Yes, You Can: People Working Together Can Change Anything
Issue 2847— May 19, 2025
This was the No. 1 lesson I learned when I joined with civil rights advocates in Odessa, Texas, as they achieved school desegregation and housing restrictions.
People working together, even if they have little formal power, can make change happen if they have a strategy, discipline, and the courage to lead to the goal despite barriers and even setbacks along the way.
It was exactly this observation that has driven my work for social justice ever since.
It also drove my decision to use these principles of movement building and collective action to achieve social, economic, and legal equality for women.
It is what drives my commitment today to gender parity in leadership and why I cofounded Take The Lead 11 years ago.
In my last few articles, I have been sharing the story of Lilly Ledbetter and the fight for equal pay, as told in the new film “Lilly.” Look for it at a theater near you this week. You’ll be inspired, I guarantee.
You are well aware that equal pay for equal work is an essential part of women’s power and equality in the workforce in the world. And while Lilly’s personal story led to her courageous quest for equal pay, it was ultimately because she joined with others to make policy change. Women’s groups such as the National Women’s Law Center stepped up to help her as did a sympathetic lawyer who took her case.
Even though she won in principle, the U. S. Supreme Court denied her the damages that had been awarded to her on the basis that she hadn’t filed her case in timely fashion—despite the established fact that she had not known for decades that her male counterparts were paid 30% more than she was. But movement didn’t stop there.
Her loss became a win for all women when the issue of equal pay helped propel Barack Obama into office as president of the United States of America. Public support for the issue of equal pay helped make the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act the first piece of legislation President Obama signed into law. Symbolically this demonstrated the power of the women’s vote when we join together to achieve a goal.
[Learn more about how to make controversy work for you and build a movement in my 9 Leadership Power Tools online course.]
But we know the fight for equal pay is not over is far from over.
So Take The Lead hosted a pre-release screening of “Lilly” in Scottsdale, Az. April 15. This drew 150 people, and inspired some of the women who attended to mobilize a theater buy-out on May 12 after the film was released. They filled the theater with over 200 ticket buyers As a result of that box office success, the theater is continuing to show the film. Now even more people will know Lilly’s story and joined up to get involved in Take The Lead’s work in Arizona and beyond.
This book, “Rich Relationships” by my friend Selena Soo, will give you many ways to build those relationships so that you can change anything.
People joining together can change anything.
Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her column May 18:
“This weekend there are two major anniversaries for the history of civil rights in the United States. Seventy-one years ago today, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. That landmark decision declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. It overturned the Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision handed down 129 years ago tomorrow. On that day, May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court declared that the Fourteenth Amendment allowed segregation within states so long as accommodations were “equal.” The journey from Plessy to Brown was the story of ordinary people creating change with the tools they had at hand.”
Going it alone is never a winning strategy. The world turns on human connections. People working together can change anything, and actually it’s the only thing that can.
What are you going to join with others to change today?
Big or small change is less important than you knowing you have the power to make change and that you make a habit of joining with others to make meaningful change you want to see in the world.
With “Lilly” writer/director Rachel Feldman at a screening in New York.
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, and a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.