The October issue of the American Journal of Nursing includes an article titled “Activism is an Essential Nursing Role!” This article has been brewing for at least a decade, conjured up by Shawn Kennedy, now Editor Emerita of AJN, and me (Peggy Chinn), now Editor Emerita of Advances in Nursing Science (ANS). As nursing journal editors, we had experienced blow-back from readers who objected not only to “political” content in our journals, but also claimed that “politics” is not an appropriate concern for nurses. Shawn had taken a strong editorial stance related to gun violence as a public health issue, for example, and had received threats to discontinue subscription to the journal as a result of this stance. In ANS, we maintained a strong reputation of publishing politically controversial topics but when one of the articles published in the journal addressed explicitly the militarization of nursing education, we also received threats from readers that they would not only not subscribe, but would cease to use ANS content in their reading lists!

Shawn and I had several opportunities to share our experiences and our mutual commitment to continuing to advocate for nursing’s responsibilities to protect the the health and well-being of all , even when it required taking a “political” stance in our journals. We presented the topic for discussion at several nursing editor’s meetings (INANE), and maintained our intention to publish an article on the topic! Finally, once we each “retired” from our editorial roles, we moved this intention to the top of our “to do” lists, resulting in the publication of the article!

We hope you will take a few moments to read this article, and welcome your feedback! Please add your experiences advocating for activism here — we all are inspired when we hear the stories – we know we are not alone!