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Going Public: An
Inside Story of Disrupting Politics as Usual, by Michael Gecan
(Beacon Press, 2002).
Reviewed by John Atlas.
The Industrial Areas Foundation is a largely unknown
national network of community organizations that has racked up a number
of achievements on behalf of the poor. In San Antonio, Texas, IAF members
shifted power from the wealthy Anglos who controlled the city to poor and
working-class Mexican-American families. They helped to elect Henry
Cisneros the city’s first Hispanic mayor, and got the city to channel more
than $1 billion worth of sewers, sidewalks, parks, clinics, street lights
and other improvements to low-income neighborhoods. In Brooklyn the IAF
built more than 3,000 affordable homes as part of the Nehemiah Housing
Program.
Michael Gecan’s “Going Public” tells the story of this unusual network
that revitalizes neighborhoods for the poor. It is not a how- to book for
activists, although it does provide insights about how to talk to
politicians and build effective organizations. Instead, it is a lucid,
colorful drama about the life of an organizer, with some important lessons
about the future of progressive politics in America.
Gecan, a veteran organizer who lives in Princeton, begins his story by
asking, “Why organize?” He answers by recalling his own experiences
growing up on the West Side of Chicago, when a mob closed down his
parents’ tavern. “I sensed,” he writes, “that you couldn’t just ‘reform’
the abuses of power, legislate against them, sue them into submission, or
sway them with the merits of your case. I sensed that you had to battle
them ... to check them and counter them and ensure that your vision of
society and community, rooted in the best blend of democratic and
religious traditions, had a chance to grow and survive.”
The story shifts to East Brooklyn in 1978, where Gecan is invited to meet
with some religious leaders desperate to improve their community. After
two decades of organizing, Gecan’s group builds the Nehemiah homes,
creates two successful schools, reconstructs parks and gets the city
council to pass a living-wage bill requiring companies doing business with
the city to pay their employees a much higher minimum wage than the
national minimum.
Gecan brings the reader into a world that involves recruiting leaders at
house meetings in run-down housing projects, building alliances with
politicians and establishing goals that are difficult but achievable.
IAF uses a variety of tactics, including dramatic public confrontation, a
tactic that gained notoriety when used by IAF founder Saul Alinsky.
“Public confrontation, is at bottom an attempt to engage and relate,”
explains Gecan. “Most activists fail to appreciate this. Bureaucrats seek
to stifle it.” More important than confrontation is IAF’s reliance on
building new leaders. Recruiting from schools and churches, the IAF trains
ordinary folks, many of them women whose lives revolve around their
parishes and their children. For example, Alice McCollum, a determined
middle-aged African-American mother from Brooklyn, learned how to confront
the city bureaucracy and win the long- delayed restoration of her local
park. Gecan writes that his job is to teach the McCollums of the world how
to lead — from the mundane running of an efficient meeting to effective
public speaking.
Gecan ignores the enormous challenge of raising the money needed to hire
and nourish talented organizers. And while they have won significant
victories, Gecan and his colleagues have not provided the vision vital to
any political movement that seeks to challenge the basic national
direction of our country. Nor does Gecan discuss how to build bridges
across the class and racial divide that are needed to attain the kind of
political muscle that might alter the status quo.
Gecan’s story of patience and building strong personal relationships is
inspirational. But larger political forces are weakening the power of the
poor. Political events won’t wait for Gecan and his house calls. Important
questions like huge tax cuts and federal deficits drying up financial
resources for cities and the poor are being decided now by a
well-organized national network of conservative activists.
Still, “Going Public” is a must read for anyone interested in the promise
of a flourishing democracy and equality for the poor and powerless. Gecan
gives us a sense of the possibilities of a renewed citizen mobilization
that can bring about a more progressive era.
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