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Organizing Communities
by Tom Knoche
>From Social Anarchism Journal, 1993
Many anarchists probably cringe at the notion of any person
or group being "organized" and believe that the very idea is
manipulative. They point to countless community organization
leaders who ended up on government payrolls. They can't see how
winning traffic lights and playgrounds does any more than help
the system appear pluralistic and effective.
Such skepticism makes sense. Community organizing has
always been practiced in many different ways to accomplish many
different things. In reviewing the history of neighborhood
organizing, Robert Fisher summed it up this way:
While neighborhood organizing is a political act, it is
neither inherently reactionary, conservative, liberal or
radical, nor is it inherently democratic and inclusive or
authoritarian and parochial. It is above all a political
method, an approach used by various segments of the
population to achieve specific goals, serve certain
interests, and advance clear or ill-defined political
perspectives. (Fisher, 1984; p. 158)
If we just look at some of the progressive strains of
community organizing thought, we still face a lot of confusion
about what it is and how it is used. Saul Alinsky, a key figure
in the development of community organizing as we know it today,
wrote:
We are concerned about how to create mass organizations to
seize power and give it to the people; to realize the
democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation,
equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful
employment, health and the creation of those circumstances
in which man can have the chance to live by the values that
give meaning to life. We are talking about a mass power
organization that will change the world. (Alinsky, 1971, p.
3)
The Midwest Academy, a training institute for community
organizers founded by some ex-civil rights and SDS leaders,
asserts that:
More and more people are finding that what is needed is a
permanent, professionally staffed community membership
organization which can not only win real improvements for
its members, but which can actually alter the relations of
power at the city and state level. These groups [citizen
groups] are keeping government open to the people and are
keeping our democratic rights intact. (Max, 1977; p. 2)
A senior member of ACORN (Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now), a national association of mostly
urban community organizations, describes the goal of organizing
as strengthening people's collective capacities to bring about
social change (Staples, 1984; p. 1). ACORN organized local
communities, then employed its constituency at the national
level, attempting to move the Democratic Party to the left.
Finally, a participant in a workshop on community organizing
I conducted a number of years ago characterized community
organizing as "manipulating people to do trivial things."
In this article, I will focus on how community organizing
can be useful in advancing an anarchist vision of social change.
Community organizations that build on an anarchist vision of
social change are different from other community organizations
because of the purposes they have, the criteria they have for
success, the issues they work on, the way they operate and the
tactics they use.
My experience with community organizing spans a 16-year
period including four years in Baltimore, Maryland and twelve in
Camden, New Jersey. I have primarily worked with very low income
people on a wide range of issues. I will draw heavily on my
personal experience in this article. I use the term "community
organizing" to refer to social change efforts which are based in
local geographically defined areas where people live. This is
the key distinction between community organizing and other forms
of organizing for social change which may be based in workplaces
or universities, involving people where they work or study
instead of where they live. Some issue-oriented organizations
are considered community organizations if their constituency is
local.
Goals of Anarchist Organizing
Anarchist community organizing must be dedicated to changing
what we can do today and undoing the socialization process that
has depoliticized so many of us. We can use it to build the
infrastructure that can respond and make greater advances when
our political and economic systems are in crisis and are
vulnerable to change.
The following purposes illustrate this concept.
1. Helping people experiment with decentralized, collective
and cooperative forms of organization.
We have to build our American model of social change out of
our own experience; we can't borrow revolutionary theory in total
from that developed in another historical and/or cultural
context. Community organizations can help people log that
experience and analyze it. Because of our culture's grounding in
defense of personal liberty and democracy, social change
engineered by a vanguard or administered by a strong central
state will not work here.
David Bouchier is on the right track when he says, "For
citizen radicals evolution is better than revolution because
evolution works" (Bouchier, 1987; p. 139). We must learn new
values and practice cooperation rather than competition.
Community organizations can provide a vehicle for this
"retailing." "This means that a cultural revolution, a
revolution of ideas and values and understanding, is the
essential prelude to any radical change in the power arrangement
of modern society. The purpose of radical citizenship is to take
the initiative in this process" (Bouchier, p. 148).
