It was late in 2001, I was listening to a talk radio show, and I was outraged.

The guests on the show were explaining a new law passed by the nearby town of Santa Monica, and how it would essentially make it illegal to give free food to hungry people.

This was horrifying and insulting. Some of the most compassionate people in the entire city were about to be criminalized for helping out some of the most vulnerable. And the lawmakers had come up with some flimsy cover story about how this new law was actually to protect the health of the homeless. What bullshit. The law was scheduled to go into effect soon, at the start of the new year.

As the interview continued, I memorized the name of one of the interviewees from the show, and managed to locate her organization through some determined googling. Then a quick email: “how can we help?”

A small coalition was coming together on this issue, mostly groups that were already feeding the hunger in the area: Hand to Hand, HOPE (Helping Other People Eat), Food Not Bombs Venice, and the National Lawyers Guild (an organization of lawyers who represent progressive activists). While I had some ideas about how to take on this unjust law, these activists were on the front line, and it seemed smartest to follow their lead (organizing doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch and do everything yourself).

So how were we going to get rid of this evil law? There was one obvious tactic: shame. This was the sort of law that your average person would find disgusting. So publicizing the existence of this law, and pointing out who was to blame (the Santa Monica city council and local merchants), seemed like a good way to embarrass them and cause them to choose between voiding the law or getting hurt politically.

So we decided on civil disobedience. We would break this new law in public, try to draw as much attention to it as possible, and dare the city to arrest us for giving free food to hungry people. If they did arrest us, this would be an opportunity for more media attention and more possibilities to point out the immoral nature of this law. If they didn’t arrest us, it just weakened the law, making it less relevant. (Some of our group found one additional tactic as well. They planned to challenge this law in court, and found a way to make it a free speech issue. They put stickers with political slogans on lollipops that they would pass out to people. And if the police arrested them for passing these out, it was now a violation of their right to free speech, or at least they could make that argument in court). After our civil disobedience, we would march down Third Street Promenade, and then hold a press conference explaining what we’d done, and why we opposed this law.

We at Axis of Justice were mainly able to help on the publicity front. Tom and Serj are big rock stars, and we were able to get a number of local media outlets, as well as music news reporters (like from MTV) to cover the story (funny story: one of the local news reporters showed up wearing a shirt, tie and sport coat, but jeans and tennis shoes. He knew that the camera would only shoot him from the waist up, so he didn’t bother wearing a full suit).

It all went off smoothly. We gave out sack lunches, cups of water, and anti-war lollipops to dozens of homeless people at a park just one block away from the Promenade. Reporters interviewed people, shot footage and took pictures. Then we all grabbed picket signs (my favorite slogan: “Everyone has the right to eat”), marched loudly through the Promenade, and then told a large group of reporters what was going on. No one was arrested, and we got a lot of good press coverage to shame these powerful people who deserved a good dose of it.

For the most part, it was a very successful event. The city of Santa Monica had hoped to slide this law through quietly. Now it was front and center news, and now they had to explain why they supported a cruel policy aimed at forcing homeless people to go hungry or leave town. The city announced that they would hold off from enforcing the law for several months. In the end, we did not get the law overturned, but we sent a message to the city officials: if you try to enforce this law, we will raise hell.  And the city understood this message, and have turned a blind eye to the “criminals” who feed the hungry.

My first brush with political organizing happened when I was in high school. I was on the school newspaper, “Drops of Ink”*, at Libertyville Public High School. It was at the time when my friends and I were becoming politically aware, and we were incensed about US foreign policy in Central America — especially the Reagan administration’s support for the contras, the right-wing terrorists wreaking havoc in Nicaragua. We were also furious about the administration’s support for the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. And in addition to worldly political matters, we were faced the usual “high school administration vs. freethinking student” drama.

We wanted to write about these things in the school paper, normally a bastion of bland stories touting the great time everyone had at the sock hop, or celebrating the accomplishments of our mediocre football team. But the woman in charge of “Drops of Ink” wasn’t having it. She was not interested in articles in support of the Sandinistas and the African National Congress, and she was certainly not interested in articles about how the Dean was a dick.

