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.