Knox Book Beat, The Berkeley Times, 7 July 2016
Axioms for Organizers: Trailblazer for Justice, is a collection of words to live by spoken and repeated by Fred Ross Sr. who "mentored ... young farm worker(s) in Jan Jose named Cesar Chavez" and Dolores Huerta. His is useful advice for difficult times.
I have a 1938 Modern Library edition of The New Anthology of Modern Poetry. About that time, Los Angeles’ Fred Ross, Sr. was organizing homeless “Dust Bowl” workers in camp councils for self-government. That was the year Adolf Hitler annexed Austria, claimed the Czech Sudentenland belonged to Germany and renamed himself leader of the High Command of the Armed Forces in preparation for the invasion of Poland.
That anthology has poems like Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes the People,” James Agee’s “Millions are Learning How,” Vachel Lindsay’s “Simon Legree,” William Stephens’ “Standard Forgings Plant” and “The Eyes Have it” and the wry, obscure Marianne Moore’s “The Monkeys.”
It also has Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s “Last Speech to the Court” on questionable murder charges before he languished seven years in prison and was electrocuted by the State in 1927. That speech is "eloquent with compassion and anguish," as editor Seldon Rodman says, with words that "fall into lines (of verse) as easily as the frost into crystals" in praise of his fellow labor worker, Nicola Sacco, "a man who gave all...to the cause of liberty and to his love of mankind."
Fred Ross Junior’s new edition of his father's Axioms is similarly redolent with the "community of experience" of the present time when voices and actions are running high in support of the poor, immigrant, under-served and underrepresented. And redolent with voices and actions that are trying to make us frozen and silent with self-doubt and fear.
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| Woody Guthrie, Fred Ross Sr., Dust Bowl era CA |
Whether it be entrepreneurial, Black Lives Matter, public library, Climate Change, local ministry, anti-misogynist, minimum wage, immigration justice or housing, health care and inclusion for the 99%; "People power must be visible to have an impact," and "It's not the quantity of pressure we exert that counts, it's the quality." This echoes Archibald MacLeish's poem in the Anthology, "a poem" (a social movement or a political, spiritual or religious organization) "must not 'mean,' but 'be.'"
Good organizers ask people what they need, put them to work at tasks that make things happen and “get out of the way.” As United Farm Worker organizer Jessica Govea says, these little snippets of Fred's truths about "how to turn our grief and anger into action and hope" are rooted in what Fred Ross Sr. had named our "stories that won (us) to the cause" and our "persistence" that makes us "stay on it."
"To win the hearts and minds of people, forget the dry facts and statistics." Our stories need to be told. Remember: "there is no substitute for face-to-face communication," and "90 percent of organizing is follow-up."
You don't have to be a Mrs. Clark Kerr Saving the Bay to understand these axioms, you just need to "have hope yourself," let them empower you and "do it now!"
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| Esther Gulick, Sylvia McLaughlin and Kate Kerr |
Let's get one for everybody in Berkeley... Maybe in the World…
In Spanish and English, back to back, printed in a Union shop. :-)
Axioms for Organizers Trailblazer for Justice by Fred Ross Sr., Published in 1989 as Neighbor to Neighbor, (San Francisco, California).
PDF of the Axioms themselves. (No Intro, photos or Afterword) FREE. -- https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/essays/essays/MillerArchive/064%20Axioms%20For%20Organizers.pdf
Ordering direct – $5 each or $3 each for 50 or more –
Website -- http://www.fredrosssr.com/axiomsfororganizers/
(Amazon Kindle - access to see and read some of it online, including Robert Reich’s Introduction. https://www.amazon.com/Axioms-Organizers-Trailblazer-Social-Justice-ebook/dp/B00MX8P1HO )
And here they are, for those with limited income or access. (But DO buy a bunch of shirt-pocket sized ones for your team from Fred Ross Jr. They are bilingual English-Spanish, very cheap > 50.) :
Axioms for Organizers by Fred Ross, Sr. 1989
Every
Day – Organizing isn’t a job done once
and done with. If organizers don’t renew their efforts every day of their
lives, then only the grasping and greedy people remain active.
Doing
It “For” People– If you think you can do it for people,
you’ve stopped understanding what it means to be an organizer.
Lead
By Pushing– An organizer is a leader who does
not lead but gets behind the people and pushes.
Duty
of Organizer – The duty of the organizer is to provide
people with the opportunity to work for what they believe in.
Follow-up -90% of organizing is follow-up.
Never
Give Up –Good organizers never give up – they
get the opposition to do that.
Urgency
– A good organizer must be able to
charge an issue with a supreme sense of urgency.
