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On The Poor Organizing The Poor - The Experience of Kensington

Willie Baptist is the education director for the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and director of the Annie Smart Leadership Development Institute (ASLDI), the education and training arm of the National Welfare Rights Union. The following lecture was given at a retreat for social workers who support KWRU in February, 1998.

1. OUR ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION

2. LEADERSHIP OF THE POOR

3. YOU ONLY GET WHAT YOU'RE ORGANIZED TO TAKE

4. THE FIVE MAIN INGREDIENTS

5. POWER NOT PITY

6. THE SIX PANTHER Ps

OUR ESTIMATE OF THE SITUATION

I am formerly homeless. I've been on welfare with my family on and off for ten years. I was on workfare, and worked all kinds of jobs - the salvation army, snow removal and that kind of thing. I worked as a plumber, side by side with regular plumbers making upwards of $18 an hour. My welfare check averaged $2.50 an hour.

It's clear that the logic of the current welfare to work scheme is the destruction of the wage structure at its base, pushing living standards down to that of slaves. Certainly, if I'm about profit and I want to hire a plumber, I would want someone at $2.50 an hour who's prepared to work at that level as opposed to paying $18 an hour and upwards. These are just some of the dynamics that are taking place today around workfare and this whole dismantling of the welfare state that we see taking place before our eyes.

What is our approach to this situation? In new days, you gotta do things in new ways, and it's very important that we come to terms with that new day - what is that newness, what is that quality that is different from past periods? Otherwise we find ourselves trying to put as square peg in a round hole, and we get frustrated, because it's just not going to fit. We have to proceed understanding what the situation is, what is new today as opposed to yesterday, and therefore, how do we proceed. In other words, we need to know whether we are dealing with a "teddy bear" or a "grizzly bear." With a teddy bear you use one set of tactics, like embracing it, but if you're dealing with a grizzly bear you don't embrace it, especially if it's hungry - you get the hell out of there. So you have two different approaches based on two different assessments of the situation. So the first step in determining our approach at this time in this new day is an estimate of the situation we face. An estimate is also important with respect to our perspective. Often because of the influence of a narrow outlook of race, identity politics, ethnicity, etc., we get caught up in one element of a process and we forget the entire process, we don't understand it. It's like we can be in a forest and become so fixated on a certain tree that we forget the dynamics of the forest. Weather patterns and so forth are such that fires periodically occur in a forest, it's part of the functioning of a forest ecosystem. Fires serve to renew a forest by clearing it of older trees and allowing new trees to grow and so forth and so on. If you have a fire coming from one end of the forest, and you're over here only focusing on this one tree, and it's dynamics - it's diameter, it's life cycle, etc. - you're going to get consumed by the fire! This is what can happen if you don't proceed from a perspective of all the parts of what we're dealing with.

And so the idea of an estimate of the situation includes what's new in the situation, and a perspective in which we can determine the different parts and elements of the whole, so we don't get caught into one element of the thing. A lot of people do get caught with regard to the changes that are taking place with the welfare system. They're fighting over who is going to get the best chair on the Titanic. They're not talking about how you fashion those chairs into life rafts to get the hell off the Titanic. They're fixated on "I want a better chair."

This question of perspective is absolutely critical, and our experience over the last eight years in organizing ourselves as poor people is that what we're dealing with is not a "teddy bear," but a "grizzly bear," and the economic changes we're facing are going to make the great depression look like a picnic. What we've gotten from some of the major economic and financial players is that they're very much concerned with the globalization of the economy and the trends associated with that process. What we learned from the Great Depression (and people should study that period in history) is that in response to that massive economic dislocation there was a tremendous social movement in response. Once you take people's basic needs, they have to move. They can't just accept the situation. There were two incidents that occurred in the late seventies that I think is indicative of what we're talking about in terms of the situation.

Basic to this new situation is this tremendous technological revolution that everyone is talking about. This is resulting in tremendous social and political dislocation. This electronic revolution, information revolution, technological revolution, whatever they call it, is profound, and taking effect; we're finding families who are dislocated, jobs which are taken away on a massive world scale, and this "downsizing," this nice word that means people being laid off, is real. And these jobs are not coming back. One incident that demonstrates the implications of this situation was in Michigan. In the auto industry in Michigan some 200,000 workers were downsized around that time. There was a man who had been downsized, laid off, and he had exhausted his unemployment benefits; UAW had negotiated sub-benefits, and he went through that and eventually went onto welfare. Once he got on welfare, it was determined that the value of things he had accumulated while working - his house, his car, his TV sets and things like that - made him ineligible for welfare, so they cut him off. He couldn't find a job through this whole period. His response was to take out a gun, point it at his head, and blow his brains out, as that was the only option he could see. He thought that he was basically at fault for the problems he was facing. There was a similar situation of another man, but when he was kicked off he got one of those convertible tables, a Coleman stove, and went with his dog and entire family down to the nearest supermarket. He set up the table near the meat section - not the chicken and liver part, but the fillet mignon section. He turned on the stove, got vegetables, and fed everybody steak, including the dog! The manager got wind of it - everybody was making a commotion of course, seeing this guy in the middle of the supermarket cooking food for his family. They called the police, and the police were naturally connected to the media, so everybody was down there to apprehend the guy. The media reporter asked for his comment. He said "I'm not going to sit by and allow my family to starve. It's as simple as that." This latter case is not an aberration, but an indication that people are not going to accept human suffering, people are getting angry, and not looking for a better seat on the Titanic, but a way to get off the Titanic. This is what our method of approach is all about.

We're finding all throughout the country people asking "How is it you guys have been able to sustain over the last seven to eight years, and been able to attract different strata of the population into activities and discussions and so forth to bring about some kind of change in the thinking and priorities of this nation?" Our approach is based on our experience, our study of history and other's experiences; the basis of our approach starts with an estimate of the situation; we are constantly reviewing and revisiting that analysis - we are not satisfied with a superficial view that leaves us at the surface and does not go to the substance, we are not satisfied with looking at any particular element, we are trying to look at the whole big picture. We're constantly committing ourselves to that kind of study and educational process in our organizing approach.

LEADERSHIP OF THE POOR

In our study of history we've seen that at every turn in this country where major problems that defined those times have arisen, those problems were solved when the sector or segment of the population that was most affected, most devastated by the problems, was placed at the forefront of the struggle. As they moved to the forefront, and consolidated their position and participation in the movement, that problem was solved. If any other segment of the population was placed at the forefront, and had a stake in the status quo, if they were leading that process as the most organized force, then the problem was not solved. There was stagnation, or a reversal of fortune, and the movement could not go forward. What we're seeing is the major social problem which is undergirding every other polarity, and shaping all the other problems, is this problem of the ever-increasing polarity between wealth and poverty. This process of concentrating resources and wealth into fewer and fewer hands is central to everything else which is going on. Unless we address that question, and unless we tie everything we're doing today to addressing that question, then we're not really developing the kind of movement or the kind of approaches that are going to affect the real root of the problem we're facing. We'll be attacking the leaves and branches of the problem, but not the root of it. This is very important to those of us who are making commitments to deal with some real problems - it's essential that we really deal with the problem at its root, and not it's leaves and branches.

In the periods of history where we saw the contradiction between the American colonialists and the British crown, we saw that it was the colonialists who sought to resolve their problems. There were forces within England who were fighting for the American colonialists seeing that their interests were aligned. They were fighting, in the Parliament and they were able to establish some kind of position in those politics. But they did not lead that fight, it was the American colonists who had to take the lead. In the fight for women's suffrage, women were in the leadership; in the industrial union movement the industrial workers were in the leadership; in the struggle for civil rights Blacks were in the leadership of the movement, and those struggles were brought to success. Today we see the disparity between wealth and poverty as being the critical question, and those most impoverished need to be placed in the leadership of that movement.

