FINAL NOTE ON TRAINING CENTER/ IN A FACTIONAL STORM (was Friendly clarification)

Thanks, Sam.  There are always rough and tricky waters in "program development."  And, even back in the period of the Training Center, IRS could have problematic fish-hooks.  However, we were left alone by the agency.

We did face a problem -- actually a complex of problems -- that was unusual.  While there is always a very basic unity among Native people, which comes to the fore quickly when hostile outside forces enter the picture, there can be fierce factionalism.  I've often thought of that as akin to surface storms on the Sun.  At the time we were developing the Training Center, factionalism in the Indian community at Chicago, centered in and around the well established American Indian Center, was considered the worst in the country.  A lot of this mess went back to intermeddling by anthropologists at the University of Chicago.   So, when we were pulling our program together, securing funding, etc., we were very open about our doings and touched base frequently with the principal persons in the various -- to use the term from "western radical culture" -- "tendencies."  That term hardly does justice to our challenging situation!

Bill Redcloud was widely respected.  He'd been the director of the American Indian Center director but had been knifed by a "Christian" sub faction.  But his community standing was good, as was mine.  Our board was made up of people who had demonstrated their strong commitment to the community -- and, also importantly, it was fairly inter-tribal,

So it all worked out.  I could write a little book about all of this, but I never will.  Some things are best not told to the world.

This of mine gives an idea of the turbulence:

When the high factionalism of the Chicago Indian Center finally wound up as
an election dispute in an Anglo court, a weary judge eventually ordered that
each side select one Indian person -- just one -- who each side trusted and
who was a full member of the Indian Center -- and that person would set up
and carry out a new election. Each side turned and selected me. [I confess
to having had some trepidation on that one -- but never displayed it, of
course!] I constructed a long, high ballot box which was essentially clear
plastic -- so everyone could see the ballot go down and stay there. When
election time came, March 17 1973, I ordered every Anglo newsperson off
Center property and I stayed by the Box from 8 am to 8 pm -- leaving only
twice for the restroom and, then, leaving observers from all sides watching
each other like the eagles they were. Each factional side fed me well. Some
people came several hundred miles to vote. It was a wild and woolly
election -- Indians who were quite low-income and some doing relatively well
economically -- all clashing and then all gossiping congenially together.
The election, btw, was so honest our side lost. The American Indian Center pulled
together -- as Indians always do -- and lived through all sorts of
vicissitudes to survive to the present moment.


H

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

See the new expanded/updated edition of my "ORGANIZER'S
BOOK." It's the inside story of the rise of the massive Jackson
Movement -- careful grassroots organizing, bloody repression, sell-out 
and more.  It also covers other organizing campaigns of mine through
 the decades since Mississippi. It's replete with grass-roots organizing
examples and "lessons."  And it has my new 10,000 word 
introduction.  Among a myriad of positive comments and reviews:
 ". . .a local activist's important account of the deleterious effects
the involvement  of national organizations can have on indigenous
protest movements."  (Historian David Garrow.)
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

See the related:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [email protected] 
  To: [email protected] ; [email protected] 
  Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected] 
  Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2013 9:47 PM
  Subject: [SycamoreCanyon] again Re: [marxist] Friendly clarification re my "Not for profits"/Native values


    

  I did not see my post as in any way other than friendly.  But in my work with drug user activists, for example, the have been two or 3 occasions when I have seen people go 503  3 c so they could get the donations without fully realizing what they were giving up.

  And it hurt them later on



  By the way, I am on a big 5 week work related trip and my fist hotel has strange email so my messages  may sometimes get chopped 




  -----Original Message-----
  From: Hunter Gray <[email protected]>
  To: Bear Without Borders <[email protected]>
  Cc: Redbadbear <[email protected]>; SycamoreCanyon <[email protected]>; marxist <[email protected]>
  Sent: Thu, May 16, 2013 4:23 pm
  Subject: [marxist] Friendly clarification re my "Not for profits"/Native values


    
  Actually, Sam, I preceded the main body of my post this morning with this:

  "First, as we all know, there are a vast number of organizations -- many of them social justice advocacy -- that do not formally incorporate and seek 501(c)(3) status and depend on voluntary financial contributions and other versions of their own fundraising.  Foregoing IRS "certification" does, at least in some cases, enable maximum freedom of operation."

  Virtually all of the social justice organizations I've helped people organize, and there have been many, have never sought 501(c)3 status.  All of them, however, have had a basic and elected body of officers  and usually a committee structure. A few, more institutionalized in nature -- e.g., "Native American Publication" -- have had board members.  We are not anarchists. (And I certainly don't get the impression you are!)  Occupy, for example, would have done well to have had at least a rudimentary structure with elected officers and some stable committees.

  Our Training Center was not a community organization in the usual sense.  It was essentially an educational institution in its own way.  On the other hand, in the course of their training and thereafter, trainees often organized advocacy groups, mostly around specific issues. (Some trainees, however, went to work for existent Native programs or for their tribes back home.)  I don't recall any of the trainees ever seeking 501(3)(c) status in their own right. (The Training Center itself, and some trainees, did develop a spin-off community health outreach quite apart from the Center.  I helped that get 501(c)(3) since state funds were involved.)

  Just clarifying -

  Best, H


  HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
  Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
  Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
  www.hunterbear.org  (social justice)

  See the new expanded/updated edition of my "ORGANIZER'S
  BOOK." It's the inside story of the rise of the massive Jackson
  Movement -- careful grassroots organizing, bloody repression, sell-out 
  and more.  It also covers other organizing campaigns of mine through
   the decades since Mississippi. It's replete with grass-roots organizing
  examples and "lessons."  And it has my new 10,000 word 
  introduction.  Among a myriad of positive comments and reviews:
   ". . .a local activist's important account of the deleterious effects
  the involvement  of national organizations can have on indigenous
  protest movements."  (Historian David Garrow.)
  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

  See the related:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

  Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
  http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm