Civil Rights History Resources for Activists, Teachers and Students

If you would like to have any of the hard copy material identified below, email me (Kathy Emery) at mke4think@gmail.com

For Free

• hard copies of films (DVDs),
• textbook, Lessons from Freedom Summer (multiple copies)

• Also... Leica Decomar camcorder. 

 My background:

2005 - 2010: created SFFS  During the five summers of the San Francisco Freedom School in the parish hall of St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco, we put together a great deal of materials  as well as bought books and films.

2010 -2020 at SFSU, I taught a course at SFSU called Lessons from Freedom Summer (PLSI 357) and used Lessons from Freedom Summer as my textbook.  I put together a great deal of resources during the ten years I taught that course every semester -- I have whittled them down here. 

                                               ------------------------------ 

Want to TEACH IT? ....... or to LEARN IT?

For those of you who may want to have the small core of the materials organized around the idea that the Southern Freedom Movement has a great deal to teach us about how to organize successful protests today,  the below is for you:

First -- PDF -- Key Components of a Successful Social Movement (pdf off of my google drive) 

Second -- POWER POINT SLIDES -- (the short version and the long one) are based on the above "Key Components" and the argument that there were five major events of the era with Freedom Summer being the climax of the movement (this supports the focus of our book, "Lessons from Freedom Summer".

• The Brown decision
• Montgomery Bus Boycott
• The Sit-ins
• Freedom Rides
• Freedom Summer
• Selma March 

Third -- TEXT BOOK -- I have over a hundred copies of Linda Gold's text (my teaching materials), Lesson from Freedom Summer that I need to give away (the publisher went out of business and sent them to me instead of trashing them).  I have a folder in my google drive with some of the NOTES I took while reading the book.    You can read Howard Zinn's foreword to Lessons HERE.  

The book is part text, part workbook and is organized around FIVE categories that show how Freedom Summer happened, what it accomplished and why. The book references parts of the MS Freedom School Curriculum that is posted on my website HERE.

1. Nonviolent philosophy and action
2. How/Why each of the four major civil rights organizations (NAACP, CORE, SCLC, SNCC) arrived in Mississippi and formed the COFO alliance
3. The White Power Structure of Mississippi
4. MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM SUMMER (1964)
5. the role the arts played during Freedom Summer 
6. To what degree was the summer a success? 

Fourth -- MOVIES/Documentaries -- Here is a curated list of dvds from my collection that I used with my PLSI 357 class to teach this curriculum.  Most are excerpts of the full length films/docs.  This list is not definitive or complete, but highlights.

You can see a curated list of DVDs HERE 

 THE PROBLEM

• Sharecropping excerpt (1, 2, 3) from the documentary series, This Promised Land

BASIS OF THE MOVEMENT

• Excerpts (36 min) from dramatization of history of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids from feature film, 10,000 Men Named George
• Excerpts (35 min) from dramatization of living in Mississippi in the 1950s from feature film,  Once Upon a Time when We Were Colored
• Excerpts (35 min) Documentary, The Barbara Johns Story (one of the five cases making up Brown v Board)
• Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker
• Excerpts (31 min) Documentary,  You Got to Move (Highlander Folk School)

THE MOVEMENT

• Excerpts from dramatization of Montgomery Bus Boycott from feature film,  Boycott
• Documentary (30 minutes) of Nashville Sit-ins, When We Were Warriors
• Samples of the music of the movement CD 
• Documentary excerpts (20),  Mississippi right before Freedom Summer from Eyes on the Prize  
• Documentary excerpts (33 min) Eyes on the Prize, Freedom Riders and Freedom Summer  
• Documentary excerpts (24 min) Freedom on My Mind, about Freedom Summer
• Documentary excerpts (11 min) of Fannie Lou Hamer
• Documentary excerpts (23 min) Selma from Eyes on the Prize
• Negroes with Guns (57 min)
• Documentary excerpts (26 min) Scarred Justice: Orangeburg Massacre 1968 

 ** "The mass media calls it the "Civil Rights Movement," but many of those whose boots were on the ground prefer the term "Freedom Movement" because it was about so much more than just a few narrowly-defined civil rights" (crmvet.org "movement history).  And the Southern Freedom Movement, of course, was the one in the south.

Traveling in Texas

We spent a day in San Antonio  visiting three missions -- The Alamo, Concepcion and San José.  The  following  were my reactions:

Our conversation  with the  docent  at  the Alamo was very interesting.  He was very well informed, articulate and passionate.  He was a retired Lt Colonel (fought in Iraq), then taught 6th grade math, now volunteered as docent at the  Alamo.  His thesis was that the defenders  of the Alamo were "fighting to defend the Mexican Constitution  of 1824 -- for democracy".   The Texans were "trying  to  bring  democracy  to  Mexico just like they tried to do for Afghanistan"  But  you  just can't get  "peons to vote"

He said Santa Ana made a good devil because he was ruthless and politically astute and when  in power curtailed  the  rights of citizens --  so easy to organize rebellion against him. The docent said that the importance of the Alamo, at least for Texans, was  that it represented  the little guy (the individual) fighting  against  the big guy (federal government).

He  called himself a RINO, and thought the Trump supporters  were  crazy and that  people shouldn't want to deny unpleasant  history (like some of the Texans from the US  brought slaves with  them  and that slavery was a "very  small part" of the  cause of  the war.).   One should learn the unpleasant  facts   and move on.  I suggested that perhaps we could learn from the past so we don't  make the same  mistakes?  He agreed to that.

What was so interesting about his version of the history was the lack of context.  There was no mention that the battle of the Alamo was part  of  the  campaign of Santa Ana to RETAKE the Mexican garrisons (plural) that the Anglo Texans had seized after declaring  independence  from  Mexico.  That the defenders of the Alamo were  expecting reinforcements that never came because of political infighting among the newly declared Texan government. That the most important "right"  that the Texans were fighting for was the right  to  hold slaves, which the Mexican Constitution had abolished.

The literature re the Missions put out by the national parks was equally problematic.  Quoting  from National Park Service pamphlet, San  Antonio Missions:

Imagine life as a hunter gatherer...survival depends on  the mercy  of the wilderness...this was the world of the Native Americans of South Texas before the arrival of Europeans. The Coahuiltecans, rich in tradition, were people  of survival, in harsh harmony with their environment.  The arrival of Europeans brought devastating diseases and irreversible change, threatening American Indian lifeways.  Mission living offered a chance for survival, which these people seized..(my emphasis)...Mission leaders introduced stationary, year-round  community  living......