This idea is contrary to every stereotype that is put forward about poor people - that they're lazy and crazy, they are helpless and so somebody has to help them. They have to be taught, they have to be led by those in the know in the process. We see in our estimate of the situation, that in this segment of the population there's developing a whole strata, a new core, a new class that has tremendous talents and resourcefulness, that are capable not only of leading themselves, but participating in the leadership of this nation.

I think people would agree that there's some leadership that needs to happen in this nation. It's clear when you have a situation where you have 46 billion pounds of food thrown away every year and you only need 4 billion pounds to end hunger. It's clear when you've got whole states, like California, that are capable of feeding every man, woman and child on the face of this planet, and yet you have the hunger and depredation that's taking place in this nation, the richest nation of the world This is not the third world, but we have babies living under bridges, we have people going hungry that are malnourished, right here! We have a case we heard about in New York, last year when we marched to the UN, of this woman who could not breast feed her kids because she was only living on Coca-Cola and potato chips. Her system couldn't generate the kind of nutrition needed for milk production. Therefore, her kids were malnourished and hungry. If it was just this one case, we'd say hey, there's something wrong with this person. But we're seeing the problem multiply throughout this country. In this country, with the kind of productive capacity that it has, and the kind of plenty and resources that it has, such poverty is uncalled for. People are beginning to awaken to that, especially those that are affected by it, and to do something about it. And that's what this process represents. It's efforts on the part of people who see what's going on and who are directly affected aligning with each other, and beginning to counter these conditions in an effective way. We think that our message and our approach, based on this understanding of history, based on this analysis, is the one that's going to secure and procure a future where people can have their basic human rights.

Our approach is that the question of leadership, both with regard to individual leadership and collective leadership has to grow from and be founded upon the unity and organization of those who are under economic fire. This is the basis of the movement that is being called for to resolve the kind of crises and problems that define this period. We're having to deal with this question of leadership under circumstances that are very explosive. I don't have to tell you that people - well maybe ones and twos, or maybe a hundred here and there - on the whole are not going to sit by quietly and die. History says that people will not suffer long and not say anything; on the scale that things are happening today, people are not going to just accept the situation. So the strategy of the poor leading a massive movement to end poverty is critical at this point in how you approach things, and we think that over the last seven to ten years we've identified some real lessons based on our experiences.

The pivot of our approach is our estimate, and either it corresponds with reality or it don't. We want to negotiate, discuss it. We talk to people who come from all over, from different walks of life, and we want to debate and discuss these things.

YOU ONLY GET WHAT YOU'RE ORGANIZED TO TAKE

From our experience, we've learned this key principle - "You only get what you're organized to take." This is more and more true with the kind of dislocation we're seeing, with the jobs lost to automation. The economy is a money economy and if you don't have money, you can't get what you need. And yet the only way you can get money, especially with the dismantling of the welfare state, is to get a job, a job paying decent wages. You have McJobs, and jobs on every level that are being eliminated. Just recently, McDonald's unfurled this whole new plan for their production process where they're going to have McJobs eliminated and replaced by McRobots. They've already applied some of this stuff in Japan, and they're estimating something like half of their workforce is going to be cut. In other words, you get your hamburger without human hands touching it. That's certainly beneficial in some respects, but families used to depend on those jobs. When you have a money economy, where the only way to get what you need is to get money, and the only way to get money is to get hired by those that own the places of employment, then if they lay you off there are serious implications. Levis-Strauss just announced that they're going to lay off about 6,000 people, and Eastman-Kodak just announced a similar figure, around 9,000. Even the retail jobs that we see out there - largely in the suburbs, which are undergirded by a segment of the population that has income - those jobs are going to be undermined by the downsizing process and similar factors. Companies are having to downsize their productive process in order to compete on an international level, and this is a trend that has continued, unabated, with no sight of a turnaround. It's certainly gripping the inner cities. But it looms to grip the suburbs where some jobs are, retail jobs that are predicated on people having stable job-income situations; those situations are being threatened by this continuing job-restructuring process of downsizing. This is a situation that is taking away people's only means to provide for their needs. So under these circumstances, you have increasing segments of the population struggling to survive, people like myself, people that have been to college, people that have had training and education. Don't believe the stereotypes; you get into tent cities and you'll see people like yourself who have been through college, had an education. Through people working with the students we're learning about recent grads going to unemployment offices. The class of '96 is meeting the class of '94 in the unemployment lines. Their are cracks and crevasses, and people are getting jobs, but on an overall scale we're seeing the downsizing of the economy and the consequences of families with no money. So under these circumstances, to say you only get what you're organized to take is an appreciation of the fact that an increasing segment of the population doesn't have the wherewithal to buy what they need to buy.

