In 2004, as a student named Jamia Wilson stood in front of more than a million marchers at the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C., she was asked to move out of the way to make room for celebrities and renowned stateswomen.

She refused.

Since then, she’s written multiple books, including “Young, Gifted and Black,” “Step Into Your Power” and “Big Ideas for Young Thinkers,” and in her latest book, “Make Good Trouble,” which hits bookshop shelves Tuesday, the feminist activist and writer tells the stories of 70 moments of global activism that span the past 200 years.

Written like an ultra-accessible encyclopedia or handbook, “Make Good Trouble: Discover Movements That Sparked Change” covers social movements from the newsboys’ strike of 1899 to the freedom summer project of 1964, Greta Thunberg’s first school strike for climate, and the 2022-2023 movement of students against book banning.

Each true story, typically a couple of pages in length, covers a topic like climate change, racism, feminism, LGBTQ+ pride or disability, and the book includes some lesser-known subjects like the White Rose, a nonviolent resistance group that rebelled against Hitler’s Third Reich, and Bana Al-Abed, the 7-year-old who used Twitter to draw attention to the human cost of the Syrian conflict.

“I really want young people to come into this book and understand that if something doesn’t feel right to you, investigate. If something doesn’t feel just — trust your gut, hear your voice, and if something feels like it can be changed for the greater good, follow that instinct,” Wilson says during a recent phone call.

“Young people have, inherently, over that span of 200 years been at the forefront of fighting for change because they, in many cases, haven’t been the people who are shaping our governments. So in some ways, that has freed them up to see what’s possible beyond the systems that exist, to say, ‘Well, why not us? Why can’t we build this?’ ”

The following interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Q: In the introduction of the book, you write, “While honoring those who came before, we recognized our role in shaping the future.” What was a major takeaway for you covering 200 years of movements?

A: When the idea came to me, I really wanted to understand if there had been a starting point for this kind of activism. The concept of teenage years became formed in culture over time, and so for me, it was really important to start tracing what it meant for people who were identifying with that stage of their life and forming their voice, forming their sense of personal autonomy, and to also trace what was constant through 200 years, but also what has changed and evolved around how young people think about their personal power, their community power and their collective power.

Q: This book is written in an engaging and accessible way for young readers. Can you talk about why you feel it’s so important that young readers have access to this history as well as recognize their potential to effect change?

A: I’ve always felt that so much of my drive for activism was inspired by understanding that I had a right to want to live in a more just and fair world. But also by being frustrated with the inheritance of injustice, the inheritance of systems I had no role in shaping or power dynamics that I had no role in shaping, or hierarchies that didn’t seem fair to me, that were imposed, but not coming from myself.

So in doing the work for this book, I was really writing to my younger self and all the young people who would connect with that to say we have a right, no matter what age, to have the dignity of our voices, the dignity of our sovereignty, the dignity of our truth.

Q. We’re living in a time, as you write in the introduction, where the stakes are high. What do you hope this young generation of readers, who are getting this book at such a fraught time, will gain from “Make Good Trouble”?

A: When I started this book, I had hoped for a really different present than the one we’re seeing right now, but had also anticipated that this could be possible, and really felt a need to think about my own transitions in life as I enter my “rising auntie stage” to really want to be a safe adult for the next generation and for young people to know that I would follow them, support their ideas, amplify their ideas and march alongside them without needing to be in front.

The reason I wanted to trace those movements was also to document a history of proof for them to see that it has happened before in myriad ways and now is your chance to paint on the page of history. By no means am I saying that every young person who wants to make a difference now has to do it the way the brave and courageous visionaries did it, but that they can come back to this book as a guide and a way to say, “Oh, these people found a way forward; What are the themes that relate to me?”

That’s what I’m hoping is translated on the page: These are ways that people changed history, young people like you. This is the way that these stories have been shaped by people who decided that their power mattered, no matter what they were being told or no matter what their status or station was within a system or a culture.

Q: Your book “Young, Gifted and Black” was banned at a high school in Pennsylvania. How does it feel to have one of your works banned and to see young readers fighting for their access to literature?

A: One of the reasons I was inspired to put them in the book is one of the young people reached out to me on social media from that high school when they were actively organizing their campaign, and asked me to donate to their fundraising campaign and share their link to get more people involved. I was really inspired that they would reach out to authors who were banned — let us know what was happening with our books but also ask us to join their movement and to follow their lead in addressing this injustice.

I also think, as an African American who has had lineage in this country since the 1700s of African, Indigenous and European people on all levels of U.S. history, I think about what it means that my ancestors were not allowed to read because reading was associated with power. So that’s another reason why I engage in this kind of work, and felt that it was important for young people to know it’s an important right, that you have to be reading right now, and there are people who want to keep you from having power because books are that powerful, and it’s something you should fight for, just like all of your other rights.

Q: You covered protests that were both huge and relatively small, like the dress codes movement that came out of Kentucky. What was one of these smaller-scale movements that especially touched you?

A: I wanted to show that all movements matter. To say, Hariette Surovell, the 16-year-old high school student from New York City speaking to the High School Women’s Coalition before President Nixon’s National Commission on Population Growth and the American Future in 1971 is just as important as larger marches that all of us have seen on TV.

There were also swing youth in Nazi Germany who were using their fashion and dance and music to push back on a culture of Nazism to reject a toxic, enforced culture of sameness, to say that diversity is beautiful. They resisted by coming together across differences and celebrating with joy. And many of them paid the price for that as well.

I wanted to put stories like that in as well for the movements that happened that were also misunderstood or mischaracterized in the media of their time. To give those young people who may not be with us now, but their memories, the honor that they deserve for their courage.

Q. Social media means movements can spread further and more rapidly than ever before. While we often discuss the damage of these platforms, do you think this aspect might offer a silver lining?

A: Yes, and you now see some of the younger influencers pushing back on how they are being treated by certain outlets or their monetization. They’re actually creating their own workers movements right around TikTok and Instagram. All of that comes from the lineage of these immigrant, often unhoused, orphan children who bought newspapers at a wholesale price and then came together and created an economic justice movement.