David Grubin on Why Talking to Your Neighbors Is an Act of Democracy

From marching with 25,000 people in Selma to taking walks in the woods with the man who delivers his firewood, David Grubin has spent 60 years learning the same lesson: change happens one relationship at a time. Jennifer Nielsen speaks with David Grubin of Third Act Upstate New York on his journey to Third Act.

David Grubin came to Third Act after four years of efforts championing a local solar project before it was fashionable. It taught him (the hard way) that facts often do not matter, and even seemingly positive projects can be uphill battles.

During Covid, David and his wife Joan moved to a home they had owned for 35 years in the beautiful quiet farm country in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley. They soon learned that an energy developer was proposing a solar energy facility in Copake, the next town over. They thought it was a great idea but soon discovered vehement opposition in their local community.

We need to get to other towns and educate people before the invariable negativity gets going and begins spreading disinformation and polarizing people.

So they joined a local group that coalesced to research the issues and lay out the facts. Was it really going to contaminate the water supply, become a fire hazard, scare away wildlife, and displace local farmers? The answers they found were no, no, no, and no. In fact, a farmer was hoping to lease his land to the company to save his farm, to keep it economically solvent, and to make solar an integral part of the farm. It didn’t matter to the opposition that New York has a vigorous permitting approval process, including strict environmental requirements. They didn’t care about the evidence. They just didn’t want to look at the solar array. 

Some of them had deep pockets and funded a public relations campaign to kill it. After the state approved a draft permit, an anonymous entity put up $1.2 million to buy one of the parcels of land after the farmer’s lease to the developer expired. “We realized we were just this amateur group up against a sophisticated, well-financed operation,” David explains. The project is not dead yet, though it is on life support. The decision has been thrown back to the state, but, as David observes, “I don’t know what they’ll do because our governor has been trying to eviscerate our robust climate law.”

I’m not saying I’ll change his mind, but we’re not going to have a fight about it. We like each other.

Still, David and Joan learned key lessons about organizing. “We need to get to other towns and educate people before the invariable negativity gets going and begins spreading disinformation and polarizing people.”

They have also realized the power of getting to know and build trust with people from the local community—like the man who delivers their wood. The three of them take walks in the woods and talk about the outdoors, hunting, and their shared appreciation of nature. “And when the time is right,” David might broach the topic of the solar project. “I’m not saying I’ll change his mind, but we’re not going to have a fight about it. We like each other.”

David’s activism began years earlier when, after finishing a master’s degree, he went to teach in a civil rights program in South Carolina. The year prior, he took part in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, which led to the Voting Rights Act. “I was 21, just another one of the 25,000 non-violent protestors singing freedom songs marching to the state capital. When the civil rights movement began, I thought, ‘Of course! This is simply the right thing to be a part of.’”  

His thinking is particularly striking because his parents were not activists, “They were just living their lives in the ‘50s,” his father the kind of general practitioner who was making house calls, his mother a homemaker, and he himself a kid into sports. The experience in the movement marked him. “I began to see what was happening through the eyes of the people it was affecting, through the eyes of Black people in the South.”

David, a writer, and Joan, a visual artist, were founding members of Third Act Upstate New York along with co-facilitator, and now Third Act’s Campaigns Director, Michael Richardson. These skills led David and Joan to become co-editors of the group’s newsletter, The Clarion, which uses the arts to reach and motivate readers. They find poems and works of art for the Clarion that speak to the challenges facing our natural world and our democracy, and they collaborate to write profiles of Upstate Third Actors. Another Third Actor finds an inspirational song for every issue. “The Clarion is really designed to inspire and boost morale.” One especially striking example is the magnificent tapestry Third Act Upstate New York created from submissions by scores of artists and crafters in celebration of Sun Day. Joan helped coordinate the design.

The newsletter is also a tool for building community and connections. “Joan and I are privileged as the editors of the Clarion to interview Third Actors, so we’ve met a lot of people and gotten to know them through our conversations.” Indeed, this is an important way Third Actors build the relationships that bind us together.

David’s Second Act was as an independent documentary filmmaker for PBS. For decades he followed his curiosity. You name it, he probably made a film about it. American history. world history, science, dance, poetry. “I was a dilletante,” he jokes. Or you could call him a perpetual scholar, diving deeply into one topic after another, learning enough to portray it vividly to others—a skill that continues to serve him in his activism.

Jennifer Nielsen

Jennifer Nielsen is a member of the Third Act NJ Coordinating and Communications Committees. Her career in the prevention and treatment of malnutrition among the world’s most vulnerable mothers and children was unceremoniously ended with the DOGE-led dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, but she’s grateful now to be devoting her passions full time to climate and democracy activism.