In less than 2 months, I go to trial, where I face more than 10 years in prison, for freeing animals from nightmarish abuse. It’s for that reason I thought it was particularly important to have this conversation now. Ingrid Newkirk, among animal advocates, is a household name, one of two people (along with Animal Liberation author Peter Singer) most known for the founding of the animal rights movement in the 1970s.

And she has learned some lessons in that nearly half century of work that would serve all activists – and people interested in change – to hear. Consider the lesson of her book Free the Animals: when systems are broken, it’s important for us to take direct action. Whether it’s monkeys trapped in a lab or human beings having their rights violated, when corrupt institutions are failing to do their job, it has always taken grassroots activists to create change. Sometimes, this even involves people who are deeply embedded in these institutions, as was the case with “Valerie,” the police officer who, after witnessing disturbing inaction by the authorities, took it upon herself to free the animals herself – and launch the Animal Liberation Front in the United States. (Valerie’s story has just been republished, in Free the Animals’ 30th Anniversary edition. Along with Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, it remains, in my view, one of the two foundational texts of the animal rights movement.)

But perhaps the most important lesson from this conversation is less-obviously related to animal rights. It is the importance of remaining focused on a mission. Ingrid has been relentlessly focused on creating impact for animals for virtually her entire adult life. And while others are distracted and even defeated by various personal doubts and disagreements – e.g., one notable and fierce “disagreement” I had with Ingrid that became so heated for me that I ended up in a Chicago jail cell – Ingrid has always kept her eye on the prize. There’s power in this sort of focus, the power to change the world.

Music by Moby: Everything That Rises