Look for the "Stars"

Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most revered conservationists, who earned scientific stature and global celebrity by chronicling the distinctive behavior of wild chimpanzees in East Africa — primates that made and used tools, ate meat, held rain dances and engaged in organized warfare — died last Wednesday, in Los Angeles, California. She was on a speaking tour, at age 91. To the very end, she still traveled the world, drawing large audiences with a message of hope and confidence that the world would recognize the importance of preserving its natural resources.

Her discoveries as a primatologist in the 1960s about how chimpanzees behave in the wild were hailed as “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements”, according to news reports.

In becoming one of the most famous and respected scientists of the 20th century, Dr. Goodall also opened the door for more women in her largely male field, as well as across all of science. 

The Jane Goodall Institute, which she founded, evolved into one of the world’s largest nonprofit global research and conservation organizations, with offices in the United States and 24 other nations. She has left a remarkable legacy.

Born in London, England, what many people probably didn’t know about her, was that her highest educational level before she went to Kenya to begin her landmark work, at age 23, was finishing a course in secretarial school. She was leaving a job as a waitress when she went to Africa. Her groundbreaking research and discoveries were done without a formal scientific education or prior scientific work. 

She had no degree and no formal title to her name. But her work was revelatory. 

Recognizing the contributions she was making to science, the University of Cambridge accepted her into its doctoral program in 1961 without her receiving (or even studying for) an undergraduate degree. She was awarded her doctorate in 1965. 

It was her innate, in-born passion for animals and the natural world that led her to her life’s work. She used that passion to become a revered leader in respecting and finding deep understanding of the natural world.

There have been countless people throughout human history who have also led significant and enduring positive changes in the world, others who also have had little formal education or formal leadership titles. There are many famous people who had no officially-recognized formal status in life, but as a result of their innate courage, passions, and vulnerability, made an extraordinary impact on the world. Here are three of them: 

• Ruby Bridges, who at 6 years of age, in 1960, integrated at a public school in the American city of New Orleans, Louisiana. She was the school’s only Black student. Crowds screamed at her; parents withdrew their white children; only one teacher would allow Ruby into her classroom; the little girl ate lunch by herself. Ruby’s family suffered, too, but Ruby persevered. She never missed a day of school the entire year there. Ruby grew up to become an activist for racial equality. In 1999, she founded the Ruby Bridges Foundation, whose mission is to “empower children to advance social justice and racial harmony.” 

• Anne Frank, who at age 13, in 1942, went into hiding with her parents and sister in the secret annex of an Amsterdam, Netherlands office building. While there, Anne bared her heart and soul within the pages of a diary that would live on long after she herself was gone. Anne’s family was discovered and imprisoned in concentration camps in 1944, and her father Otto was the only one who survived. He published Anne’s diary, which arguably made her the most well-known Holocaust victim of all time. To this day, her unflagging optimism and faith in the good of others stand as symbols of hope in the face of unspeakable evil, and she represents the millions of other victims whose stories were never told. 
• Malala Yousafzai was born in 1997, in Pakistan, to a lower-middle-class Sunni Muslim family. As she grew, she became an advocate for the education of girls, which was severely limited or even non-existent in Pakistan, at the time. In October 2012, a Taliban gunman shot Malala in the head because of her advocacy, as she rode home on a bus after taking an exam. She was 15 years old. When she recovered after surgery and rehabilitation to save her life, she continued to speak out about women's rights as well as children's rights. For her courage and work, she was announced as the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to be educated. At age 17, she is the youngest of all Nobel Prize recipients. 

There are untold numbers of people without formal credentials who have led the world to change for the good. There are too many to name. And most of them are unhearalded. Yet, their courage, necessity, creativity, innate talent, vision, and values have enabled them to do great things. Everyday people, as so many, many of them are, they have nearly always, quietly and often against great odds and opposition, persevered to affect change that is enduring, positive, and consequential. They may not - actually, usually most do not - get public recognition for their efforts. Yet, they are people who possess tremendous gifts - such as beautiful listening skills, kindness, empathy, forgiveness, consistency, strength, and goodness. By loving others, which is what all these gifts are, and striving to make this life that we all share, easier, more satisfying, and more grace-filled, they make profound differences in the people in their lives. And from them goodness, beauty, and generosity of spirit ripple across the generations to touch this world with the power of love.

Awards, credentials, titles, and fame don’t necessarily make someone a good leader. But it’s the often quieter constant acts of people who care deeply that transform the world. It is emblematic of the famous phrase, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice". This from a paraphrase of a sermon by Theodore Parker, a 19th-century abolitionist minister, which was then popularized by Martin Luther King Jr. during the American Civil Rights Movement. While Parker wrote the original idea in 1853, Dr. King frequently used the quote throughout his life. 

Jane Goodall was supremely fortunate that others saw in her unconventional, often solitary, and quiet work something of great import and value. It garnered her the recognition and esteem that it richly deserved. But so many others in their daily lives do not gain that universal acclaim and recognition. Yet, their work, their daily acts of love and goodness, is also just as significant and impactful in  the lives they touch and enhance, as anyone who is famous.

That is what real leadership is all about. Those acts that remind others that they matter, that they have significance, and that they are loved. The world can easily, quickly, brutally knock us down, by telling us that we are not good enough. Someone To Tell It To is in business because of that, unfortunately. We want to change this unfortunate narrative. We strive constantly to remind people that they are significant and deserving of love, reassurance, and encouragement. We strive to create an atmosphere in which there is a safe place with safe people in it, who ask questions not to challenge, but to enable them to share without fear, so that they will be reassured over and over again that they do not need to go through any challenge or even joy alone in this life. 

When asked in an interview, near the end of her life, about having hope, Jane Goodall replied:

“Hope isn’t just wishful thinking,” she said, telling us to imagine a long, dark tunnel with a little star at the end - representing hope.

“There’s no good sitting at the mouth of the tunnel and wishing that hope would come to us,” she said. “We’ve got to roll up our sleeves. The Bible says, gird your loins. I love that. I’m not quite sure what it means, but let’s gird our loins. And we’ve got to climb over, crawl under, work around all the obstacles that lie between us and the star.”

We thank today all those who are those stars beaming their light through the darkness that surrounds us, reminding us that hope is real and that we are loved.