We don't advocate going around taking things all the time, but when it comes to families who are being displaced with no other recourse, when there's empty buildings just sitting there complete with plumbing, or an empty church with plumbing and heating, and there's people sitting there with families and kids, who have no other options but to die or go into the church, we go into the church. We pray to the same God of the people who closed the church down - we were not awed by the priests who tell us to leave after we took over the church, who told us, "We don't want to remove you yet, but you have 48 hours." They returned, and we had even more people, and our response was that we talked to God, and God told us that we shouldn't let the families die on the streets. The point was that the basic position of the poor is a position where we have to take our destiny into our hands and put ourselves into relationship with others who see their self-interest tied to us, whether social workers, labor leaders, students, or people in the religious community, and win the bulk of the American people to a program that affects their lives as well as ours. Unless we do, poverty is not going to be ended, we're not going to get off the Titanic, and we're going to find ourselves on a treadmill running faster and faster, with more people dying from house fires, and all that other kind of stuff. This basic principle "you only get what you're organized to take" distinguishes us from other movements that have happened before. Those other movements were made up of people that were employed, and so had dues structures and things; collective bargaining and such was the basis of that approach. Our approached is premised on a whole different basis because of the new situation we face.

"You Only Get What You're Organized to Take" also refers to the importance of organizing. Power and fundamental change grows from organization. It is only through organization that people under attack will be able to gain any kind of leverage and strength. It's sadly ironic that the part of the country which most needs organization is actually the least organized. By organization, we don't mean the capacity to turn people out for a rally. Sure, that's one piece of it, but how many of those people are really conscious, are really going to stick and stay, are really going to be able to build and expand organization. We've had too many experiences pouring all our energy into a single issue, and then when the issue is resolved - whether we win or lose - we lose the people who were involved. And then, after a period of time your opponent is able to take back any gains you had. So it's not enough just to put people into motion, you need real organization! It's our experience that the question of leadership is critical to organization. Conscious, capable leaders are the foundation of building organization. Our strength is in those advanced leaders, who are able to influence those around them, building new and intermediate leaders, and who in turn can affect mass numbers of people.

THE FIVE MAIN INGREDIENTS

In dealing with this, in carrying out this basic principle, we've learned that organizing among the poor and building a broad movement against poverty has to entail certain basic considerations. We call them the Five Main Ingredients and the Six Panther P's. The Five Ingredients are more critical because they're about the strategic aspect of the struggle, about the unity of the poor and the building of a movement.

