Reveille for Radicals

The other day I picked up Saul Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals, and despite the fact that he wrote it in 1949, I have found it extraordinarily relevant. It was reprinted in 1969, in a time of rapid political upheaval, similar to today. However different America is today from 60 or 40 years ago, we are again in a time of crisis and in desperate need of clear voices which inspire us to action.

"...the answer to all of the issues facing us will be found in the masses of the people themselves, and nowhere else."

This has always been and will always be true. The top-down systems of power relations that our world operates on today deny the fact that true answers and change come from the bottom up, from those who are most exploited and oppressed. It is from below that mass popular movements are fomented and radical change enacted. Those below have the most interest in change, are the most pissed off and the most disenfranchised. Therefore any group attempting a project of radical community sustainability must necessarily be constituted by and exist within broad popular support bases. It must include all manner of people from all classes, creeds, colors and genders. This means that our little circle of mostly white college age kids must grow to include immigrants, farmers, professors, workers, mothers, the elderly etc. etc.

As it is now most of us rarely come into meaningful contact with anyone outside of our immediate circles of friends, professors, bosses and co-workers. Boone is a very segregated place. Junaluska, a historically black community, is tucked away behind Queen street, and many students have no idea that it exists. Our immigrant/ migrant worker population is practically invisible downtown, many of them living in the trailer parks off of Bamboo St. or by the Loyola St. Community Garden. Just beyond Boone, in the mountain hollers, exists a crushing, pervasive poverty which drives many of the people who live there to endlessly toil in demeaning jobs that barely bring enough money to live a desperate life. And we are heading into times when even those jobs will be even more far and fewer between.

It is necessary for us to educate ourselves on all of the various populations of Boone and the surrounding communitties. Who lives here, what do they do, what do they think about eachother, how do they live? Sure, we can go and research census data and gather all the demographics we want, but we will still be just as far from understanding the diverse and proud communities that comprise Boone. What we need to do is get out and immerse ourselves in these communitites. Not because it is a good organizing strategy but because we have a genuine interest in the lives of our fellow citizens. We must learn to listen, first and foremost. Listen to their daily existence and stories of the past, their visions of the future. We must share time and space and dreams. And then hopefully relationships will emerge. Relationships of trust, mutual understanding and compassion. That is the stuff of a true community, and what makes human existence truly meaningful.