Ella Baker (1903-1986) has often been referred to as the godmother of the Civil Rights
movement. Along with Martin Luther King Jr., she was a founder of the Southern Christian
Leadership Council in 1957, and three years later, she was instrumental in forming the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. She was committed to organizing, which for her meant remaining in the background: “You didn’t see me on television; you didn’t see news stories about me. The kind of role I tried to play is to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hope organizing might come. My theory is strong people don’t need strong leaders.” She is famously remembered for thwarting Dr. King as he attempted to take over a meeting: “Martin, what we need are movement-centered leaders, and not leader-centered movements.”
Picking up pieces and putting pieces together. Bringing people together. Building coalitions. Identifying and then supporting people’s strengths. These are some of the fundamental skills in organizing, and Ella Baker was one of the best.
I recently read about the distinction between organizing and activism. Ella Baker was one of America’s great and somewhat unsung organizers. Organizing involves gathering people from both inside and outside a particular group. It features long-term objectives aimed at extracting gains. It can take a long time. It is hard work. Activists tend to be bonded by common political or cultural interests. The organizing that activists do tends to be limited to those on the inside. The goals of activism tend to be more short-term. It is also hard work.
The shadow side of organizing is a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time getting the argument right and sequencing the procedures so carefully that action can get lost. The shadow side of activism can be the release of emotion against perceived injustice or cruelty, and then ignoring or abandoning the task of getting concessions or changes from people in power. And there is a looming temptation to demonize the “Other” side. An activist who had a powerful impact on me was The Rev. William Sloan Coffin (1924-2006). Active in the Peace Movement and Nuclear Disarmament, Coffin had a rather dim view of activists. When he left his twenty-year chaplaincy tenure at Yale in 1977 to become Pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, he came to the Divinity School to say goodbye. He was an alum. I was a second-year student. Eloquent and passionate, he excoriated his fellow activists: “60-70% of them don’t want to win,” he thundered. “They are taking their unresolved internal issues and barking them out on the streets. They are not committed to the change that needs to happen. They just want to vent their spleen.” Coffin was an activist who did a lot of organizing.
As ICE continues to unleash its assault on Minneapolis, there is a lot of organizing going on. I read that some 30,000 people have been trained in how to take videos, where to stand, what form of protest is legally permitted (even though frequently not honored), where not to stand, what form of resistance is allowed, and what forms of resistance should be avoided. At the same time, food networks are being organized so that people who are not at risk of deportation can deliver meals to people who are. Information chains are being set up, relationships are being established. Vigils are being held. Prayers are being offered. Hope is rising out of all the chaos and cruelty.
What is being organized in Minneapolis is being picked up in other states and communities in the country, which anticipate they will be next in the ICE onslaught. It is making a difference.
There are days when I want to forsake my life-long engagement in organizing and join the ranks of the 60-70% of activists and just vent my spleen. Those are the days when I am so horrified by what is happening, so fearful of what might be coming next, and so outraged at the lies, the raw aggression and illegality which keeps coming at us like an endless tidal wave that I want to respond in kind. Which, of course, is exactly what the President, his minions, and DHS want me — and us to do, because that will serve as some jingoistic justification to double down.
The activist impulse needs to be honored. And that impulse needs to be disciplined.
Organizing may not in the end save us from this wave of authoritarianism, although I can’t think of anything else that can. And I am convinced that activism on its own will not. As I continue to organize — in small and more substantial ways, my slivers of hope become larger swatches, my confidence that change can happen grows in incremental steps, and my commitment — which is being shared by so many in so many different ways, deepens.
Follow Ella Baker’s advice and find some other strong people. Organize toward a goal — of
hope, of freedom, of life.
Mark Beckwith is a retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, N.J. He lives in Jaffrey. He can be followed on markbeckwith.net.