Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
What
Activists Committed to the Long-Haul Fight Can Learn from the Life of Organizer
Fred Ross
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Thursday, June 9, 2016
In These Times
The
biographies of icons frequently fall into one of two categories. On the one
hand they may be laudatory, in some cases turning the subject into a saint. At
the opposite end, they can tend towards tell-all pieces, in some cases aiming
to tear down the subject. What makes America’s Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and Grassroots
Organizing in the Twentieth Century [2], Gabriel
Thompson’s new biography of the legendary community organizer, unusual is that
it presents a very balanced account of the life and work of one of the foremost
progressive organizers of the 20th century, while at the same time offering
very useful insights into the art and craft of progressive organizing.
In many
respects, Ross’s life is the story of a significant segment of the progressive
movement in California. He came of age politically during the 1930s; witnessing
the great agricultural worker struggles of that era which came in the aftermath
of the mass deportation of Chicanos and Mexicans in 1930s which came to be
associated with the term, “Los Repatriados,” found himself face-to-face with
the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War
II and his slow but steady emergence as an organizer and theorist within the
Community Service Organization (and later, the United Farm Workers).
Although
Ross and legendary organizer Saul Alinsky were quite close, and Ross actually
worked for Alinsky for a period of time, Ross departed from his mentor in two
important respects. First, central to Alinsky’s approach to organizing was the
notion of building an organization of organizations. Through the Industrial
Areas Foundation, locally-based coalitions were put together, frequently rooted
in the religious community. This aimed to guarantee some level of credibility
for the organizing effort. But Ross disagreed: He believed in the need to
create new community-based organizations that were unencumbered by older
leaderships who he frequently believed to be too passive or otherwise
obstructive.
The other
difference is that Ross recognized the importance of the Chicano movement in
California and was prepared to engage in struggles that some organizers,
influenced by Alinsky, would have concluded were far too divisive.
The
Community Service Organization, which he helped to build, was rooted in the
Chicano movement, though open to others. It fought against police brutality
that was directed at Chicanos and attempted to build Chicano political power in
Los Angeles.
Although
Ross did not present himself as a person of the Left (probably in part due to
the Cold War persecution of leftists), his inclinations were clearly toward the
Left. He mostly refused to engage in the sort of redbaiting that was common
from the 1940s to the 1960s, even among many progressives.
This fact
gave me pause. I have been highly critical of Alinsky and those who have
followed in his wake for their de-ideologizing of organizing:
an approach that suggests that it is almost unimportant what one organizes
around; it is the act of organizing itself that raises the political
consciousness of those engaged, and raises it in a progressive direction. This
de-ideologizing by many of Alinsky’s followers made its way into the ranks of organized
labor, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s and played a counter-productive
role in efforts at labor renewal.
The Ross
described by Thompson appears to have been a somewhat different sort of
character. On the one hand, there is no attention to ideology and leftist
political education in the organizing that he conducted. In that sense, there
is a consistency with Alinsky. At the same time, Ross’s approach, as
demonstrated by the sorts of struggles in which he engaged, seems more akin to
a sort of “evolutionary leftism,” that through various forms of progressive
organizing, we will naturally achieve the kinds of transformations we need as a
society—no larger ideology necessary.
Such an
approach eschews the importance of movement-wide strategic objectives, rooted
in a larger political vision. Nevertheless, this appears to be a difference
between Ross and Alinsky that was overshadowed by their close friendship over
the years.
The other
aspect of Thompson’s treatment that I especially appreciated revolved around
the question of family. Ross’s family life was largely tragic. It is not just
that his two marriages ended in divorce. Rather, Ross’s approach towards his
organizing life was to put organizing before everything else.
At one
point in history such an approach would have been considered noble, if not
heroic. Yet, in reading about his ignoring his two wives, and spending limited
amounts of time with his children (with the notable exception of Fred Ross, Jr.
who followed in his father’s footsteps as an organizer), what was striking was
both Ross’ sexism and his blindness to the multi-dimensional side to living the
life of an organizer.The sexism was especially ironic because Ross made
reaching women a priority in his organizing.
In
Ross’ era, it was frequently accepted that men could go off and save the
world and the women should take care of the home front. We should be careful
about judging a past period based on the norms of our current era. Yet one can
conclude that, first, there were alternative courses even during that era, and,
second, that the cost, not only to Ross’s two wives and children but to Ross
himself, were severe.
In social
movements there are intense pressures on organizers—paid and unpaid—to put
everything else aside in the name of the cause. There are circumstances where
that is necessary, if not unavoidable. I am reminded of a South African
activist, Nimrod Sejake, who was exiled due to his anti-apartheid work,
spending years in Ireland, the result being his missing out on years in the lives
of his children. One cannot second guess such a decision, made under extreme
conditions. Yet the decision came at great cost. His family was very divided
over whether his sacrifice had been worth it, a very tragic legacy for a person
who committed so much for a greater cause.
For Ross,
however, the idea of the organizer prioritizing organizing above
everything—including one’s family—rose to the level of principle. It was not
only about what one might be forced to do under extraordinary circumstances, but
what an organizer should be prepared to do at virtually any point. In Ross’s
case, this included ignoring his wife during certain key moments when she was
recovering from polio.
