Black Agenda Report Article: Heroes and Heroines of Community Organizing

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From: Movement for Justice in El Barrio 
<movementforjusticeinelbarrio at yahoo.com>


Heroes and Heroines of Community Organizing PDF Print E-mail

Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Community organizers are our best defense against the likes of Rudolph 
Giuliani and Sarah Palin. "In this age of Disaster Capitalism, it is the 
rich that sow the seeds of ethnic cleansing in the heart of urban 
America," while the community organizer fights to stabilize America's 
cities.

To hear the audio of this Black Agenda Radio commentary, click the flash 
player below.
Heroes and Heroines of Community OrganizingElBarrioMarch
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

"It is local community organizers that have struggled to ‘make a way out 
of no way' for the besieged poor."

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Republican vice presidential 
candidate Sarah Palin used their convention podiums to heap scorn on 
"community organizing" as a less than worthy vocation - a job without 
"responsibilities." In fact, it is the community organizer who fights to 
stabilize America's cities, to stem the chaos deliberately induced by 
the rich in order to steal poor people's neighborhoods. In New York 
City, it is the community organizers of the Harlem Tenants Council and 
the Movement for Justice in El Barrio that resist displacement of the 
poor and working class by the forces of gentrification. In New Orleans, 
it is local community organizers and activists of good will from 
elsewhere that have struggled to "make a way out of no way" for the 
besieged poor of that city, half of whom have not been allowed to return 
home.

In this age of Disaster Capitalism, it is the rich that sow the seeds of 
ethnic cleansing in the heart of urban America, while community 
organizers attempt to put out the fires that would destroy the souls of 
the cities. Community organizers are the "responsible parties" in this 
battle between people and profits; Giuliani and Palin serve the forces 
of community destruction, family dislocation, and cultural theft.

"Community organizers are the ‘responsible parties' in this battle 
between people and profits."

The symbolic boulevard of Black America, Harlem's 125th Street corridor, 
is slated for a massive makeover that would bring in thousands of new 
gentry, pricing out the current residents. From the West, Columbia 
University, which regards its non-white neighbors as infestations, seeks 
to gobble up more of Harlem. In the East, sometimes called Spanish 
Harlem, a multi-national real estate outfit called Dawnay Day has bought 
up scores of apartment buildings in a scheme that can only be profitable 
if the developers succeed in evicting most of the current tenants. The 
Movement for Justice in El Barrio plans to go to London to confront 
these neighborhood assassins at their corporate headquarters.

Rudolph Giuliani and Sarah Palin have some nerve to talk about 
"responsibility." These are politicians that front for the economic 
criminals who brought us the global price bubble and credit crunch - the 
same villains that have pushed hundreds of millions to the brink of 
starvation and heat our atmosphere to the point of no return. The Lords 
of Capital have corrupted the political classes.

What good does it do to have Black Harlem congressman Charles Rangel as 
chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, when he 
conspires to find every nefarious way and duplicitous means to help 
drive his own constituents from house and home?

And what good did it do New Orleans, three years ago, to have a Black 
former Republican mayor to preside over the monstrous, post-hurricane 
assault on that city's African American population?

The real heroes and heroines of the Black resistance to the Lords of 
Capital and their political servants, are the same as they have always 
been: the grassroots organizers who stand with the people. Dr. Martin 
Luther King and Malcolm X and Fannie Lou Hamer were community 
organizers. Parasites like Giuliani and Palin have no right to breath 
the same air as such giants.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.