REVIEW OF THE GEORGIA PROGRESSIVE SUMMIT
Posted On Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at at 6:16 PM by Dan
My first impression on attending the Georgia Progressive Summit (GPS) wasn’t great. There were no signs anywhere, and I couldn’t find it. “This is exactly what’s wrong with our side,” I thought. “I want to get in, but no one will tell me how.” Fortunately for me and the organizers of the GPS, I’ve decided that in 2007 I want to be nicer, less cynical, and not such a putz about everything.
According to the organizers around 200 people attended the event. That seemed about right to me, but since it was held at a college (Clark Atlanta University) the only time to get a real sense of everybody was between the workshops and during the plenary. I left at 4pm so I don’t know what the closing looked like, but it felt like moving between 100 and 200 people when the workshops let out.
The summit came out of the Georgians for Democracy group which came out of the Howard Dean campaign. They put together a summit in 2006 that was basically for the liberal democrats. This year they expanded a bit. I expected the gathering to be overwhelmingly white, middle age, middle class, and angry, but in a polite, white, middle age, middle class kind of way. White people definitely represented at this year’s summit, but it wasn’t an all white thing. I say about 60/40. It was an older crowd though. I didn’t see a large youth contingent, especially youth of color. It seemed that the Black and Latino organizations involved were the civil rights organizations. The Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda was one of the main sponsors.
The summit was held for one night and one day and scheduled so it would be the kick-off to the King week celebrations. As you can probably imagine, MLK is a big deal in Atlanta. The organizers timed it right though. The summit was held Friday evening, January 5 and all day Saturday, January 6. Now when I say all day I mean ALL day. Opening plenary was 8:30am and the closing call to action was suppose to end at 7pm.
Remember when the US Army had those commercials that showed soldiers doing soldiery things way early in the morning? It ended with a dramatic voice saying, “The US Army. We do more by 9am than most people do all day.” I always thought we should have a commercial that said, “The US Left. We don’t do a damn thing until noon.” But despite my dim view of a.m. events the opening plenary was great and attendance was pretty good. The plenary was hosted by Jerome Scott of Project South and Alice Lovelace of the US Social Forum. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked at Project South for almost 5 years. Alice gave a framework to the plenary, and really the whole summit, by talking about the word progressive in historical terms. It would be real easy to just launch into a theoretical debate on what does progressive really mean. Alice sidestepped that, at least for me, by suggesting it is an all encompassing term denoting those “from Democrats to radical.” This would include me, Bill Clinton, and Angela Davis. OK there are problems with the definitions, but we’re just trying to get through a day-long meeting here people. For you folks in the Bay area or New York go ahead and make finer distinctions, but we’re in Georgia. We can’t afford to be too sectarian.
The rest of the plenary was a large-scale version of the Aha moment exercise. A select group of people was asked to tell the folks about when they first found the movement (whatever it was). We then got into small groups and shared. Then a the mike was open for a few folks from the audience. This part took some facilitation because white guys sure to love to talk. Those hands were jumping something fierce, but it ended somewhat balanced. All in all I thought it was great to open a summit with the people talking with each other instead of having one person standing and giving a lecture.
After the plenary we broke into workshops. I didn’t find the list all that exciting. It seemed most of the workshops were either for people just getting involved and looking for basic help or they were organizations pitching their campaign. I wasn’t interested in the campaigns so I attended some basic workshops. Two of those I attended (Using the media and Community Organizing 101) were facilitated by people from the Georgia Peace & Justice Coalition. After my experience 15 years ago with the Florida Peace & Justice Coalition, I vowed to not get involved with any organization that had “peace & justice” in its name. This was just a workshop though, so I went. The media workshop was a basic one, but I did learn more than a thing or two. The Georgia coalition does have a handle on media and they happily shared everything they learned. The Community Organizing 101 workshop was a 1.5 hour version of the Midwest Academy one week class. I view the Saul Alinsky model of organizing and fundamentally flawed, but this was a 101 workshop and there wasn’t room to really talk about it. I tried, but it just didn’t fit so I shut up.
I wished there was more variety to the workshops. It would have been nice to have a space where experienced organizers could talk about their work, philosophy, politics, or whatever. Since all the workshops were picked based on submissions by people, it may be the organizers didn’t get a proposal for a workshop like that. It could also be that they did get one but passed on it. I’m not sure, but I would bet the former. There wasn’t a workshop on fundraising of any kind. Given the basic need for it, I have to think they didn’t pick one because no one submitted. If that’s the case for something as fundamental as money, then a workshop on the philosophy of organizing wasn’t likely. I did try to submit a workshop on fundraising, but I missed the deadline. I’ll try next year.
