Organize the South

This year marks the 20th year I've been involved in activism/organizing. Other than conclusive proof that I'm growing old, I don't know what else that means. I do have a volume of experience and perhaps even some level of expertise. I certainly have a wealth of contacts. But do I know more? Am I better for choosing this life? The better question is: was it worth it?

Technically I had been involved in activism before 1989. I had joined Amnesty International and was working to stop the death penalty in Florida. As a young person new to the world of human rights, I didn't know at the time just how stupid I was being. Trying to stop the death penalty in Florida at that time was like trying to stop the death penalty in Texas at any time. In a one-year period four men were executed by the state of Florida, and one (Willie Darden) wasn't even in the county at the time of the murder he was convicted of. One of the four was Ted Bundy, and he was guilty as guilty could be. He was also nuttier than Chinese chicken salad and purposely committed murder in Florida so that he would be executed. This is odd company for any 19 year old.

On June 4, 1989 the world changed for me. On that day my friends and I gathered around the only TV with cable we could find and watched CNN. We watched as tanks rolled live through Tiananmen Square. Watching soldiers attack unarmed students is traumatic in any context, for us it was also shattering. We had been spending every day for the last few months holding demonstrations and circulating petitions. I don't think we believed our efforts would stop the coming repression, but I do remember telling people that if the whole world was watching there was no way the Chinese government could just open fire on the demonstrators. Yet, on June 4, 1989, the whole world watched as the Chinese government opened fire on demonstrators. To this day we don't have an accurate count of all those killed that day.

For me, June 4, 1989 was a critical moment. It was a day where reality was laid bare, where the truth of everyday life was able to burst through the illusions. I was working a shitty minimum wage job. A college education, unless I won the lottery, was not in my immediate future. Any government, whether it called itself capitalist or communist, would shoot down hundreds even thousands in a heartbeat if it felt threatened enough. It would do it live in front of the whole world, and it would get away with it.

Critical moments are also known, in popular education circles, as "Aha moments." These are times in one's life where one sees the world as it is and integrates that knowledge into one's thinking. Aha moments come with choices. If one choose to ignore reality, the moment passes. If one chooses to look at reality, the moment can be life changing. June 4, 1989 was life changing for me. I made the decision to learn who my enemy really was. I knew on that day it wasn't a mayor, a governor, or a president. My enemy was a state, a system, and any who fought to preserve it. I decided I would learn how to fight and fight well. More than that, I wanted to learn how to fight to win and not just resist.

The two decades since June 4, 1989 has taught me that losing happens more often than winning, at least when you're fighting for justice in this world. In the last few years, I've also learned that organizing is not like sports. Keeping statistics doesn't help us get to more justice because the fact is most organizing campaigns lose. And even though we can get closer to justice even when we lose, it is also a fact that losing is hard. The emotional and material costs are high, and there's no way to survive for the long haul unless one is prepared to pay. In the U.S. today this takes the form of personal sacrifice. I am willing to give up a living wage, a retirement, and one, two…many relationships because I have such commitment. Come, everyone, look at my commitment. See how it shines! But this form of personal sacrifice is a recipe for burn out and bitterness, not for victory. I do not want people to come and see my sacrifices, I want people to teach me how to fight and how to fight well.

It has been two decades for me now. The question is: has it been worth it? My answer is: it has only been 20 years, it's too early to tell.