Fw: popular left (National Organizers Alliance)

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Sun Jul 1 21:18:57 PDT 2001


----- Original Message ----- From: "Duane Campbell" <campd227 at postoffice.pacbell.net> To: <socunity at topica.com> Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 8:56 PM Subject: popular left


> A example from dsanet of popular left organizations which we on the
> ideological left should be in dialogue with.
> duane
> Friends,
>
> Over the last four days I've attended a number of programs and workshops
> at the 5th Gathering of the National Organizers Alliance (NOA), and I
> thought you might be interested in some notes on the events. Although
> I've subscribed to NOA's publication The Ark for several years, I've
> never attended a Gathering. This year they came to me, holding the
> event at Sonoma State University where I teach sociology, so I took
> advantage of their meeting on the campus to attend a number of
> sessions. I'm not an NOA insider (back in the late 1960s I was involved
> in community organizing in the central Appalachian coalfields), so what
> follows are the comments of a casual participant-observer. Also, as I
> live nearby I did not reside or dine at the residence halls with the
> other NOA participants, thus missing some of the informal conversations,
> as well as the late-night hot-tubbing (this is a northern California
> campus, after all), which gave rise to a certain buzz, but I won't get
> into that.
>
> NOA is an impressive group; over 500 organizers present. Of the group
> here, I'd say close to half are people of color, with an impressive
> representation of African American, Latino/a, Asian-American, and Native
> American organizers. At least half are women, and there is a strong
> GLBT presence. At least a third appeared to be under age 30. The NOA
> board, the panels, and the workshops are similarly diverse. Most are
> from urban areas, but some from the rural South and Appalachia. Most
> work at what could loosely be called community organization, but some
> labor organizers were also present, particularly from SEIU and HERE.
> NOA walks its talk!
>
> NOA puts significant emphasis on integrating culture with organizing.
> Wednesday night's opening event featured African American poet and
> cultural analyst E. Ethelbert Miller from Washington DC and a hip hop
> group from Oakland, Company of Prophets. Members of the Art and
> Revolution collective and others made banners, brought giant puppets,
> and staged a morning opening event today to kick off a discussion of
> globalization.
>
> Thursday morning's plenary featured veteran organizers and master
> mentors on a "Firestarters" panel: Dolores Huerta, TIm Sampson, Anne
> Braden, and Mandy Carter. Their conversation was joined by others
> including Heather Booth, Gary Delgado, and Jerome Scott (just to mention
> some names you might recognize). The thoughtful and inspiring session
> ended with Dolores Huerta leading rousing cheers of "Si Se Puede!"
>
> Dozens of workshops followed; I'll only mention a couple I attended.
> One featured Heather Booth, now director of the NAACP National Voter
> Fund, on "Electoral Politics and Movement Building." introducing some of
> the tough-minded strategies as well as nuts and bolts techniques of
> electoral work. I also sat in on a workshop on "Recruiting, Training,
> Mentoring and Sustaining Organizers." Although NOA doesn't try to
> attract significant international participation, I attended a workshop
> in which Dave Beckwith of the Center for Community Change in DC
> introducted an Australian organizer he met during Dave's sabbatical
> travels in Canada and Down Under, Mik Petter, who spoke about his highly
> successful organizing of a watershed protection network in Queensland,
> around Brisbane. And today I attended a workshop on Seattle and After,
> featuring Juliette Beck of Global Exchange and Antonia Juhasz of the
> International Forum on Globalization, among others.
>
> NOA also likes action: yesterday they loaded four buses for a noon rally
> in Santa Rosa to support SEIU's efforts to organize 2300 home health
> workers in Sonoma County.
>
> NOA is not a political organization per se; there are no plenaries
> passing resolutions on every political issue under the sun (although
> there was a business meeting). NOA is primarily concerned with
> networking and nurturing organizers (they have set up a very important
> portable pension plan that suits the situation of small organizations).
> But most of the members are clearly on the Left, with some younger
> members tending toward anarchist thought (several workshop speakers
> mentioned coming from Left, sometimes CP, families).
>
> One shortcoming: I didn't see anyone from the national community
> organizing networks this year (although I gather there has been some
> modest involvement in the past): no people from ACORN, IAF, PICO, DART,
> or Gameliel Foundation networks.
>
> Overall, I'm very impressed with NOA, and I'd encourage anyone involved
> in "community organizing" to get involved.
>
> David Walls
> Sebastopol, CA
>
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> The preceding is a personal opinion. Try not to post more than daily.
>
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