This
is the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show, WNJC 1360 AM sponsored by
Opednews.com. I've been speaking with
Staughton Lynd. He's been an activist
for fifty-some [50+] years. He's the
author of Accompanying: Pathways to Social change. We've been speaking about his experience
since the time when he was director of Freedom Schools in the 1964 Mississippi
Freedom Summer.
You
have a quote, Staughton, in your book, that I think really nails some of the
problems of current activists: "Too
often, Left intellectuals gather together and ask each other, 'Now, how can we
attract workers?' When workers show up,
they're a minority. The culture and
vocabulary of the meeting have already been established by Middle Class
Conveners, and the workers soon leave."
I have seen this! I'm not just a
radio host, I'm an activist, and I've seen this happen: where you've got a
whole bunch of people who are making six figures talking about how to help all
the people who are out of work, or out of health insurance -- that doesn't
work. I think it gets back to
accompanying. If you want to help people
you have to go to them! That's what
you're saying at the core.
Staughton Lynd: We had an entity in Youngstown that we called
"The Workers' Solidarity Club," which functioned as a parallel Central Labor
Union, and by that I mean this: in every
community there is a so-called Central Labor Body in which there are delegates
from all over the union scene in that particular community. But because the whole bureaucratic apparatus
has got arterial sclerosis, that's also true of the central labor body, which
is supposed to give strike support. The
strike starts in July, and by the time you get any help from the central labor
body, snow is falling.
So
our idea was, "Well, we don't have a lot of money, we don't (initially at
least) have a lot of people, but: we are going to create a time and a place
where workers who are on strike, or an individual who feels that he or she has
been unjustly discharged, can come and get help." And we did that. We had no bylaws, we had no officers, we had
no dues, and we won some pretty big strikes in the Youngstown area, the
Mahoning Valley of Northeast Ohio; so I don't think I'm just blowing smoke, or
talking about something that I haven't experienced. I think I'm talking about something people
can do if they want to enough.
Rob Kall: And yet!
You say near the end of your book, that people are going to question
you, that "This is too little," and, oh, I've got to find where you have it,
because it's a great line; and I have a website that I started a couple years
ago, called Smallacts.org . Because I believe that it doesn't take giant
actions to do something, that some of the most important things that happen,
happened with small steps, period.
Staughton Lynd: We should know this is true from our own
national experience in the last fifty, sixty [50-60] years. Rosa Parks, all by herself, refused to go the
back of the bus. I think it's, what's is
it, the anniversary of her birthday about now, and (laughs) she had the guts to
do that as a single person. Four young
men sat down at the lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and you know,
they got ketchup poured on them and all the rest of it, but, wow! Before you knew it, similar groups were
springing up all over the South. And
then they had a conference in Raleigh and put together the Student Nonviolence
Coordinating Committee, and did wonders.
Rob Kall: There 's a number of great examples. And I think it's really a part of the
philosophy you have to enter into activism with, almost. You're not going to go and attend a rally,
and all of a sudden the sky is going to open up, and massive change is going to
happen. It seems to me that what I'm
getting as a message from your book is, "You need to walk the talk; you've got
to stay connected to the people who are going to benefit from the change in the
Justice System, or in fairness, or whatever; and you're looking for small,
steady changes, because one of those changes could be the lever that does open
the door, and does open the sky, and it does make massive changes happen.
Staughton Lynd: You and I are on the same page, brother, and
I would just add to what you've said one other thing about the Worker's
Solidarity Club, which is: somebody will say "Well, on my way over I saw that
the such and such workers have a picket line, and I stopped and I asked them
what help they needed. They said they
were running out of firewood, so I'm thinking of taking some in the morning." Now, many organizations at that point would
say "Well! Do we want to pass a
resolution or make a decision to the effect that we authorize so and so to
carry wood to the picket line?" We
didn't do that in the Solidarity Club; instead, the guy would finish his
remarks with, "Anyone want to come with me?"
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