Editorial Reflections

Democracy requires citizens to work together to make their voices heard

 

In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. said:

"Mass nonviolent demonstrations will not be enough. To produce change, people must be organized to work together in units of power. These units may be political, as in the case of voters' leagues and political parties. They may be economic, as in the case of groups of tenants who join forces to form a union, or groups of the unemployed or underemployed who organize to get jobs and better wages. More and more, the civil rights movement will have to engage in the task of organizing people into permanent groups to protect their own interests and produce change on their behalf."

This is the story of thousands of trade and labor organizers, civil rights groups, civic associations, churches, unions, universities and other pro-democracy forces in South Africa that formed the movement which overthrew apartheid, dismantled the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines and threw out Pinochet in Chile.

We've swallowed a myth that the only change worth pursuing is national, that the only fights worth paying attention to play out in the vicinity of Congress and the White House.

We've forgotten that when national change has been won in the past, it has only come when built on a rolling tide of robust local victories, fought by local groups, unions, churches, neighborhood alliances and civic associations.

We forget the passage of the 19th Amendment wasn't the primary objective for many of the women's groups involved in the suffragette movement who were far more focused on the conditions in their local community, but when the time came for them to unite, they turned out in mass.

Starting in the 1970s, citizens abdicated much of their power in favor of something known as "liberal philanthropy," which advanced a theory of change that prioritized lawyers and specialists advocating on behalf of others.

It's time to realize that this approach has not led to the kind of widespread, lasting change long hoped for.

People did not achieve access to fair pay, the right to vote, pensions and better healthcare because wealthy philanthropists donated money to a certain cause or, in King's words, because the government became so "infused with such blessings of goodwill that it implored us for our programs."

None of the most important gains for equality in the last century would have been possible without workers building strong labor unions, civil society groups and other forms of well-organized people.

The ongoing success of organizations like Reclaim Idaho is a testament to the fact that where this approach is still employed large-scale victories are still possible.

Democracy, it turns out, requires skilled and active citizens working together at the local level. If we want to level the increasing power of organized money, we need the power of organized people. Because when communities organize strategically, people really can—and often do—win.

Cameron Conner - columnist