organizing

Cindy Milstein

(Note: This essay is reprinted from the July–August 2008 issue of Left Turn magazine, which features a special section on the elections; it was written before Obama secured the nomination.)

“The world as it is, is not the world as it has to be.”¹ Long our basic aspiration, this ideal now springs from a U.S. presidential contender. And yet the gap between the change that Barack Obama promises and the transformation that we know is crucial may offer a space of possibility. For even as liberals are utilizing “hope” to captivate millions this election, embodied in Obama’s “New Politics,”² I would maintain that those of us who seek a nonhierarchical world are still the real carriers of utopia. Nevertheless, this election supplies us the opening to reject statism in a way that’s sensitive to the historical moment and prefigurative of a directly democratic society—but only if we mind the gap.

By Andalusia Knoll

When State Troopers in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, killed 12-year-old Michael Ellerbe in 2002, his family along with neighbors and members of People against Police Violence, launched a campaign to bring those responsible for his death to justice. They demanded answers; why was an unarmed 12-year-old black boy shot in the back as he was running away from state troopers?

Despite strong community pressure a state inquest found the officers innocent. If the case ended there, Ellerbe would have joined the ranks of the 2000+ others whose lives were cut short by U.S. law enforcement officers who are rarely held responsible for their deaths.

Michael Hickenbottom, Ellerbe’s father, unsatisfied with a ruling of innocence, filed a civil suit against the troopers. On March 11 2008, more than five years after Ellerbe’s death, a Jury in federal court ruled that Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Samuel Nassan and Corporal Juan Curry used excessive force and intentionally shot Michael Ellerbe. The jury awarded more than $28 million dollars in punitive and compensatory damages.

On Sunday April 6th, Movement for Justice in El Barrio took the struggle against gentrification in NYC to an international level. Through the new International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio, Movement for Justice in El Barrio is organizing on a transnational level to combat displacement in El Barrio (East Harlem) by building a multi-national network to go after one of their main targets, the multi-national corporation Dawnay, Day Group at their central headquarters in London and on multiple continents where they hold property. Movement for Justice in El Barrio and their supporters from around the city and nation gathered on the steps of city hall to launch their “International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio.”

3 prisoners who forecast their own "suicides"

by dave onion with reporting by Andalusia Knoll

On April 7th this year a small crowd gathered in the Rotunda of the Harrisburg State Capitol to protest recent deaths in Pennsylvania prisons. Most of the demonstrators, who presented a list of demands to law makers were family or friends of the deceased. Some prison advocates and activists were also present from the Fight for Lifers West, STOPMAX Campaign, Prison Society, New Vision Organization, defenestrator and Friends and Family of Prisoners Emergency Response Network. With one of the key organizers stuck in traffic, the protest self organized and relatives of the deceased spoke on the loss of their loved ones.

Cab Drivers Merge to Create the Unified Taxi Workers Alliance
and Win Important State Supreme Court Ruling

On Wednesday May 21st, the two organizations that represent Cabbies in Philadelphia, the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania (TWA-PA) and the Brotherhood of Unified Drivers and Owner Operators, merged to create the Unified Taxi Workers Alliance (UTWA). The organizations united in an effort to create one shared voice for the rights of cab drivers across the region. Muhammad Chughtai, President of the Brotherhood, explained, "this is an essential step in showing that we as cab drivers are united in our demands." Likewise, Ronald Blount, President of the TWA-PA, said, "the unification is an important step in our fight to get better working conditions for drivers across the region." In their first act as a united organization, the UTWA will hold an election for leadership in which all 5,000 citywide drivers are invited to vote.