Yes, there will be a summit next year. At least people say there will be. I hope so. All in all it was a great event, and I commend those who put it together.
According to the organizers around 200 people attended the event. That seemed about right to me, but since it was held at a college (Clark Atlanta University) the only time to get a real sense of everybody was between the workshops and during the plenary. I left at 4pm so I don’t know what the closing looked like, but it felt like moving between 100 and 200 people when the workshops let out.
The summit came out of the Georgians for Democracy group which came out of the Howard Dean campaign. They put together a summit in 2006 that was basically for the liberal democrats. This year they expanded a bit. I expected the gathering to be overwhelmingly white, middle age, middle class, and angry, but in a polite, white, middle age, middle class kind of way. White people definitely represented at this year’s summit, but it wasn’t an all white thing. I say about 60/40. It was an older crowd though. I didn’t see a large youth contingent, especially youth of color. It seemed that the Black and Latino organizations involved were the civil rights organizations. The Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda was one of the main sponsors.
The summit was held for one night and one day and scheduled so it would be the kick-off to the King week celebrations. As you can probably imagine, MLK is a big deal in Atlanta. The organizers timed it right though. The summit was held Friday evening, January 5 and all day Saturday, January 6. Now when I say all day I mean ALL day. Opening plenary was 8:30am and the closing call to action was suppose to end at 7pm.
Remember when the US Army had those commercials that showed soldiers doing soldiery things way early in the morning? It ended with a dramatic voice saying, “The US Army. We do more by 9am than most people do all day.” I always thought we should have a commercial that said, “The US Left. We don’t do a damn thing until noon.” But despite my dim view of a.m. events the opening plenary was great and attendance was pretty good. The plenary was hosted by Jerome Scott of Project South and Alice Lovelace of the US Social Forum. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked at Project South for almost 5 years. Alice gave a framework to the plenary, and really the whole summit, by talking about the word progressive in historical terms. It would be real easy to just launch into a theoretical debate on what does progressive really mean. Alice sidestepped that, at least for me, by suggesting it is an all encompassing term denoting those “from Democrats to radical.” This would include me, Bill Clinton, and Angela Davis. OK there are problems with the definitions, but we’re just trying to get through a day-long meeting here people. For you folks in the Bay area or New York go ahead and make finer distinctions, but we’re in Georgia. We can’t afford to be too sectarian.
The rest of the plenary was a large-scale version of the Aha moment exercise. A select group of people was asked to tell the folks about when they first found the movement (whatever it was). We then got into small groups and shared. Then a the mike was open for a few folks from the audience. This part took some facilitation because white guys sure to love to talk. Those hands were jumping something fierce, but it ended somewhat balanced. All in all I thought it was great to open a summit with the people talking with each other instead of having one person standing and giving a lecture.
After the plenary we broke into workshops. I didn’t find the list all that exciting. It seemed most of the workshops were either for people just getting involved and looking for basic help or they were organizations pitching their campaign. I wasn’t interested in the campaigns so I attended some basic workshops. Two of those I attended (Using the media and Community Organizing 101) were facilitated by people from the Georgia Peace & Justice Coalition. After my experience 15 years ago with the Florida Peace & Justice Coalition, I vowed to not get involved with any organization that had “peace & justice” in its name. This was just a workshop though, so I went. The media workshop was a basic one, but I did learn more than a thing or two. The Georgia coalition does have a handle on media and they happily shared everything they learned. The Community Organizing 101 workshop was a 1.5 hour version of the Midwest Academy one week class. I view the Saul Alinsky model of organizing and fundamentally flawed, but this was a 101 workshop and there wasn’t room to really talk about it. I tried, but it just didn’t fit so I shut up.
I wished there was more variety to the workshops. It would have been nice to have a space where experienced organizers could talk about their work, philosophy, politics, or whatever. Since all the workshops were picked based on submissions by people, it may be the organizers didn’t get a proposal for a workshop like that. It could also be that they did get one but passed on it. I’m not sure, but I would bet the former. There wasn’t a workshop on fundraising of any kind. Given the basic need for it, I have to think they didn’t pick one because no one submitted. If that’s the case for something as fundamental as money, then a workshop on the philosophy of organizing wasn’t likely. I did try to submit a workshop on fundraising, but I missed the deadline. I’ll try next year.
Yes, there will be a summit next year. At least people say there will be. I hope so. All in all it was a great event, and I commend those who put it together.
