> This demonstration was not initiated by any one national organization,
> and there was little coordination between some of the major
> organizations involved. The initial call came from the families
> themselves, and most people had heard about the demonstration through
> local Black radio stations, especially on syndicated shows like the
> Michael Baisden and Steve Harvey shows, as well as through blogs and
> youtube (one activist-made youtube video, recommended by Baisden, has
> already been seen well over a million times) as well as on social
> networking sites like myspace. As Howard Witt has pointed out in the
> Chicago Tribune, "Jackson, Sharpton and other big-name civil rights
> figures, far from leading this movement, have had to scramble to catch
> up. So, too, has the national media, which has only recently noticed a
> story that has been agitating many black Americans for months."
I first heard about Jena at an NLG meeting in New Orleans in mid-July.
Since then, this story has exploded. The success of the largely African American demonstrations in Jena (which were far more successful, IMO, than, e.g., the bloody, largely white FTAA protests in Miami in 2003) is great news because it shows that a decentralized network can produce something really huge in a relatively short period of time.
We would do well to study the Jena organizers' example carefully: their organizing strategy sounds similar to what the organizers of the immigrants' rights rallies did last year. My understanding is that radio played a key role in the immigrants' rights rallies, and it sounds like it did w/ Jena too.
Has anyone done a study on exactly how these organizers work? If not, it seems to me someone needs to.
-WD __________________________ thevanitywebsite.blogspot.com