Any kind of alternative institution (see Ehrlich, et al.,
Reinventing Anarchy, p. 346), including cooperatives, worker
managed businesses, etc., that offers a chance to learn and
practice community control and worker self-management, is
important. We must experience together how institutions can be
different and better. These alternative institutions should be
nonprofit, controlled by the people who benefit from their
existence. Most charities and social service agencies do not
qualify as alternative institutions because they are staffed and
controlled by people who usually are not part of the community
they serve; they therefore foster dependence.
The recent proliferation of community land trusts in this
country is an exciting example of community-based, cooperative
and decentralized organizations. Through these organizations,
people are taking land and housing off the private market and
putting them in their collective control.
I have been a board member of North Camden Land Trust in
Camden, New Jersey since its inception in 1984. The land trust
now controls about thirty properties. A group of thirty low
income homeowners who previously were tenants without much hope
of home ownership now collectively make decisions concerning this
property. The development of the land trust embodies many of the
elements that describe community organizing grounded in a social
anarchist vision for society.
2. Increasing the control that people have over actions that
affect them, and increasing local self-reliance.
This involves taking some measure of control away from large
institutions like government, corporations and social service
conglomerates and giving it to the people most affected by their
actions. David Bouchier describes this function as attaining
"positive freedoms." Positive freedoms are rights of self-
government that are not dependent on or limited by higher powers
(Bouchier, p.9).
In the neighborhood where I live and work, residents are
starting to demand control over land use decisions. They stopped
the state and local governments' plan to build a second state
prison on the waterfront in their neighborhood. Instead of
stopping there, the residents, through a series of block meetings
and a neighborhood coalition, have developed a "Peoples' Plan"
for that waterfront site. Control of land use has traditionally
rested with local government (and state and federal government to
a much more limited extent), guided by professional planners and
consultants. Neighborhood residents believe they should control
land use in their neighborhood, since they are the ones most
directly affected by it.
The concept of self-reliant communities described by David
Morris (1987) also helps us understand the shift in power we are
talking about. Self-reliant communities organize to assert
authority over capital investment, hiring, bank lending, etc.--
all areas where decision making traditionally has been in the
hands of government or private enterprise.
3. Building a counterculture that uses all forms of
communication to resist illegitimate authority, racism, sexism,
and capitalism. In low-income neighborhoods, it is also
important that this counterculture become an alternative to the
dominant culture which has resulted from welfare and drugs.
The Populist movement can teach us a lot about building a
counterculture. That movement used the press, person-to-person
contact via roving rallies and educational lectures, an extensive
network of farm cooperatives and an alternative vision of
agricultural economics to do this (Goodwyn, 1976; 1981).
Every movement organization has to use the media to advance
its ideas and values. Educational events, film, community-based
newspapers, etc., are all important. The local community
advocacy organization in North Camden has done a good job of
combining fundraising with the development of counterculture.
They have sponsored alternative theater which has explored the
issues of battered women, homelessness and sexism. After each
play, the theater group conducted an open discussion with the
audience about these issues. These were powerful experiences for
those who attended.
The question of confronting the dominant culture in very low
income neighborhoods is one of the greatest challenges facing
community organizations. Many families have now experienced
welfare dependence for four generations, a phenomenon which has
radically altered many peoples' value systems in a negative way.
People must worry about survival constantly, and believe that
anything they can get to survive they are entitled to, regardless
of the effect on others. It has not fostered a cooperative
spirit. The response of low-income people to long-term welfare
dependency is not irrational, but it is a serious obstacle to
functioning in a system of decentralized, cooperative work and
services.
One experience in this regard is relevant. A soup kitchen
called Leavenhouse has operated in Camden for 10 years, during
nine of which it was open to anyone who came. A year ago, the
soup kitchen changed into a feeding cooperative on weekdays.
Guests now have to either work a few hours in the kitchen or
purchase a ticket for five dollars which is good for the entire
month. Daily average attendance has dropped from 200 to about
20. The idea of cooperating to provide some of the resources
necessary to sustain the service is outside the value system of
many people who previously used the kitchen. Leavenhouse
realizes now that it must address the reasons why people have not
responded to the co-op, and is planning a community outreach
program designed to build some understanding, trust and
acceptance of the idea of cooperative feeding.