“From
The Heart” – How can you move others unless
you are moved yourself?
Little
Things – If you are able to achieve
anything big in life, it’s because you paid attention to the “little” things.
Half
- Assed Job –In any kind of work if you do a
half-assed job at least you get some of the work done; in organizing you don’t
get anything done.
People
– It’s the way people are that
counts, not the way you’d like them to be.
Short
–Cuts - Short-cuts usually end in
detours, which lead to dead ends.
Organizing
Is – Organizing is providing people
with the opportunity to become aware of their own capabilities and potential.
Hope –To inspire hope,
you have to have hope yourself.
Winning
Hearts & Minds – to win the hearts and minds of
people, forget the dry facts and statistics; tell them the stories that won you
to the cause.
Questions – When you are tempted to make a statement, ask a question.
Temporary
Organizer – An organizer tries to turn each
person she meets into a temporary organizer.
Ask
#1 –Don’t tell the people –ask them.
Build
New – Don’t try and rebuild a dead
organization; start over and build a new one. (Cesar Chavez)
Organizing
or Manipulating? – If you are moving people to act
through truth and for truth, as you understand it, then you are organizing
them. If you are moving them to act through deception, then you are
manipulating them.
Do
It Now #1 – If there is something to be done,
do it now.
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| Huerta between the two Chavez brothers. Photo - 1976 George Ballis _ Take Stock _ The Image Works |
Do
It Now #2 – If you wait until you have all
the time, people and resources to go ahead, you may still never get there
because you didn’t fill the interval with the action needed to get you there.
Winning
& Losing People –It’s easy to win people – and
twice as easy to lose them.
Losers – Losers are loaded with alibis.
Maybe
– “Maybe” is a double, triple “No!”
Messages
#1 – Rare is the delivered message.
People
Power – People power must be visible.
Reminding – Reminding is the essence of organizing.
Organize
– The only way to organize is to
organize, not sit around and jaw about it.
Burn
Out – Organizers don’t “burn out”, they
just give up and cease being organizers.
Pressure – It’s not the quantity of pressure we exert that counts,
it’s the quality.
Willpower
#1 -there is no substitute for
willpower in an organizer.
Ask
#2 – Usually those who can spare a
little time for the cause are actually ready to give it all if only someone
would ask them.
Concentration
– When you are pushing a big drive
or issue, you stay on it to the total exclusion of everything else – until it
is done.
Live
Wires – When you find “live-wires,” put
them to work immediately. Find something they can do –any little thing – get
them started and ready to do more, or you’ll lose them for the cause.
All
the Way – When you do something – do it all
the way!
Leadership – You don’t develop new leaders, you push people into
taking action by refusing to do it yourself. You are then providing them the
opportunity to become aware of their own capabilities.
Willpower
#2 – An organizer has to want to win
badly enough to succeed.
Volunteers – Never get so hungry for volunteers that you do their work
for them instead of insisting they do it themselves.
Hardest
Choice – The hardest choice is usually the
correct one.
Vacations
– Injustice never takes a vacation.
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| Courtesy Fred Ross Jr. Huerta: Medal of Freedom "We are all Fred Ross' alumni." |
Monotony – the way to break monotony is with motion and emotion.
Appreciation
#1 – Appreciation has an exceedingly
short memory so strike while the iron is hot.
Respect
Yourself – Don’t let them kick you around.
You have to live and organize in such a way that you can respect yourself and
be treated with respect by others.
Put
People To Work – Don’t talk at people – put them
to work.
The
Disrupter - The disrupter is the lowest form
of organizational life.
Be
Ready – A good organizer delegates
responsibility but is always ready to jump in and do the job himself if
necessary. (Saul Alinsky 1947)
Appreciation
#2 – People are infinitely more
appreciative of what they do for you than what you do for them. (Cesar Chavez)
Social
Arsonist – A good organizer is a social
arsonist who goes around setting people on fire.
Messages
#2 – There is nothing less likely to
be delivered than a message.
Reaching
People – If you can’t catch people at home
during ordinary hours, you’ve got to go after them during extraordinary hours,
to the outer edge of your tenacity and forbearance.
Brick
By Brick – It isn’t hard to organize if you
take it granule by granule, brick by brick.
Fast
Talkers – Look out for the fast talkers.
Details
– The measure of a good organizer is
the amount of attention she pays to the most minute details.
Helping
People – Organizers must grow beyond
helping people to “egging them on.”
A
Time For Silence – There is a time for sound and a
time for silence and a good organizer needs to be able to differentiate between
the two.
Finding
That Person – To keep an organization alive
you’ve got to find that person who has to do something about it.
The
Incidentals – The incidentals make up the
fundamentals.
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