.......Franciscan friars aspired to teach community harmony through Catholic sacraments....Trusting in the united group and learning specialized skills, the mission inhabitants  protected, sheltered, fed, and clothed each other.  By combining these efforts, they achieved a sense of security they had lost. But they also paid a price.

Upon entering the mission, Coahuiltecans were expected to give up their own religion, culture and traditions -- even their names.  They were expected to become Spanish. Despite  this, elements of their native lifeways blended with Spanish and  Catholic cultures.  Today this blend comprises the rich cultural heritage of San Antonio.

A few of the plaques mentioned that the Spanish military helped to "pacify" the Indians.  but no mention of  how or why and by what  means.  

Kendi and Tufekci on the January 7th attempted coup

 These are the two points made by two of several guest speakers on NPR’s Here and Now today. These are two of my very, very, very favorite academics ever.

·      Zeynep Tufekci: Yesterday was an attempted coup. It failed.  Will they try again?  That depends on what each of us do next.

·     Ibram Kendi: Is American exceptional?  Was yesterday exceptional?  No. If you think so, you don’t know American history very well.

 

Today on NPR, Ibram Kendi and Zeynep Tufekci were interviewed about their reactions to yesterday’s demonstration and invasion of the capitol.  I have written on FB already about my irritation with Biden who keeps speaking of “we” and “our” as if American is one nation, one people with one soul – it is not.  I had a partner once who always interrupted me when I started a sentence with “we”.  She would say abruptly, “who’s, ‘we’ white woman?”  Kendi addresses this issue in reference to yesterday’s events.

 

I also wrote yesterday about my irritation with the CNN coverage of the attempted coup that happened yesterday.  I always HEARD the criticism of 24-hour news stations.  They turn serious events into entertainment, however morbid or frightening the nature of the entertainment was.  I had never watched them do this.  They did that yesterday by blowing the coup attempt out of proportion.  Tufekci argues that the key take away yesterday was that 138 Republicans voted to overturn the PA election. This was lost in the mayhem of reporting yesterday.

 

Of course, this doesn’t make for compelling TV.  Compelling TV distracts most viewers from what is really serious (Tufekc might say, “mistaking the ridiculous for the serious).  I was pleasantly surprised to hear a lot of commentary about the double standard on clear display between how police treat white people v people of color.  But even that tended to get buried by the looping video of protesters breaking windows and wandering around the House and Senate floor as well as by the competition among the pundits to say the scariest thing.  But that is what the audience wants.  If a car seems like it is going to crash (and fortunately, it didn’t yesterday), then we definitely want to be there to see it happen live, yes?  And while we are watching for hours-on-end to see if it happens, we need to be entertained, an unenviable job. 

 

From HERE AND NOW, January 7, 2021

 

Interviewer: Comparing the storming of the capitol with what happens in Third world countries – we are better, we are above devolving into chaos?  What are you thoughts on this?

 

Ibram Kendi: It’s ahistorical. To read American history, to remember American history, is to remember coup attempt after coup attempt, whether political or economic.  I am thinking, of course, about Tulsa, Oklahoma, or about all sorts of attempted or actual coups during the Reconstruction era, or even the Civil War itself. Or, even in the last year, what happened at the US capitol, has happened at state capitols. And as a result, particularly of people violently opposing shutdowns in their states as a result of Covid 19, or even plotting to assassinate sitting governors.  This is America.  People need to recognize that.  [when people argue that] This is not a third world country  [they are not acknowledging this history].

 

Interviewer:  is this chaos a sign of progress against the yearning for regression?  Is this a by-product of what happens during great progress or is this just truly a devolvement of our democracy?

 

Kendi: I think it is a fundamental clash, and I wrote about this recently the Atlantic.  Historically, American has had two forces  -- the force of justice and the force of injustice.  And certainly when the forces of justice have advanced, the force of injustice has tried to stop that advance. Often times, violently.  Americans need to recognize that both forces are inherent, have existed historically in this country.

 

--------------------------------------------------

Interviewer: what did you see yesterday?  Was it a coup?

 

Zeynep Tufecki:  It was an attempt to steal an election….maybe not very competently, but an attempt…so it was some sort of coup attempt.

 

Interviewer: [given that you grew up in Turkey and experience many kinds of coups], did this feel familiar?

 

Tufecki: absolutely, and, in fact, when you see that picture of the insurrectionists sitting at the Senate and the House…..and basically yelling “Trump won!”, it is intimately familiar…..the President of the United States was attempting to steal the election by falsely asserting that he won it, and trying to mobilize all the extra-legal forces he could muster from his office to try to get them to overturn the election in his favor.

 

Interviewer: and you were making it clear (in your article a while ago) that this was happening long before yesterday…what role you think Republicans and Trump’s allies had in helping him get to this point?

 

Tufecki: of course, the key thing here is, is that people are mistaking ridiculous with not serious.  There are a lot of things going on that are kind of ridiculous, for example the President tweets with all sorts of punctuation errors.  Some people yesterday wearing hats with horns. It looks ridiculous, but it is not unserious.  It’s important to realize that even after the mob disrupted the certification process, The majority of the GOP caucus in the House, 138 representatives voted to overturn the results of the Pennsylvania election. Even the PA representative who was just elected with those votes voted against that election.  These are not normal hiccups of a transition.  These are attempts to steal the election.  There are a lot of ridiculous coup attempts around the world too!  A lot fail the first, second or even third time and then they succeed.  I have to say that the vote in the House and the Senate, trying to throw out perfectly legitimate votes, that should scare us.  Even the armed men and women breaking into the capitol  did not alarm the Republican legislators enough for them to say, fine, this is it, we’re stopping this.

 

Interviewer: You said in your December article “what often starts as a farce may end in a tragedy” Do you still think that after yesterday?

 

Tufekci: it depends on how we react.  A line has been crossed….it’s how we react that determines if they try again.  ….next time it might be more competent…. This is an alarm for a potential 5 alarm fire.  …we need to focus on the crucial need to unite as a country and react.  This is not a partisan issue.

Local Lynching Stories and their relevance to activism today

 These two recent videos tell the stories of a lynching in 1885 and in the 1930s.   The details of specific stories like these are excellent entry points for people to understand the reality of lynching and then to understand how lynching was a tool to reassert white supremacy after the First Reconstruction (1867-77). Thanks to Amy and her friend for sharing the video links with me.

BURN: The Lynching of George Armwood

https://youtu.be/kERIFEu_cyE

Outrage in Rockland

https://youtu.be/mRmxRC4Te8o

 

Lynchings were not about punishing a black person because he or she committed a specific "crime."  The purpose was to terrorize a population, it was about power, about systems and not about individuals. Most white people today think racism is not systemic -- that is the hurtle that needs to be jumped today.

These are excellent videos to show how widespread and deep lynchings have been. They become "family affairs" as a way to forge a white community bonded by the belief that black people are not human - their lives don't matter.   Fear is fundamental and expressed through hatred, anger, arrogance and condescension.  Until whites confront their fears, guilt and ignorance, they will continue to act to suppress black humanity.

The Armwood video:  would allow people to explore how Maryland was an upper South state -- compare it with the state and federal governments' responses to lynching in the deep southern states.  A good discussion of the politics of the different state reactions would lead to an understanding of how the Southern Freedom Movement (SFM) evolved its tactics from 1955-65, and why SFM (aka civil rights movement) morphed into black power/black studies.  

It is essential to the Armwood lynching in its historical context of lynching.  One can do this by starting with James Allen's "movie" of postcards of lynchings.  "They Say" is a very good book to accompany Allen's movie.  Then move to a bigger lens: The First Reconstruction and formation of KKK; The end of Reconstruction and the creation of Jim Crow with lynching as enforcement; then the formation of the NAACP (out of earlier organizations and campaigns) and it's anti-lynching campaign (including the failure of the Dyer Bill, and the NAACP's failed campaign against Birth of a Nation)

To bring this incident up to date:  the mob left Armwood's dead and burned body in the street for a long time -- like the police did to Michael Brown's body in Ferguson The police forced Armwood to confess.  The "Exonerated Five" have recently written an op-ed piece in which they call for support for a NY State bill to tape all the interviews, not just the one leading to a confession.  The video ends with a plea: unless this story is talked about, recognized by whites today, this local history remains a "stab in the heart" to the local black community.  I would add, that because there was a clear pattern to these lynchings, it was systematic, we need a federal reparations commission to make sure white Americans are confronted by lynchings and other crimes against humanity.

Outrage in Rockland, actually provides some of that historical context missing in the Armwood video as well as really offering an access point to discussing the importance of infrastructure. No current story illustrates the importance of infrastructure to the success of political goals than the one involving Stacey Abrahms and many more  (it takes a village).  Over the last 15 years, they created the infrastructure leading to yesterday's Democratic win in the Georgia US Senate races (yes, building infrastructure is hard and tedious and takes a long time (which is why it is mostly women who do it?). Without the proliferation of local civil rights organizations that developed before 1910, there would never have been an NAACP.  What happened in Rockland was repeated throughout the South.  The Churches and local civil rights organizations provided the infrastructure for the "Second Reconstruction" of 1955-65.  

I love and hate the intimacy that these two videos.  Both the heroics of individuals and the depravity of the mob are riveting.  It is really the only way to generally connect people to the larger context, which is more abstract and harder to grasp.  This is where most education fails, the inability to make connections betwee the personal and the political.  And leads people to have no faith in their ability to change things. That Johnson was able to raise money and have a track record of legal successes meant he was a serious threat to white supremacy.  Whites believed that the black community needed to be put on notice  --  blacks might win in the courts, but would not win in the world. This is about power ("justice" v "law").  This is why both legal and nonviolent direct action are required for social movements to succeed.

The Brother of Liberty's legal wins described in the video: RR car, MD bar admission and others I am sure) certainly provoked backlash that including lynchings? The main goal of Ida Well's research was to expose as a myth that black men were lynched because they had raped (or otherwise threatened white womanhood) as justification for lynching.  She had hard data to prove it was not the case. The truth was that white men were raping black women systematically.  The deeply rooted and prevalence of the myth suggests that white men projected their barbarity onto black men.  The apparent arbitrary nature of the targets chosen by mobs conveniently terrorized the entire black community.  This terrorism was part of an entire toolkit used to eliminate the civil rights gains of the First Reconstruction and reassert white supremacy.  Again, the strategy to appeal to federal courts (get it out of state courts) presages the strategy of the Civil rights movement, of the NAACP.  But, again, you can win at the Supreme Court (Brown v Board) but not win in reality (southern states shut down public schools and created private white only ones).  This then required the use of nonviolent direct action in concert with legal action.

Testing, Meritocracy and Inequality

I am now retired and have time to begin to write a bit.

Here is my first foray -- letter to NYT re their editorial on Betsy DeVos

Dear Editors,

I continue to be amazed at our bedrock assumption that test scores are a measure of learning despite the fact that they can never be so.

During the first 16 years after graduating from college, I taught high school history at Groton, and then at three NYC independent schools - was fired three times and then blacklisted, so I moved to San Francisco and got my PhD in education. I then became a community organizer around school reform in San Francisco and co-founded the SF Freedom School.  This led to a job at SF State University teaching political science.  I taught at SFSU for 13 years. During the last four years, I helped to revive the Experimental College (became its first director) and am now just retired at 65.  During my entire educational career, standardized tests have been my nemesis.

While teaching U.S history to rich kids in NYC, I refused to make history boring, a mere recitation of dates, the names of white, rich men, and battles. I wanted them to see history as crucial to their lives as active citizens.  I got in trouble for being good at that.  The constant complaint from administrators and parents was, I "wasn't preparing my students for the test" -- the US History Achievement and US History Advanced Placement tests. So, when I entered my PhD program at UC Davis, I was particularly interested in my Educational Testing and Policy courses.   I learned how standardized tests scores have been misused by policy makers and the media and that business leaders have always driven educational policy.  I have tried (and failed) to persuade teachers and parents that standardized tests CREATE the achievement gap so they can NOT be used as a tool to reduce it. I gave up this fight around 2007, totally defeated.  I had hoped by now that, at least, there might be some question about the role of standardized tests in measuring educational quality if not learning.  Your editorial disabused me of that notion.

Of course, I wonder why?  The only answer I can come up with is that standardized testing is inextricably intertwined with basic American mythology.  Simply, it goes like this:

• Learning should never be measured or ranked.
  
• Legitimacy of social and economic inequality relies fundamentally upon the myth that the US is a meritocracy - more merit, more money.
• Education is believed to be key to gaining merit and money.
  
