“We are. We are going to stop them.”
It was a promise, a battle cry - to end a country’s longest war. But this battle cry wasn’t bellowed by a mighty Roman general or a U.S. president.
No, it was uttered in a dark room in northern Uganda, to a frightened boy, by a recent college graduate from San Diego.
And it was impossible.
The college kid was Jason Russell, founder of Invisible Children.
The war in Africa led by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and warlord Joseph Kony, the first person indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The boy was 12-year-old Jacob, who - like 30,000 other children - had been abducted by the LRA. Jacob also had watched as his brother was murdered by Kony.
Russell believed that if U.S. citizens knew about these atrocities, they would stop them. But how could Russell and his two co-founders spread the word in the United States? Well, by appearing on Oprah!
But getting on Oprah was about as easy as stopping a war.
April 25, 2009, was the day. In Chicago 3,000 people gathered to demand attention from national news to be the voice for invisible children halfway around the world. An Oprah-worthy crowd, they were certain.
They stood outside in 40 mph winds and sheets of cold rain. The crowd quickly dwindled to 300 freezing-cold, trash-bag-clad believers.
It wasn’t enough.
No media came.
No Oprah Winfrey.
Nothing.
One day, two days, five frigid days passed - days without sleeping, showers or success. They called news stations; they called Oprah’s main switchboard.
Nothing. The brave 300 moved through the city, refusing to give up, but victory looked… impossible.
The sixth day was a Friday. Russsell and his team knew it was their last chance - Oprah didn’t air on the weekend, and the crowd wouldn’t stay. At 2:48 a.m. the troops mobilized, numbering 500 after out-of-town reinforcements arrived.
Before sunrise they walked to the show’s Harpo Studios and, shoulder to shoulder, surrounded the block.
When Winfrey’s car pulled in at 7:15 a.m., she asked her “people” about the ragtag crowd. Her people strongly advised that she stay away - to just ignore them.
But at this point, ignoring them was impossible.
Moments later, Winfrey emerged. She invited Russell and a few others inside.
Those left behind were concerned that they had infuriated the most powerful woman in the world.
Instead they had done the impossible.
She invited them to go on the air, live, in an hour. Right then, right there - Russell and his unstoppable team told the largest, most committed viewing audience in the United States about Kony.
That a war was raging. That children were abducted and murdered brutally and in terrifying numbers. And that together, “We are. We are going to stop them.”
You, too, can do the impossible.
Article Source: http://tiny.cc/DoImposs
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