The 20 people who have joined the co-op have responded
favorably. They appreciate the more tranquil eating environment
and feel good about their role in it. The co-op members now make
decisions about the operation of their co-op. Friendships and
information sharing (primarily about jobs) have been facilitated.
Fewer people are being served, but meaningful political
objectives are now being realized.
4. Strengthening the "social fabric" of neighborhood units -
- that network of informal associations, support services, and
contacts that enable people to survive and hold on to their
sanity in spite of, rather than because of, the influence of
government and social service bureaucracies in their lives.
John McKnight (1987) has done a good job of exposing the
failure of traditional social service agencies and government in
meeting people's needs for a support structure. They operate to
control people. Informal associations ("community of
associations"), on the other hand, operate on the basis of
consent. They allow for creative solutions, quick response,
interpersonal caring, and foster a broad base of participation.
A good example of fulfilling this purpose is the bartering
network that some community organizations have developed. The
organization simply prints a listing of people and services they
need along with a parallel list of people and services they are
willing to offer. This strengthens intraneighborhood
communication. In poor neighborhoods, this is especially
effective because it allows people to get things done without
money, and to get a return on their work which is not taxable.
Concerned Citizens of North Camden (CCNC) has supported the
development of a Camden "Center for Independent Living" -- an
organization that brings handicapped and disabled people in the
city together to collectively solve the problems they face.
Twelve step groups are another example of informal,
nonprofessional associations that work for people.
Criteria for Success
Many community organizations measure success by "winning."
The tangible result is all that matters. In fact, many
organizations evaluate the issues they take on by whether or not
they are "winnable." The real significance of what is won and
how it is won are of less concern.
For organizations that embrace an anarchist vision, the
process and the intangible results are at least as important as
any tangible results. Increasing any one organization' size and
influence is not a concern. The success of community organizing
can be measured by the extent to which the following mandates are
realized.
1. People learn skills needed to analyze issues and confront
those who exert control over their lives;
2. People learn to interact, make decisions and get things
done collectively--rotating tasks, sharing skills, confronting
racism, sexism and hierarchy;
3. Community residents realize some direct benefit or some
resolution of problems they personally face through the
organizing work;
4. Existing institutions change their priorities or way of
doing things so that the authority of government, corporations
and large institutions is replaced by extensions of
decentralized, grassroots authority; and
5. Community residents feel stronger and better about
themselves because of their participation in the collective
effort.
Picking Issues
Much of the literature about community organizing suggests
that issues should be selected which are: 1) winnable; 2) involve
advocacy, not service; and 3) build the organization's
constituency, power and resources. "Good issue campaigns should
have the twin goals of winning a victory and producing
organizational mileage while doing so" (Staples, 1984; p.53).
These guidelines have always bothered me, and my experience
suggests that they are off the mark. Issues should be picked
primarily because the organization's members believe they are
important and because they are consistent with one of more of the
purposes listed above. Let me offer a few guidelines which are a
bit different.
1. Service and advocacy work must go hand in hand,
especially in very needy communities.
People get involved with groups because they present an
opportunity for them to gain something they want. It may be
tangible or intangible, but the motivation to get involved comes
with an expectation of relatively short-term gratification. The
job of community organizations is to facilitate a process where
groups of people with similar needs or problems learn to work
together for the benefit of all. Through this process, people
learn to work cooperatively and learn that their informal
association can usually solve problems more effectively and
quickly than established organizations.
I will offer an example to illustrate this point. When
Concerned Citizens of North Camden (CCNC) organized a squatter
campaign in 1981, the folks who squatted and took all of the
risks did so because they wanted a house, and because they
believed squatting was the best way to get one. Each one of the
original 13 squatter families benefited because they got title to
their house. The advocacy purpose was served because a program
resulted that allowed 150 other families to get a house and some
funds to fix it up over the subsequent five years. Because CCNC
has stayed involved with each family and facilitated a support
network with them (up to the present), 142 of the houses are
still occupied by low-income families.