The first ingredient is teams of indigenous organizers among the poor. These teams of organizers are people who are indigenous to the process - that is, poor. This is very critical because to be in such a situation places you in a position to distinguish between those problems which are issues, and those problems which are not issues. If a problem is an issue, it is an issue by virtue of the fact that it is urgent, and is something people are prepared to move around, and something people are prepared to be educated around. Those are issues that people are dealing with. People that are in those situations are better able to identify those problems and distinguish between issues and problems generally, which is essential to organizing. Having a team of organizers that are indigenous to the situation is absolutely critical to organizing. When we were organizing the homeless union, we sat down to talk about the organizing situation in one city with homeless people. People from the Coalition for the Homeless participated in the discussion. They were well meaning people - social workers, many of them. They were involved in a lobbying campaign in the state legislature for a housing bill, and they wanted the participation of the homeless people to help them to carry through the lobbying effort - coming to their protests and so forth to put pressure to bear on the legislators. What happened in the discussion was that it became very plain that even though the homeless people understood that they didn't have a house, and needed a house, what was most urgent to them took a totally different form that what the advocates from the Coalition were trying focus on. It turned out that homeless people imostly were concerned that every day they had to line up at city shelters and suffer the indignity of having to get, on a rationed basis, five pieces of toilet paper. They got in a long line, to use the restroom, to get five sheets of toilet paper. That infuriated them. It took them beneath any level of dignity they might have. They wanted to move on that, they wanted that issue dealt with. Of course they knew that that was a consequence of them being in a shelter, and they were in the shelter as a result of being homeless, but in terms of the issue that they were prepared to move around, it was the indignity of standing in line to get five sheets of toilet paper to wipe their ass with. The people who weren't in that situation did not understand that, they took it for granted, but the people that were in the situation were prepared to move and be organized around that issue. So the idea of a team of indigenous organizers is crucial to the process. And this is not only true among the homeless, but also among the students or the labor unions or any other group. People in different fronts of activity should be organized by a team that can help figure out what's going to move people in that situation, what are they prepared to be educated and organized around in this struggle. Teams, that's ingredient number one.

Ingredient number two is a base of operations. This is where people come together to deal at least partially with their needs, and to work cooperatively to meet those needs, and also to be educated, to exchange experiences. In the organizing in the civil rights movement that process took place in the churches. During the union organizing in the 30's it was in the factory. But there's no such place with regard to poor people today, and what we see as absolutely critical is using whatever we can to establish bases of operation, whether it's like this, the human rights house [where this conference is being held], where people come and get food, or the human rights center where we have different projects of survival, like free legal help, GED courses, etc. We're also going to have movies, theater, and all these things you can't do because you're poor; you're going to have an opportunity to do them at this center, and we're going to have a base to come in contact with people on a regular basis. Bases of operation take all kinds of forms, sometimes they're long-standing and sometimes they're short-standing. We had Ridgeville, where we set up a tent city for over 50 families. We had free medical care in a medical tent, we had interaction with the community, and so on. That was our base of operation. We used it to educate, we used it to mobilize, we used that to organize, we used that to put people into alignment with other segments of the population who are trying to get in touch with people who are trying to do something about their situation instead of just accept it. So base of operations are very critical element.

The third ingredient is lines of communication. You gotta have a voice. You gotta be able to talk to each other, and you gotta be able to talk to everybody else. You gotta establish those lines of communication, which take various forms. One of the things we found on the march [to the United Nations], anticipating the blackout of our efforts by the mainstream media, was that we would have to rely on the newsletters, of trade unions that were supporting us, on meetings and conferences, but also on the computer and the internet. We set that up, and were able to enjoy tremendous support in response. We are now in the middle of discussions with people throughout the whole world, like these Swedish filmmakers who were just here, and they are spreading our message - they found out about us through the internet. We have set up a relationship with people in Canada, in Latin America, New Zealand, and more and more as our activity continues and becomes a rallying point for those looking to find us. Lines of communication are important.

The forth ingredient is mutual support networks. Organizing efforts throughout the city, state and nation, and even internationally, are happening among the poor, among students, and other elements aligned with that process. Those efforts need to support each other. So on a campus, if students are fighting around their issues, there should be the possibility of that network coming to support them. Support networks throughout the city, state and country is critical in terms of building a movement. Here in Philadelphia we got what we call the "Underground Railroad Project" that consists of people from different walks of life, in different struggles, in different areas who support KWRU; we have labor unions we are aligned with, we have the student group Empty the Shelters which supports us, and so on; building a movement is essentially building a network of people that are fighting on different fronts in different areas, and different issues.

The fifth ingredient, which is like the sun around which these other ingredients are planets, is this question of a core of people who are committed, who have an understanding of strategy, who have a political education and are committed to the struggle. They come from different strata, especially from leaders among the poor, and constitute a core of people who are committed to understanding the ins and outs of the struggle, and the estimate of the situation, and discern what are the counter-strategies out there which we are trying to confront with regard to those players and forces that are organizing against us, who benefit at our expense. A committed core is the essential basis to project organizing efforts outward to draw in more people, who in turn can influence even more.

