Community Organizing

New Challenges in Our Area

William Sundwick

Let’s start with some assumptions about 21^st century American politics. Assumption #1: many, many people are poorly served by their local governments; assumption #2: virtually all communities have some people who are quite content, but most others much less so; assumption #3: those who are most content are that way because they have a voice in the political process.

Assumption #4: the political power imbalance requires extra-governmental activity, or organization, to move it. That’s what community organizing is all about. Those who are discontented because they lack access to their local governments can gain more access through these organizing intermediaries.

How is this done? All local jurisdictions in the United States, like state governments, and the federal government itself, have popularly elected representatives and executives. Yet, some elections are less democratic than others, because of voter interference by political parties, or incomplete (or inaccurate?) information made available to voters.

Since community organizing entities are usually 501(c)(3) organizations – they cannot support partisan actors, or lobby on their behalf – they must limit themselves to non-partisan voter information and registration.  Nevertheless, community organizers can easily advocate for ballot initiatives, economic plans (including allocations in public budgets), and even changes to law, without running afoul of those 501-c restrictions.

How do they accomplish this advocacy? Elected bodies in local jurisdictions must at least appear to be working for their constituents if they intend to stand for re-election, so they have an incentive to be responsive to organizations that present public clout, through media exposure and support from influential community leaders – often the pulpits of religious institutions. Advocacy is carried out in these venues, sometimes even including street demonstrations and marches. It often comes down to sheer numbers of bodies – “seat-warmers” at a local county board meeting, or marchers gathered outside with placards (and reported by local media). That’s my usual role!

There is some risk in these tactics. Arrests can be made at demonstrations, and media exposure can be negative from some outlets. Community organizers should always expect that their actions will cause, at the very least, increased tension with those forces who support and benefit from the status quo. A poorly planned campaign for some social good may experience blowback from the targeted groups, which can dull community momentum. And the interests of the marginalized community members must always be paramount -- they must be the final arbiters of any actions.

Fifty years ago, when Saul Alinsky wrote his book Rules for Radicals, he laid out the principles of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), concluding that the strongest community organizations were religious institutions. An interfaith alliance of churches and synagogues could pool their efforts at community betterment around local umbrella organizations. These were the IAF chapters around the country.

VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement) is the Northern Virginia IAF affiliate, founded in 2008. VOICE includes an active cadre of Muslim places of worship, along with traditional Catholic, Protestant, Unitarian, and Jewish congregations. But our region, like others, has recently seen a decrease in concentrations of affected communities. Churches in the area have been losing members. Their budgets have been strained. Some of the old congregations have been dropping their VOICE partnership, mostly due to their changing demographics, and consequent challenges keeping up their dues. New clergy and new congregations can be approached. Some new ones are being added (an established Presbyterian church in my neighborhood just joined).

But many marginalized groups leave the area, or at least move farther out – where they can afford to live. Arlington and Alexandria, especially, are becoming more affluent (and white) as gentrification inexorably pushes the less privileged out of the community. The coming of Amazon to Arlington will only exacerbate an already untenable situation for much of the local service sector of lower income families. “The rent is too damn high!”

This has led VOICE to alter its strategy for 2020 and beyond. Expanding on the model proposed by Alinsky, it now seems that religious institutions need to be supplemented by other community allies. Organized labor, shunned by Alinsky as too parochial in its interests, now may be a potential target for outreach. Likewise, teachers (by law in Virginia, non-unionized) have professional associations; these, too, could be VOICE partners. In addition, tenants’ associations for housing issues, and PTAs for school issues.

While the tactics for advocacy remain unchanged – get local politicians to listen because they fear electoral reprisal if they don’t – the changing demographics in the “inside-the-beltway” communities like Arlington and Alexandria make that somewhat harder. Wealthier citizens are now beginning to outnumber the marginalized in these places.

Arlington and Alexandria do have an important service sector, however, including teachers, police, firefighters. Increasingly, these public servants cannot afford to live in (or even near) the communities where they work. Hence, affordable housing remains a goal of VOICE organizing, both locally and in Richmond (the General Assembly will be voting on funding for housing this session). Localities and Richmond also share responsibility for zoning (yes, the Dillon Rule in Virginia, gives the General Assembly potential influence over city and county zoning authority!). “Upzoning” for multi-family development in single family neighborhoods is an important tool for increasing affordable housing availability.

Criminal justice reform and education resources for school counselors and pre-K are also on VOICE’s docket for 2020. Suspension of drivers licenses for non-payment of court costs is an issue in Richmond, as is state funding for more guidance counselors (current rate: 500:1 ratio of students to counselors – VOICE advocates halving it to 250:1).

Whether the venue is the Arlington County Board meeting or the General Assembly in Richmond, the basic principle is still to show up! Numbers are what politicians, and the media, can see and report.

The original Saul Alinsky theory remains valid. Voiceless people need numbers to be heard; numbers have power for elected officials. But the IAF “Iron Rule” still applies: Never do for people what they can do for themselves. It’s about giving voice to the voiceless, not amplifying the voice of those who are already heard!

