By Shauntrice L. Martin
“You didn’t see me on television, you didn’t see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders.” – Ella Baker
Ella Baker played a critical role in several prominent social justice organizations. I will acknowledge that immediately. The disconnect exists when individuals consider themselves revolutionaries simply because their charter or mission statement has some vague, possibly provocative language regarding activism.
I want to make a clear distinction between the existence of organizations and the need for people to organize. My experience lends credibility to the argument that organizing is key; particularly in dealing with an un-unified and jaded youth population. That same experience, however, has also shown me the pitfalls of joining an organization. Change is going to happen regardless of what we do. Revolution, however, is the result of direct and purposeful action towards the destruction of state along with the deconstruction of internal struggles of inferiority. The other main issue with organizations is the infinite opportunities for corruption.
Don’t believe me? Let’s do a brief role call of organizations that have fallen to either corruption or complacency from the 19th century to now: The Black Panther Party, the NAACP, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the US organization, the communist party, SNCC, the SCLC, The Louisville Debate Project, and the list, much like the beat(ing) goes on.
Conversely, movements that successfully achieved its objective(s) include: the Underground Railroad, the free breakfast programs (which although started by the Black Panther Party, was run largely by women who were neccessarily official members, but instead were simply interested in preventing the starvation of Black children), and the Harlem Renaissance.
These denominations of social activist serve as ideological gangs, which are acutely suseptable to dogmatism. Strict norms and preocedures develop, making it taboo to stray from the mission statement. Eventually divisions occur and the original goal is lost. Even more often than that, the movement becomes more about the leader than the oppression being fought against. Look back to “King’s Civil Rights Movement” or “Farrakhan’s NOI” or “Huey’s Black Panthers”. After a while, some troubled rising star in the group stakes his claim (I say “his”, rather than “his or her” because women don’t generally participate in this intergroup foolishness) to the coveted position of decision maker and before you know it, there is an irreconcilable split.
Navigating back to the initial discussion of Ella Baker’s work, we can’t keep waiting for leaders to create change. We also can’t just join an organization and think attending meetings will solve our community issues. Paying financial dues and having programs is cool, I guess, but why do we have to rely so heavily on that model when even the naive understanding of history negates the success of such a strategy? Y’all know good and well that people who want to do the work will do the work and those who don’t want to wont. To paraphrase Antonio Gramsci’s definition of an organic intellectual, we should focus more on building coalition with oppositional groups. Formally joining an organization should not be a prerequisite, because it then opens the door for accepted complacency wherein members take credit for group actions instead of being active participants in the struggle.
I think we have to be more willing to work without recognition. Those of us old enough to remember what we were doing when Tupac died have an intellectual responsibility to LISTEN to young people and their perception of the world, rather than attempting to covertly indoctrinate them with our illusions of our own ideological fantasies. Ella Baker was a mentor to some of our greatest leaders–most of which will never be recognized in a traditional school setting.
I don’t claim to be the foremost scholar on Ella Baker’s philosophies–honestly, I need to read a lot more about what she did and how she navigated white supremacy. I am simply expressing the way her work has influenced my thinking. As much as we may try to fight it, we often forget people like her when considering what our people must do to move forward. Ella Baker should serve as a model for anyone striving to create a better world for oppressed people.
Image (c) by in2jazz
Shauntrice L. Martin is the director of the Justice Resource Center and long time youth advocate. Shauntrice has taught in Belize, Trinidad & Tobago, and the Dominican Republic. She is originally from Louisville, Kentucky and currently works with youth to sustain social justice movements in the District and beyond.
There is no such thing as a corrupt organization without corrupt people. So whether we do away with joining organization or just organize we must always be diligent against corruption in any form.
White people, whether gentile or socalled jew, have their leaders. White supremacy seems to be their collective bonding tool. Is there more, maybe, but its not that important to the scheme of things. Ms Martin correctly states that our youth are not listening, but I wonder how that speaks to the growing belief that OUR demise, destruction, genocide, is somehow the fault of those among us who are sounding the “bell’s”, trying to awaken a sleeping people bent on going deeper into their (foolish) assimilationist coma. I was fortunate to be among those who heard H.E.M., Malcom, Dr. Martin L. King, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton. I remember Mrs Rosa Parks, the rousing words of Fannie Lou Hamer, the leadership of countless men and women, and yes human weakness is going to happen. White supremacist dont seem to care about “corruption” among their leadership. The “conservative movement” seems to be completely corrupt and LOVING it. In fact, their ranks seem to be swelling in numbers as we speak (write). Our young seem to be in love with “good hair”, european looking STARS (black), saggin britches, grills, and anything that Tyler Perry produces. (nothing geared towards consciousness) Talk about becoming or being jaded??? You’re Kidding!!! Right?
