 |
| 2011 PICO rally in New Orleans- Sen. Landrieu speaks |
Tomorrow is both Martin Luther King Jr. day and Inauguration day. It is a day set aside to honor the great Civil rights leader, and the work he did to help our country bend towards justice. Tomorrow is also the inauguration of a president who had promised to curtail the rights of many of our siblings here in America. I believe that much of what King taught and practiced in his time have power for us today in our time.
King Said, back in 1968 “it is not enough for people to be angry—the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”[i]
The supreme task is to organize. The Civil Rights movement was all about community organizing. Think of those famous pictures of the Greensboro sit in, with the brave black students sitting at the segregated lunch counter. This was planned carefully and carried out with great courage by 4 students, supported by a mentor who had been part of the freedom rides, and a businessman who supported the NAACP[ii]. Remember images of the children’s crusade in Birmingham, where thousands of students marched, were sprayed with fire hoses, went to jail… One of the heroes of the civil rights movement, Dorothy Cotton, told Professor Jason Miller about all the organizing that went into it. He writes:
“We know the story of Birmingham, right? And we imagine and remember a person stepping up to the podium and speaking. Or of those May 7, 1963 photographs of the fire hoses and police dogs set on children. Well, that moment could only have happened because Dorothy Cotton was sitting in Kelly Ingram Park for weeks working with first eight to 10 children, then 20 to 50. And eventually hundreds who said: We want to be involved. Those children in those photographs were only there because Dorothy was teaching them.”[iii]We know that “grassroots organizing” was key to the civil rights movement, but we don’t often notice these iconic moments were part of a concerted effort involving thousands of people over years. Organizing is about getting people to show up for a march or an action, yes, but it’s also about getting everyone on the same page. How amazing that all those civil rights protests stayed nonviolent and that’s because of organizing, educating, unifying. As King Said “the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force” that’s the work of community organizing.
Janos Martin, organizer for the ACLU writes “In King’s campaigns, mass mobilization was an occasional tactic, but more essential was developing a cadre of core volunteers steeped and trained in the philosophy of non-violence and deeply committed to the movement. The 1963 Birmingham desegregation campaign, for example, launched with only 65 people — but each had pledged to serve up to five days in jail.”[iv] It’s hopeful to remember that a movement starts with small groups of committed people, 4 college freshmen here, 10 high school students there. Small groups of people, if they organize and unite, can make a real difference.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which Cotton and MLK helped lead was an organizer of organizations- they brought together all those black churches[v] who had their own systems of organizing and educating coordinating their actions so together they could make a difference. This is hopeful to me- we here in this community right now, already have structures in place that can help larger movements for change. Just having a newsletter, a gathering place, a web of relationships, helps us activate ourselves when we see what needs doing. Think how quickly the Athens congregation came together after the flood to feed people. How the Cortland church opened our space to the Worker’s center to help farm workers sign up for their Covid relief grants. How this year’s
To quote one of this generation's thought leading activist's adrienne maree brown “critical connections are more important in a long-term transformation process than critical mass. Relationships are everything”
This is my most important message for today- that our relationships are central in building the world we long for.
When I was a minister in Palo Alto CA, our congregation was part of the PICO network of community organizing. One of the organizers knocked on my office door one day and asked if we could talk for a bit. She told me about herself and her organization, and asked me what I cared about, what I was worried about. Then she invited me to be part of an upcoming clergy gathering. I was part of the PICO network until I left California, and experience really stuck with me.
The organizing strategies I learned during those PICO years are simple and important. Their helpful “Organizing essentials” says:
“At the core of organizing practice is relationship building; the central organizing principle is ‘power rests in relationships’. To build relationships is to build power. Organizers seek to build relationships with a shared purpose... By building relationships, we do not mean expanding one’s circle of personal friends. We mean expanding the circle of those who have come together out of common values to build power and to act together for justice.One of the basic building blocks of this style of organizing is the one to one conversation. This is what I experienced when the organizer came to my office to get to know me. The basic form of a one to one is:
This consistent focus on relationship building enables a group to sustain an organizing effort over time. This practice enables us to win long-term campaigns and helps avoid the common pitfall of short-lived action/protest in which people act together for a brief period, usually in response to a crisis, but then do not sustain the activity.”[vi]
The organizer shares something of their own story,
They ask the person some questions about their values and what is important to them:
- How long have you lived in this community? How have you seen it change?