“I Prefer Not To”

Bartleby and Late Stage Capitalism

William Sundwick

Herman Melville published his short story “Bartleby the Scrivener -- a Tale of Wall Street” in 1853. It has been a staple of high school AP English classes and undergrad American Lit survey courses for at least sixty of those 160+ years.

I last read it as a college sophomore in such a class. That was more than 50 years ago. Something made me want to revisit Bartleby recently. It was probably that resonating statement of freedom that is the iconic Bartleby quote: “I prefer not to.” While there are endless life situations where one might think of Bartleby and his resistance, the one that comes to mind today is the movement of (mostly) young people to resist the dominance of capitalism in every aspect of their lives. Incur crushing student debt, says Wall Street, “I prefer not to” say many young people. Accept medical bankruptcy if you incur a serious health condition, “I prefer not to” say many with inadequate insurance coverage. Vote for the candidates we select for you, “I prefer not to” said many in 2016.

As a short story, Bartleby’s structure is perfect. There is a protagonist (the narrator, a successful corporate lawyer with Wall Street office), a symbolic foil (Bartleby himself, I maintain) and three secondary characters who are Bartleby’s coworkers in the narrator’s law office. There is setup – the narrator is hiring another scrivener (copyist, in the age before typewriters or copying machines); plot development -- tension between Bartleby and narrator over work requirements; climax – where narrator is forced to move his office to escape Bartleby; denouement -- Bartleby’s ultimate death -- and conclusion, where the narrator tells us what he learned of Bartleby’s past (not previously revealed).

Although industrious in his copying, any further request from narrator/employer to do anything special or perform any service outside his standard routine is always met with some variation on Bartleby’s classic line, “I prefer not to.” The narrator does not fire Bartleby, although he is sorely tempted to, due primarily to his own sense of charity and fairness.  The virtue-signaling narrator is an inveterate liberal. His employees, Bartleby included, are prisoners in cubicles (called “screens” in mid-19^th century office layouts) but he is convinced that he has their best interests at heart, so long as it doesn’t interfere too much with his easy life.

The reader asks as the story progresses: “Why doesn’t he fire Bartleby?” The answer becomes clearer as you continue to read. It is a paradox – the nut of the story. Therein lies the best modern interpretation for a timeless work of literature. Bartleby’s alienation increases:

   

“The next day ... Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery”. 

Bartleby, unlike his three coworkers, appears not to want to socialize, but only to stare “in revery” out a small window overlooking nothing more than the “black brick wall” next door. Both narrator and coworkers become more aware of Bartleby’s disturbed state-of-mind. Coworkers tend to make fun of him, the narrator pities him. Bartleby, you see, is homeless. He eats and sleeps in the office with a blanket “rolled up under his desk,” on an old sofa. He is alone. No family. No friends. He prefers it not be this way but is powerless to change it. Very sad.

“It was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.” 

Bartleby does have a profound effect on the narrator. His occupation of the office begins to drive the narrator to distraction. Yet, this employer persists in doing what seems humane and continuously tries to reason with Bartleby. One critic, shortly after Occupy Wall Street and Zucotti Park, wrote that the OWS movement was inspired by Bartleby, using the occupy trope as their symbolic resistance to capitalism. This was, indeed, Bartleby’s strategy. Bartleby was a resistor. The narrator could do nothing about him, except try to accommodate him. He failed in this objective.

In exasperation, the narrator is forced to move his office to a new address. This leaves Bartleby continuing to occupy the building even with its new tenants. He sits on the bannister of the entrance foyer – having no “screen” any more in the office. He cannot be removed. The new tenants, fellow professionals known to the narrator, implore him to try harder to remove Bartleby. The narrator tries, weakly, but is inclined to wash his hands of the entire matter – to abandon labor. Among other things, he is afraid of what the “papers” will say. Ultimately left at the mercy of the less liberal new tenants, Bartleby is sent to the Tombs as a vagrant.

“Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.”

Bartleby dies in the Tombs, presumably of starvation – he “prefers” not to eat. This, despite the “Grub-man” receiving a bribe from our narrator to provide Bartleby with better food. Liberal amelioration of conditions fails. Resistance overcomes it. Resistance unto death – it was a hunger strike.

We learn in the conclusion of the story that Bartleby came with a history of working in the “dead letter office” in Washington. He was let go in a “change of administration” (before civil service). There he sorted undeliverable letters, often to dead people, for burning. The narrator attributes Bartleby’s “cadaverous” demeanor to that sorrowful previous job.

The timelessness of Bartleby comes from the myriad symbols and interpretations given to the story. Its language is plain for the time yet encompasses much of the human condition – Bartleby’s ghostly presence, the narrator’s sense of charity, his reluctance to confront social approbation, the question of responsibility for Bartleby, and Bartleby’s alienation from his labor. All these themes are valid, and they point to the inexorable dominance of an employer (owner) over employees (workers), and how those workers can force change by simply stating their “preference” and refusing to move – “occupying” the workplace. The General Motors sit-down strikes of the 1930s come to mind, the birth of American industrial unions.

