For countless hours of my life, I’ve listened to my mom and dad’s tales of protest. In the 60s & 70s they took their voices to the streets, marching proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue, demanding that the government do something about war, civil rights, labor laws… a variety of issues.

As I grew up, I often wondered what had happened to that spirit of protest. What it would take to get tens of thousands of people to drop what they were doing, pick up those protest signs and take to the streets?

Listening to the stories emerging from the opening plenary at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service last night in Radio City Music Hall, I realized that question had been resoundingly answered. Although the night had many highlights and amazing speakers (The Daily Show’s John Oliver was hysterical and tremendously genuine), the one who gave me my answer, in a towering and often thunderous voice, was the diminutive Ruby Dee.

Serving as both the evening’s moral compass and the movement’s timeless anchor, Ruby gave voice to a whisper in the hearts of all who work in service. My mother’s time was defined by protest, mine is defined by volunteering…and as Ruby succinctly pointed out for me, they are one and the same thing.

Reframing service as protest – wow! Seriously WOW.

The whole evening came into focus. The event’s stories of courage, of unyielding spirit and faith washed over me as living illustrations of continual protest. A child’s idea that NYC Firemen take to the roads of America to show their appreciation for the nation’s support post 9/11, Shannon Lambert’s refusal to let a traumatic event keep her from reaching out to others who shared her pain, representatives from Target and JPMorgan relating their companies deep commitment to service, a young girl’s conviction that choosing to live a simpler life means more for everyone else… all of these acts, every single one… are acts of protest.

Ruby is on to something. My mother marched against the war in Vietnam, my dad was constantly marching on a picket line (that’s where he was on the night of my birth for Heaven’s sake!). They believed in the power of protest so fervently that they took off work and drove hundreds of miles to make their voice heard. But with so many challenges facing us today, what is it exactly that we’re protesting?

I think Ruby would say our protest is against the thinking that things can’t change for the better; because every hour of service we give defies that thinking. She’d say that the protest is against the belief that our problems are too immense, too entrenched, too strong to be overcome.

Her voice rang out in clear protest to that belief …. “The world is wrong; let’s right it. The battle is hard; let’s fight it. The road is rough; let’s clear it. The future vast; don’t fear it. Is faith asleep; let’s wake it. Today is ours; let’s take it!

The opening plenary of the conference told us that we are protesting with every extra hour of time we have. What would it take to get hundreds of thousands of us to drop what we were doing and take to the streets in protest? It would take hope. It would take an audacious belief in our own power of protest to bring about change; and we have that audacious belief in spades. There are millions of us who protest daily, weekly…and even on holidays. We believe in protest as fervently as those who came before us. We may not be carrying a homemade cardboard sign of protest, but that’s only because our hands are busy reaching out to others.

Reframing service as protest – well said Ruby Dee. I’ll gladly embrace that definition.