{"id":10828,"date":"2011-08-31T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:#clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/?p=10828"},"modified":"2022-11-12T20:29:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-13T01:29:12","slug":"_spc_activist_profile_john_burdick_828","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/articles\/_spc_activist_profile_john_burdick_828\/","title":{"rendered":"SPC Activist Profile: John Burdick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"color: #003399; font-size: medium;\"><b><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"><b><span style=\"color: #000066; font-size: x-small;\"> <span style=\"font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"> <span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\">SPC Activist Profile: John Burdick <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Bearing witness at a young age to  desegregation-related violence, as  well as his parents\u2019 strong commitment to  civil rights activism, John  Burdick\u2019s leftist roots sprouted in Pontiac, Michigan.  He is now  approaching the beginning of his 20th year as a professor at Syracuse  University. After 9\/11, John took an  active role with SPC\u2019s Local Cost  of the War committee, and more recently has  focused his energies on the  Community Fellows Program through SU.<\/p>\n<p><i>Were you involved in  activism as a teenager?<\/i><br \/>\nI slipped away from it when I was going  through high school. Going back  to college I got back involved because of Detroit and labor  politics.  And then there was the revolution in Nicaragua in \u201879. I started   following the progressive Catholic Church movement and reading  liberation  theology. In \u201984 I went to Brazil  because the liberationist  church and the Christian-based communities that were  involved in  progressive politics had sort of a political umbrella at the  national  level there. It looked like there was a light at the end of the  tunnel.  I\u2019ve lived in Brazil  for about four years over the last twenty-some  years.<\/p>\n<p><i>How do you interact with  your students in terms of your activism and fostering theirs?<\/i><br \/>\nThe kinds of courses that I\u2019ve been  teaching and co-teaching for a long  time certainly reflect my own political  tendencies, and so the kinds  of organizations that I will draw students into  are generally  progressive. However, I am an educator, so that means I want to  work  with the students from where they are. I don\u2019t want to push anything  down  their throats because they\u2019ll end up spitting it up anyway.<\/p>\n<p><i>Why do you think some  people become activists and others don\u2019t?<\/i><br \/>\nIt\u2019s the confluence of a lot of things.  Clearly having discretionary  time and the opportunity to go to meetings is key.  And I do believe you  need to have some trigger experiences that convince you  that you can  actually make a difference.<\/p>\n<p><i>What keeps you doing this  work now?<\/i><br \/>\nThe larger reason is once the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started to  show signs of  ending, I started to put my energy into things that are  more immediate, where I  can actually see myself contributing to the  formation of grassroots democracy  right here. The greatest rewards are  the relationships and the understanding  that I have about the way  things work.<\/p>\n<div align=\"right\"><i>\u2014Amelia  Ramsey Lefevre <\/i><\/div>\n<hr>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SPC Activist Profile: John Burdick Bearing witness at a young age to desegregation-related violence, as well as his parents\u2019 strong commitment to civil rights activism, John Burdick\u2019s leftist roots sprouted in Pontiac, Michigan. He is now approaching the beginning of his 20th year as a professor at Syracuse University. After&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/articles\/_spc_activist_profile_john_burdick_828\/\"><span>Learn More<\/span><i class=\"crycon-right-dir\"><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-10828","articles","type-articles","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/10828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clients.elainemichele.com\/SPC2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}