Why Social Justice Movements Benefit From Taking Culture Seriously as a Connector

The strength of a social justice movement depends not only on the ideas it advances, but on the connections it creates. Trust, belonging, and shared experience can turn individuals into a community capable of sustained action. While the news media features mass demonstrations around many social justice issues, what does it take to channel those moments of mass resistance into sustainable movements for change? A 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that only 26% of U.S. adults knew all or most of their neighbors, while 44% trusted all or most of them.

That matters for movements because campaigns, advocacy, and organizing ultimately rely on human relationships. People have to be willing to hear one another, engage across differences, and remain involved beyond a single moment of attention. When those connections are harder to establish, reaching beyond people who already agree may become more difficult.

At a time when many people are feeling both disconnected from one another and stressed by societal division, creating meaningful connections may be more important than ever. The American Psychological Association's 2025 Stress in America survey found that 54% of adults had felt isolated from others often or some of the time, while 62% said societal division was a significant source of stress. The findings do not explain how social justice movements succeed or fail, but they point to a broader challenge. When disconnection and disagreement become part of everyday life, movements may need to create spaces where people can encounter one another differently.

Cultural arts may offer one way across that challenge. A 2025 systematic review indexed by PubMed found that shared musical experiences involving people moving or making music in time with one another appeared to support listening across difference, although the researchers called for stronger studies. A 2026 National Endowment for the Arts report also examined links between arts participation and civic and community engagement. Neither source suggests that art changes minds automatically, but both offer a basis for considering whether shared cultural experiences can create opportunities for connection, interaction, and engagement.

Amy Horowitz, co-founder of Roadwork, has spent much of her life thinking about that possibility. She believes that social justice movements can benefit by understanding music and art as more than entertainment at a rally, fundraiser, or campaign. In her view, music, food, and storytelling can help people share space before they agree on larger issues.

Her perspective is partly personal. Horowitz recalls attending the 1963 March on Washington as an 11-year-old in Washington, D.C., where collective singing shaped how she experienced the crowd. "Everyone was singing, and it changed my life," she recalls. "I felt hope growing across the different communities that joined in creating sound together."

Years later, Horowitz says she noticed a related dynamic while working with Sweet Honey in the Rock. Audiences differed in age, background, and outlook, and still felt connected to their music. A concert hall might gather activists fighting a highway being built through their neighborhood, gay and lesbian rights organizers, and elders from a neighborhood Black church. She sees those moments as examples of how their shared resonance with Sweet Honey's music created a door for common ground that grew into people staying present with one another.

That distinction is central to her argument. Horowitz does not suggest that a concert or community gathering can produce lasting change by itself. "People open up in the hall, but then the activist work begins; what do we do with that open door?" she explains. For her, culture may create an opening, while what follows still depends on relationships, organizing, and continued participation across differences.

Listening is one part of that next stage. Horowitz often returns to the idea of compassionate listening, alongside shared activities that give people something practical to build together. She believes a concert, workshop, or community action can sometimes become what she calls a training ground, where participants practice interacting across differences to build social justice.

That perspective also shapes how Horowitz thinks about funding. She believes donors and philanthropic organizations working on social issues could consider cultural arts organizations alongside other forms of community investment. Her point is that some cultural work may help create relationships and shared experiences that complement broader social justice efforts.

Her longer-term focus is on younger generations. Through Roadwork, Horowitz supports younger people developing their own arts-activist projects, including approaches that may differ from those of earlier generations. "Younger people have innovative viewpoints that grow from their experiences of the world," she observes. For Horowitz, passing on resources and legacies also means encouraging younger people to decide what to keep, what to change, and what to build differently.

Music, art, food, and storytelling can sustain policy work and organizing. They offer ways for people to meet, listen, and share experiences across differences. Horowitz believes that possibility deserves more attention at a time when connection itself feels harder to sustain, and social justice harder to attain.