the mob pulled back a bit, and the Freedom Riders were left broken and bleeding, their throats parched and lungs filled with smoke from the fire.

A twelve-year-old white girl, Janie Forsythe, had witnessed the attack from her front yard. The bus had been stopped and set fire right in front of her house. She had stood helpless as the mob brutalized the passengers getting off the bus. Now she stood among the white onlookers, watching the victims gasping and coughing.

Bolting from the crowd of onlookers, Janie ran into her house, filled a bucket with water, and returned outside with a stack of paper cups. Forcing her way through the crowd, she ran to the bus riders and gave them water. For the next several minutes, she ran back and forth between the brutalized Freedom Riders and her kitchen, getting more water for them as her neighbors watched in disbelief.

The most support Janie received from the mob was one man who defended her action by saying, "Hell, youíd give a dog water." Twenty years later, Janie would recall that as the day she decided to leave the South. In her judgment, she hadnít done much for the Freedom Riders, but it as all she could see to do. More important, she was the only one willing to take any humane action that day in Anniston. Twenty years later, the Freedom Riders would remember Janie fondly as their only ray of hope that day. A caring twelve-year-old girl showed once more that heroism takes many forms and fits any size human being. 
 
 

Crime in the Streets

In the recent years, no social problem has been more terrifying to city dwellers than the danger of street violence. Rape, muggings, and senseless beatings have become an unhappy staple of urban living. In 1982, half of those questioned in a national survey said there was an area within a mile of home where they would be afraid to walk alone at night. One person in seven did not feel safe at home at night.

Most American handle the problem of violence in an individualistic fashion. We stay home at night. We avoid dangerous areas when we can. We never travel alone if we can help it. And in 1982, half the nationís adult population said they had a gun at home.

In 1979, one young man took a different approach to the problem of street violence. Curtis Sliwa, a McDonaldís manager, persuaded twelve friends to join him in riding the New York subways at night. Calling themselves the Magnificent Thirteen, Sliwa and his friends announced to the public that the were prepared to intervene and break up rapes, muggings, and other acts of violence. As others expressed interest in joining, the group expanded and was renamed the Guardian Angels.

The specific purpose of the Guardian Angels is to create a "visual deterrent" to violent crime. To accomplish that, each Angel is trained in self-defense techniques, first aid, and the law. Traveling in patrols of six to ten members, their distinctive red berets and white T-shirts announce that nay acts of violence in the vicinity will be challenged and stopped. The point of the patrols is not to engage in street battles with thugs but to keep violence from happening in the first place. In the words of Lester Dixon, former head of the San Francisco chapter, "The most successful patrol is one where nothing happens."

Hereís a good example of how the Guardian Angels work. I had arranged to participate in a training session one Monday night in San Francisco. After a rigorous physical workout, we gathered on the staircase for a rap session on racial attitudes. In the midst of the discussion, two young thugs had the bad sense to try mugging an old man just outside the door. Suddenly fifteen to twenty Guardian Angels poured out onto the street. 

Now you might take a minute to imagine what would have transpired on the street that night. My guess is that youíll imagine something akin to a Bruce Lee movie. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

The first Angel out the door was an eighteen-year-old black named Fred. As he approached the situation, Fred thought he recognized one of the young thugs. "Hey, blood, whatís coming down?" Soon, Fred and the other Angels were in a conversation with the two thugs, talking them out of the mugging, and separating them from the old man. In a matter of minutes, the situation just would down to nothing. The angels sat the old man down the doorway by our meeting and called him a cab.

Response to the Guardian Angels has varied widely in cities across the country. In new York, where the Angels originated, they were first condemned by the city government, then later accepted. When San Francisco turned a cold shoulder to the Angels, San Jose invited them to come south.

In 1981, I had an opportunity to go on patrol with the San Francisco Angels and witness the grassroots response firsthand. Coming to an intersection, we paused to let a bus pass by. When the driver saw the patrol, he began blowing his horn and waving. At first, I attributed this to the fact that Lester Dixon was a San Francisco bus driver. But then, we had the same experience with a passing firetruck, with all the firemen leaning over to wave. Police on their beats were equally friendly and supportive. Lester suggested why that was so. 