• But to maintain inequality, we need to measure learning.
• Hence, standardized tests (designed on purpose to create the widest possible point spread) are used to distribute privilege and prestige to those who "deserve" it.
  

We often speak of a third rails in the political system.  But standardized tests seem to be the engine that drives the system.  Never to be questioned or seen for what it is.

Wazir Peacock RIP

Wazir Peacock died this year.  He will be missed.



We in Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement (BayVets) were privileged to work with Wazir, and learn from him. In the South in the 1960s, his Freedom Movement brothers and sisters usually referred to him as "Peacock," but here in NorCal in the late '90s and after we used his self-chosen name "Wazir."

"So many Willie's in the world," he told us. "For awhile, I came to Islam right after SNCC around 1966, and I was given the name. It means essentially one who shares with the people. One of the persons who translated the Koran into English -- he said that the best meaning was one who worked on behalf of the people for God, for Allah. A servant of the people in its truest sense."

Wazir was one of our founding members when we first came together in 1999. He became an important guide and contributor to our Civil Rights Movement Veterans website (http://www.crmvet.org). Most of us had been active in the Movement in Alabama and Mississippi from 1963 on, so he was our link to the early pioneering days when young students were first stepping up and, "daring to stand in a strong sun and cast a sharp shadow."

We originally formed BayVets around the idea of finding ways to help our Movement sisters and brothers who had fallen on hard times -- the "walking wounded" as we called them. It was Wazir who showed us that we whose boots had been on the ground in the hard and dangerous days of the freedom struggle were all of us walking wounded ourselves. All of us were carrying hidden scars and emotional wounds that only others who had shared similar experiences could help heal. That healing became a vital part of our BayVets work.

Wazir loved to speak about the Freedom Movement to community groups, churches, and most definitely school kids. He had a special affinity for reaching the younger children in elementary school with whom he could talk about what it was like growing up as a child in segregated, Jim Crow Mississippi. And he loved -- and they loved -- being able to share with them the freedom songs of the Freedom Movement.

Recently, Milton Reynolds of "Facing History" wrote to Wazir: "I appreciate the fact that we have had the opportunity to connect as colleagues in the struggle, but also that I've been able to share your work and your beloved community of freedom fighters with hundreds of students. I can only tell you that they are inspired, and moved to action by your life of dignity and purpose."

For six years, Wazir was a primary resource expert for the San Francisco summer Freedom School program that worked to bring the lessons of the Movement to today's teachers and students. And until he fell ill, he was a regular guest speaker in San Francisco State University history and political science classes.

Professor Kathy Emery of the S.F. Freedom School and S.F. State said, "I can't tell you how much my students miss your semester visits to San Francisco State University. Your guest speaker visits have become legend.  Veteran students have told new students that you used to come to class and tell compelling stories of growing up in Mississippi; running away to protest your father's decision to move you all to the plantation; why you changed your name to Wazir from Willie B. (they are particularly outraged by the doctor naming you Willie B when you were born)... You gave your life to the movement and your stories have inspired hundreds of my students to participate in social justice action today..."

Two years ago Wazir recorded a video oral-history titled, "Stand For Freedom: The Life and Times of Willie B. Wazir Peacock" which is now available on You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcBfHAdtM4Q). He took great pride in being able to share his legacy with those who are picking up the freedom torch today. A transcription of an earlier oral history is also available on the CRMVet website (http://www.crmvet.org/nars/wazir1.htm).

Bruce Hartford and Chude Allen
For BayVets

downsizing of city college sf

An Open Letter to Guy Lease, Chancellor Lamb and the City College Board of Trustees
Stop Hemorrhaging Enrollment at City College:
End the Racist Payment Policy
 

Activists with Save City College and the student Solidarity Committee (composed of Asian Student Union, Black Student Union, MECHA, P.E.A.C.E.--Pilipinos for Education, Arts, Culture and Empowerment) are writing to ask you to place an item on the Board of Trustees agenda ASAP:  the current harsh payment policy that was initiated in October 2013, with the first wave of students being evicted from the college during enrollment for spring 2014.[1]

This policy puts pressure on already-enrolled students to immediately pay fees and back debts, before financial aid arrives. Students who can’t pay, are pressed to take out a loan from the predatory student loan company Nelnet.[2] Those who do not set up a loan, are robo-dropped from all their classes.[3] Information about a waiver for people whose financial aid is pending is buried in the fine print of the college website.

Over only four semesters, 9124 enrolled students have been robo-dropped from all their classes, with less than half (4284, or 47%) ever managing to re-enroll, and 4840 (53%) simply gone missing—in the middle of an enrollment crisis at the college!
Our goal is that the Board would direct Chancellor Lamb to place a moratorium on the current harsh payment policy, and to push back deadlines before the next wave of robo-dropping students, which could happen as soon as mid to late December, for spring semester.

Student organizers from the Solidarity Committee at CCSF call this “the racist payment policy” because of the many reports they have gotten from Black, Pacific Islander, Latino, Asian and low-income students about the impact of the payment policy on pushing students out of City College.  The impact is heaviest on non-AB 540 undocumented students and out of state students, who may find themselves pressured for immediate payment of thousands of dollars, with new charges piled on top regularly by Nelnet.

In October of 2013, the College’s announcement of the new policy featured a statement to the SF Chronicle from a vice chancellor:
“We are in a serious transition to right-size the college.”[4]
We believe that the current policy fits within a larger corporate agenda aimed at downsizing our college, worsening the already-devastating loss of one out of three students since 2008.[5]

Here is an example of how the policy works:  Renata owed City College $129. She was sent to wait in two long lines to see a financial aid specialist for help filling out her financial aid forms, and finally gave up. Next she received a threatening letter from City College saying that her tax refund might be intercepted.  As she scrambled to pay the rent, BART, books and her debt, suddenly the college dropped Renata from all of her classes. Her carefully planned work schedule was thrown into chaos.  

Every time a full-time student is pushed out, the college loses up to $4676 in state appropriations.  Yet the average debt to City College is only $256, so the college loses far more than it stands to collect.  The new policy only makes sense if the real goal is downsizing our public college, bringing in revenue for the for-profit colleges and student loan companies, and allowing asset stripping of College land by real estate developers. If the overarching goal is to rebuild enrollment, the policy is utterly counter productive.

