IV. TREATS...Results, Verified and Unverified

"I greedily collect elders, I benefit from connecting with a river of elders" Training for Change staffperson

"It was refreshing talking to you, you're not an anarchist kid wet behind the ears." Older, seasoned activist, addressing student

"I didn't know how extreme you would be--." Student, addressing older anarchist activist

"Knowing only that you are a Mumia activist, I assumed first of all you'd be male, African American, have dreadlocks, and be hostile to me." --Older activist, addressing white female community-based youth activist

"You dress so ordinary--. If I saw any of you on the subway, I'd have no idea of the radical thoughts you are thinking!" --community-based youth activist, addressing roomful of older, seasoned activists

"It's so encouraging to me that you can actually have kids and stay radical, and stay active--.I thought I had to choose one or the other." --community-based youth activist

"At first I thought the whole idea of intergenerational connection kind of boring. Then during one of the dialogues, I got a flash: intergenerational connection among radicals is inherently subversive, powerful, and exciting." --facilitator

"My favorite person is an 82-year-old anarchist-- I love older lefties, people who haven't compromised their beliefs." --community-based youth activist

Clearly, melting stereotypes was one of the most consistent outcomes of the Activist Dialogue Project. Sometimes it was more dramatic than other times, and was expressed in emotional terms by both younger and older activists who said they felt less lonely knowing that their intergenerational counterparts are really there, so strong, so solid, and so human!

The word "hope" was used over and over in this context. Younger activists felt encouraged that they could "keep going" over a lifetime the way some elders had done. Solid collaboration did develop crossing over generational and ideological lines which might not have been crossed were it not for the Activist Dialogue Project. In particular, AWARE, an anti-racist group formed by community-based youth activists, many of whom participated in dialogues, began collaborating actively and directly with Training for Change, sending its members to trainings, and co-leading intensive workshops for white people on unlearning racism.

In addition, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in Philadelphia, seeking constructive third-party nonviolent intervention in escalating cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, initiated a series of discussions and included activists from age 19-73. This intergenerational collaboration was quite unlike the fragmentation which occurred immediately after September 11 2001, before the Dialogue Project was underway.

Considerable personal growth and maturing was experienced by Dialogue Project participants. One example was people feeling more secure in their identity, whatever that may be. Rather than "hiding" under the veil of an organizational or "movement" identity, people claimed who they really are, including their class and cultural heritage. Some participants found deeper meaning in their family backgrounds as a result of dialogues; for example, one woman had never before considered the influence of her father's early anti-Fascist resistance in Italy on her identity as an activist; nor had she taken into account fully the fact of her mother's deafness on her sensitivity to differences of all kinds.

The student facilitator, Brian Kelly, commented that he'd successfully challenged his own assumption that "older people don't get it." As he put it, "I realized I'm totally off base on this one, and I'm going to keep talking to older people!" Within the anarchist community, the Dialogue Project increased the skills base to do even more challenging questioning around race, gender, and power issues. Older activists expressed delight at hearing so many life stories of younger activists, felt that some of their curiosity was satisfied, and expressed commitment to keeping on finding ways to connect, organizationally and informally, with younger folks. One older activist commented that the project "made me feel like I had a purpose" and also made her glad to have a chance to counter-act the behavior she had witnessed of too many older activists who were "rude, interrupting, discounting younger people's points of view."

Other positive outcomes of the Activist Dialogue Project include a series of phenomena related to dialogue, which we cannot take credit for but feel that our work was part of a wave which is still increasing: Increased buzzing and bubbling about "dialogue" in movements for peace and justice. Locally, in Philadelphia, a suburban-urban dialogue about the peace and justice movement; an inter-Jewish dialogue; a series of "deep listening" seminars, and a Jewish-Muslim collaboration for peace and security in Palestine and Israel, arose during the closing months of the Dialogue Project.

Internationally, Thich Nhat Hanh and other world leaders are teaching about the value of listening, with insistence and effectiveness. Finally, a Reference Committee was formed which includes participants from each leg of the triangle. This group continues to meet, to monitor the intergenerational and other conflicts within the movement; it's something new under the sun, and merely the fact that its members continue this commitment is phenomenal.