"The police have a really rough job out here. Theyíre expected to keep the streets safe, and yet they donít get much respect or support. They know weíre here to support them, not to take their jobs away."

Walking through the financial district, we were stopped by a gentleman in a three-piece suit, who crossed the street to say, "I just wanted to shake your hand and thank you for being here." The response was the same everywhere we went that day.

Dixon explained that resistance to the Angels seemed to come from two quarters. On the one hand, city officials sometimes resisted the Angels because their very presence seemed to suggest that the government was unable to keep peace on the streets. Moreover, there was a concern that official approval of the Angels might make the city financially liable in the event that anything went wrong. That resistance seemed to be weakening, however, as the Angels demonstrated that they were preventing trouble rather than causing it.

The other source of resistance came from the street people. At the beginning, many feared that the Angels were moral vigilantes come to hassle pot-smokers and prostitutes. This image may have come from the strict no-dope, no-alcohol rules for Angels on patrol. (Anyone who arrives for a patrol with alcohol on his or her breath, for example, is no longer a Guardian Angel.) Over time, however, the street people have come to realize that the Angels have one purpose and one purpose only-to prevent violence.

People who have only heard about the Guardian Angels at second hand often wonder why they do it. Nobody gets paid for being an Angel. Moreover, the training is demanding, and the work is time-consuming. Being a Guardian Angel often means walking the streets in the cold and the rain, risking injury and death. Yet the question of why they do it is answered in just a few minutes of any patrol.

Usually young, often from an ethnic minority, the typical Guardian Angel would have little opportunity to make a real contribution in the normal course of things. Nobody asks these young people what they think. They are unlikely to be chosen to serve on boards of directors or asked to run for public office. Yet every Guardian Angel on the street knows he or she is making a real contribution, one that is appreciated and respected. By taking on personal responsibility for public safety, they have created their own opportunity for heroism. By early 1984, around four thousand Guardian Angels were patrolling the streets, buses, and subways of nearly fifty cities in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Community Boards

Other individuals have tackled the problem of crime from a different direction. For Raymond Shonholtz, a San Francisco attorney, it all began when he was asked to direct a 1975 task force of attorneys for the California Assembly Committee on Criminal justice considering a revision of the stateís penal code. Some of the issues being addressed were the general logjam of cases before the courts, the problems that had arisen in connection with indeterminate sentencing, a desire to route juveniles out of the system whenever possible, and the general feeling that the criminal justice system didnít work.

In the course of his research, Shonholtz uncovered a few innovative programs in other countries that used panels of citizens to do the work normally done by judges and juries. Typically, panels of laypeople heard and handled cases under the general guidance of a magistrate. For example, Norway had such a program for alcoholics; Scotland had one for juvenile cases. the more thought about the citizen panels against the backdrop of problems facing the American criminal justice system, the more he began to envision the possibility of profound reforms in the execution of justice.

In Shonholtzís eyes, the citizen panels represented much more than a mere convenience. In 1982, he explained a part of his viewpoint this way: "One of the key reasons why there is plea-bargaining in the modern urban court is not because the courtís overburdened; the primary reason is because victims donít participate in their cases." Once a crime has been committed, a process begins that transforms the crime in to something far removed from the actual situation where it occurred and far removed from the people affected by it. And the victims were not the only principals removed from the case. 

Shonholtz commented on the origins and evolution of the jury system:

The result of Shonholtzís research and thinking was something called "community boards." Hereís an illustration of how they work. Letís suppose you and I are next-door neighbors in an urban community. Suppose further that you have a dog that barks all night. If you and I were "normal" modern neighbors, I might politely ask you to do something about it. If that didnít work, I would probably put up with the dogís barking for as long as I could. Once my rage grew too great to contain, I might start yelling out my window: "Shut that goddamn dog up or else!" When that didnít work, matters might progress in any number of directions. I might start throwing things at the dog or at your windows. If I could get your phone number, I might start calling you in the middle of the night to complain. Maybe Iíd call the police. Or, if I were so inclined, I might get a gun and shoot your dog-or worse. The chances are pretty good that one or both of us would end up in court, and whatever came of that probably wouldnít solve the original problem or any of those that followed it. 