The government bureaucracy tried to undermine this program
on numerous occasions, but without success. Participants
willingly rallied in each crisis because they benefited in a way
they valued deeply. The squatter movement allowed them to win
something that they knew they would never realistically be able
to win through any traditional home ownership programs. The
squatters were poor, most had no credit histories and most were
Hispanic. Official discredit, for whatever reasons, was
meaningless because people knew the effort had worked for them.
In my experience, I have never been a part of a more
exciting and politically meaningful effort than the CCNC
squatting effort in 1981. The initial squatting with 13 families
was followed by five years of taking over abandoned houses which
the City reluctantly sanctioned because of the strength and
persistence of the movement.
2. Issues that pit one segment of the community against
another--for example, issues which favor homeowners over renters,
blacks over Puerto Ricans, etc.--should be avoided.
Most issues can be addressed in ways that unify neighborhood
residents rather than divide them.
3. An informal involvement in broad political issues should
be maintained on a consistent basis.
While I believe the kind of decentralized associations which
form the basis for any anarchist vision of social change are most
easily formed and nurtured at the local level (neighborhood or
citywide), people must also connect in some way with broader
social change issues. Social change cannot just happen in
isolated places; we must build a large and diverse movement.
We need to integrate actions against militarism,
imperialism, nuclear power, apartheid, etc., with action on local
issues. They often can and should be tied together. This
requires getting people to regional and national political events
from time to time, and supporting local activities which help
people to connect with these broader issues.
4. Avoid the pitfalls of electoral politics.
This is a very controversial area of concern for community
organizations. The organizations I have worked with in Camden
have vacillated in their stance vis-a-vis electoral politics.
The danger of cooptation through involvement in this arena
is severe. Whenever a group of people start getting things done
and build a credible reputation in the community, politicians
will try to use the organization or its members to their
advantage.
I have yet to witness any candidate for public office who
maintained any kind of issue integrity. Once in the limelight,
people bend toward the local interests that have the resources
necessary to finance political campaigns. They want to win more
than they want to advance any particular platform on the issues.
We delude ourselves if we believe any politicians will support
the progressive agenda of a minority constituency when their
political future depends on them abandoning it.
I have participated in organizing campaigns where
politicians were exploited because of vulnerability and where one
politician was successfully played off against another. It is
much easier for a community organization to use politicians to
advance a cause if neither the organization nor its members are
loyal to any officeholder. My experience says that any organized
and militant community-based organization can successfully
confront elected officials--regardless of whether they are
friends or enemies.
Operation
For organizations committed to the long term process of
radical social change, the way they operate is more important
than any short-term victories that might be realized. The
discipline, habits and values that are developed and nurtured
through an organization's day-to-day life are an important part
of the revolutionary process. Some guidelines for operation
follow.
1. Have a political analysis and provide political
education.
Lower-class and working class neighborhood organizations
must develop long-range goals which address imbalances in a
class society, an alternative vision of what people are
fighting for, a context for all activity, whether pressuring
for a stop sign or an eviction blockage. Otherwise, as has
repeatedly happened, victories that win services or rewards
will undermine the organization by "proving" that the
existing system is responsive to poor and working people and
therefore, in no need of fundamental change. (Fisher, 1984;
p.162)
Any organization which is serious about social change and
committed to democratic control of neighborhoods and workplaces
devote considerable energy to self-development--building
individual skills and self-confidence and providing basic
political education. The role of the state in maintaining
inequality and destroying self-worth must be exposed.
This is particularly necessary in low income and minority
neighborhoods where people have been most consistently socialized
to believe that they are inferior, that the problems they face
are individual ones rather than systemic ones, and where poor
education has left people without the basic skills necessary to
understand what goes on around them. Self-esteem is low, yet
social change work requires people who are self-confident and
assertive.
This dilemma is another of the major challenges in community
organizing. The socialization process that strips people of
their self-esteem is not easily or quickly reversed. This
problem mandates that all tasks be performed in groups (for
support and skill-sharing), and that training and preparation for
all activities be thorough.
2. Be collectively and flexibly organized; decentralize as
much as possible.