We have confirmed with college attorney Steve Bruckman that the current payment policy was a local decision by the administration, so it can and should be immediately overturned. There was a Board resolution authorizing a contract with Nelnet on May 23, 2013 (Action V-F).  Very briefly, Mr. Bruckman said that state law requires colleges to collect fees from students, but how that is done is up to the college administration.

City College’s previous policy was to allow students to continue adding, dropping and taking classes while they arranged payment—only transcripts were frozen.  It is our understanding from other colleges, that a “pay up front” payment policy is very disruptive for low-income students if financial aid advising and accurate information are not readily available —for example, if students lack crucial information about the waiver for students who have financial aid pending.  We know from the presentation at the October Board meeting, that financial aid advising is understaffed, mainly available at Ocean, and not available in multiple languages.  We also know that the enrollment website gives exceptionally obscure instructions about the waiver for students who have financial aid pending.

Before thousands more enrolled students are dropped, the administration should put a moratorium on the current payment policy and overhaul it in line with the principles below:
1.  The BOT should ask Institutional Research to prepare an Equity Impact Report on the current payment policy. It should include the demographics of students who have been robo-dropped, including their ethnicities, ages, zip code and information that might highlight special impacts on undocumented students. How many of the pushed-out students were actually eligible for fee waivers if they had been provided with proper advising?   How many students have been pressured into signing up with Nelnet?

2. Information on the current payment options must be immediately changed so that the payment policy waiver for students who have financial aid pending, is clear and prominent. On the enrollment website, for example, Option 2 is now buried in fine print, and presented in bureaucratic gobbledegook as “Third Party Payer/Self Exemption.”   Very clear and prominent notices should be posted wherever students enroll and throughout college communications, and of course on the enrollment web page.

3. A moratorium should be placed on the current policy at least until City College has enough financial aid advising at all sites in in multiple languages, making it possible for students to get timely assistance in obtaining BOG, Pell, Cal Grants and other real assistance (versus loans), shielding them from being robo-dropped.  The College must follow financial aid professional association guidelines on the recommended ratio of students to advisors.   

4. The administration can and should adjust deadlines so that payment is due AFTER financial aid arrives, not before. If deadlines are pushed out, far fewer loans will be required.

5. The tone of over-the-top hostility and threats in correspondence from the college to students, and on the college website, must be corrected immediately.  Again, this tone is self-defeating if the goal is to re-build enrollment.
 

6. The administration or Board should contact Mayor Ed Lee and get swift follow-up on the fund to assist undocumented students, discussed by the Mayor over a year ago with zero concrete progress. The Board should set a deadline and make a back-up plan. We quote from a letter sent by Supervisor David Campos to Ed Lee on 2.7.14: 

1. “Undocumented students that were dropped because of the current payment policy should be able to register while a more equitable solution is created;
2. The emergency relief fund to be created by the Mayor’s office must support all undocumented students, including both AB540 and non AB540 students;[6]
3. Provide in-state tuition for undocumented students that have graduated from a high school in the US and have lived in California for a year and one day.  (CCSF currently grants in-state tuition to out-of-state students so long as they can prove they have lived in California for a year and one day);
4. Engage both AB540 and other undocumented students in the discussion on how best to address this problem.” 

7.  Un-freeze accounts: If students have accounts in arrears, they must still be able to add and drop classes, with only transcripts put on hold. The policy of totally freezing accounts sets students up to run afoul of the Academic Progress policy if they need to drop, but cannot.

8. End the contract with predatory Nelnet Business Solutions and develop an equitable payment plan based on student income. An in-house payment plan, run by the financial aid office, should emphasize retention and support for low-income students. If financing can’t be handled in-house, an arrangement could be made with a local credit union.

December 8, 2015
On behalf of the Save City College Coalition and the Solidarity Committee (Asian Student Union, Black Student Union, MECHA, P.E.A.C.E.--Pilipinos for Education, Arts, Culture and Empowerment)
Michael Adams (Save City College, community member)
Tarik Farrar (Save City College, *AFT 2121 and the *Department Chairs Council)
Allan Fisher (Save City College and *AFT 2121)
Jon Gausman (Black Student Union)
Lalo Gonzalez (MECHA)
Wendy Kaufmyn (Save City College and *AFT 2121)
Win-Mon Kyi (Asian Student Union)
Claire Warren (P.E.A.C.E., Pilipinos for Education, Arts, Culture and Empowerment)


* Asterisk indicates other affiliations for identification purposes only
 

 

---

[1] The policy was also presented by VC Samuel Santos at the October, 2015 Board meeting, available on video at 3:24:00, http://ccsf.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=557

[2] A US Department of Education audit revealed that from 1993 to 2007, student loan companies had set up an elaborate scam to over-bill the federal government for interest on student loans—to the tune of $600 million in taxpayer dollars, $278 million for Nelnet alone. Nelnet has made multiple court settlements for fraud, kickbacks, and improper inducements to colleges and universities (Sources:  Washington Post and Collinge, The Student Loan Scam)

[3]  Oddly enough, the policy only applies to students who have planned ahead and enrolled in classes in advance.  Once classes have started, state regulations prevent students from being dropped. 

[4] October 25, 2013, statement by the then vice chancellor of student development.  This was no doubt considered a communications slip, since the downsizing policy is mainly discussed off mike and obliquely. 

[5] The corporate agenda to downsize City College informs ongoing coverage by the SF Chronicle, which since the beginning of the crisis has repeated scores of times the message that City College is “a vast college,” “a behemoth,” and must change from being “a bloated, slow-thinking system of nine campuses into a lean, sharp-minded institution of higher learning” (translation:  a much smaller college that will “no longer need all its campuses,” which may be better used for luxury condo development schemes such as those led by the Chronicle’s corporate owner, the Hearst Corporation, along with Forest City Enterprises.  See Supes OK big SoMa project, $1 billion development planned at 5^th and Mission, SF Chronicle 11/18/2015.  The huge multi-site development project is centered one block from Downtown Campus.  Will Downtown Campus go the way of 33 Gough and Civic Center Tenderloin Campus?)

[6] Under the California Dream Act, AB540 students must have graduated from a California high school or GED program, and have attended high school in California for three or more years.   

The Common Core in it's historical perspective

Here's a very very brief outline of my PhD dissertation

1. business LEADERS have always determined what educational policy is -- business leaders fundamentally alter schooling to meet their needs to sort and socialize the work force. When the nation's economic structure alters, the school system's structure has been changed by business.