Now letís suppose that we lived in a community with a community board. I might begin by asking you to stop your dog from barking, and if that failed to produce a result, I would drop in at the community board office. There, I would tell a staff member (possibly a volunteer from the neighborhood) about my problem with your dog. Subsequently, someone from the community board office (again, possibly a volunteer) would visit you to discuss the problem. Thereís a good chance that a solution to the problem would be discovered at that point. If not, you would be invited-with me-to attend a community board panel meeting of our neighbors to work the problem out. Though you couldnít be forced to appear before the panel, that would be presented as an alternative to my taking the matter to the police and the courts.

Suppose you agreed to appear before the panel. One evening, you and I would come to a meeting room in the neighborhood-perhaps in a church or a community organizationís building-to discuss our problem with a panel of, say, five of our neighbors. I would begin by describing the problem from my point of view. You could then present your side of the matter. The members of the panel would begin participating in the discussion, asking questions for clarification and encouraging us to find a mutually satisfactory solution.

Purposely, the panel members would not suggest solutions. Unlike a jury, they would not reach a decision. Rather, their purpose would be to assist you and me in finding our own solution. If we were successful-the chances are better than nine in ten that we would be-the panel would work with us further in getting our agreement clarified and specified so as to avoid any later ambiguities. Thus, you agree to bring your dog inside the house every evening by ten P.M. and keep it there, and I agree to stop throwing rocks at you windows.

Once the agreement had been sufficiently specified, it would be typed up for signatures: yours, mine, and the panel membersí. In addition, we would work out a method of follow-up and enforcement. Perhaps a community board member would arrange to call us the first few Fridays to see if the solution was working.
 

All this would be accomplished outside the court system, with an opportunity to explore different facets of the situation without the constraints of "rules of evidence" and an ability to discover whatever solutions would work without reference to legally prescribed remedies. The matter would have been resolved by those people most directly affected by it: our neighbors.

It is important to realize that, while the panel members are trained in conflict resolution, they have no training in the law, no expertise in the criminal justice system. Shonholtz was determined from the beginning that the panels be comprised to true "peers." In creating the first panels, in fact, Shonholtz was careful to avoid 
"community leaders": no clergy, no attorneys, etc. Rather than the chairperson of the local community association, Shonholtz looked for the person who arrived early to set up the chairs, make the coffee, and who stayed afterward to clean up after a meeting. As he met such people in a neighborhood, he invited them to form a community board and then trained them in conflict resolution.

In the context of this book, it is worth considering some of the problems Shonholtz had to deal with in order to establish community boards as functioning, effective bodies in San Francisco neighborhoods.

1. Finding individuals who would be suitable members for panels.
2. Explaining the idea of community boards to those people.
3. Persuading them that they should give up substantial amounts of time to be trained in conflict resolution and then to serve on panels.
4. Getting the residents of a neighborhood to bring their grievances to the community board rather than the courts.
5. Persuading those in the official justice system that community boards were a positive contribution to the system rather than a threat to it.

During 1983, 550 cases were heard by community board panels in San Francisco, 86 percent of which resulted in written resolutions. Virtually all the others were settled informally, without written resolutions. All the se successes have depended on ordinary citizens taking on personal responsibility for public problems.

Making a Difference in Prison

For anyone who feels that their life situation doesnít offer them an opportunity for heroism, doesnít really offer them a chance to make a difference, the stories of three prisoners should be especially instructive. Stanley Fletcher, Robert Frogge, and Sidney Rittenberg each created his own opportunity under unlikely circumstances.
 

