June 2008

Creating Prototypes in the Struggle for Egalitarian Revolution
A Call for Volunteers for the International School for Bottom-up Organizing
June 13, 2008

How can we build a new world? What lessons can we learn from those who came before us about the potential for a revolutionary movement that will avoid the mistakes of the past? How do we build a true egalitarian movement that depends on the leadership of those most oppressed, the dark-skinned folk on the bottom, rather than on a “savior” or the leadership of middle class intellectuals?

These are the questions the International School for Bottom-up Organizing seeks to study by creating a collective made up of active organizers doing integral work among people at the bottom anywhere in the world.

In the world today, two percent of humanity has come to oppress and exploit the great majority, and has created governing structures that enforce and maintain their control. The entire world is under the control of the rich and powerful. History makes it clear that the few will not give up their power, will not be voted out, and the system will not be reformed into a just system. In so-called “primitive” times, the mass ruled and kept the greedy two percent in line. Somehow, hidden by the mists of unwritten time, that was turned on its head. All of recorded history has been the struggle of the masses to seize the world back from the grasp of the greedy few and achieve a society based on equality.

For the past hundred and fifty years or so, that struggle has been particularly intense all around the world, and numerous revolutions have occurred. However, those courageous attempts at abolishing oppression were reversed, and we are left to face the same struggle as our predecessors and ancestors did. If anything, a deep cynicism has been the product of these attempts to transform society.

Many of our people have come to believe that it is hopeless to fight those in power. They have even come to accept some of the intense propaganda our enemies have created to make us feel that we are too stupid to be capable of creating and running our own society, or even our own organizations. This is especially true of those at the bottom of society, who are the poorest and darkest-skinned, including those who are working, unemployed or in the so-called informal economy. Perhaps this hopelessness helps explain why so many have latched onto the illusion of a “knight in shining armor” exemplified in the U.S. by the Obama campaign.

But we will not be rescued from the top. Our only hope is that the bottom will rise, express its genius, and lead us into an egalitarian future. This will not happen spontaneously, but only through diligent, persistent, courageous organizing over a very long period of time.

How can we move from where we are now toward creating a new struggle for an egalitarian future?

We think that what is needed is for those who are most oppressed, and who most desperately need it, to begin creating prototypes of the society we need for our liberation. By prototypes, we don’t mean isolated utopian communes. We mean to create organizations that will take on the needs of the most oppressed and that will function on the basis of love, respect and equality: each person will work and give according to their abilities and commitment, and the collective will take care of those with the most need first. Everyone will have equal voice, and decisions will be made by consensus.

What forms these groupings will take, what they will do, how they will relate to each other are not questions we can answer with great clarity until they begin to form and create a practice of their own. However, from participating in the movement over the last fifty years, we have developed some ideas. (See “Creating Bottom-Up,” “The People’s Circle,” and other documents.)

One thing that is clear to us is that ours is an international struggle that must be led by the poorest and darkest. Oppression by race, class and gender crosses all national boundaries. We all need the same freedom and equality; we all have the same oppressors, worldwide. Our movement will move toward an internationalist, egalitarian world, one without nations, without states, in which need is the organizing principle instead of greed. We foresee a world in which the genius and creativity of humanity is unleashed, in which all humans share and share alike, whether in starvation or in plenty: in which we are free to love and truly take care of one another.

While initially, the NOSC formed during trauma to respond to urgent needs, and it continues to do so, through the process of developing the work, people began to think in broader terms about the meaning of their work. Developing unity between homeowners, renters and public housing residents, for example, broke down previous barriers. Meeting with, supporting, and being supported by immigrant guest workers broke down further barriers, and people began to see the struggle as unity against a broader system of slavery. They began to see that many of the problems of the “bottom” in New Orleans are shared by poor people all over the world.

This process eventually led to a trip to Venezuela, to meet with the Communal Councils there. The Venezuelan government, just after Katrina, had offered to send resources to help the recovery, but this move was blocked by the US government. So in early 2007, a delegation of organizers and members of the NOSC and ROPH went to Venezuela to appeal directly for those resources. They met with the Communal Councils and saw the work those groups are doing in the poor neighborhoods of Caracas and elsewhere. With members of the Councils, they met with government officials to make their requests for support. They decided to try to build a sister-city relationship between the NOSC and the Caracas Communal Councils. The process of developing international unity between those on the bottom in both countries was begun. A POC ORGANIZER IS PRESENTLY SPENDING SIX MONTHS IN VENEZUELA.