Well, i mean good article and all, but as someone in a organization, i dont think the way we’re doing it is in our community is a good thing. there is waaaay to much division. i think we need organizations AND organizing!!!!!!!
I’m just glad someone decided to write about a woman in the struggle. I am tired of hearing about all the men who ‘paved the way’ for us.
Thanks for the dialogue, yall. The wild thing is, I really don’t know how to respond to any of the comments. I think my mind is blown at the reality e live in right now and I’m exhausted from trying to convince people of the truth (offline, not at voxunion) …
I really appreciate the readership.
The best thing an organizer can do is to understand that not everyone will be a useful tool in the liberation of their race. Another thing to understand is the truth is and never was sufficient to put people into motion. So don’t be dismayed by the people who won’t, you have to target the people who will and many won’ts will be along the way. Agitating and conditions play a major role and successful organizing. We live in a very bizarre and incorrect world order. One thing that brings people into organization is tangible service, whatever that may entail from free food to vocational training. In this self-centered and slavish culture we’ve adapted to, you have to give people something for them to take an interest in bettering themselves. Most importantly you have to give them back their spirit. They have to know they deserve a better state of being and have the confidence to go about achieving that goal not only for themselves but for the group.A great example Black Panther Party started with community defense where they observed the cops (with guns) to make sure no one was being normally mistreated by the pig. If a person they were looking out for got taken to jail the BPP would go to the jailhouse and bail them out. In these early days that won them a lot of loyalty and membership. I say all that simply to say you have to organize something more than the words coming out of your mouth or a conference. A lot of people are apathetic towards organizers and so-called movements. The reason for this apathy is the conditioning (It is what it is” and other inaction dogmas)and it doesn’t help that the waters are infested with insincere hustlers looking for the new predatory come-up (Got those DVD’s and so on). So for the most part many people aren’t attracted to the classical call of,”Hey let’s do something” until some polarizing condition or event shows up. Most fictitious associations of the popular so-called, “black institutions” will prey on these events (mainly for grant (hush) money from the perpetrators of the problem). On the same moral level individual hustlers will play to the lesser crime in this celebration of morbid capitalism, by simply producing paraphernalia for these events. So at the end of the day even if the problem maker pays out it goes into the hands of proven useless middle men who will build nothing of value to solve the problems we face. The most tragic aspect is that these drags on our politic will tell the masses to be happy, shut-up, pray, and go home and many will listen because it’s the easy “victory”. In my opinion independent institutions are the only thing worth building right now, as it is a tangible hallmark of progress. These hallmarks can’t be de-funded and are not subject to any other groups controls. The hustlers of the people will be exposed and left naked if sincere organizers can do their job effectively and build sustainable institutions that organize, economically provide, sustain and defend their community. The problem with a lot of this is that their are to many sellouts running around with their head still on their shoulders. This issue is compounded by the fact that we except them and don’t realize our race nationalism is being used against us. To many people have been taught to believe and not question. The Reason traitors and defenders of the status quo are accepted is because first no one is punished for betraying or even called on it (Ex.Creflo dollar and Eddie long are still hustling there predatory business). Second there’s no real political force of the day that’s gravitationally strong enough to draw people en mass. Nothing as of yet has been built strong enough to wipe away the weak political leftovers from yesteryear or simply consume them. So at this current moment in time were organizing with no substance. A conference is not an institution and at the end of the day talking doesn’t stop the police shootings and it doesn’t put food on the table. So the society is free to condition many people to think, “Why bother with the upliftment of my people when I can just do me”. These types of individuals don’t (some do and don’t care, the types that stand the smallest and yell, “Look y’all masa dun gave me a new title I iz now vice president of XYZ”)realize all this person is doing is setting up another generation to either fail or be wiped out completely. Organizing is an art and you have to want the transformation to keep going. In organizing weariness is your companion and success and perseverance is the glue to your relationship. So keep fighting Queen, because if we don’t who will… Obama?!
While I commend your attempt to think critically about these issues, history shows us organization is the guiding force to social change and revolution. Ella Baker understood the importance of organization and organization discipline while this writing is antithetical to this belief in organization.
Disdain for organization is a petty bourgeois ideology that prevents the masses from struggling in their own interest and it absolves them of having to be accountable to anyone in the “organizing” they do.
The examples of organization that have “fallen to…corruption…” is simply historical ignorance. The Black Panther Party (BPP) was militarily destroyed, in one year more than 30 Panthers were killed by the state. SNCC was an organization funded by white liberal sector of bourgeoisie and because of its organizing style and its growing militancy (especially around its stance on Vietnam) it was dismantled.