Serving a fifty-year sentence in a Texas prison for two counts of rape, Stanley Fletcher could easily have written his life off as being of no significance. After ten years in prison, however, Fletcherís life took a new downturn when he learned that his youngest son, Curtis, had held up a Houston woman with a shotgun and was facing a nine-year prison sentence. Fletcher had known his children were frequently getting in trouble, and he blamed the problem on his absence from the home-compounded by the bad example he had set. Fletcher described his feelings to reporter, Arnold Hamilton:

I first met Robert Frogge in 1976 at San Quentin, where he was serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole. I was visiting San Quentin, Lompoc, and Leavenworth to interview prisoners who had taken the est training, a program aimed at personal transformation and mastery in life. Prior to arriving at San Quentin, I had been told Robert was an unusual prisoner, and my own experience confirmed it.

Froggeís first brush with the law came in 1961 while he was serving in the Air Force. Stealing a car and firearms, he went AWOL to Mexico, where he was apprehended. After an Air Force prison term, Frogge was kicked out of the service.

Returning home to Indiana, Frogge married and had a child who died at ten weeks of age. From that time on, his life turned increasingly to crime. Frogge and his wife, Sylvia, formed a partnership is armed robbery. After several robberies in Indiana, the couple moved their operations north and were arrested in Milwaukee on Washingtonís Birthday, 1965. 

Frogge was sentenced to ten years in prison in Indiana, but he escaped after only thirteen months. During the next nineteen days, he stage robberies in Indiana, Colorado, and California. California proved his undoing, however. He was arrested in Bakersfield for kidnap/ robbery with attempted murder. For his efforts, California rewarded him with a sentence of life without possibility of parole for kidnapping, three separate sentences of five-years-to-life for armed robbery, and one-to-twenty years for attempted murder. In addition, he was taken to San Diego to stand trial for armed robbery there and received an additional sentence of five-years-to-life. To round out his future, Frogge still owed Indiana nine years on his original sentence there, plus another five years for escaping. 

Frogge was taken from San Diego to Folsom prison to begin serving the rest of his life behind bars. Given his past history, he was housed in Folsomís maximum security section. In 1968, however, Frogge built a crossbow in the prison hobby shop and attempted escape. Unsuccessful in the attempt, he was given three years in "the hole."

In 1969, Frogge was transferred from Folsom to San Quentin, where he finished his term in the hole. By the time he returned to a regular cell, Frogge had established an admirable reputation among the other inmates. In his own terms, he was a "successful convict." Not only was he doing life without possibility of parole for heavy crimes, but he had successfully escaped from prison in Indiana and attempted another escape in California.

In November 1971, Frogge was transported to Los Angeles to appear as a witness at a robbery trial. This trip produced another unsuccessful escape attempt. The next year, he planned another escape. Claiming credit for a robbery he didnít actually commit, he was taken to Texas for trial. On the way, he jumped the federal marshal and tried to escape. Again, he was unsuccessful, and the added two more sentences to his record: five years for attempted escape and three years of federal time for assaulting the marshal.

Froggeís final escape attempt came in 1974, when he was taken to Fairfield, California, to appear as a witness in another trial. An inspection of his clothing revealed a set of hacksaw blades, and Frogge was back in the hole for ten days.

Looking back on it all, Frogge describes those ten days as the hardest of his life. They also proved to be a profound turning point for him. For ten days, Frogge reviewed his life, asking himself what life was really about and what he really wanted out of it. He recognized that he had become an absolutely successful convict, admired by all the other inmates, and he realized that it wasnít what he wanted.

Frogge spent the next two years looking at what he wanted out of life. In 1976, his life took some dramatic turns. In June, he began working with other convicts in a program called SQUIRES (San Quentin Utilizations of Inmate Resources, Experiences, and Studies). On three successive Saturdays, the inmates would meet with a group of juvenile delinquents, rapping with them about their problems and counseling them against a life of crime.

At about the same time, Frogge and several other inmates participated in the est training, donated to San Quentin by est. For Frogge, the training clarified and completed his two years of self-examination. He became determined that the remainder of his life would be dedicated to making a contribution to others.
 