2. fundamental education reform has happened 3 times in U.S. history:

• 1848 -- creation of standardized, hierarchical public school system
• 1890's -- creation of comprehensive high schools and tracking system using standardized tests (working class tracked into vocational education; middle class tracked into college prep courses).
• 1989 -- creation of high-stakes testing (attaching High stakes to the standardized tests that have been in use since 1890s)

3. these three transformations of the public school system match the three major transformations of the U.S. economy.

• 1840s' -- transition from agricultural to manufacturing society
• 1890's -- transition from manufacturing society to industrial
• 1980's -- transition from industrial to service economy

4. beginning in 1990's the Business Roundtable engineered a coalition of business groups and educators to pass "high-stakes legislation" in all the state legislatures. By 2000, only 16 states had passed high stakes testing:

• a. state content standards
• b. state mandatory standardized tests
• c. rewards and sanctions connected to test results

5. so, frustrated at the state level, the BRT went to Washington D.C. and lobbied Dems and Republicans to rewrite the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act to reflect high stakes testing policy. the result was NCLB, in the hopes that lobbyists could use NCLB as LEVERAGE to get the recalcitrant state legislatures (those resistant to HST) to pass HST legislation. Many more states came on board during the next 10 years.

6. NCLB was set to expire in 2007. It was SO UNPOPULAR that congress didn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole, in spite of heavy lobbying by the BRT inspired coalition to reauthorize the law. In 2008, Obama campaigned to rewrite the law to respond to criticism. When in office, he hired Arne Duncan ( the NEA has recently called for Duncan to resign) who essentially replaced NCLB with Race to the Top. This has been equally widely unpopular.

7. Business CEO's, frustrated by teacher, parent and student sabotage of high stakes testing have now settled on a "common core" set of standards to once again, be enforced by standardized tests.

What is the purpose of HST/Common Core? The top CEOs want to increase the number of college graduates in STEM fields -- to increase the supply far beyond the demand, so as to lower their wages. HST failed to do that, so Gates et al got Congress to expand the H1B visas to bring in foreign born "knowledge workers" at half the price of native bred STEM. also, majorly outsourcing computer programming et al to India and China and anywhere where they were cheap.

Top down education reform doesn't work. it doesn't get the willing participation of those who are actually implementing it. and the more administrators threaten, cajole teachers, the more teachers resist in any way they can. Teachers had different goals for their students than business leaders have. the clash of goals in schools and in the classroom frustrates everyone.

Activism: Then and Now (event at USF)

I was delighted to work with Victor Valle, a student at the University of San Francisco, in putting on this event.  I met Victor when I went to  Marilyn DeLaure's Rhetoric of Social Movement's class.  Marilyn was, briefly, a board member of the SF Freedom School.  She invites community groups to present options for community service during the first weeks of her course (as part of the community service requirement of her course).  After I presented, Victor contacted me to ask if he could work with "the SF Freedom School" to put on a panel that would include current day activists and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement.  I suggested several current day activists of which two were able to participate -- Shanell Williams and Javier Reyes.  I ask Phil Hutchings, a former field secretary and program director of SNCC, veteran of the Venceramos Brigade and, currently, a senior organizer for Causa Justa/Just Cause and the Black Alliance for Immigration Reform.
presented to Professor

On November 14th, at the University Center at USF, around 30 people attended the event.  Victor had arranged for food to be served and moderated the panel.  Phil, Shanell and Javier took turns presenting.

Victor moderated the presentations in such a way that he encouraged a spirited interaction among the panelists as they responded to each other's presentations. The questions from the audience also provoked discussion among the panelists.

SEE USF FOGHORN ARTICLE FOR GOOD SUMMARY OF CONTENT OF PRESENTATIONS/DISCUSSIONS

Phil, as part of his presentation, read the last three paragraphs from Julian Bond's essay, SNCC: What We Accomplished, published by Monthly Review in 2000.

Throughout its brief history, SNCC insisted on group-centered leadership and community-based politics. It made clear the connection between economic power and racial oppression. It refused to define racism as a solely southern phenomenon, to describe racial inequality as caused by irrational prejudice alone, or to limit its struggle solely to guaranteeing legal equality. It challenged U.S. imperialism while mainstream civil rights organizations were silent or curried favor with President Lyndon Johnson, condemning SNCC’s linkage of domestic and international poverty and racism with overseas adventurism. SNCC refused to apply political tests to its membership or supporters, opposing the red-baiting that other organizations and leaders endorsed or condoned. And it created an atmosphere of expectation and anticipation among the people with whom it worked, trusting them to make decisions about their own lives. Thus SNCC widened the definition of politics beyond campaigns and elections; for SNCC, politics encompassed not only electoral races, but also organizing political parties, labor unions, producer cooperatives, and alternative schools.

SNCC initially sought to transform southern politics by organizing and enfranchising blacks. One proof of its success was the increase in black elected officials in the southern states from seventy-two in 1965 to 388 in 1968. But SNCC also sought to amplify the ends of political participation by enlarging the issues of political debate to include the economic and foreign-policy concerns of American blacks. SNCC’s articulation and advocacy of Black Power redefined the relationship between black Americans and white power. No longer would political equity be considered a privilege; it had become a right.

A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.

They did then and can do so again.

Civil Rights History event - November 9th

November 9th, Daughters of the Civil Rights Speak in Oakland.
(and more East Bay events)

segregated SF (and segregated U.S.)

An amazing map of the United States.  I zoomed in and took the following picture of SF. 

Music (Art) for Freedom -- how to grow a movement

I have been trying to convince members of the SaveCCSF coalition to do more singing and less chanting....with a smidgen of success so far.  I think some of the obstacles have been the lack of song leaders as well as the lack of practice within a modern culture that doesn't sing much anymore.

During each of the campaigns of the Southern Freedom Movement (e.g., Montgomery, Nashville, Albany, Greenwood, Birmingham),  momentum was fostered, sustained and increased at regular "mass meetings" in the evenings.  These meetings were part fundraisers, part strategy sessions, part information dissemination,  part faith building and part dress rehearsal.   The dress rehearsal part was regular singing, before, during and after the agendized meeting.

The Southern Freedom Movement was a singing movement (and for good reason)

Song leaders and even singing groups would begin the songs but the congregation would immediately join in and often offer lyrics to additional verses.  This was crucial learning and practice for the picket line or march or sit in the next day.