Conversely none of the actions you have listed are movements. It is dubious that you mention the Harlem Renaissance while not mentioning the U.N.I.A. Marcus Garvey created an anti-imperialist organization that is the largest organization the African people have ever seen. It employed hundreds of people in Harlem alone.
To speak specifically to the free breakfast programs, it was Assata Shakur that ran the free breakfast program in New York Chapter of the BPP. We don’t have to speak of the credentials of Assata Shakur as a revolutionary. Clearly Assata did not join the BPP out of a bourgeois notion of feeding black children but understood it was a function to further the revolution.
Organizing without a specific goal or objective is empty. Organization gives you goals and objectives and makes you accountable. If you are organizing around a specific issue like “feeding black starving children” then you are only perfecting the system of our oppression. This is why the US government co-opted the free breakfast program but it violently crushed the BPP not because they were feeding African youth but it was an organized revolutionary party that gripped the masses around the country and around the world. Organizing for free breakfast for black children is not revolutionary or even progressive. The Catholic Church has done this for centuries.
“Strict norms and procedures” ensure that the goals of the organization are carried out and individual interests do not supersede that of the organization.
It is also insulting to women to say they do not “participate in intergroup foolishness” or what true organizers would call ideological struggles. In fact, it was Elaine Brown, Chair of the BPP would led ideological struggles within the party for discipline while there were assault from CONINTELPRO to fracture the party.
Even the discussion of “organic intellectual” is not in proper context. In Barabara Ransby’s book on Ella Baker it is clear that author explains that Ella Baker can be considered an organic intellectual because “her primary base of knowledge came from grassroots communities and from learned experience, not from formal study.” The discussion in the book about “coalitions” comes from St. Louis activist George Lipsitz in his biographical study of Ivory Perry and describes an organic intellectual in practice as a person that “…establishes principles that unite disparate groups into effective coalitions.” Your paraphrasing that “building coalition with oppositional groups” makes little sense and is vague at best.
An individual “organizing” cannot overturn a social system, only individuals in an organization organizing with strict discipline to the principals of the organization can create revolution.
I have to say that as an elder who has seen organizations come and go, I completely agree with the piece. Thanks for posting on twitter. The young woman who responded directly above me seems to advocate very strongly for organizations, not realizing that organizations will always be corrupted…they breed “groupthink” and as the author said, dogma takes over. Although the Black panther Party suffered from COINTELPRO, they also suffered from arrogance on the part of the leaders. In a group, when the leader is cut down, the followers are left to their own devices, regardless of howdisciplined they may have been. I have studied Friere and Gramsci for years, and it would seem that building coalitions is a key framework…nottoo sure why you’re against it. Seems a bit insulting. It seems as though the writer is laying out an oopinion based on an understanding of history while “Uhuru Sasa” just seems angry and bitter.
Yes, this is indicative of a dogmatic freelancer…what is it that you do, exactly?
With all due respect I think the word coalition is sending up red flags because we already have enough factionalism and linking up with every special interest clique can compromise your position. In a war you need everyone to have a common purpose and soldiers who always follow orders not a group of people who sometimes follow the plan. Stepping out as a small group against a homogenous organized force shows that a group first of all knows not their enemy and knows not themselves, so they will be slaughtered. If you look at a democratic party institution such as the Rainbow Push Coalition, a revolutionary organization couldn’t work with them to bring about transformation. They could on the other hand use them to push a beneficial reform that might yield more democratic space to organize. I think you’re characterization of “Uhuru Sasa”‘s comment is disingenuous and at some points religiously dogmatic. Both Sisters (assuming on Uhuru Sasa) make valuable points that just don’t agree.
Thank you again, apologies for not responding sooner. I want to respond in depth (be warned, I’m not going to do it in this post)…is this something folks would be willing to have an in-person discussion/forum/debate about? I would love to get youth in the audience so the dialogue will be digested by more than just those of us who already think about these issues.
Side notes: my feelings are hurt, Uhuru Sasa! Ya cut me deep (half joking) and thanks Brother Freedom, although I do think Sasa’s arguments should be given more weight.
If folks aren’t interested, I am more than willing to keep it going here. Maybe Uhuru Sasa would be cool with co-writing a dialogue on this issues (maybe David can moderate)
To Shauntrice Martin, My father died when I was 5. Those Black Panther breakfast programs were a God Send. You see, I do not recall having eggs, toast, sausage, bacon, or pancakes UNTIL the BP free breakfast program. To me, they were the Gold Standard. Moreover, for you to use selective mis-information in your thesis to prove your ‘agenda’ is anti-scholarly and disingenuous. Furthermore, I can not see how it would be in Uhuru Sasa interest to debate you. Why? You are devoid of factual Black history. All she will be doing is schooling you. Then again, that maybe a good idea. Your next thesis would be more authentic.