- How are you and your family doing? What are some of the pressures you face?
- What concerns do you have? Do others in your community share those concerns?
- What does your faith say about the world we should live in?
- How have you seen racism, discrimination, disinvestment and predatory practices affect your community?
This is kind of radical, actually- to start a relationship by asking other people about their concerns, to get to know the weight they carry on their heart, and to help people come together around the concerns that emerge from those conversations.
The common theme among all those conversations back in California was affordable housing. So after months of meeting and planning and organizing, there we were, standing room only in this big theater. Each congregation, each group was asked how many people we could commit to bringing with us, it was no accident the theater was full that day. (I gave a prayer with little Nick on my hip) And there were our elected decision makers (who had also been organized), seated on the stage being asked for their commitments, and because of that action a million dollars was committed to provide affordable housing, signed into law.
If you get discouraged with what is going on in National politics, remember what MLK said “it is not enough for people to be angry—the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”[vii]
Remember that the power of change that starts in the local community,
Remember that relationships are everything. We as congregations already are part of a wonderful web of relationships, we are embedded in community and partnership. In our small congregations, we have deep, lasting relationships. Even with the new folks who’ve just come in the door- you can’t stay a stranger for long in a small congregation. We know each other’s values, we know what’s on our hearts, whether we are playing pickle-ball, strumming with the uke group, or sharing from the heart in Soul Matters small group, these are all parts of growing our web of relationships.
A lot of promises were made about things that might happen this week in Washington, and wherever I go I hear people worrying about what might be about to happen. If you are worried, I encourage you to think local- what might the impacts be on the local community? On your neighbors? Who might you want to have a conversation with? This is a form of low-key community organizing. Check in with your old steadfast allies and friends, your main partners in the work. Think about who might be emerging leaders, folks who “could step up if given the right opportunity and support” and check in with new folks, with folks we think might share our values and might turn up for an issue that is important to them, if we took the time to get to know exactly what it is that they care about, what moves them. And always take time to check in with “people who are the closest to the pain.” If you are worried what might happen to the rights of our trans siblings, take time to ask “What concerns do you have? Do others in your community share those concerns?” If you are worried about mass deportations, reach out to a friend or neighbor who is an immigrant and ask “How are you and your family doing? What are some of the pressures you face?”
Now that sounds like a ton of work. It would be a great idea to call every person who came to the Athens transgender day of remembrance, everyone who comes to the Cortland coffee house, but frankly we don’t have enough extroverts for all that.
So I return to adrienne maree brown’s idea that “If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression. We would suddenly be seeing everything we do, everyone we meet, not through the tactical eyes of war, but through eyes of love.”
Brown is part of a new generation of activists looking at how transformation happens with fresh eyes, wondering not only how we can connect with one another, but with the earth. Wondering what new strategies will emerge from these people and this moment. But still at the core of her work is the belief that “Relationships are everything” [viii]
The civil rights movement started in the black churches, powered by the web of connections there. We already know something about how to do this- how to build relationships, how to talk about our values, and what worries us. We know how to invite people in, and how to grow love. That great civil rights movement was made up of churches large and small, like ours. It was made of the relationships between people a lot like us.
So as you wonder how to face this week, both the celebration of the life and work of MLK, and the inauguration of a new president, I invite you to start with your web of relationships. Have conversations about what people value, what they are afraid of. Really listen. Not all of us are big talkers, but actions speak too. If you help dig your neighbor’s car out of the snow, you are growing the web of love and connection. Like the Oak tree, like the dandelion, let us spread our roots, our connections in this challenging time. This is what we mean by grass roots. This is where change begins.
[i]—“Honoring Dr. Du Bois” (1968)
[ii] https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/greensboro-sit-in/
[iii] https://www.wunc.org/show/the-state-of-things/2019-07-02/bringing-ncs-dorothy-cotton-out-from-behind-mlks-shadow
[iv] https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/remembering-martin-luther-king-jr-organizer
[v] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclc
[vi] https://s43774.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Organizing-Essentials-1-Relationships.pdf
[vii] —“Honoring Dr. Du Bois” (1968)
[viii] Brown was greatly inspired by Margaret Wheatly’s idea this is brown’s paraphrase in Emergent Strategy p. 28