From Voices of the Civil Rights Movement:

DOG, DOG, Los Angeles, CA, August 1963, SNCC Freedom Singers led by Cordell Reagon.This satirical song, written by Movement activists James Bevel and Bernard LaFayette, was spread throughout the South by Movement organizers-especially Reagon, who here leads the original SNCC Freedom Singers. The song became a mainstay in the repertoire of both the first and second groups of freedom singers. Using rhythm and blues motifs, the song tells a parable of two boys who lived next door to each other but could not play together because of the color of their skin. Their homes were separated by a fence, but the dogs could slip under the fence to play.  

NINETY-NINE AND A HALF (WON'T DO), Birmingham, AL , 1963 , Alabama Christian Movement Choir led by Carlton Reese "99½ Won't Do" is based on the gospel tune popularized by Mother Katie Bell Nubin, mother of Rosetta Tharpe, famed gospel singer of the 1940s and 1950s. Reese, who leads the singing, rearranged the song and inserted new Movement phrases.

THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE , Selma, AL , October 1963 , Led by Betty Mae Fikes This rendition is led by Betty Mae Fikes with the Selma Youth Freedom Choir and is accompanied by piano. The song maintains enough of its traditional structure to allow for full participation by the congregation. The gospel influence is evident in Fikes's statement of the initiating line. One of the strongest song leaders to come out of the Movement, Fikes uses her unique and signature call to initiate each new verse halfway through the last line of the old verse. The gospel change in melody is picked up and maintained by the full congregation. Song leaders often localized songs by adding lyrics peculiar to their immediate situation. Many of these songs from Selma, Alabama, used names of local personalities. For example, Fikes sings "Tell Jim Clark" (sheriff of Selma) and "Tell Al Lingo" (Head of the Alabama State Troopers), calling their names as symbols of what the Selma Movement was fighting. Movement leaders were also named in the new lyrics. Spontaneous cheers and clapping greet Fikes's lines, recognition of her skill as a songleader and on-the-spot chronicler of the mood of the congregation.

 Below are some more recent hopeful examples of the use of song to build community, hope, maintain sanity, and express a vision for the future.

 

The Wizard of Oz Will Save Us?

I watched Oz the Great and Powerful on the plane last weekend. After being appalled by Milas Kunis' horrible, nails-on-a-blackboard screeching after she turns into the green-hued Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton* must be turning over in her grave), my biggest complaint about the movie is the moral of the story -- only a charismatic showman can inspire a people to fight successfully against evil. (I don't want to even get into the grotesquely apparent sexism of an audience expected to be emotionally engaged in the process of three women's obsession with a doofus male.)

Anyone, like myself, who is trying to persuade others of the power of the people, the power of nonviolent direct action, must be constantly annoyed at a dominant culture that continues to promote the myth that only a leader (who, in James Franco's role, doesn't even have to be "great") can make history. And this movie rubs your face in that myth.

Just as Salmon Rushdie deconstructed the classic, 1939 Wizard of Oz, I wish someone would do the same with Oz the Great and Powerful. James Franco's (Oz's) motivation to avoid commitments of any kind makes as much sense in his movie as Judy Garland's desire to go home does in hers (As Rushdie points out, why would Dorothy want to go home to poverty and dysfunction when she had grown up into a independent, courageous woman with a loving community/family in Oz?)

While this latest remake of Baum's original stories will never be a classic (i.e. not well done) and is, therefore, probably not worthy of further attention, it is, nevertheless, part of the larger pattern of hero worship that leaves little room for the truth as chronicled in more prosaic works such as Why Civil Resistance Works and A Force More Powerful and in more entertaining works like Bruce Hartford's science fiction story, The Gandhi Ring.

The Truth? "History is a choice" (Bayard Rustin); good is more powerful than evil (Gandhi); and social movements take "intellectual rigor and collectivity" (Phil Hutchings).   Ordinary people like you and me, acting collectively, have been the engines of social justice throughout history, not great men like Oz, Iron Man, Obama, Winston Churchill, or even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

During the Freedom Movement of the 1960s, we did not protest simply to vent to our anger and alienation. We took action to change society. Our sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and mass marches were grounded in an analysis of political reality that led to the strategy and tactics of Nonviolent Resistance as a means of winning actual changes. As the Freedom Movement evolved, so too did our analysis of political power — an analysis that is relevant to this day. We understood that the injustices we opposed were deeper and more complex than just some bad people with racist ideas. Beneath the surface of segregation and denial of voting rights lay a "white power-structure" of wealthy individuals, powerful corporations, and influential politicians who derived significant economic and political benefits from systemic racism, and therefore they used their power to establish, extend, and maintain the Jim Crow system. Which meant that in order to change that system, we had to understand what political power is, where it comes from, how it is generated, and how it can be used to change society. (Bruce Hartford in Nonviolent Resistance and Political Power, 1968)

* fun fact from the Wiki article: "In 1939, Hamilton played the role of the Wicked Witch of the West . . . creating not only her most famous role, but one of the screen's most memorable villains. Hamilton was cast after Gale Sondergaard, who was first considered for the role, albeit as a more glamorous witch with a musical scene, declined the role when the decision was made that the witch should appear ugly." My view is that only really, really, really good actors can pull off evil well. Why am I not surprised Alan Rickman never worried about appearing ugly as Snape or the Sherriff of Nottingham?

Firefighters versus Police in Spain - a division within the regime?

The picture of firefighters skirmishing with riot police in Spain made me think of the effectiveness of widespread and DIVERSE civil disobedience.  See where I made the connections below in boldface.

Chenoweth and Stephan conclude in their study of nonviolent (v. violent) movements (Why Civil Resistance Works):

In all cases, nonviolent campaigns have succeeded in generating mass mobilization, whereas violent campaigns have relied on smaller numbers.  People who sympathize with violent opposition movements often express reluctance to participate because of fear of regime reprisals.  Although participating in a nonviolent campaign is frequently quite dangerous, ordinary citizens perceive it to be safer than participating in a violent campaign.

The diversity of participants has been as important  as the numbers of participants.  Some violent campapigns, like the Philippine insurgency, mobilized tens of thousands of members.  However, most of these participatnts were young men who rallied around the Marxist ideology, thus exluding those who found that ideology unattractive.  Perhaps more important from a strategic perspective, the reliance on a single opposition ideology cut the Marxist insurgents off from the opponent regime.  More diverse campaigns, which include multiple age groups, class, occupations , ideologies, and genders, are likelier to have links to members  of the regime, such that opportunities to create divisions  within the regime become more ubiquitous.