Two months later, California amended the law that had resulted in Froggeís sentence of life without possibility of parole. On July 1977, when the law took effect, Frogge became eligible for parole. The transformation that had begun during those ten days in the hole had produced a perfect candidate for parole, and Frogge was released from San Quentin on December 29, 1978.

After four days in the Marin County jail on an old contempt of court charge, Frogge was taken to Lompoc Federal Correctional Institute to begin serving his federal time. A model prisoner, he was paroled from Lompoc on December 22, 1980. This time there were no guards, no federal marshals, no new prison to go to. He was truly free for the first time since 1965.

A free man at last, Frogge continued in his commitment to make a contribution. During the summer of 1981, he and his new wife Pamela conceived the idea of creating an organization dedicated to bringing an end to crime. End Crime, Inc., was born with the mission of educating people about crime, supporting them in ending crime in their own lives, and organizing people to bring an end to crime in society. With Pamela as president, the couple began establishing a viable organization in the San Francisco area and spawning similar groups in seven other states.

In addition to working with the general public, Frogge also began a peer counseling program for inmates at San Quentin. One night a week, he returns to the prison where he spent eight years of his life to tell the convicts that there is another way, that itís possible to turn their lives around no matter how bad theyíve been.

No prison story I know of is more compelling than that of Sidney Rittenberg, an American from Charleston, South Carolina, who went China with the U.S. Army in 1945. At the Far Eastern Languages School, he had initially planned to study Japanese, but a friend warned him that he was likely to get stuck with the Army of Occupation once the war was over-thus delaying his return home an extra year or two. To guard against that possibility, Rittenberg switched to Chinese, a decision that was to delay his return home for thirty-four years.

Much of Rittenbergís initial work in China involved him as an interpreter in the American attempts to make peace between Chiang Kai-shekís Kuomintang government and the communist insurgents under Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-Lai. This meant that he was able to move freely in areas controlled by both the government and the rebels. The contrast he saw was striking. In the communist areas, he found effective organization and a genuine commitment to the welfare of the people. Students were organized to canvass neighborhoods to find out who was in need, and every bit of food was used carefully to ensure that no one went hungry. Rittenberg was greatly impressed with what he saw, and he eventually became good friends with Chou En-Lai.

In the areas controlled by the Kuomintang, on the other hand, corruption was rampant. Relief shipments of food were quickly channeled into the black market and, on occasions, sold back to the relief agencies. Even in the most productive grain-growing areas, the landscape was littered by corpses of those who had died of hunger.

In 1946, with the completion of his duties in China, Rittenberg booked passage to the United States. Before leaving, he visited Madame Sun Yat-sen to say good-bye. Madame Sun urged Rittenberg to visit Chou En-Lai before leaving China. Chou expressed his dismay at Rittenbergís pending departure and urged him to say good-bye to Mao Tse-tung.

Traveling to North China, Rittenberg found Mao preparing radio broadcasts to the United States aimed at telling the American people the truth about events in China. He asked Rittenberg to stay a little while to correct the English translations of the radio messages. Rittenberg agreed, feeling he would have an opportunity to contribute to improved Chinese-American relations.

Within a month, a full-scale civil war had broken out in China, cutting Rittenberg off from the outside world until the communist victory in 1949. For three years, Rittenberg worked with Mao: translating Chinese documents into English, training translators, and generally educating himself about China. In the process, he was forming a personal commitment to building a bridge between the American and Chinese people. 

Rittenbergís vision of making a contribution to U.S.-Chinese relations ran into trouble shortly after the communist revolution in 1949. Stalin was particularly concerned that China be protected from American influences, so his security chief informed Peking that he had proof Rittenberg was a spy. The Chinese were urged to hold him in custody while the evidence was being sent. Soon, Rittenberg was in a Chinese prison, where he was to spent the next six years-most of the time in solitary confinement. His Chinese wife divorced him, and it appeared that Rittenbergís life was essentially over.

