"Any revolutionary movement cannot succeed if the power of
that movement is not in the hands of the poor." James
Forman
Jim Forman died last week at age 76, the same age Martin Luther King
Jr. would have been this week if he had not been assassinated. These
two allies and rivals in the most dramatic and effective social movement
of this country's last century still have much to teach us. And, although
Forman is much less well known, he in particular may have set an example
that we need right now.
Every year during this week, the corporate media treats us to a version
of King's life focused on his eloquence, his religiosity, and his work
for racial equality. Every year a few progressive voices point out
that King opposed imperialistic violence as well as police brutality,
and that he struggled to end poverty and injustice that remain with
us today. Rarely does anyone mention that King, while accomplishing
amazing things that perhaps no one else could have done, was often
a moderate, a diplomat, a public face, and a power broker in a movement
being pushed in more aggressive directions by people like Jim Forman.
We still have moderates today. Most of them are not as brilliant,
as inspiring, or as dedicated as Martin Luther King Jr. And most of
them are MORE moderate. But we've got thousands of them. What we
do not have is the band of brothers and sisters that was the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). We do not have a group of
people effectively setting the nation's agenda by laying their lives
on the line for complete justice now and nothing less. And we are
the weaker for it. The right wing has its extremists who make its
moderate positions middle-of-the-road. We only have moderates, who
must therefore be dismissed as extreme.
In the past week, we have seen many progressive organizations speak
out for election reform and voting rights, denouncing the suppression
of black votes that was seen in Ohio and other states last November
2nd. This includes hip new online groups like MoveOn and 527s like
ACT. But between November 3rd and January 6th, these organizations
made no significant contributions to preventing the theft of an election. From
the day that Senator John Kerry conceded to the day Congress certified
the vote, members of what Jim Forman used to call the liberal-labor
syndrome refused to stick their necks out. Even now, they will
not suggest that there is any doubt Bush won. This describes
the behavior of every international union and of the AFL-CIO, as well
as the 527s, MoveOn (which sent a message to the Ohio region prior
to a Jan. 3 rally, but nationally focused on Social Security that week),
People for the American Way (which released a report on election problems
along with a coalition of groups but did not connect it to any effort
to stop the certification of the election or any suggestion that Bush
did not win), and of course the majority of Democratic senators
and representatives. Various small groups did act, and Rev. Jesse
Jackson became a leading spokesman for those objecting to a stolen
election. The coalition cobbled together was surprisingly successful
in moving Congress Members and Senators to at least give lip service
to the matter. The seeds of something may have been sown. But a mass
movement was not organized. Civil disobedience was not used. (One
arrest in the U.S. Senate was not reported on and accomplished nothing.)
Why are there no sit-ins today? Why is nobody going to jail for justice? Why
is our culture not in upheaval over the injustices of our laws and
practices? Surely it is not because we live in a time lacking in injustice. The
illegal aggression against Iraq and the use of napalm and depleted
uranium there cries out for civil unrest while we snooze or study "issue
framing" or work on our graduate degrees. The attacks on our
civil rights by the Justice Department, the drastic shifting of wealth
and power to a tiny corporate elite, the lowering of wages and increasing
of work hours, and the virtual elimination of any real right to organize
a union these things scream at us to sacrifice, to lay our lives
down as those before us did to make a better world. But we can't be
bothered, we wouldn't want people to look at us funny. After all,
the television tells us things are looking up. And yet the confinement
of a whole generation behind bars and under the gaze of a prison industry,
the heedless destruction of our environment, and ever-new forms of
discrimination these things leave a bitter taste in our mouths, which
we cover with soda or beer. Maybe we sign a petition on a website
just to make sure we're doing our part. Maybe we push a button on
a screen to vote for a candidate and count on the computer to count
our vote.
Jim Forman did not wait for the Democratic Party to set an agenda. He
gave us a model of aggressive and militant action based on principles
of equality, social justice, and non-violence. Toward the late sixties
he grew more accepting of the idea of violent struggle, and in doing
so I believe he was horribly wrong. But what he showed us through
the early and mid sixties was aggressive non-violent organizing. He
organized, meaning he reached out to people, figured out what they
would fight for, inspired them to fight for it, coordinated their work,
found the resources to pay them for it, communicated their work to
the world, and bailed them out of jail. One of the reasons Forman
is not better known is that he actively sought to avoid stardom, and
one of the reasons he did so was that he wanted to develop many leaders
in a grassroots movement. Many of those he mentored are still leaders
today. Several, including Julian Bond whom Forman made his communications
person at SNCC, have spoken fondly of Forman in the past week.
