query: combining organizing and legal strategies

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  thanks to John and Richard for replying to Andrew's query.]

From: <jkrinsky at ccny.cuny.edu>

Andrew, All:

Scholarly work on the subject is mainly escaping me right now, but for 
one exception not mentioned by Melinda:

1. Brutal Need, by Martha Davis, is about the development of the welfare 
rights movement and the role of lawyers in that (particularly the Center 
for Social Welfare Policy and Law, which became the Welfare Law Center, 
which became the National Center for Law and Economic Justice).

There are others, and I'll try to think of more.

National Employment Law Project, the National Center for Law and 
Economic Justice, and the Legal Aid Society, in New York (along with the 
New York Legal Assistance Group) all worked closely alongside 
anti-workfare organizers throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in New 
York City, scoring some important victories (and some heartbreaking, and 
frankly infuriating, defeats).  NELP hired an organizer or organizing 
liaison for at least awhile, though I don't know if they have one now, 
and they jointly ran a legal clinic with an organizing group, Community 
Voices Heard, in the mid- to late-1990s.  Speaking with any of these 
groups could help to crystallize answers to your questions.

Best,

John

***********************

From: Richard Layman <rlaymandc at yahoo.com>

Melinda Chateauvert's response is interesting and I will check out the 
cited _Activist's Handbook_.  I think one of the "problems" with 
organizing and political and social change is that it is extremely messy 
and long process that it is never an either/or process but one of 
and/and/and/and/and etc.  For the civil rights struggle e.g., Brown v. 
Board was essential.  So too was the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Freedom 
Summer.

Another problem is that everyone likely wants to take "sole" credit when 
many many many many many people and organizations are necessary to 
effect social change.  (cf. _The Whole World is Watching_ by Gitlin for 
the impact of media on social change and on the organizations involved 
in fomenting change.)

In DC, there was an attempt at a schools desegregation suit in 1949.  
This is not my area of study, and I expect that nationally there were 
many such cases long before Brown v. Board and the other cases 
amalgamated into it.

Similarly, in DC you had the successful desegregation campaign targeting 
the Uline Arena (where professional basketball and hockey was played), 
in 1947-1948, which culminated in the integration of the venue.  I found 
out more about this after having submitted a historic landmark 
nomination on the building and doing more research.  In 1953, the John 
Thompson Restaurant case resulted in the integration of public 
accommodations (restaurants, theaters, hotels).  Likely the 
anti-segregation campaign against the National Theater from 1947-1951 
contributed to the success of the Thompson case. Etc.

Having been born in 1960 I am not personally familiar with those 
events.  But it is clear that a continuum of actions were essential. 
Field organizing is but one part of social change.  The courtroom is 
another.  So are legislative halls and back rooms.  Newspaper editorial 
pages and civic meetings.  Parades, marches, and demonstrations.  
Information booths at festivals.  Etc.

In one of my areas of interest, transit, the author of _The Great 
Society Subway_ on the DC subway system is somewhat derisive of the 
anti-freeway movement, the Emergency Committee on the Transportation 
Crisis, because they didn't have a "subway plan," and therefore he says 
that they can't take credit for the creation of the subway system, which 
instead he sees as one of the last examples of the Great Society and the 
government being able to construct successfully grand projects.

Sure, the activists of ECTC didn't build the subway system.  But there 
is no question that their successful advocacy campaign prevented 
freeways from destroying large swathes of DC, and laid the groundwork 
for the diversion to subway construction of Federal Highway monies 
allocated to DC.  (DC used its monies in such a manner.  VA and MD did not.)

Social change is messy and while the end product doesn't all derive from 
field organizing, organizing is a key component, definitely for the 
early and middle stages, and likely for ensuring a high quality outcome 
with reduced satisficing even in later stages.

Richard Layman
Citizens Planning Coalition
Washington, DC

Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
> --------
> This is a COMM-ORG 'colist' message.
> All replies to this message come to COMM-ORG only.
> --------
>  
> [ed:  thanks to Melinda for replying to Andrew's query.]
>
> From: "Melinda Chateauvert" <mchateau at aasp.umd.edu>
>
>
> Randy Shaw's The Activist's Handbook (University of California Press, 2001),
> particularly the chapters on the Tenderloin housing clinic where he works.
>
> Shaw isn't a fan of litigation as an organizing strategy though. Cases take
> too long, don't involve enough people, tend to limit participation to
> experts, and the steps between filing and appeal are often too obscure to
> maintain organizing momentum. Not that it can't be done, but litigation
> poses specific issues for organizers.
>
> Some of these problems are being replayed in a current debate over the
> meaning and importance of Brown v. Board. A few (whacko, imo) scholars
> (Klarman, Golobuff) hold that Brown wan't all that important and the civil
> rights movement would have happened anyway without the decision. Of course
> that opinion ignores entirely the mechanics of how the Montgomery Bus
> Boycott -- and most other direct action campaigns -- was won. Rosa Parks and
> staying off the buses for 381 days are pretty stories but didn't desegregate
> them. When the boycott began the NAACP legal department filed suit (Browder
> v Gayle); the Supreme Court, relying on Brown, ruled the city's segregation
> ordinance was unconstitutional. (Even then the buses weren't desegregated:
> the downtown merchants, facing a second holiday season of low sales from the
> boycott, pressured Mayor Gayle to desegregate.) Granted the case went
> through to the Court extraordinarily fast, primarily because Alabama's white
> resistance hadn't re-grouped to fight the case.  Mary Berry has a good
> discussion of this scholarship in her review of Golubuff:
> http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6548
>
>
> Melinda Chateauvert
> African American Studies
> 2169 Lefrak
> University of Maryland
> College Park, MD 20742
> www.bsos.umd.edu/aasp/chateauvert
>
> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>   
>> --------
>> This is a COMM-ORG 'colist' message.
>> All replies to this message come to COMM-ORG only.
>> --------
>>  
>> [ed:  please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with responses to Andrew's 
>> query.  A bit from me below.]
>>
>> From: Andrew Schoeneman <mistershoney at yahoo.com>
>>
>>
>> I am looking for resources in the area of organizing combined with legal 
>> strategies.  My organization is a legal aid program whose staff includes 
>> non-attorney organizers, including me.
>>  
>> We are trying to clarify the relationships that exist between my 
>> employer, which is in essence a public interest law firm, and community 
>> groups to whom we provide community organizing support as well as legal 
>> advice and and even representation when necessary.  One such group is in 
>> the process of formulating by-laws, electing officers, etc., and it 
>> seems like a good time to agree on the terms of this relationship.
>>  
>> I suspect there are other organizations out there who combine legal and 
>> organizing strategies, and have at some point addressed the balance 
>> between the roles and responsibilities of being a lawyer/law firm and 
>> the practice and philosophy of organizing.
>>  
>> I'd appreciate any responses either to the listserv or to me at 
>> andrew at justice4all.org.
>>  
>> Thanks,
>> Andrew Schoeneman
>>
>> [ed:  Rinku Sen's book, Stir it Up, has some case studies on integrating 
>> legal services and community organizing.]
>>
>>
>>
>>   
>>     
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>