Radical organizations must always try to set an example of
how organizations can be better than the institutions we
criticize. All meetings and financial records should be open and
leadership responsibilities rotated. Active men and women must
work in all aspects of the organization--office work,
fundraising, decision making, financial management, outreach,
housekeeeping, etc.
Teams of people should work on different projects, with
coordination provided by an elected council. Pyramidal hierarchy
with committees subordinate to and constrained by a strong
central board should be avoided. The organization must remain
flexible so that it can respond quickly to needs as they arise.
3. Maintain independence.
This is extremely important and extremely difficult. No
organization committed to radical social change can allow itself
to become financially dependent on the government or
corporations. This does not mean that we can't use funds from
government or private institutions for needed projects, but we
can't get ourselves in a position where we owe any allegiance to
the funders.
In 1983, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee was involved in
a march from Toledo, Ohio to the Campbell's Soup headquarters in
Camden, New Jersey. They were demanding three-party collective
bargaining between Campbell's, the farmers it buys from, and the
farm laborers who pick for the farmers. A coalition of groups in
Camden worked to coordinate the final leg of the march through
Camden. Many community-based organizations in Camden, however,
refused to participate because they were dependent on donations
of food or money from Campbell's Soup.
The bankruptcy of such behavior was driven home last year
when Campbell's closed their Camden plant and laid off 1,000
workers. They made no special effort to soften the impact on the
workers or the community.
All resources come at a price--even donations. We simply
cannot accept funds from individuals or groups who condition
their use in ways that constrain our work, or we must ignore the
conditions and remain prepared to deal with the consequences
later.
Alternative funding sources are providing a badly needed
service in this regard. In Philadelphia, the Bread and Roses
Community Fund raises money for distribution to social change
organizations. In 1983, it spun off the Delaware Valley
Community Reinvestment Fund, an alternative lending institution
which provides credit for community-based housing and community
development projects. Social change organizations in the
Philadelphia/Camden area are extremely indebted to these two
support organizations. They play a vital role in helping
organizations to maintain their independence.
4. Reach out to avoid isolation, but keep the focus local.
Community-based organizations must maintain loose ties with
other grassroots groups. Progressive groups should be able to
easily coalesce when that makes sense. We can always benefit
from ideas and constructive criticism from supportive people who
are not wrapped up in the day to day activity of our own
organization.
This is another way in which left-wing
fundraising/grantmaking groups like the Bread and Roses Community
Fund in the Philadelphia area play an important role. They
identify and bring together those groups in the region with a
similar political agenda. Through Bread and Roses, the community
advocacy organization in North Camden (CCNC) has maintained a
very loose but productive relationship with the Kensington Joint
Action Council (KJAC) in Philadelphia. KJAC squatted first, and
helped CCNC plan its squatter campaign. CCNC spun off a land
trust first and assisted KJAC in the development of their own
land trust, Manos Unidas. Some ideas they developed for their
land trust in terms of building comraderie among members are now
being considered by North Camden Land Trust.
Statewide and national organizations try very hard to pull
in active local organizations and get leaders involved in issues
at the state level. Be wary of the drain this can place on the
local work. Cloward and Piven, in their Poor People's Movements,
do a wonderful job of illustrating this danger in their
discussion of welfare rights organizing. Successes are won via
direct action, not via formal organization.
5. Do not foster cross-class ties.
This applies especially to community organizing in low
income areas where the local resources are extremely scarce.
Many well-to-do "do-gooder" organizations like to have a ghetto
project. It makes them feel good. Community organizations do
not exist to alleviate ruling class guilt. Dependency on upper-
class skills and money is a problem. Poor and working people
must wage their own struggle.
An illustration of this is provided by the soup kitchen in
North Camden. Suburban church folks, once they heard about
Leavenhouse, were more than willing to send in volunteers each
day to prepare and serve the meal. Leavenhouse told them not to
bother, except perhaps occasionally with two or three people at a
time. This allows the soup kitchen to develop local ownership,
and for neighborhood residents to feel good about taking care of
each other. It avoids the traditional social service model where
one group comes into the city and delivers a service to another
group of people who live there and takes it.
