Michael Ansara of Carlisle, Mass., who has family roots in Lowell, has published a first-person account of the social turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s, a time when he was a young activist, fired-up in pursuit of peace and justice. His book, The Hard Work of Hope: A Memoir is hot off the press this summer. A recent book launch in Harvard Square drew a packed house, evidence of how his story resonates with today’s growing resistance to the current White House occupant.

Chapter 11 will be of special interest to our Lowell readers. This section details the planning, implementation, and aftermath of an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in the city. Called “A March in Lowell,” this account first appeared in an issue of The Lowell Review journal in 2024. In the author’s telling, the march designed to protest US involvement in the Vietnam War devolved into a chaotic, violent confrontation in which a few hundred antiwar marchers were set upon by local activists of another kind who were incensed by what they saw as criticism of American soldiers doing their duty and the anti-American character of the demonstration. That a few protesters carried National Liberation Front or Viet Cong flags, enemy flags to the locals out to bust up the march, was a huge strategic mistake.

The author shares the after-action analysis by organizers and efforts to find common ground with the Lowell men who beat them. Antiwar organizers learned that they had to widen their political lens to better understand what was going on in the streets at home. They had, after all, chosen Lowell for the march because places like this city were sending disproportionate numbers of young men to the battles in Southeast Asia. This was the spring of 1970. It would be 1975 before Americans withdrew from South Vietnam. Lowell people know well the consequences of that bloody war, the personal losses and the conflict’s collateral effects on Vietnam’s neighbors in Cambodia and Laos. Lowell as a community is what it is today because of that long war.

Here’s the publisher’s summary of the book:

The Hard Work of Hope takes you into the heady days of 1960s and 1970s activism, chronicling the hopes and strategies of the young people who created the movements that rocked the country.

Michael Ansara was on the front lines. In this fascinating memoir, he traces an arc of discovery: from the hope and moral clarity of the Civil Rights Movement to the ten-year struggle to end the war in Vietnam, with its sit-ins, marches, confrontations, and antiwar riots.

Ansara takes the reader into the minds of the activists detailing their successes as well as their mistakes. The Hard Work of Hope shows how he learned to become a more effective organizer and build the Massachusetts Fair Share organization [promoting social and economic justice.] The book explores issues that remain urgent. How does a movement build support when large parts of the country are opposed to its goals? How do you connect with people who disagree with you? How do you build organizations that unite across racial lines? How can we make progress on the unfinished business of the hard work of hope?