I found no evidence that Melville was aware of his German contemporaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but there is some evidence to support the reverse (especially Engels from his time in England?) – the soul-crushing job of the scrivener has since been replaced by machines, as it was in the English textile mills of Engels. Bartleby is alienated from his labor, even as he is impelled to repeat it daily. He insists he “prefers not to” do any additional tasks for his capitalist employer. Alienation is clearly an important theme of the story, as with 20^th century existentialist literature. Melville was not a Marxist, but perhaps Marx and Engels had some American literary inspiration?

The closing line of the story is -- “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” 

Flint: Lumber to Carriages to Cars

The Flint Series, Chapter 1

William Sundwick

 When I arrived in Flint, Michigan at age six, the city, incorporated in 1855, had already established itself: first as a hub for the central Michigan lumber industry, then earning the appellation “Vehicle City,” then as the manufacturing center of the largest auto maker in the world. To clarify, that nickname on the iconic iron arches over North Saginaw Street signified horse-drawn carriages. Flint had become the nation’s foremost manufacturer of such “vehicles” by 1900, thanks mostly to the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, and Flint Wagon Works. 

William C. Durant and J. Dallas Dort were the driving force behind the city’s growth in those years, capitalizing on an auspicious lumber trade across the natural fords of the Flint River, and onward south and east. The raw materials for wagons and carriages thus were readily available.

With the success of his carriage empire, Durant embraced risk. Some would call him a speculator. Both he and his partner, Dort, became eager to move into the nascent “horseless carriage” field.  They would need the right contacts for capital and mechanical ingenuity. Durant reached out to secure both. Investment capital came from New York, and he found ingenuity closer to home, in Detroit. Specifically, from David Dunbar Buick, who had tried building cars, but was less than successful as a businessman. Durant rescued him financially and moved production to Flint. Durant tirelessly promoted what was now his Buick automobile, made at the original Durant-Dort carriage factory in today’s “Carriage Town” – the oldest Flint neighborhood. His angle was safety, becoming a public concern in those early horseless carriage days. It worked. By 1909, Buick had become the best-selling car in the U.S. (outperforming Ford, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac).

The amazing success of Buick in those early years may have gone to Bill Durant’s head. He started negotiating with his Detroit and Wall Street contacts to purchase other car makers. Some of his carriage-making executives, like A.B.C. Hardy and Charles W. Nash, were also pushing hard for more internal combustion powered vehicles. General Motors Corporation was chartered in 1908. It was Durant and Dort’s baby. Corporate HQs were right next door to the Durant-Dort Carriage Works factory. Nash would leave Durant to form his own brand, Nash Motors, in 1917.  

GM continued to grow – not just in Flint, but also Detroit. And Canada, too, under a partnership with R.S. McLaughlin, who, like Durant, was the largest carriage maker in his country. Durant acquired Buick competitors Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland Motors. All these brands were retained, following Durant’s strategy to offer many different cars for different tastes at different price points.

Unfortunately, his next acquisition, Chevrolet, was not so successful at first.  The car was fine, but Durant’s holdings in Chevrolet were leveraged out of his control by partner McLaughlin -- Chevrolet briefly became a Canadian make. By the mid-teens, however, Durant had bought it back, and Chevrolet was pulled into the Buick orbit – made in Flint. But, by 1921, Durant was gone again, starting his own Durant Motors (in Flint) which survived until the crash of 1929, when Durant left the automobile business for good.

Despite the slowdown in automobile production during the Depression, Detroit and Flint saw huge numbers of immigrants from the Deep South (both black and white), as well as even more depressed areas in Northern Michigan. My uncle Bob was the latter. He married into a family with deep roots in the Flint area, although he was a new employee at the AC Spark Plug plant on the east edge of town. By the time I arrived in 1953, they were already the “Flint Sundwicks.”

Rapid population growth in an era of declining demand for its products caused serious social tensions in Flint. This tension led to the famous Sit-down Strikes of 1936-37, credited by many labor historians and the Left as the beginning of the modern union movement in the U.S. (which should now be called the “post-war industrial union movement of the 20^th century,” since unions are in decline in the 21^st century).

It’s easy for somebody who grew up in Flint during that post-war glimmer of labor prosperity and rising expectations to romanticize the place where it happened, as well as the times. Were the strikes started, or abetted, by communists? The historical record is vague on this – since many of the interviews with participants were collected during the McCarthy witch-hunting era. People involved, if connected to left organizations, were often reluctant to admit it. My own experience during high school in the sixties tended to foster a romantic view of communist agitators manning the barricades (in Flint’s case, guarding their machines) – they were my heroes, whether they really existed or not.

In my imagination, those strikes set the stage for the Flint that I knew. 

Seems Marx getting bit of a revival on left these days ... because rent-seeking now dominates capitalism