At the outset of his imprisonment, Rittenberg was given the option of becoming a double agent. If he confessed to being an American spy and agreed to work for the Chinese, he would be given passage to the United States. The only problem was that Rittenberg knew he wasnít a spy, and his false confession would end any possibility of making the contribution he had committed himself to. He chose to stay in prison, protesting for six years that he was not a spy. Ultimately, the evidence of Rittenbergís spying never arrived from Russia, and he was finally released from prison and publicly acknowledged as a friend of the Chinese people.

Put yourself in Rittenbergís shoes for a moment, and you may very well decide this would have been a good time to leave China. Rittenberg had stayed there to make a contribution, and his dedication had been rewarded with betrayal and false imprisonment. For Sidney Rittenberg, however, this seemed like a good time to get back to work, to get on with the job he had created for himself.

One day, as he was reestablishing himself in government service, Rittenberg visited an office to talk about jobs. While he was in the officialís inner office, he could hear a heated discussion among the secretaries in the outer office. He was, of course, something of a celebrity, and the were excited to have him visiting their office. One of the women, however, was steadfast in her view that Rittenbergís wife should have stuck by him, that her disloyalty was unforgivable.

Rittenberg was so taken by the secretaryís impassioned speech that he wanted to meet her. Shortly thereafter, Wang Yulin became the second Mrs. Sidney Rittenberg. In the years to come, moreover, she would have an opportunity to test her commitment to a wifeís loyalty to her husband.

For the next fourteen years, Rittenberg worked in a variety of capacities in China, all reflecting his determination to improve U.S. ?Chinese relations. These were not the best of times for an American in China, however, and in February 1968, in the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution, a carload of soldiers arrived one cold night and took him away from his wife and children. This time, Rittenberg was to spend ten years in prison, all of it in solitary confinement.

It is worth taking a moment to imagine how such an experience might effect you. Totally separated from friends and loved ones, separated from any outside contact you would sit day after day in the same tiny cell, not knowing when or if you would ever be free again.

For Sidney Rittenberg, the experience drove him back to the fundamentals of life. What was life all about? What really mattered? Certainly not material possessions. Not even friends and family. He had been deprived of all those things we would normally think of as valuable. Ultimately, Rittenberg concluded that "making a contribution" was the ultimate value, knowing threat his life made some difference in the events of the planet.

With this in mind, he devoted every day to finding ways of making some small contribution. First, he dedicated himself to keeping his cell spotlessly clean. He used tiny scraps of rags to scrub the cell. When the guards came by periodically with a mop for the prisoners to use on their cells, they found Sidney had no need for it.

Years later, Rittenbergís guards and interrogators would admit that they had become convinced of his innocence after about six months. He simply did not act like any guilty person they had known. His behavior, his emotions, everything about him corresponded to the dedication and innocence he claimed were true.

Although Rittenbergís guards had been ordered not to communicate with the prisoner, he broke that barrier down bit by bit. Sidney Rittenberg is a master storyteller, now as then. Speaking excellent Chinese, Rittenberg would tell his guards stories about growing up in South Carolina and about life in the United States in general. In all this, he experienced making some small contribution to friendly relations between tow countries-the reason he had stayed in China in the first place.

Such was the nature of Sidney Rittenbergís life for ten long years. In hearing such an account, we are tempted to conclude that Sidney Rittenberg was different from you and me. He must have had some special grace that permitted him to survive with sanity, whereas you and I could not-something Rittenberg denies.

To complete the picture of those ten years, he describes waking up slowly every morning, slowly experiencing the crushing realization that he was still in prison, still in solitary confinement, totally cut off from those he loved, not knowing if he would ever be free. Every morning for ten years, he had to recommit himself to making a contribution.

Rittenberg describes his morning recommitment this way: "Iím not under this stone. Iím not passive. Iím learning something, doing something, thinking about something. Iím going to live on, Iím not going to die." Every morning he recreated the view that prison was something added to his life, a part of his education, not something taken away from life.

