Growing Up Elizabeth May: The Making of an Activist
Elizabeth and Cate visit with the seventh-grade students and their teacher Ms Shauna White from division four at Bayside Middle School in Brentwood Bay BC
1 Not a Superhero Do you ever see things on TV or hear adults talking about things that just don’t seem right Problems that need to be fixed Do you wish you could change those things Do you ever daydream about having the kind of superpowers that could put an end to poverty so that no one would have to go to bed hungry Or that you could put on a cape or wave a wand and that would stop people from dumping garbage in the water and causing pollution that kills the whales and the fish Do you wish you could find the answer to climate change or say a magic word that would reverse global warming But perhaps you don’t feel like a superhero maybe not even a mini super hero You are a young person and the world looks too big too complicated and too crazy and out of control to fix In this book we tell a story about a Whenever I hear my outer voice saying Why doesn’t someone do something my inner voice tells me that someone is me Elizabeth May girl named Elizabeth Evans May not Lizzie not Liz not Eliza or Beth Even as a baby she was called Elizabeth She likes her full name and is also proud to bear her grandfather’s name Evans 1
The story of Elizabeth’s childhood reads like a how-to book on becoming an activist You might think she wasn’t like regular kids But she was just like other girls She was brave and determined determined and sometimes she was afraid and uncertain Elizabeth was like you and me She was observant she noticed things and she had a keen eye for things that didn’t seem right Elizabeth believed nothing was too big or too small to be changed She didn’t have magical powers She wasn’t even a mini superhero She just wanted to make the world a better place A photo of Elizabeth in 1971 from her 12th-grade yearbook When Elizabeth was a toddler she looked up into the sky and saw the white vapor trail behind a jet plane and said I hate airplanes When her mom asked why she answered Because they scratch the sky She was worried that the sky was getting hurt She understood from a young age that human beings made an impact on the earth 2 Sylvia Olsen with Cate May Burton ZAP Bang Pow
It’s a Fact Sometimes signs say it all These activists remain silent and use banners to send their message An activist is someone who wants to improve something in society and takes action Activists usually want to change government policy or the law Sometimes they protest and appeal individually but most of the time they organize into groups to become more effective The root word of activism is act Thus activism is doing something about something you care about