Leavenhouse does accept money and food donations from
outside the neighborhood, but its basis operating costs are
covered with the rent of the community members who actually live
at Leavenhouse. The outside income is extra; without it
Leavenhouse will not shut down.
6. Have a cultural and social dimension.
Cultural and social events not only help to build a
counterculture, but they help people feel good about who they are
and where they came from. This is an important dynamic in
overcoming powerlessness. Political music and film are
especially effective in building class unity and strength, and in
providing basis political education.
7. Staff the organization, to the greatest extent possible,
with local workers and volunteers.
This seems obvious enough, but many community organizations
draw on outsiders to perform the bulk their work.
In Camden, nonprofit community organizations which provide
affordable housing do it in three different ways. One
organization matches suburban church groups with vacant houses.
The church groups then purchase materials and provide volunteer
labor to do the rehabilitation work. Another group relies on
contractors to perform the work, few of which are in Camden. A
third group has hired and trained neighborhood residents to do
all rehabilitation work. The workers are paid a decent wage for
what they do. The latter approach develops skills in the
neighborhood, allows neighborhood residents to feel good about
improving their community, and fosters cooperative work habits
which the construction crew members will carry into other
organizations in the community.
Since the crew employed by the third organization is paid a
decent wage, the first organization mentioned above rehabilitates
more houses for less money. Again, when the commitment is to
social change, the short-term tangible results are not the most
important measures of success.
Tactics
A considerable body of literature has been written about
tactics in organizing and political work. I do not want to
rehash all of that here, so I'll offer just a few guidelines
about tactics that have consistently proven themselves. The
discussion here is relevant to advocacy campaigns designed to
take some measure of authority from government or private
interest and put it in community control, or to force a
reallocation of resources (public or private) in the interest of
the community.
1. Be disruptive.
The tendency today is for community organizations to be less
militant and confrontational, working through established
community and political leaders to "engineer" the changes they
want. No tendency could be more dangerous to the future of
community organizing. The historical record and my experience
say the opposite. We must be disruptive. No guideline is more
important in the consideration of tactics. We can't move the
system by testifying at hearings, negotiating at meetings and
lobbying elected officials.
We must defy the rules of the system that fails to meet our
needs. We must use guerilla tactics that harass, confront,
embarrass and expose that system and its functionaries.
2. Clear, precise and measurable demands are the cornerstone
of any organizing campaign.
A group must know exactly what they want before they begin
to confront the opposition.
3. Gradually escalate the militancy of your tactics.
The tactics in a campaign should gradually escalate in
militancy, so that people new to political struggle are not
intimidated. Let the militancy of the tactics increase at about
the same pace as the intensity of the anger.
4. Address different targets simultaneously.
The tactics should be simultaneously directed at different
parts of the system that are responsible for the injustice or
grievance that needs to be resolved.
In the campaign to stop construction of a second State
prison in their neighborhood, North Camden residents directed
tactics at the Commissioner of Corrections, the private landowner
who was willing to sell the waterfront land to the state for the
prison, local politicians, the governor and the two gubernatorial
candidates.
5. Avoid legal tactics.
Legal challenges are difficult. They take a lot of energy
and money, people who aren't trained in the law have a very
difficult time understanding the process, and they are easy to
lose. I have never experienced success with a legal challenge.
When North Camden residents opposed construction of the
first State prison in their neighborhood, they sued the state on
environmental and land use grounds because the state planned to
use valuable waterfront land for the prison. After a year of
preparations, the case was heard before an Administrative Law
judge. He threw the case out on a technicality. Understand that
he was appointed by a governor who had made a public commitment
to construct 4,000 more prison beds during his term in office.
Our legal system is set up to protect the interests of
private property. Using it to dismantle the institutions that
thrive on private property is obviously problematic.
6. Use direct action.
Direct actions are those that take the shortest route toward
realization of the ends desired, without depending on
intermediaries. A simple example might help to clarify. If a
group of tenants is having a problem with a landlord refusing to
make needed repairs, they can respond in several ways. They
could take the landlord to court. They could get the housing and
health inspectors to issue violations and pressure the landlord
to make repairs. Or they could withhold rent from the landlord
themselves, and use the money withheld to pay for the repairs.