So, there was a mass defection from the official school newspaper to a new, underground newspaper called the “Student Pulse”. I was not the spearhead of this endeavor, but I was a supporter, and I contributed many articles to this new publication. Due to the persistent doggedness of its student editors, the “Student Pulse” soon came to have twice the circulation of the official school newspaper.

The administration didn’t like it. They told us that we were not allowed to print or distribute the paper on school property, and then they threatened to suspend us. We then called in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), to back up our claim that freedom of expression extended even to high school students who disagreed with their high school administrations.

After a bitter campaign, our high school backed down. The “Student Pulse” enjoyed a two-year tenure as a tremendously vital, informative, and funny voice for the radical student body. By standing up to the administration, taking bold action, using our creativity, and most importantly, standing together, we were able to carve out a little bit of truth and justice in a conservative suburb of northern Illinois.

* Incidentally, Adam Jones of the band Tool, a high school comrade of mine, was the illustrator of “Drops of Ink”, and created some of the funniest cartoons of all time about alleged affairs between the coach’s wife and certain members of the student body.

Read  more Organizing Stories.

But I read a few essays in the past several months which have really made me think, and have inspired this new Axis of Justice project that I’m calling “The Organizing Story Project.”

In a recent article, controversial activist Mark Rudd wrote about the difference between “activism” and “organizing”. Activism, he says, is like self-expression, while organizing is a long-term process that builds political and social movements. And a significant portion of organizing is helping other people develop their skills and confidence to become activists and organizers themselves.

Backing up this idea was a news segment on the TV show “Bill Moyers’ Journal”. It was about an activist group called “City Life/Vida Urbana” that helps people fight against losing their homes to foreclosures and evictions. They interviewed members Melonie Griffiths and Steve Meacham:

MELONIE GRIFFITHS: I heard about City Life when I knew I was kind of falling behind on my mortgage and I was coming close to foreclosure. And my, you know, there was no help. When you come [to City Life], you automatically get connected. It was the only place I came. I was kind of looked down upon everywhere else I went. So I automatically felt a connection.

STEVE MEACHAM: I think people do come to their first meeting because they have a specific problem, they want to address it. People keep coming over time, and a lot of people come even after their problem is solved because they found something profound here. They found a community that works in a way that probably few other communities that they’re involved in work. They found a community of struggle, I guess you would say, where people are involved in dealing with opponents that they didn’t really think they could deal with. And they built up a lot of camaraderie in the process of fighting those opponents.

MELONIE GRIFFITHS: One of the things I loved about when I came to City Life and what kept me here was that they didn’t really do for me, they helped me. They would direct me, but they never once did it for me and I liked that.

It’s empowering. And I think that’s what we do for our members. And it’s kind of– it empowers them to then take on a leadership role. Although I work for City Life, I have people in the group that are just as involved, just as committed and dedicated to this work and I think it’s because of the approach that City Life takes.

STEVE MEACHAM: We have a bunch of volunteers who come to the office here. And they visit foreclosed buildings and leave fliers and talk to people, and tell them don’t move.

MELONIE GRIFFITHS: The last canvass we did one lady, she yelled at me, went crazy on me, and she called me two weeks later. So you know, these are really- and all I said to her was, “Okay, I’m sorry I’m just going to leave this…” and she was like “Get off my door!” and I was like “I’m just going to leave this bag.” And she called me two weeks later to apologize and ask for help, and we’ve been able to help her.

People building connections, helping each other, and working to build individual people’s knowledge and power. I hear again and again about how confused, scattered, and invisible the social justice movement is here in the United States. I think we need to organize.

The Organizing Story Project is a series of essays and interviews with activists and organizers, explaining what they do and how they’ve done it. It’s aimed at YOU, the reader, who might have a burning drive to make the world a better place, but find these beginning steps overwhelming. We’re going to give you lots of examples, and links to other organizations and resources that can help. And if you’re an experienced activist with some tales of your own to tell, get in touch with us and we can add your stories and knowledge to the mix. Drop us a line.

Organizing is not easy, it’s not fast, there are no guarantees of success, and you could even face all sorts of negative consequences for taking a stand. But it’s very clear that nothing’s going to change, that the war, racism, poverty, exploitation, and injustice are just going to get worse unless someone does something. And that someone, is US.

Don’t agonize, organize!

Jake

Our first organizing story is a tale from our own Tom Morello, back from his high school days.