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Thoughts on the Jena 6 Mobilization and New Movements
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., BC Editorial Board
November 8, 2007, The Black Commentator, Issue 252
http://www.blackcommentator.com/252/252_african_world_jena_6_mobilization_new_movements_printer_friendly.html
I was thrilled by the tremendous mobilization surrounding the
now infamous Jena 6 case in Louisiana. Credit must go to
radio personalities such as Michael Baisden and Tom Joyner,
as well as Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, in
addition to the work of the NAACP, for their successful
efforts to call attention to the travesty of justice that has
been unfolding before us.
In the aftermath of the mobilization, many people, in near
ecstasy, proclaimed the birth of a new, energized and in-the-
streets Black Freedom Movement. My response: maybe.
Every great mass upsurge is the product of critical
incidents, fury, hope (for success) and years of determined
organizing. In that sense, a movement upsurge is not just a
mobilization. It is a chain of eruptions of varying sizes
that ultimately join together and shift the thinking and
actions of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
This organizing takes - no surprise here - organizations,
that is, institutions of different shapes and sizes committed
to a long-term project of change. These organizations may be
religious, secular, revolutionary, single-issue, former
gangs, and/or womenâs clubs, but whatever they are (or
whatever combination), they become a center for new thought
and new action.
The history of the Black Freedom Movement has seen countless
pro-justice organizations and these organizations have been
critical to the continuation of our struggle and the building
of links between generations. For this reason, progressive
Black organizations have, since the days of slavery, been
targeted by the established order as potentially incendiary,
and always troubling and disruptive.
Movement upsurges, therefore, cannot be reduced to a
mobilization, a specific rebellion (or riot), or to
collective anger. The anger we feel, for example, in the
case of the Jena 6, must be channeled into a long-term fight
for justice. This means that we not only desperately need
progressive Black grassroots organizations composed of people
who are willing to devote time to the struggle; indeed, there
is no short-cut to victory without them.
In that light, while we should be inspired by the Jena 6
mobilization and the thousands of people who sacrificed their
time to travel and demonstrate against injustice, we cannot
let that inspiration delude us into hoping for miracles. If
we want miracles, we need to make them happen and that means
the reconstruction of organizations of grassroots volunteers,
committed to social change and freedom. Organizing cannot be
restricted to a j-o-b that someone secures; it must be a
mission for oneâs life. This is the true legacy of our
freedom struggle and one we must neither abandon nor ignore.
[BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher,
Jr. is a labor and international writer and activist, a
Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the
immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.]
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