Sidney Rittenberg did not and does not possess some ability that others lack. Any of us could have done what he did. What may separate him from others was the willingness to do it. Every morning for ten years, he faced the opportunity of being lifeís victim, knowing that no one could ever criticize him for that. And yet, every morning he chose something else.

After ten years in prison (now a total of sixteen years), Sidney Rittenberg was released with an apology and reinstatement in Chinese society. The man who walked out of prison was health, sane, enthusiastic about his life, and ready to go back to work. He had no bitterness over his experience, no need for revenge. For forty years, Sidney Rittenbergís life has been devoted to creating peace and understanding between the Chinese and American people and nations. The years in prison were as much an opportunity to pursue that goal as any other situation. Reunited with his wife, Yulin, Rittenberg now leads Computerlandís China program, still determined to make the contribution that has guided most of his adult life.

Consumer Protection

In 1965, a young lawyer shocked with nation with his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, which pointed to gross irresponsibility within the automobile industry. In the years that followed, Ralph Nader was to become a household word, making consumer rights and consumer protection an established concern within American society. His efforts have resulted in state and federal legislation and numerous private consumer organizations, including over a hundred campus-based "public interest research groups." Ralph Nader is a true model for the theme of this book: individuals taking personal responsibility for public problems.

More than any particular legislation or organization, however, Naderís greatest contribution lies in having made personal responsibility for public problems available as an option for others in society. Because of his courage and willingness to step forward, many thousands of other Americans have been empowered to do the same. Leslie Hughes, a Rochester, New York, housewife and mother is an example.

After a family outing on October 24, 1982, Hughes and her family stopped at a local McDonaldís to get food to take home. The decided to try the new "Happy Meals." This new offering contained both food and toys, such as a rifle-carrying sheriff and a spear-toting Indian.

Hughes describes what happened after dinner. "I took the toys out of the box and I couldnít believe it. The rifle was so small that my daughter could have put it in her ear or her nose or her mouth. My husband and I agreed that these werenít for small children. It really surprised me that McDonaldís would give these things out."

Any "normal," responsible mother would have thrown the toys away and resolved not to buy any more. An even more responsible mother might have warned her friends about the potential danger. Leslie Hughes went even further. A member of the Empire State Consumer Association, she called the groupís president, Judy Braiman-Lipson, and suggested she look into the matter.

Braiman-Lipson purchased her own Happy Meals and conducted a few tests of her own, inserting the rifle into a cylinder about the size of her daughterís throat. She was sufficiently concerned by what she learned that she called the Rochester representative of McDonaldís, who agreed to set up a conference call with the United States Testing Co., the firm who had tested the toys for safety. In addition, she called the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in Washington, and the federal government got into the act. A CPSC official visited a Washington McDonaldís and asked for samples. Government testing began.

In addition to the danger posed by the small size of the rifles and spears, the government inspectors found that young children could easily break off the arms and legs of the figures, creating something more of swallow and choke on. The CPSC informed McDonaldís of the results of their initial tests.

On Halloween night, just a week after the Hughes family outing, a group of twenty McDonaldís executives met to discuss the crisis. After a four-hour meeting, they called the CPSC chairman and arranged a meeting in Washington for the next day.

On November 1, the CPSC revealed the latest results of their testing to the McDonaldís executives. The toys were clearly unsafe for children three and under. By noon, representatives of the Schaper Manufacturing Co., the firm who manufactured the toys for McDonaldís, arrived in Washington. They suggested labeling the toys as only suitable for children four and older. McDonaldís chose instead to withdraw the toys altogether. Early that evening, conferences calls were being made throughout the McDonaldís chain, and all the toys had been withdrawn by midnight.

Iíve drawn out the details of this story for a purpose. On the one hand, I want to acknowledge the complexity of the problems we face in modern society. This is the complexity that often keeps us from taking action. The withdrawal of the toys in this case required actions by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. At the same time, I want to make it clear that all those actions began with the willingness of one woman to speak out and take a stand. Anyone could have done it. Leslie Hughes did.