Bond has said that, according to the publisher, he is the only professor
who teaches a course using Forman's "The Making of Black Revolutionaries," a
553-page book that gives a first person account including Forman's
childhood but focusing on his years at SNCC. The book ends in 1969
and was published in 1972. There is probably no better book to read
if you have an interest in organizing a social movement. Forman wrote
for the sake of educating those who came next. He wrote what worked
and what didn't, where he thinks he went wrong, and where he thinks
his friends and colleagues went wrong or betrayed him. All the infighting
and rivalries and comically bad blunders that we see in organizations
today were right there in SNCC, and there is much to learn from an
account of them. SNCC did not accomplish what it did because it was
free of problems, but because it was a movement. What we have today
are merely organizations or ethical careers and hobbies, and that goes
for the "labor movement" too it's not a movement. If it
wants to become one between now and the AFL-CIO's 50th Anniversary
Convention this July in Chicago, it would do well to study the making
of black revolutionaries.
The labor movement has improved in some ways since the days in which
Walter Reuther was a force against which the Civil Rights movement
had to push, the days when labor leaders viewed Jim Forman as a communist,
something far worse than a racist. On Labor Day weekend 1967, Forman
addressed the National Conference for a New Politics convention in
Chicago. In the middle of this speech, he said:
"There are more than 15,000 American white Nationals in South
Africa and millions of U.S. dollars invested in plants there. Walter
Reuther is supposed to have said that the goose gets fatter no matter
how much they cut off. The weakness in his analysis is that he fails
to realize that General Motors and most other monopoly concerns in
the United States are getting fat on the lives of black people in Africa
and all over the world. For him and other so-called union leaders
to attack the problem of more wages for some but not all American workers,
and to participate in the slaughter and murder of our people in South
Africa, is in fact for them to make themselves enemies of the people
."
Forman's criticism of Reuther (as well as the decline of the labor
movement!) had begun at least as early as the 1956 Democratic National
Convention in Chicago, and he credited his learning experience there
with the aggressive position he took at the 1964 convention. In 1956
the newly formed Leadership Conference on Civil Rights wanted to get
a strong civil rights plank into the platform and thought they could
do so if it were brought to a vote on the floor. Reuther said that
labor delegates would make enough noise to demand a roll-call vote
on the resolution. But they did not. There was nothing but silence,
and the platform was approved with a weak position on civil rights,
but without a fight over a tough civil rights stance.
"I thought," wrote Forman, "of the trick that had been
played on the blacks across the country who could not see what I saw
or hear what I heard. What a fake the entire platform hearings must
be, I thought. They probably had the resolution already written in
the National Committee meeting. They had the hearings only as a pretense
of democratic procedure, to let people talk. I learned and I remembered."
In 1964, when African-Americans from Mississippi sent their own delegation
to the DNC in Atlantic City, various leaders spoke to them and urged
them to back down and agree to recognize the party's official delegates,
who had been elected in a process that excluded blacks. Those urging
this compromise, which would have given the blacks two seats, included
Jack Pratt of the National Council of Churches; Bayard Rustin, the
great organizer of the March on Washington; Joseph Rauh, general council
for the UAW, whom Reuther had threatened to fire if there was a floor
fight; and King. But Bob Moses and Forman, both of SNCC, urged the
delegates to stand firm. And they did so.
"Five years of struggle," Forman later wrote, "had
radically changed the thought processes of many people, changed them
from idealistic reformers to fulltime revolutionaries. And the change
had come through direct experience." And in the next four years,
blacks in Mississippi substantially gained the right to vote. At the
convention of the NAACP in 1966, by which time Forman and others had
started shouting "Black Power!", Vice President Hubert Humphrey
announced his support for racial integration, the first time a president
or vice president had straightforwardly done so.
But did we learn anything? The DNC platform committee meeting in
2004, chaired by a black woman, strung anti-war activists along for
days before tossing them a half an incoherent sentence in the platform. And
they accepted it. And anti-war delegates at the convention in Boston
kept their mouths shut. Their candidate lost, and the war continues. Did
we learn anything? Should we not, sometimes, borrow an acronym from
the right and ask WWJD, but use the J for Jim?
What Forman learned is encapsulated in the quote at the top of this
article. Assistance from the wealthy and powerful is all well and
good, but it cannot be counted on. It will not spread into a movement. It
will not hold fast when the going gets rough. A poor people's movement
must be controlled by poor people. This lesson was taught by
Gandhi and others, and it is a lesson that community organizations
like ACORN attempt to build on. But we are back in the 1950s now in
terms of the work that it takes to build a movement. Our 1960s will
not come until the 2010s, and won't come even then if we don't demand
it now and organize for it now and dedicate our lives to it now.
Demand what? The right to vote, the right to health care, the right
to publicly funded elections, the right to a living wage, the right
to organize a union, the right to democratic media, and the right to
trade and environmental policies created of, by, and for the people.