The failure
to recognize the need for a balance which includes a family and a life
committed to social justice inevitably led to dysfunctions in the way that Ross
thought and operated. The movement became everything, and this meant, at
certain key moments—as we would see when Ross worked with Cesar Chavez—a
willingness to turn a blind eye to terrible, abusive practices carried out in
the name of the movement. Ross failed to question the actions of someone
who, even more than Ross, believed that he was putting the movement before
everything else.
Thompson
also offers an insightful and emotionally challenging look at the development
of the United Farm Workers of America. Cesar Chavez, the legendary founding
President of the union, was someone who Ross mentored. Over the years their
relationship evolved, such that Ross came to not only admire Chavez, but to see
him as the leader who could transform American society. This
evolution took very tragic consequences when Chavez himself evolved into a
leader filled with paranoia, anti-communism, and quite possibly, some level of
anti-Semitism, as Randy Shaw recounts in Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for
Justice in the 21st Century [3].
Ross
witnessed firsthand the deterioration of the UFW, including the purges carried
out against outstanding leaders and activists, such as the purging of two great
leading figures in the UFW, Marshal Ganz and Eliseo Medina (the latter going on
to become Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU), or the manipulation of a key vote
at the UFW convention that led to the departure of many UFW activists, feeling
betrayed. Yet he said nothing. Thompson proposes that Ross might have been one
of the few people who could have successfully challenged Chavez as he descended
into Tartarus, taking with him a union that in so many ways pointed in the
direction necessary for broader U.S. labor renewal.
Thompson
not only tells an excellent story, but he also, at key moments in the book,
identifies certain lessons for organizers, drawing from the life and work of
Ross. He does not editorialize as to whether he, in every case, agrees with
Ross, but the lessons are clear. One example, noted above, was Ross’ awareness
that women are generally the best organizers, and that if one wishes to get any
substantial project off the ground, one must win over women. It was not clear,
however, the extent to which Ross recognized that winning over women was not
just about winning them in the initial organizing efforts, but ensuring that
they have a full leadership role throughout the process of the construction and
life of an organization.
Ross,
additionally, promoted the notion of beginning with where people are, then moving
them forward, a truism for organizing whether one subscribes to Alinsky or Mao
Zedong. The book lists a myriad of additional lessons that Ross drew from his own
experiences and which he theorized, to varying degrees.
Ross did
not believe in the concept of “burnout”. He believed that an organizer is
either an organizer or they have given up and dropped out. In reading about
this I was reminded of the famous story of the incident involving General
George S. Patton—during World War II—where he hit a soldier who was suffering
battle fatigue (an incident dramatized in George C. Scott’s remarkable
portrayal of the general in Patton).
In both
Ross and Patton’s case, there was a misreading of human beings. These were not
simply examples of macho, whether applied to organizing or to war. It was a
failure to understand how human beings cope with pressure and particularly over
extended periods of time. Organizers do burn out. Some of them
leave the movement entirely; others return full swing after a certain period; and
others ‘renegotiate’ their relationship to the movement on different terms.
A good
friend of mine stepped away from a leadership position in a major local union.
I asked him why he did this. He replied: “Because of my family. I realized that
if things kept going the way that they were going, I would not be part of the
lives of my children as they grew up nor be a good partner for my wife.”
Ross might
have described such an approach as what we used to call “half-stepping,”
evidence of someone who wasn’t fully committed to the movement. I would look at
it as more of an adjustment to the simple fact that involvement in the movement
is a marathon. This is a long-distance race during which time one’s speed may
vary or breathing may change. But one never loses sight of the final goal.
Failing to appreciate the multi-dimensionality to the life of an organizer
guarantees that instead of building and reinforcing organizers, we
produce Blade Runner-type replicants or androids who may, at first
glance, appear to be human, but have actually lost their souls.
In many
respects, this is what appears to have happened to Ross. Yes, he was
without question great and dedicated. But in failing to appreciate the
marathon nature of our journey and the need for balance, he began losing pieces
of the humanity for which he had actually been fighting for most of his life.
Gabriel
Thompson has produced one of the most thought-provoking books on organizing and
affecting social change that I have read in some time. In telling Fred Ross’
life story, Thompson has dared to push the envelope on matters that many
progressives would rather ignore.
Bill
Fletcher, Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member for BlackCommentator.com.
He is also a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the
immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, and the co-founder of the Center
for Labor Renewal. He is the author of The Indispensable Ally: Black
Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Relations, 1934-1941 and
co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a
New Path toward Social Justice.
Portside is
proud to feature content from In These Times [1], a
publication dedicated to covering progressive politics, labor and activism. To
get more news and provocative analysis from In These Times, sign up [4] for a free weekly
e-newsletter or subscribe [5] to
the magazine at a special low rate.
Source URL: https://portside.org/2016-06-13/what-activists-committed-long-haul-fight-can-learn-life-organizer-fred-ross
Links:
[1] http://inthesetimes.com?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
[2] http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520280830
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fields-Struggle-Justice-Century/dp/0520251075?ie=UTF8&qid=1216946566&ref_=pd_bbs_sr_2&s=books&sr=8-2&tag=viglink21677-20
[4] http://inthesetimes.com/newsletters?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
[5] http://inthesetimes.com/subscribe?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment