The Hard Work of Hope: A Memoir

The Hard Work of Hope: A Memoir

by Michael Ansara

Released July 15, 2025

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. 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?

Michael Ansara has dedicated his life to activism and organizing, beginning with the civil rights movement of the 1960s and serving as a regional organizer for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). He spent a decade organizing opposition to the Vietnam War. For the next 15 years he was a community organizer, including as Executive Director of Mass Fair Share, a uniquely popular community-based, statewide citizen’s organization fighting for economic justice. Michael has also worked on political campaigns, coordinated voter registration efforts, and trained numerous organizers. Michael is also an accomplished writer, with poems published in numerous journals and essays appearing in Vox, Arrowsmith, Solstice, and Cognoscenti. His first poetry collection, What Remains, was published in June 2022 by Kelsay Books. He lives in Carlisle, MA, with his wife, Barbara Arnold, and takes great joy in his three children and six grandchildren.