We're up against a well-funded and trained opposition. And we're
up against an even less democratic media than existed in the 1960s. Forman
understood the power of the press. He had been a reporter for the
Chicago Defender. He became the press agent for SNCC. When news was
not covered locally, he would arrange for a friendly subscriber to
the AP or UPI wire service to request a story. And he understood the
need to produce your own media. He brought on Julian Bond to publish
a newsletter, and he insisted on having the news reported from everywhere
SNCC worked. Forman endlessly demanded that his staff document their
work. In his own words:
"I felt very strongly about the importance of field staff sending
in frequent and detailed reports on their activities so strongly
that at one point, we in the Atlanta office took the position of 'no
field report, no subsistence check.' The point was not to burden
the already overworked field secretaries with another task but
to strengthen
our network of communications."
Forman smuggled out of the South film of a police dog attacking, and
he surprised people when, in the middle of delivering an outraged response
to a sudden injustice, he could simultaneously make sure that press
photographers were able to get a good picture, not of him, but of the
scene. He knew the value of mass communications. His speeches included
recommendations to copy the transcript and publish it in local newsletters. He
was an incessant organizer. And in 1969, among the expenses for which
he and others demanded money in "The Black Manifesto" were: "four
major publishing and printing enterprises for black people," and "four
television networks to provide an alternative to racist and capitalistic
propaganda."
But if Forman understood the media so well, why isn't he better known
today? Why did coverage of his death appear as nothing beside the
sanctification of Ronald Reagan on all channels all the time? One
reason may be that we have been losing the battle for better media
all these years. Another important reason is simply that he was not
killed. He might be as well known as Malcolm X today, if not King,
had he been assassinated. In addition, as noted above, he tried not
to become the focus.
But there are a number of other reasons, I think, that Forman is not
better known. One reason is that he did not often compromise with
those in power, nor did he compromise his rhetoric. He spoke against
capitalism and for revolution. He did not always speak strictly for
nonviolence. He shouted for Black Power, not only for integration. And
he was impolite. At a United Nations Conference in Africa in the summer
of 1967, as Newark and Detroit exploded, he read remarks prepared by
himself and others in SNCC, which included:
"Our brothers and sisters are dying in the
streets of the United States as we utter these words. They are engaged
in rebellions and revolts against white people who have denied them
their liberty and exploited our labor for centuries. Yet the United
States representatives sit at this conference and talk about freedom
blowing in the wind. There is indeed something blowing in the wind,
Mr. Chairman. It is blowing all over the world and it is a determination
by the oppressed black, brown, and colored people who form a world
majority that the day of the white man exploiting all of us is over."
Forman's impoliteness extended to outspoken opposition to Israel's
policies toward Palestinians. In 1969 he carried impoliteness so
far as to disrupt a service at Riverside Church in New York to demand
that white churches pay $500 million in reparations to African-Americans. If
the movement for reparations ever succeeds, Forman may be honored
as one of its pioneers. Until then, he's known where he's known
at all as someone who pushed for a change that has not yet come
(and must therefore be ridiculed or attacked). We forget how many
things he pushed for that are now taken for granted.
In addition, Forman did not appeal to Americans' religiosity. "This
God was supposed to be just," he wrote of his early thinking
about religion, "yet we black people had to pray and pray and
hope that justice would come to us one day. This seemed too slow
to me. The myth of whites getting their just deserts in hell while
we finally got rewarded in heaven was responsible for much of the
apathy of black people, I thought."
And later: "When a people who are poor, suffering with disease
and sickness, accept the fact that God has ordained for them to be
this way then they will never do anything about their human condition. In
other words, the belief in a supreme being or God weakens the will
of a people to change conditions themselves."
That's not the kind of talk that will endear you to religious Americans. But
I believe it is correct and of immense importance. And I believe
more people know it than have the strength of character to say it
out loud.
Forman did not have all the answers, and he faults himself plenty
even in his own reporting on events of the 60s. But he never lacked
the nerve to speak the ugly truth. And because he didn't, others
were able to face it and to believe they could change it. That he
developed leaders rather than acting as a public face for the movement
should allow us to recognize him as a great leader indeed. The things
he fought for and the words he spoke are part of our culture now. When
we say "One Man, One Vote" or "One Person, One Vote," we
are quoting Jim Forman. When we talk of an Ohio Freedom Winter or
an Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, we are echoing the work Forman
did putting organizers across the South and black and white activists,
himself included, on buses in the face of beatings.
But, like ancient customs that pretend to reenact once deadly rituals,
our activism has become in many ways a charade. We imitate the great
ones, even as we forget them. We ride busses around the country
and give our bus rides grand titles, when the problems we face have
nothing whatsoever to do with the freedom to ride buses.
We must return to the place of "The Making of Black Revolutionaries" and
recognize that SNCC was a small group of activists, just like we
are, but that their dedication built a massive movement. Jim Forman
died last week a man who had made this world a better place. May
his example live on.
David Swanson served for three years as communications coordinator
for the community organization ACORN and
now serves as media coordinator for the International
Labor Communications Association.
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