Political Strategy: What Are We Going To Do? Part 2 of a 3 Part Series – Organizing Objectives and Strategies

Our unemployed is the sector of our population most rooted in poverty and despair and therefore needs to be viewed as the target for organizing to become the base of a movement for change. However, the reality is that we all suffer from the psychological emasculation to some degree, I believe, described above. Therefore, our organizing strategy has to include a component that will enable us to cleanse ourselves from the effect of the brainwashing experience of being Black in America.

To be more specific about how these centers might operate, let me share our attempt in Boston to develop a framework for building an initial prototype of such a center. A year ago, realizing that as an elected official running for election for a fifth two year term, I had to acknowledge that I saw government in the moment paralyzed in terms of its ability to respond in a positive creative way to the dilemmas my constituents face in Boston. Given this perspective, I developed what I called a Peace and Prosperity Pledge. This pledge has four components:

1) Do No Harm:

2) Develop Self: Physically, Psychologically, Mentally, and Spiritually;

3) Develop an Economic Plan for Self and Family; and

4) Organize Collectively to Hold Our Institutions Accountable for Their Responsibility to Support our Individual and Collective Self Development.