Along the same vein, they might picket the landlord's nice
suburban home and leaflet all of his neighbors with information
about how he treats people. The first two options put
responsibility for getting something done in the hands of a
government agency or law enforcement official. The latter course
of actions keeps the tenants in control of what happens.
At a major state-funded construction project in Camden,
residents wanted to make sure that city residents and minorities
got construction jobs. Following the lead of some militant
construction workers in New York City, they organized people who
were ready for work, and blocked the gate to the job site at
starting time. Their position was simple; they would move when
local people were hired. The group got talked into negotiating
and supporting an affirmative action program that would force the
contractor to hire local people whenever the union hall couldn't
provide a minority or city resident to fill an opening. The
enforcement of that program was so mired in red tape that only a
handful of local workers got hired. The group would have fared
much better if they had stuck with their original tactic--the
most direct one.
7. Have fun.
The tactics used should be fun for the participants. This
isn't always possible, but often is. Street theater can often be
used to challenge a routine action into a fun one. Let me
provide a few examples.
When Concerned Citizens of North Camden (CCNC) ran its
homeowner program (the program which resulted from the squatting
in 1981), the City tried various mechanisms to discredit it. On
one occasion when they threatened to cut some of the public fund
involved in it, CCNC conducted a funeral march with about 100
people and carried a coffin from North Camden to City Hall where
a hearing was being held on the Community Development Block Grant
funds. Right in the middle of the hearing, a squatter came out
from inside the coffin and told the crowd how the people's
movement could not be silenced and make a mockery of the whole
hearing. The effect was spectacular, as was the press coverage
the next day.
When trying to stop the second prison, residents circulated
a special issue of the community newspaper that made fun of the
land owner, the mayor and the Commissioner of Corrections. The
front page of the paper included photos of the three, captioned
with the names of the Three Stooges (the resemblance was
striking). The text on the front page made fun of each person's
role in the project. We circulated the paper at a big public
meeting which all three of these individuals attended. It helped
give people courage and set the atmosphere for people to freely
speak their minds. When people talk about the prison campaign,
they laugh and remember "the three stooges."
Finally, when the homeless problem started to escalate in
Camden (1983), we learned that people were being turned away from
available shelters because there was not enough space.
Leavenhouse, a local soup kitchen, then started to serve its
meals on the steps of City Hall one day each week. This created
a party atmosphere; a couple hundred people would gather to eat
and hang out every Wednesday at noon. As the weather got colder
it because less fun, but the persistence was important. Three
months after we started, in December, the City agreed to make a
public building available as a shelter and agreed to adopt a
policy that no homeless person would be denied shelter in Camden.
The good aspect of this action was that homeless people were able
to participate and help make it happen. It was a concrete way
that they could have fund and feel good about helping to improve
their own situation.
Concluding Comments
The kind of community described here is not easy or
straightforward. It can be extremely frustrating, with many
pitfalls, temptations and diversions pushing it off the track and
allowing it to assume a more liberal posture. This article
described some of the main challenges: overcoming the
welfare/drugs culture; maintaining independence; and working with
people with few skills and low self-esteem. One other deserves
mention--mobility.
In our society, mobility is expected. People are supposed
to move to take a better job, to find a better house, etc. It is
acceptable to displace people to build new expressways and
universities. The average American moves once every five years.
This mobility attests to the stability of community
organizations. Leaders and workers may get trained, get involved
and then leave before they have been able to give much back to
the organization. The drug traffic in many low-income
neighborhoods exacerbates the stability problem; families face
crises on a regular basis which take priority over community
involvement.
The revolutionary work of community organizations, would be
enhance with more population stability. Why aren't jobs created
for people where they are? Why aren't a mix of housing types and
sizes available within all communities? Why isn't displacement
avoided at all cost? We need to address these questions if our
communities are going to be more fertile areas for community
organizing.
Community organizing from an anarchist perspective
acknowledges that no revolution will be meaningful unless many
Americans develop new values and behavior. This will require a
history of work in cooperative, decentralized, revolutionary
organizations in communities, workplaces and schools. The task
before us is to build and nurture these organizations wherever we
can. There are no shortcuts.
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