We need to learn how to organize, not just to let our anger

Host: The streetlights burned like weary sentinels against the deep night, their halos trembling in the mist that rose from the asphalt. A line of smoke drifted upward from a nearby trash can fire, flickering orange on the walls of a narrow alleyway. Somewhere in the distance, a crowd still chanted — faint now, like the ghost of a revolution that had lost its voice.

A poster fluttered on a brick wall, half-torn: JUSTICE FOR TOMORROW. The ink had run from the earlier rain.

Jack leaned against the wall, his hands in his coat pockets, a cigarette glowing between his fingers. His eyes, sharp and storm-grey, reflected the rhythmic pulse of red and blue sirens. Jeeny sat on an overturned crate nearby, her face streaked with dried tears and city dust. Her hair hung loose, sticking to her damp cheeks, but her gaze was unwavering — fierce, alive.

The air was thick with exhaustion, rage, and the scent of burning cardboard.

Jeeny: “Raoul Peck once said, ‘We need to learn how to organize, not just to let our anger explode. We need organization for the long run — not for one issue, not for one murder, but for everything coming to us in the next 20, 30 years.’”

Jack: “And yet, here we are. Another protest. Another night of smoke and slogans. Anger burns faster than strategy, Jeeny. That’s the truth no one wants to say out loud.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because strategy feels cold when people are bleeding. When you see injustice, you react. You don’t draft a ten-year plan while someone’s dying in the street.”

Host: The firelight flickered over their faces — Jack’s lined with skepticism, Jeeny’s carved with grief. The shadows danced like restless spirits on the brick walls.

Jack: “Reacting isn’t the same as changing. Anger’s a spark, but organization is the engine. You can scream all you want, but if there’s no structure, it fades by morning.”

Jeeny: “That’s easy to say from a safe distance. But for those who’ve been silenced, screaming is survival.”

Jack: “Until it isn’t. Look at history — 1968, 1992, 2020. The world burns for a moment, then forgets. Movements die not because they’re wrong, but because they’re unplanned. You can’t build justice on adrenaline.”

Jeeny: “But without adrenaline, you wouldn’t move at all. People don’t rise from spreadsheets — they rise from heartbreak.”

Host: The sirens faded into silence, replaced by the faint rumble of thunder. The first raindrops began to fall, hissing as they hit the embers of the fire.

Jack: “You think passion is enough? Tell that to the civil rights leaders who spent decades building infrastructure, not just emotions. Dr. King didn’t wake up one day with a dream — he woke up with a network.”

Jeeny: “And that network was built on emotion — on moral fire. You can’t separate the engine from the flame.”

Jack: “You can if you want it to last.”

Host: The rain came harder now, drumming on metal and pavement, turning the night into liquid silver. Jeeny stood, pulling her jacket tighter, but her eyes didn’t leave his.

Jeeny: “You sound like the system itself — calculated, patient, always waiting for the ‘right moment.’ But there’s never a right moment for justice, Jack. There’s only now.”

Jack: “No. There’s only next. You fight today to prepare for tomorrow. You don’t win wars in the streets — you win them in rooms, in policies, in planning. Chaos is fuel; it’s not direction.”

Jeeny: “And without chaos, nothing starts. The French Revolution didn’t begin with a plan — it began with hunger and rage.”

Jack: “And it ended in blood. You think that’s victory?”

Host: The lightning flashed briefly, illuminating their faces — both defiant, both right, both scarred by different kinds of faith. The rain fell harder, but neither moved.

Jeeny: “So what then? We just wait? Hope someone smarter, calmer, richer decides the next 30 years for us?”

Jack: “No. We build something they can’t destroy in a week. Look at the labor movements — decades of strikes, unions, organizing from the ground up. That’s how change survives. Not through noise, but through roots.”

Jeeny: “But roots grow in dirt, Jack — and dirt means conflict, chaos, struggle. You can’t sanitize revolution.”

Jack: “You can shape it.”

Host: The fire sputtered and died, leaving only the smell of wet ash. The darkness grew deeper, yet the city lights glimmered through the rain — small, stubborn constellations of defiance.

Jeeny: “You always talk about shaping things. About control. But control is a privilege. Some of us are just trying to stay alive, to be heard.”

Jack: “And that’s exactly why you need organization. Anger alone gets you noticed; structure gets you change. It’s not about killing the fire — it’s about giving it direction.”

Jeeny: “Direction without passion is machinery. Soulless.”

Jack: “Passion without direction is a bomb. Tragic, beautiful, but gone in an instant.”

Host: The rain softened, and steam rose from the pavement. The smell of earth and smoke mingled in the cooling air. The crowd noise in the distance had faded completely, leaving them in the echo of something that had been loud but now was only memory.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve stopped believing.”

Jack: “No. I believe — just not in eruptions. I believe in foundations. In systems strong enough to outlive the protest signs.”

Jeeny: “And I believe systems only change when someone dares to shake them. Sometimes explosions wake the sleepers.”

Host: She stepped closer now, her eyes glistening not with rain but with the reflection of something raw — the kind of conviction that burns quietly, inwardly, unrelenting.

Jeeny: “I’m not against strategy. I’m against forgetting why we fight. The long run doesn’t mean losing the heartbeat of the moment.”

Jack: “And the moment doesn’t mean forgetting the horizon.”

Host: They stood in silence, the last of the rain falling between them like a curtain of forgiveness. Jack’s cigarette hissed out in a puddle, the smoke twisting away like a sigh.

Jeeny: “Maybe we’re both right — or both wrong. Maybe the truth is that every movement needs both fire and framework.”

Jack: “Yeah. The scream and the scaffolding.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Without the scream, there’s no spark. Without the scaffolding, there’s no shelter.”

Host: The clouds broke above them, and a thin beam of moonlight slipped through — soft, almost tender. It caught the wet pavement, turning every puddle into a small mirror.

Jack looked up at the sky, the fight gone from his eyes, replaced by something gentler.

Jack: “So we organize the anger, then. Keep it alive, but aim it forward.”

Jeeny: “Not just forward — together. Because the long run doesn’t belong to one of us. It belongs to all of us.”

Host: A quiet settled over the alley — not silence, but the hush that follows understanding.

They began to walk, their footsteps echoing in rhythm — not fast, not furious, but steady.

The posters on the wall flapped softly in the night wind, one still legible beneath the rain stains: CHANGE IS NOT A MOMENT. IT’S A MOVEMENT.

And as they disappeared down the wet street, the city — tired, trembling, but still alive — seemed to whisper back the same truth Raoul Peck had once spoken:

That anger must not just burn, but build. That fire, when organized, becomes light.