So you have five ingredients: Teams, teams of indigenous organizers; Base, bases of operation; Voice, lines of communication, Networks, networks of mutual support; and Cores, committed cores of leaders.

POWER NOT PITY

The fight, as we see it, is not a fight for pity, it's necessarily a fight for power. You cannot accomplish and sustain anything in a big country like this from a standpoint of getting people to feel sorry for you. We've learned in our experience that with people who kiss your ass, if you do anything wrong, start kicking your ass. If you develop any kind of paternalistic relationship, that flips. The relationship has to be working with each other, in partnership with each other, and not paternalisticly in an unequal relationship. That relationship, of working with each other, is a relationship for power, not for pity. Unless we can generate the necessary kind of strength, through organization and building a movement, there's nothing in the history of this country that suggests that we can rearrange the priorities of this nation. Every time, every instance that we can see in history where changes were indeed made, those changes were made on the basis of a relationship with, a relationship for power, and not a relationship and an organization just for pity. This country is full of pity, it has enjoyed a tremendous development in terms of pity; it is the richest country in the world. The notion of philanthropy, the notion of helping people, the notion of volunteerism is something that abounds in the American psyche. Although it has often been based in a very sincere concern for people, that notion has been a source and means of control. So building a movement cannot be based on unequal relationships. It's got to be a movement where each one of us are working along side each other, and understanding that our interests are mutual, and that we need to see these changes made if we're really going to deal with this situation. This is something we see as critical. When you're organizing a movement, you have to take all these things into account. It's like when you're baking a cake. I can't cook worth shit, and have tried from time to time but my wife kicks me out. A few times I've tried to bake a cake, and invariably I always leave out an ingredient. The result? It looks like a cake, and it might smell like a cake, but when you take that bite, something is missing. Our approach tells us that everywhere we've had those five ingredients, we've had sustained progress in terms of reaching out, making things happen, and impacting the thinking, discussion and debates of this nation. That's the five ingredients.

THE SIX PANTHER Ps

When people think of the Black Panther party they think Black. Some Black people who have some guns who tried to kill some white people. That they were declared by the FBI as the most dangerous bunch of Black folks trying to kill white folks. In actuality, the Black Panther Party was a group unique from a lot of the other groups who formed during the 60's. It was formed among the unemployed, ghetto sections of the Black youth, unlike the SCLC, which was an organization of ministers who were well placed in their communities. The Panthers formed their organizing on the basis of the bottom of society - the youth who had no job prospects, who had been hurled off the plantations and into these cities. Of course in that situation, they had a constant confrontation with the police, and the Panthers largely grew out of that relationship. In the course of their organizing, we have identified six things they did (or did not do), "the Six Panther Ps" which we see as useful, which confirmed our experience in dealing with the unemployed, displaced people at the foundation of our movement. The Panthers were primarily in the Black communities, but we're seeing that the problem of poverty today is across color lines. It was a different period back then, but we saw in what they were doing something we can learn from. We've been testing them as a means of building these five ingredients and building a movement for power.

The first P is program. A program indicates the values, goals, issues and interests of that segment of the population that you're focusing on. We believe that everybody should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that that should not be reduced in any way. However at this stage of this of history the upper classes of this country have given up that creed. We think everybody should have those rights, especially in a country that has the kind of productive capacity that this one has. These things should be non-negotiable. Our program is basically that everyone should have the right to a house, to housing, the right to a job at a living wage, the right to health care, the right to the basic necessities of life. Often that becomes the starting point for negotiation - we think those things are non-negotiable. We think that our program is a program that is in the interests of the majority of the American people, and not the one that is pursued by those being controlled by the rich. We profoundly believe that, and have found that our experience corroborates that. Not only that, but we are being echoed throughout the world - throughout world people are having to take up this basic program, seeing its fundamental moral principles. We organize and unite around the program.