Conclusion: Moving Toward Developing an International Organizing School

What we have learned from putting one foot in front of the other in New Orleans is that a mass, collective, consensus-based organizing process built on a foundation of egalitarian principle has shown great potential as a beacon for the future. By defending an active space where people could begin to see themselves as the legitimate governance of their own lives and future. We’ve seen the collective take the high ground on each issue that came before it. We are convinced that the folk on the “bottom” have collectively, the genius needed to figure out how to run society that those of us who have had the opportunity to learn about history and to develop various skills, have the responsibility to put that knowledge, and those skills at the service of the people, and help them learn to lead the decision making process. In this way, through practice, experience in the struggle, trial and error, we will work towards understanding how to build a future egalitarian society and begin building it.

Although there is much more still to learn than what we have learned so far, we feel that we have a precious embryo in our hands. We want help in nurturing and developing it. We are planning to begin a school for organizers in the hopes of learning from the struggles in New Orleans and around the world – landless struggles in South America, the Communal Council movement in Venezuela, the campesinos in Oaxaca, and other struggles on other continents – and in the hopes of creating connections between those struggles so we can begin to move together to create the future.

This vision will not happen by itself. The goal of the International School for Bottom-up Organizing is to create organizers who are visionaries and scientific thinkers, organizers who are catalysts for bottom-up organizing, and to connect and create communication between the groups they help set in motion. If the brief ideas set out in this document strike a chord in your heart, and you are ready for a life-long commitment, we hope you will respond to this call and help craft a new liberation movement. We invite you to help in this process, if you find yourself in fundamental agreement with the idea of “bottom-up” please join us.

International School for Bottom-Up Organizing

History: Our roots are deep in past and current struggles, and we pay homage to the radicals and revolutionaries whose shoulders we stand on. The urgency for the creation of the School, however, came out of the struggles in New Orleans after Katrina, and the desertion of poor black people by virtually all existing radical or revolutionary organizations. A year ago, we had a day-long workshop with a small group of organizers from two countries. Currently, a twelve-week online course is in session composed mainly of young folk in the USA committed to continue organizing for the New Orleans Survivor Council. A formal course in organizing for a collective of grass-roots people in another country in the Americas will begin in the next few weeks as part of ongoing practical work by School organizers.

When the current online course finishes, we will be ready to go again, hopefully with more class coordinators. We also expect to have another on-site international workshop in the near future. If you are interested in being a participant in the school, and are ready to work for our people, please send us an application essay that answers the following questions:

You may call: 773-649-5464

E-mail: Curtismuhammad@hotmail.com

November 2007

Farewell Letter from Curtis Muhammad
November 12, 2007

A Message from an Organizer to the Left and Progressive Forces inside the USA - by Curtis Muhammad

With this second anniversary of Katrina upon us, there are a few words I wish to speak. This letter is written to the progressive, left movement for justice in the USA. In the last two years, every left organization has been in New Orleans, but despite that there is still no sign of a mass movement. There is still no sign that most activists are willing to put their knowledge and resources at the service of the grass roots and take their leadership from the bottom. I have found myself wondering, have poor black people been so vilified and criminalized that they are completely off the radar even of the so-called left? When Katrina happened, I hoped and expected that this would be the trigger to once again set off a true mass movement against racism and for justice in the US, led by those most affected: poor, black working people. When it became abundantly clear that this was not happening, I found myself at the crossroads of hope and hopelessness, and began to wonder how to spend the last years of my life in the service of my people.

The thing that I remind myself when I’m contemplating hopelessness is the beauty of humanity and the fact that people have always fought for what was right even when they knew they couldn’t win. They tried because they loved each other; I think it’s because it’s built into human beings for people to look out for each other. There is a drive in humanity to be just, to live in a society that is just, equal and respectful. I believe that ultimately people will achieve a just society; I believe humanity came out of a just society and will create it again.

I do believe that there was a time that the lovers of life, the lovers of humanity, the lovers of justice dominated the world. Some say this was so during the hunter-gatherer days, when though there were evil people they could never gain dominance. Their numbers were always small, less than 1%; people ran their lives collectively, and therefore the greedy could not dominate. Well then, I say what happened, there is only that same 1% who dominates the world now.

This thinking, this logic has been the motivating factor in my life of movement work: the belief that there is a basic humanity that is inside the soul of most people. That this humanity can be harvested and organized into a movement for justice to free our people from slavery, bondage, oppression and exploitation. That the 80% of the world who live on an average of $2 a day can and will overcome the 1% and return us to a collective life organized around love, justice and equality.

Most of you who know me also know I'm a storyteller and believe story to be a universal language that can be a vehicle for voice – the voice of all regardless of status, class, cast, race, gender. Story is an egalitarian language. So I wish to share with you my story, an abbreviated story of my organizing work from SNCC in Mississippi through the ghettoes of the US to the villages and jungles of Africa, to CLU, PHRF, NOSC, POC and finally the International School for Bottom-up Organizing. My story is meant to clarify why I now choose to live, work, teach and write outside the US and away from the grip of a drastically de-energized and often opportunistic and reactionary left in the USA.

* * *

I grew up in a community that, of necessity, had to take care of its own. In rural Mississippi in the 40s, 50s and 60s, mothers and fathers, grandparents, uncles and cousins protected the children from the hostile, racist world and collectively helped each other meet their needs. Nonetheless, when I was a child traveling to church on Sundays, I had to pass the tree from whose branches my cousin was lynched. The community of my birth gave me both my strength -- my faith in the people, my dedication to egalitarianism – and my undying hatred of racism and the oppressive few that control the world.

When SNCC came to town, I found my direction. It was both a community of love and a set of organizers devoted, at the risk of their lives, to the folk on the bottom: the poorest black folk in Mississippi, those who had nothing, not even the knowledge of how to read. SNCC introduced me to the struggles of my brothers and sisters around the world, and particularly in Africa. I became an internationalist and a revolutionary. The lessons of Ella Baker and SNCC have stayed with me throughout my life; I labored to make them a reality from Mississippi to the ghettoes of our major cities, from my time in the revolutionary movement in Africa to my work as a labor organizer, and I have done my utmost to apply them in post-Katrina New Orleans.

In 1998, I helped to organize Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition that was founded with a commitment to bottom-up organizing. (CLU principles included “ending the exploitation of oppressed peoples everywhere; educating, organizing and mobilizing the masses within our organizations and communities from the bottom up.”) After eight years of organizing in some of the poorest areas of New Orleans, it became the “first responder” after Katrina, and led the formation of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF).

As a founding member of PHRF and an organizer and New Orleans resident, I was back in the city within 8 days of the flood, struggling with overwhelming pain and anger. I felt that Katrina represented an historic moment. Never before had all levels of government united to attempt genocide of 100,000 black people at the same time. Even in the 60s in Mississippi, they were murdering us in ones, twos and threes. I threw myself into the attempt to put the knowledge and resources of the left and nationalist organizations and “movement” people under the direction of the bottom: the poor and working class black folk who had been left to die in New Orleans. PHRF became a coalition that committed itself on paper to that goal.

What followed was a dramatic learning experience for me and for all those whose commitment is truly to the people and not to their own particular grouping. Within months, mainly as a result of a speaking tour I went on for PHRF, we had raised about a million dollars from folk across the country who were deeply moved by the attempted genocide of over a hundred thousand black folk. And by December, there was already conflict over who controlled that money and how it was to be used.

The New Orleans Survivor Council was organized by PHRF with the understanding that it was to become the leadership of the organization and the movement, and should control all resources. By April of 2006, when the NOSC began to sound like it wanted oversight of the funds, the interim leadership of PHRF took the money and ran, firing its own organizers for daring to tell the poor black residents in NOSC that they had the right to control the resources raised in their names. Undaunted, the young organizers continued working for the survivors and formed a new group called People’s Organizing Committee (POC).

This event was a turning point for me. I realized that the words of those who I had considered my comrades were empty, that their so-called commitment to bottom-up was a fiction; that their real commitments were to various organizations and their own egos. Our attempt to institutionalize bottom-up had led instead to a coalition of opportunists.

When I had spoken to mass audiences about Katrina in the fall of 2005, I had spoken of my discovery of the depth of the fear and hatred America has for poor, black people. The images on the media of those left to die could have been taken in sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean: those people were very poor and very black. With the desertion of PHRF, I was confronted by the knowledge that this hatred of poor black people extended into and throughout the progressive movement, even within exclusively black organizations. I felt very lonely in my continued commitment to lift up precisely that segment of oppressed Americans to lead the movement.

But POC plunged ahead, still dedicated to that vision. Thousands of volunteers came in the spring and summer, and many continue to come to this day. The hearts of so many people are in the right place. The New Orleans Survivor Council and its member group Residents of Public Housing continue to work to put bottom-up leadership on the map and fight for the right of our community to return and control its own destiny. But the past year has also revealed further weakness and lack of vision in our movement.

From the days immediately following the flood, we recognized that immigrants – brown people, some of the poorest and most desperate of our brothers and sisters from countries to the south – were being brought into our city. They were put to the dirtiest, most dangerous clean-up tasks, and later to replace the forcibly dispersed black labor force, for slave wages and in slave conditions. From the start, we called for organizing this new part of the New Orleans community in unity with and under the leadership of the black folk on the bottom.

This call was part of my message in the speeches I made in the fall of 2005, and several immigrant organizers heeded the call and came to work with us. However, despite many serious attempts to develop unity between black survivors and immigrants, it has become clear that those organizers refuse to unite with and take leadership from black folk. They have organized immigrant slaves into separate groupings with no contact with the NOSC, despite their initial commitment to unity. They are essentially, wittingly or unwittingly, following the government’s agenda, which is to build a racist, assimilationist immigrant “movement” that will serve the needs of a war economy and patriotism.

And so we come to the second anniversary of Katrina. Bottom-up organizing is still embryonic, though hanging on to life and with a small, dedicated band of survivors, organizers and volunteers. But the rest of the movement is in shambles, or under direct or indirect influence of our enemies.

Through the experience of the last two years, I have also come to the conclusion that the infiltration of and direct attacks on the movement that started (in my lifetime as an activist) in the late 60s and early 70s with Cointelpro have never stopped. Our movement has been successfully divided into thousands of groupings, non-profits and NGOs, and the left has been rendered ineffectual. It is not an accident that, for forty years now, the movement has been so totally reformist, or that those who want to be revolutionaries are so isolated as to be irrelevant. The government and its agencies have a stranglehold on the people, the culture and even the left. I do not think it is possible in the U.S. at this time – for me – to develop and train organizers with a real understanding and commitment to the folk on the bottom.

And thus, I find myself at the crossroads of hope and hopelessness. I find myself possibly in the position of writing not mainly to the current readers of these words, but to those future revolutionaries who will learn from our impasse. I find myself deciding to work toward creating an international organizing school as a vehicle to discover, recruit and train radical organizers. I want to continue my investigation of the movements in Mexico and South America among very poor -- members of the informal economy, workers, campesinos and landless people -- learn more about how class and hue interact to shape oppression, take inspiration from the fact that the struggle continues, un-abandoned, worldwide, and share my own knowledge and experience with the rebels of today and tomorrow.

I have lived 64 years and have struggled intentionally for justice for about forty-six of those years. I am thankful and appreciative to all those who have traveled some of that distance with me: those who helped nurture my children, who stood with me when I was imprisoned and tortured, those who have always supported my work and stood by me when all seemed to stand against me. To these worthy friends, comrades and loved ones, I will always honor you, be there for you, and know you are there for me.

Still, I have arrived at a place in my life where I wish to share everything I have and know with the “sufferers.” My principle continues to be the struggle to engage the poor, oppressed, voiceless, and those who have the least and suffer the most. The only struggle that matters to me now is finding justice for those who have never had it.

This is me, where I am, trying to figure out how to organize our folk in a way that we always look at need as the principle of justice. If you are looking for me, look among the youth, the poor, and the struggling masses trapped in slave-like conditions throughout the world, for I am no longer available to an opportunistic and racist left. I NOW SEEK REFUGE AMONG THE POOR.

This is my struggle.
Wish me well,
Curtis

Click here to view a videotaped interview by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now »

August 2007

Greetings from the New Orleans Survivor Council and Residents of Public Housing:
August 2, 2007

Residents of Public Housing is an organization of public housing residents from the various developments throughout New Orleans. We are assisting our family, friends and neighbors in public housing with returning home and with improving the living conditions and quality of life for those of us who have already returned. We work together with the rest of our community who are not public housing residents through our New Orleans Survivor Council. The Council is made up of people from the poor and working black community of New Orleans and includes low-income homeowners (most of whom are from the Lower Ninth Ward), renters and public housing residents from wards and neighborhoods throughout New Orleans, and immigrants who have been brought into our community to as the new slaves to replace the old slaves. We have also been assisting our family, friends and neighbors with returning home, rebuilding and repairing our community and our lives, and taking charge of our neighborhoods. Our mission is to do for ourselves what the government won’t.

July 2007

NEW ORLEANS SURVIVOR COUNCIL / CITIZENS OF NEW ORLEANS
COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION AND REBUILDING
Bad Neighbor Commission
Contact Information: 504-872-9591
July 30, 2007

NOTICE OF VIOLATION

Click here to download document - 28 KB

Bring Our People Back Home!
Residents of Public Housing Plan Anniversary Activities
July 27, 2007

Residents of Public Housing (RPH) met yesterday at Guste High Rise Community Center. Twenty-eight residents came from several public housing neighborhoods, including Iberville, Guste, St. Bernard, Lafitte, B.W. Cooper and Desire. With the second anniversary of Katrina only a month away, residents discussed plans for the anniversary.

“Bring Our People Home” Block Party

On August 28, RPH will sponsor a block party outside the HANO/HUD office on Touro Street, starting at noon. At the block party,