No Laughing Matter
Community organizing isn’t a joke—it’s one of our country’s proudest traditions.By Rob Anderson
September 17, 2008
Community organizer Ella Baker speaks at a news conference on Jan. 3, 1968. (AP Photo)
It became evident earlier this month that some Americans don’t know what, exactly, community organizers do, or they think it’s kind of a dumb job. Some community organizers have started their own website to defend their calling. (You can find more defenses of community organizing, here, here, and here.) Meanwhile, U.S. News & World Report‘s Michael Barone wrote last week that anyone who views community organizing “with reverence” is “[p]retty naive.” He continued by asking: “Why should we be obliged to take a reverent view toward community organizing”?
Barone believes the answer to his question is obvious and simple—namely, that we shouldn’t respect community organizers just because they are community organizers. To believe this, Barone has to ignore many things, like what community organizing is, the conditions under which community organizers work, and the historical importance of community organizing in the United States. (In other words, he has to forget about things like facts and history.)
Community organizing is a catchall term for a position that has changed over time and has many different iterations—sort of like how the word "doctor" meant something different to Americans in 1920 than it does it us now, and like how today the word is used to describe everything from a podiatrist to an oncologist. In general, a community organizer is someone who works within a specific region to help individuals make their lives better. The work can be related to something immediate and practical, like rent-controlled housing, or something more intangible, like connecting communities of faith across the globe. Almost by definition, community organizing is hard work—it offers low pay, long hours, and little recognition.
Community organizing is part of a proud tradition in American history (something of which Barone considers himself an expert). Throughout history, community organizers have stepped up to fill gaps in our social fabric—to feed and provide shelter to the homeless, for example, or to help battered women improve their lives.
Over the past 200 years, community organizers have even created movements that have shaken the bedrock of our society: They have fought for women’s equality, battled poverty, resisted and aided war efforts, and lifted up marginalized groups to a position of relative power. Most significantly, community organizing was the backbone of the civil rights movement. In fact, without community organizers, the civil rights movement would never have existed. And, although Barone may disagree, that is something to be revered.
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The equality fight for black Americans has always been a grassroots effort. From the turn of 20th century, the most influential leaders of the movement weren’t the ones in the limelight, but those who worked behind the scenes to organize and unite millions of people. While none of them became as famous as Martin Luther King, Jr., or A. Philip Randolph, community organizers like Ella Baker, Septima Poinsette Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bayard Rustin, and hundreds more made up the movement’s mortar. They worked with groups like the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Conference Education Fund, and more. Some were around long before Martin Luther King, Jr. became popular, and others continued their work long after his tragic assassination.
While millions of people marched, picketed, organized, taught, wrote, or did whatever else they could to support the aims of the movement, it was community organizers who kept these people unified and who ensured that the message and gains of the movement were touching the lives of those hardest to reach—the poor, the uneducated, the jobless, and the homeless. For this accomplishment alone community organizers should hold an important place in the American consciousness. Righting the wrongs of racism in America was, and continues to be, no easy task. Is this really a group of people we should feel comfortable mocking?
To be sure, not all community organizers do great work. There have been some corrupt ones. Some are lazy. And a few probably don’t do very helpful work. But the same could be said of a profession like firefighting. Not all firefighters are top-notch. There are probably some underqualified ones. But does that make it okay for us to attack the profession as a whole? No. Would we laugh if a politician mocked their contributions to society? Of course not. Firefighters are held up as some of our most heroic public servants. Community organizers should be, too.
The sum total of community organizers spans ideologies and faiths. Those who make up the profession are as diverse, and work on as diverse of tasks, as any other profession. Some are black, some are white. Some are Republicans, some are Democrats, and some are members of a third party. Some work in cities, some work in rural communities. But even with these differences, there are elements that bind them: a belief that we shoulder the responsibility to make the lives of others better, and a proud, important history grounded in American social justice movements. That’s no laughing matter.
Rob Anderson is the Editor of Campus Progress.
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Comments
If there was and emoticon for applause, I would type it. Great article.
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