. . . In the [Iranian Revolution, the first Intifada, and overthrow of Marcos] the nonviolent campaigns applied sufficient pressure to begin dividing the regime from its main pillars of support.  One of the most visible outcomes of this strategy was loyalty shifts among security forces, an outcome that would be difficult to imagine if the campaigns had been violent.  Once security forces refused to obey the regime, the state  was forced to capitulate to the campaign's demands......

And this reminds me of a great movie, Children of the Revolution, in which Joe strategically focuses on recruiting the police as part of his successful revolutionary activity.  You can apparently watch this movie for free online.  I highly recommend it -- it has a Monty Python like satiric story line with a killer cast (Judy Davis, Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, F. Murray Abraham).  It is funny and serious at the same time....much like Life of Brian as a good critique of leftist ideologues.

Peter Ackerman on Syria

Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall are co-authors of A Force More Powerful, case studies (stories) of how people power prevails over violence and oppression.

excerpts from A Tyrant's Worst Nightmare: People Power

. . . . Conventional wisdom has said that oppressed people have two choices: either accept the status quo or mount a violent insurrection. My dream is that the day will come when people in all parts of the world will turn to civil resistance rather than rely on armed revolt. . .

The Syrian example

As an example, just consider the effects of the two phases of the Syrian conflict: First, a campaign of civil resistance was waged from March to September 2011, during which the Assad regime was weakened more than at any other time over the previous 40 years - and fewer than 3,000 people died from its repression.

That campaign's success emboldened a large part of the Syrian military to defect, joining impatient activists to form the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Tragically, in the next phase of the conflict, civil resistance was marginalized because many falsely believed that "nonviolence doesn't work," and violence against the regime intensified.

Now, with 70,000 more fatalities and no end in sight to a war of mutual destruction, Assad's opponents have proved just the opposite - that violent insurrection doesn't work. . .

. . .  Armed struggles aim to kill anyone in power without discrimination, but effective civil resistance distinguishes between the relatively few power-holders in a society and the larger coterie (bureaucrats, military, business) who obey those in power.

With tactics such as strikes, boycotts, and mass demonstrations, civil resistance spurs defections among those supporters and can force changes at the top. This strategy of dissolving an oppressor's capacity to use power is more likely to work against a well-armed dictatorship than a strategy of mutual annihilation.  Civil resistance is also more likely to produce a democratic outcome. . .

Most analysts argue that certain structural conditions which a movement can't control - such as a ruler's willingness to use repression, the degree of digital freedom, or whether the society has a middle class - determine the outcome.

My research and that of others have found that there is no correlation between such conditions and the outcomes of nonviolent conflicts. Just the opposite: a movement's choices - its strategy, messages, discipline, tactics, coalition-building, and other actions - are far more influential than the perceived initial impediments. . . .

Since I wrote my doctoral dissertation on this subject 35 years ago, I've witnessed dozens of breakthroughs by home-grown, nonviolent movements organized by people who refused to tolerate repression any longer. Many times I've seen how an organized, disciplined movement can develop strategies of mass resistance to put intolerable pressure on brutal power-holders and dissolve their legitimacy.

The international community must stop being mesmerized by the false choice of accommodating or attacking tyrants and should pay attention to history's verdict:

The very people who are oppressed, if they know how to use civil resistance, can win their rights through their own initiative. The violence they have feared does not require violence to end it. The freedom they crave, they can have - if we help them obtain the knowledge of how to do so.

Citizen Journalists, Video and the Internet - A NEW PROJECT

A new internet video project announced on the Global Voices Advocacy website:

In recent years, few major catastrophes have taken place without being captured through video, pictures, or tweets by ordinary citizens. Citizen journalists have reported on everything from the civil war in Syria, to natural disasters such as the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, to incidents of police brutality at Occupy protests.

This kind of raw documentation brings new complexity to the information landscape. It has created new avenues for news dissemination, and as more mainstream media outlets include citizen media in their reporting, it has changed and enhanced their coverage. However, there still is a gap between the mainstream media, with their large audiences, and these citizen journalists that must be bridged.

The newly launched project Irrepressible Voices (IV) aims to fill this gap by creating a platform that will connect online activists, bloggers, and citizen journalists with the mainstream media as well as with policy and decision makers.

 This video is a one minute "call to action" by citizen journalists, asking people to upload videos of human rights abuses to their cite.


WATCH SAMPLE VIDEO HERE about the Philippines.

Rebecca Solnit post on Tomdispatch - what comes after hope

Tom introduces Rebecca's post by saying, "Rebecca Solnit... taught me how to hope in a world that seemed dismal indeed . . . . Like Studs [Terkel, Hope Dies Last], she taught me that acting, even while not knowing, is a powerful antidote to despair."

Rebecca writes

If you take the long view, you’ll see how startlingly, how unexpectedly but regularly things change. Not by magic, but by the incremental effect of countless acts of courage, love, and commitment, the small drops that wear away stones and carve new landscapes, and sometimes by torrents of popular will that change the world suddenly. To say that is not to say that it will all come out fine in the end regardless. I’m just telling you that everything is in motion, and sometimes we are ourselves that movement.

Hope and history are sisters: one looks forward and one looks back, and they make the world spacious enough to move through freely. Obliviousness to the past and to the mutability of all things imprisons you in a shrunken present. Hopelessness often comes out of that amnesia, out of forgetting that everything is in motion, everything changes. We have a great deal of history of defeat, suffering, cruelty, and loss, and everyone should know it. But that’s not all we have.
......
Not long ago, I ran into a guy who’d been involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement . . . . He offered a tailspin of a description of how Occupy was over and had failed. But I wonder: How could he possibly know?

[What I know is that] Occupy began to say what needed to be said about greed and capitalism, exposing a brutality that had long been hushed up, revealing both the victims of debt and the rigged economy that created it. This country changed because those things were said out loud. . . . I know people personally whose lives were changed, and who are doing work they never imagined they would be involved in, and I’m friends with remarkable people who, but for Occupy, I would not know existed. . . . . there was great joy at the time , the joy of liberation and of solidarity, and joy is worth something in itself. In a sense, it’s worth everything, even if it’s always fleeting, though not always as scarce as we imagine.