LIVING FOR CHANGE

Organizing Can Be Fun

By Grace Lee Boggs

Michigan Citizen, Mar. 30-April 5, 2008

Detroit–City of Hope recently hosted two meetings to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King and to explore how we can become engaged in our communities in “the long and bitter but beautiful struggle for a new world” that King projected in his April 4, 1967 anti-Vietnam war speech.

At both meetings, after a brief presentation, we broke up into small groups so that everyone’s voice could be heard. At the February 16 meeting we formed groups by just counting off, leaving it to the groups themselves to decide what they wanted to talk about or to do.

One group brainstormed goals and guidelines for a Truth and Reconciliation to deal with the current “Sex, Lies and Secret Deals” Mayoralty crisis in Detroit. It came up with a very simple Restorative Justice process that could easily be used by community groups to deal with many of the non-violent misdemeanors and felonies that are filling our prisons, breaking up our families, and diverting billions of state dollars needed for schools, roads, social services. (See “Justice and the Mayor” by Stephanie Chang, Michigan Citizen, Feb. 24-Mar. 1).

At the February 29 meeting we asked people to join groups based on the activity they preferred: talking, drawing or writing.

The “talk” group discussed the contradictory roles that black Americans have played over the years: like the “miner’s canary warning the nation of perils” or bringing hope in the future like Malcolm , MLK and Barach Obama,

The “drawing” group created trashcan sketches to dramatize the need to clean up our thinking about the city

The “writing” group wrote and performed this collective poem

Yes, I can be a statistic and still rock my world.
Yes, I can get up and turn Fox News off!
YES, WE CAN.

Yes, I can use one hand of mine for helping myself
       	 and the other one for helping others.
Yes, I can work with my hands and my heart.
Yes, I can help in educating people to take care of the environment.
YES, WE CAN.

Yes, I can move forward without making the same mistakes.
Yes, I can see possibilities out of despair.
Yes, I can look at the footprints of my ancestors.
Yes, I can grow roots of energy out of the bottom of my feet.
Yes, I can walk at night, alone and unafraid.
YES, WE CAN.

Yes, I can be more health conscientious.
Yes, I can eat a veggie burger even though it tastes like cardboard!
Yes, I can still love people even though they hate on vegetarians
YES, WE CAN.

Yes, I can bike everywhere.
Yes, I can dance like wild in front of my mirror.
Yes, I can make Republicans laugh!
	YES, WE CAN.

It was amazing how much creativity and laughter were unleashed by the activity groups process. It was also instructive.

Pete Seeger, the folk singer and legendary social activist who over the years has energized thousands of groups of all ages, from toddlers to elders, with songs like “We shall overcome,” “If I had a hammer” and “Where have all the flowers gone?” said that “Organizing can be fun.” He was right on.

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