The second P is protest. You cannot be hurting and don't holler. We believe that if you hurt, holler. You got to do something about it, you can't just accept the situation. The segment of the population that we're focusing on, upon which we're building a movement which includes all segments, is a section which has to move, has to protest, and can't accept business as usual. To stand still is to die. To stand still is to go backward. To stand still is to succumb to the kind of depravation that we're seeing. The idea of protest is key, and of course you see in the experiences of the Panthers and other such groups in the past, their ability to affect public opinion, their ability to get heard was based on continuing campaigning and activities around their basic needs.

The third P is projects of survival. This country and this economy can be characterized in one word, "surplus." It's a shame, but that's the reality. People can't acquire things, but there's surplus. They're throwing away food, but people can't eat. Downstairs [in the human rights house] we have more clothes than we can give away. You got dollar stores all over the place. My wife, she has dollar stores down. You don't have to go to the other stores, you can get almost everything at the dollar store! There are surplus nurses, and not enough medical care. Surplus doctors, surplus lawyers! And yet, people are going without. There are 12 million empty luxury housing units in this country. Look it up! Not run-down units, but luxury units, where you can walk in and the house talks to you, "Hey what's up?" They are sitting there empty while we have six to ten million people who are living with their parents, or living on the grates, or in shelters and so forth who are all homeless. 12 million units is equivalent to the entire housing stock of Canada - surplus! They have the capacity to produce in 45 minutes a pre-fab house. So the question of projects of survival is how do we develop a cooperative effort to procure those surpluses, and to use them as a lever for organizing. And we do, we have food distributions. The way we were able to solidify our position when we took over the church was that regularly we were able to get extra baby carriages (cause we don't have cars), fill them with food and go door to door with the carriages and talk to people about their issues and our issues and how we can unite. We get food from bakeries, from food places that are throwing it away. And the food's perfectly good, if you see it you'll see that there ain't nothing wrong it. Projects of survival are especially significant in our organizing experience. Our organizing attracts people on the basis of their immediate needs - food, housing, childcare, etc. Activities like tent cities and housing takeovers, are designed to meet people's needs and build organization in the process. As we come together to meet our common needs, opportunities for political education and other key elements arise. We have tremendous strength by virtue of addressing the problems which people are struggling with day-to-day. However, we don't just try to meet people's individual needs - we use that struggle to fight for everyone's needs to be met. But that is how many people come into relationship with our organizing efforts. So projects of survival are absolutely key as far as our organizing method.

The fourth P is press work. We, through various forms, generate messages - through newsletters, through T-shirts, or posters, through speaking engagements, through the internet or other things. These are all very critical in terms of getting through our message, and talking to each other and informing ourselves. You gotta have press.

The fifth P is political education. We're constantly engaging people in study of what their situation is, understanding what their situation is, so they can articulate what's going on and to educate others. Our basic motto is "each one teach one," and "the more you know, the more you owe," to pass on the message and so forth. The significance of this P should not be underestimated. Political education is essential for building leadership, which is at the base of all our efforts. Leaders must have the perspective and clarity to manuver politically. Also, political education can deepen people's committment to a struggle. It's important that political education isn't seen as something seperate from organizing, but is an inesperable part of the process. When political education is irrelevant to the issues that people are struggling with, it's ineffective. It's more effective when it explains their experience, allowing them to gain clarity and insight into their struggles and the struggles of others.

The last P is plans not personalities. This particular P is a lesson from the panthers by way of a negative experience. The Panthers, in what they were doing was targeted by the FBI as the most dangerous organization to the natural security of this country. The FBI developed a plan to fragment, dismantle and destroy this organization. They recognized that that organization was organized as factions around personalities, around a leader, Through subterfuges, infiltration, fake letters and so forth the FBI was able to get these leaders to fight one another. Organizationally, the Panthers were based around these personalities more than a policy, plan or program. A sustainable organization is not dependent on one leader, but dependent on a plan, principles, a policy. We see that as very key.

So those are the 6 P's which we use as tools for organizing the 5 ingredients.