Organizing Thoughts/Comments

Re the Sycamore list -- applicable to the others:

I certainly believe, as a social justice community organizer, in careful planning whenever possible -- sometimes intricate in nature.  That also includes carefully developed contingency plans for possible and unexpected developments.  Failure to practice any or all of the foregoing can lead to heavy complications that can jeopardize the success of the campaign.  Those complications can, among other things, be "legal" in nature, can result in the injury of persons on "our side", and sometimes lead to death.  Some risks are always involved -- have to be taken -- but solid and careful organization can reduce those. All of this was starkly clear in Southern Movement campaigns -- but also elsewhere in many other situations.

Within both that planned context and independently, spontaneous and dramatic developments can certainly erupt.  Organizers have to be prepared to respond quickly and effectively -- and prior planning can certainly facilitate that.

I could cite a great many examples of all of this. After all, social justice organizing has been my primary vocation.

One comes to mind -- on the Chicago Southside where, early in 1970, we were launching a large scale block club organizing project.  A minor fracas between little Black and Puerto Rican kids at a vastly overcrowded Chicago elementary school led, via a panicky principal, to the mass arrival of Area 3 Task Force -- special "riot" troopers.  Several of us were only a block from the school and rushed to the location in time to see the kids driven back into the school and its mobile classroom units -- and also see the cops grab, assault and arrest several Black adults who arrived about the same time we did.  We immediately printed via trusty mimeo machine several hundred leaflets for a mass protest meeting at a Black church that night -- and I went to the District 7 police station and bonded out the Black adults. [With our involvement, charges against them were soon dropped.]

They turned out to be parents and also adult advisors to the very influential Disciples youth "gang."  Our mass protest meeting was a great success which significantly spurred our organizing efforts -- eventually producing 300 multi-issue block clubs and related groups organized into two large umbrella groups over the next 3 1/2 years.  And two days after the school "riot", the Disciples, who were shifting into social justice and political work, pledged their full support to our organizing efforts -- and also, we learned later, were quietly providing protection for our staff in that area.
http://hunterbear.org/chicago_organizing.htm

Not arguing with anyone -- just brief thoughts.

H

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial Introduction by me:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
 
Our community organizing course:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
 
Personal Background Narrative (with many links):
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm