Marches and MLK Day
The NJ reports that Councilman Kevin Kelley, Councilman Sam Prado, Father Mike Tyson of St. Paul Church and Reverend Christopher Bullock, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church have organized a march on Wilmington’s West Side to honor Dr. King and to “promote racial harmony and nonviolence in the city” today.
I have alot of respect for these men organizing this thing and the ones I know personally I do know absolutely have their hearts in the right place. The violence in the city is on the rise, gang activity from serious nationwide players is increasing, and entire neighborhoods feel under siege. But a march — right here and right now — just seems to be an inadequate (and even quaint) response to what appears to have become an epidemic in the city.
This is a tough criticism to make, because the people doing this seriously want to do something to address this and the avenues available to them are fairly limited. So this is not a criticism of their motives, but of their methods. Here in the 21st century USA, marches rarely longer capture the attention or provide the kind of inspiration that they once did. It is well known that the real power in any gathering of citizens is in how they can translate their very valid concerns into some action that pressures politicians or corporations or whoever into doing something different. And in Wilmington, getting the citizens to do something is really the challenge.
A march is good for some publicity, but marching bypasses the effort to make MLK Day into a nationwide day of service. Instead of marching, why not commandeer the Chase Center for a day-long community-based Hope Commission Meeting? This meeting, however, would completely bypass the currently impotent official Commission and convene citizens and community leaders in a charrette-type process to identify community needs and to develop solutions. At the end of the day, you have a list of community-generated needs and solutions and a place for City Council to start implementing (or supporting community organizations to implement) solutions. Do this yearly to measure progress towards goals and to develop new ones. Done well, this is the stuff that a new mayor can be made of. Or how about a day long Community Policing Training? Get started on working on not just training and community watch skills, but trust-building with the WPD with the portions of the community who don’t want to work with the police in order to build community that might work with the WPD to get issues addressed. Or how about a major presentation by the City Council on the redeployment plan that they’ve devised to citizens, accompanied by a structured campaign to pressure the Mayor and Chief Szczerba to do something different.
These are just off of the top of my head and there are likely better ideas out there. But the point remains –we have to remind ourselves on this MLK Day that raising awareness is no longer enough. We live here, we know we’ve a crisis on our hands. Citizens have to be moved and empowered well past awareness to some action to help make our communities better. I believe that Kevin Kelley actually knows this — and I challenge him and Sam Prado to think more strategically about community action and empowerment.
Tags: Wilmington
Marches, vigils and sit-ins don’t seem to work anymore. Pressuring legislators and getting one’s voice heard in public is the way to get things done now. One nice thing about our times is that the cost of getting yourself out there is negligible – anyone can write on the internet. It’s getting people to pay attention that is the hard part.
we could just commandeer CHASE itself you know…since we own it…or the Bank of America’n’ taxpayers….
none the less I agree
UI, makes a good point. Before the internet, marches served not only as a way to deliver a message, but as a way for like-minded people to connect and ultimately organize.
Excellent ideas, Cassandra. Any chance of recruiting you to run for city council?
Agreeing with cassandra’s original point about marches, sit-ins, etc., it does appear to me that there is a subtle point being missed here.
Net-based advocacy and all that it entails kind of leave out a lot of the disenfranchised that these folks are attempting to reach. We have this tendency to see the blogosphere and even the more traditional field of citizens lobbying politicians as an inclusive universe. On the contrary, I think it’s pretty damn selective.
I think the question that these organizers are grappling with (perhaps unconsciously) is how you meld the traditional to the cyber, especially for those folks and neighborhoods to which the internet might actually be a foreign country?
As someone who has organized uncountable protests and vigils and everything else, I can understand why they chose to have this march. Everyone does what they have to do.
It’s just one hour, folks. It doesn’t mean the organizers aren’t going to continue all the things you think they should be doing. Your criticizm was well meant, I know, but IMO they should be supported.
Today’s marches are ineffective because they are small enough to be ignored or even mocked. To be effective, a march needs to be big enough to be startling. People will not come out on that scale unless they are in real pain.
… and when I say “startling” – I think the unspoken message to the Establishment of the huge 1960’s marches on DC is: My God – what if all those people had weapons?
Wilmington’s problems are big enough that they deserve to be taken seriously by everyone involved.
Do marches demonstrate that? I don’t think so. I think someone here mentioned the “civil rights industrial complex” and this type of action seems like clock punching.
What to do instead? I like Cassandra’s idea.
Cassandra is right on. I believe one message that I’ve learned over the past few years is that you can’t effect change very well by standing on the outside. You make change by getting enough of the public to exert pressure on public officials or by becoming an insider and pressing for change from within. A combination of both is even better. One of Kos’s sayings is “more and better Democrats.” I think we’re at the “more” stage already, now we need to enter the “better” stage.
Marches are not as effective as they used to be. They are no longer uncommon like when they were very effectively used during the 50s and 60s. Plus, marches have changed from everyone in their suit & tie and Sunday dresses to street theater with costumes and such. I remember that there were huge, huge marches against the Iraq War before it was started in 2003 but it was hardly reported by our corporate media. The corporate media is only interested in reporting them if there is rioting or violence.
A huge gathering of citizens, organized by the grassroots to come up with ideas for lessening the violence in the city would probably get a big media response.
Net-based advocacy certainly does miss those who don’t have access to the Internet (but in urban areas, many people’s only net access is actually via their phones and have a different experience of the cyberworld than others with dedicated equipment); but none of my suggestions have to do with cyber access. It was more about getting out of the business of raising awareness and getting into the business of training people to help themselves to some extent. (And I’d say that net-based advocacy isn’t exactly ready for prime time within the city government, either) Today, there is an MLK event hbeing held at the Chase Center with some activities and a motivational speaker — what if that very much in person event was about ideas and strategies to run the thugs out of town? Or how to more effectively work with the WPD for greater accountability? Or training for Neighborhood Watch Groups? None of these really depend on net access, but can mobile people to roll up their sleeves to get something done.
The Chase Center costs an arm and a leg which puts it out of reach for grassroots organizers. But Rodney Square is doable, once the weather gets better, which would give us some time to organize. And Rodney is the bus route hub so it’s more accessible. It could be a weekend event with a rain date.
Just sticking my oar in here. If you need to talk to Bill Montgomery or John Rago or Chris Bullock, then PDD could help. But I’m guessin’ you already have your own contacts.
I think it is a great idea cassandra!
Onward!
Great idea Rebecca!
Cassandra….your ideas are valid. And, yes, there have been several attempts to bring city residents together (If politics were a religion ‘numbers’ would be dogma.). One problem I see is we have no pride in ourselves…nothing worth protecting or saving.
Does anyone recall ‘Wilmington United Neighbors’? This was a large city-wide group that was on a roll until the ‘gatekeepers’ found a way to kill it: they convinced the citizens they needed a ‘paid’ executive director. Like taking candy from a baby.
How about ‘City Side’….this was a middleclassish group that was mainly about gentrification. But they did have a voice….this was one of the strong bases for Dan Frawley (for which we still suffer).
What about Citizen Summit (I,II,III,IV)? This group, thanks to former Councilmember Sam Guy getting it funding, was instrumental in getting the RDC (among other challenges to RDC) to include ‘Tubman/Garrett’ in that park’s name (no easy task.) and for making certain Louis L. Redding’s statue was not hidden inside the builing (as planned by some) but rather stood outside a a shining beacon to what we are.
These are only highlights, easy to write in little space…..there are pleanty more. (Can you spell ‘CSO’…do you know what it means?)
Most recently I was in city council thanking members for voting to televise the ‘public comment’ session prior to council meetings and opening city/county hall to the citizens for meetings. It took 20 years to televise the meetings and 8 years to re open the building.
We, the people do not need Chase or anyone else. We have our own space: Louis L. Redding City/County Building, 800 N. French Street, parking on site.
At last week’s Council meeting I suggested that we (that’d be you, dear reader) begin planning Citizen Summit V. I cordially invite you to contact me via email: susanregiscollins@comcast.net if you are interested.
In the past we held CS’s on Saturdays 8am-2pm.
We had a guest speaker, four breakout sessions with topics such as: government, legislation, public safety, education, recreation, econmic development, enviornment. One year we held a poster contest for kids. We served lunch (pizza & soda, apples).
After the Summit we prepared a report and presented it to government, media, and who ever else we thought might even be vaguely interested. Changes were made as a result of all the citizens who worked hard to make these events a success.
Don’t be shy. Contact me. Right now we are looking at a fall date, after school is back in session.
RE: MLK March. As I see it if the core group of marchers divided in half and swept up 4th street knocking on each and every door encouraging, begging, pleading (whatever) every household to join the march (on the spot) or at least send one resident from each address it would be a sizable event. By the time they got to ‘Hilltop’ they may have enough people to go down the hill in the middle of the street. Then into St. Paul’s for some hot soup/drinks (they have planned no ‘ending’ for this march), some comraderie (sp), and a ‘sign up’ sheet for future organizing……….just my 2 cents worth.
Also, as to the internet divide: Philly has $15. per mo. internet service, why not Wilmington? Don’t forget Dr. Negroponte @ MIT has the $100. laptops for kids (kids all over the so-called 3rd world are getting them as I write). There is absolutely NO excuse for city folks to be out of the loop. We managed to get cops laptops, it’s time for the people to have equal.
As above: Do Not Be Shy. Contact me….but, only if you want to work.
The venue isn’t so important (there are church and school halls all over the City that can be used), as is the effort to actually get people some skills and strategies to take back their neighborhoods.
Also, marches are not exactly the kind of thing that gets this Mayor’s attention (which I’m surprised that at least Kevin doesn’t know). People rolling their sleeves up and trying to work towards something can get his attention and he is willing to join in and support in ways that make some sense for the Administration. At least, that is certainly my experience of the Mayor.
Mayor Baker talked about reconstituting something like the old Cityside group (that was well before my Wilmington time) in the next few years.