[L-I] COMMUNITY ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES: [based on my 50 years of experience]

Note by Hunterbear:

I ran this through --  broadly -- a few days ago.  Many people missed it
because of the holidays.  So here it is again.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING PRINCIPLES --  OR, GETTING PRACTICAL  [REVISED DECEMBER
25 2003]  HUNTER GRAY/JOHN R SALTER, JR

Missing -- way too often  -- in radical and general social justice circles
and related settings is a willingness to get down into the grassroots and
engage systematically in  some of the most challenging work there is:
organizing the grassroots into genuinely effective  and enduring outfits.
That's Genesis in the Save the World Business.  It's often far too easy to
engage in essentially empty "jaw-smithing."  Fortunately, there are always
those -- organizers and grassroots people -- who are willing to do the
really tedious and tough organizing work over the long pull.  Those who are
reasonably experienced have their own particular approaches.

Here are my own basic ones:

These 17 essential organizing principles were created formally by me in
early September 1963, after what had already been a number of years of
successful social justice organizing  -- and then modified and supplemented
a bit over many decades of grassroots organizing campaigns. Now I've
transcribed  them yet again -- with some changes -- on December 25 2003.
They are part of a considerably larger work that I also wrote in September
1963 -- "Organizing the  Community for Action." This was initially about six
tightly packed single-spaced legal size pages. I made several dozen
mimeographed copies and sent them around -- and they were well received.  I
continued to expand and polish up all of this and used "Organizing" and my
following 17 component principles many, many dozens of times in organizing
campaigns,  including --  among other dimensions -- struggles,  organizing
staff and grassroots training capacities, conferences, and university
classes. By this time, my little manual itself had grown to nine tightly
packed and single-spaced legal size pages.  Copies of all versions of
"Organizing the Community for Action" are in my collected [Salter/Gray]
papers at State Historical Society of Wisconsin and Mississippi Department
of Archives and History. The basically full ones began in March, 1965 and
August,  1966. In addition, I have copies of all of these editions of mine
right here in Idaho.

I'm presently rewriting parts of "Organizing the Community for Action" --
streamlining and updating -- and we are right now discussing the 17
principles themselves here in the Pocatello region as we get set for some
anti-racist action.

The following applies primarily to organizing  staff and broad-based
grassroots community organizations.  But they can can also apply
substantially -- with only a very few changes -- to other types of oufits:
e.g., local union organizations.

Anyway -

1]  The organizers should insure that the community  organization is
significant in size and composed primarily, if not completely, of  those
people "with the fewest alternatives".

2]  The organizers should insure that active and potential community
leadership is developed in such a fashion that the organization is led
primarily, if not completely, by those people with the fewest alternatives.

3]  The organizers should insure that the organization functions
democratically, and not in an authoritarian fashion and that, among other
things, formal rules of democratic procedure are established and followed
and  that widespread grassroots participation and decision-making in the
affairs of the community organization is a continuing fact; and that there
is ever developing local leadership.  The executive and public meetings
should be well attended and organizers must insure that an atmosphere exists
in which the individual at the grassroots feels -- as is genuinely the
  case  --that he/she is an individual; that his/her active participation in
the organization is needed and welcomed; that right from the very beginning,
he/she can make their voice and presence felt within the organization; and
that, as the group's endeavors advance, winning victories, his/her power and
ability to affect those forces out in the problematic/crisis environment and
beyond, which have been affecting his/her life, will be steadily and
proportionately increased.

4]  The organizers should insure that the youth are involved in the affairs
of the community organization -- either within it and with leadership
participation, or in a parallel and cooperative youth group of their own.

5]  The organizers should insure that the community organization, right from
the beginning, is characterized by maximum autonomy.

6]  Although the initial formation of the community organization may be
around one paramount and pressing local issue, the organizers -- not through
rigid superimposition but through diplomatic and effective teaching --
should insure that, in the interests of the community organization's
longevity and effectiveness, the leaders and membership of the group become
aware of all issues  directly and indirectly affecting them.  The organizers
should insure, therefore,  that the community organization functions on a
multi-issue basis whenever possible.

7]  The organizers should insure that, prior to reaching a decision on a
particular course of action, the community organization is aware of all
relevant tactical approaches and the various ramifications of each.

8]  The organizers  should insure that the leaders of the community
organization can effectively handle the matter of publicity.

 9]    The organizers should insure that the community organization can
effectively handle the raising and administration of funds -- including,
when applicable, the preparation of funding proposals, the negotiation of
such,  and the effective administration of the money received.

10]  The organizers  should insure that the community organization becomes
connected with various relevant public and private agencies and is able to
negotiate and secure the  necessary services from those agencies without
surrendering its autonomy or compromising its basic principles.

11]  The organizers  should insure that the community organization is able
to function politically in a realistic and sophisticated fashion without
surrendering its autonomy or compromising its basic principles.

12]  The organizers  should insure that the community organization can
utilize the services of professionals without becoming dominated by such.

13]  The organizers  should insure that the community organization is able
to enter into functional alliances with other groups without surrendering
its autonomy  or compromising its basic principles.

14]  The organizers  should insure that the community organization is aware
of the use of effective and  rational protest demonstrations  and, further,
that it is fully cognizant of the merits of tactical nonviolence.

15]  The organizers  should  insure that the community organization is aware
of the effective use of legal action approaches and is aware of public and
private legal resources.

16]  The organizers should build a sense of the oft-visionary  and just
world of a full measure  of bread-and butter and a full measure of
  freedom  -- and how all of this relates to the shorter term steps.

17]  The organizers, who at the outset may well play a very key role in the
function and affairs of the community organization, must, on a step-by-step
and essentially pragmatic basis, shift increasing responsibility to the
leaders and membership of the group, to eventually:

 A]   First, insure that the community organization can function effectively
with only occasional  involvement by organizers.

 B]    And then, that the community organization can function effectively
with no involvement by organizers  to the point that, in addition to
conducting its regular affairs, the group can "organize on its
own" --bringing in new constituents and/or assisting other grassroots people
in adjoining areas  in setting up and conducting their own community
organizations.


I'm an organizer -- a working social justice agitator.  I've been one since
the mid-1950s and I'll always be one.  In many respects, it's one of the
toughest trails anyone could ever blaze.

An effective organizer seeks to get grassroots people together -- and does;
develops on-going and  genuinely democratic local leadership; deals
effectively with grievances and individual/family concerns; works with the
people to achieve basic organizational goals and  develop new ones; and
builds a sense of the New World To Come Over The Mountains Yonder -- and how
all of that relates to the shorter term steps.

An effective organizer has to be a person of integrity, courage, commitment.

And a person of solidarity and sacrifice.

The satisfactions are enormous.

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]  Micmac/St Francis Abenaki/St Regis Mohawk
www.hunterbear.org
Late December 2003

It's critical to always keep fighting -- and to always remember that, if one
lives with grace, he/she should be prepared to die with grace.












































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