Keeping it Real: The People's Agenda for Economic Justice

Click here for slideshow of images from the People's Agenda event.

The South is an exciting place to be in this U.S. election year. The region was the site of the big presidential showdown of 2000, and many people are still wondering if their votes were counted — or ever will be again. But my guess is we won't be fooled this time. The social change wrought by the present Republican administration across the South, the nation and the world in the last four years has so radicalized so many people that the joint is jumpin' with meetups, rallies, marches and GOTV (Get Out the Vote) campaigns.

Artists are out there in the middle of it all, especially artists of color.

South Carolina, site of the first Southern Democratic primary, is an election-year target for D.C.'s Center for Community Change (CCC), which organized more than 2,000 people to brave the unusually wintry weather and converge on Columbia on January 30, 2004, for a "Dialog with America's Families," the kickoff event of the CCC's 2004 Community Voting Project. This is a year-long effort to register 105,000 new voters, mobilize 250,000 new and infrequent voters, and bring the survival issues of low-income families to the policy table during this election. On the "People's Agenda for Economic Justice": jobs, health care, education, housing, fair immigration and tax policies, child care and family leave. They want to make it possible for ordinary people to talk directly and personally with the presidential candidates about these concerns so central to their lives.

In late 2003, organizer LaDon James of the CCC contacted Alternate ROOTS Executive Director Carolyn Morris in her Atlanta office to enlist some Southern artists to bring "creative expression" to the S.C. event. James said she is now a firm believer in involvement of artists in political actions since the CCC's infamous Sisters for Economic Dignity made headlines: Artists Tiye Giraud and Gwendolen Hardwick helped mothers on welfare create a musical about the tough economic issues in their lives — and took the performance to the U.S. Senate. Part of the CCC's National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, the Sisters also demonstrated at President Bush's Texas ranch and at Halliburton Corporation, and were named Ms. Magazine Women of the Year for 2002.

The January 2004 event in downtown Columbia was incredibly energizing. The crowd — mostly people of color — marched nine blocks from the Adam's Mark Hotel to the Township Auditorium bearing banners and signs insisting "The American Dream Is Over" and "A Voteless People Is a Hopeless People." Determined contingents from all over the country carried signs for their states and their organizations — from the South Carolina AFL-CIO to the NAACP, Sierra Club, Delaware State Public Housing Tenants, Southern Echo, Picture the Homeless, the Center for Young Women's Development, United Playez, Latino Mothers on the Move, California ACORN, East Side Pride, NYC AIDS Housing Network, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy, Critical Resistance, even the Lewis Greenview Elementary School 5th Grade. There were more than 100 organizations in the coalition, including 18 from South Carolina, eight Native American groups, five churches and seminaries, and several hundred noisy folks from New York.

Inside, the two-tier auditorium was full. They came to witness a dialogue between individual Democratic candidates and several generations of real low-income families, who were seated in a small grandstand on the stage. As people found their places in the auditorium and looked through the program, candidate Dennis Kucinich worked the crowd, signing autographs and shaking hands.

The event was emceed by African-American radio star and political activist Tom Joyner, whose foundation supports Historically Black Colleges and Universities. There were welcomes and rabble-rousing by Joyner and Mayor Bob Coble, then Anton Gunn of S.C. Fair Share reminded us that 2004 is the 40th Anniversary of Freedom Summer, "when thousands put their lives on the line for their communities. But there is still injustice. Too many Americans go to bed every night asking, 'How can I sleep if I can't dream?'"

For about an hour, person after person took the mike on stage, addressing the crowd in a tightly timed counterpoint of political speech, rap, song, poetry and open letters to the President. Ministers, notable writers, recording artists, performance artists, musicians and political organizers addressed three straight years of job loss in South Carolina (the most in the nation), jobs shipped overseas, public safety, endemic disease among the poor, latchkey children, betrayal and corruption. All of them appeared to be everyday people speaking from their hearts.

"Marginal Woman" from the S.C. Poetry Collective read a poem about Homeland Security: "We want our country back/And we ain't scared/And we ain't tired." Brenda Stewart from New York sang "American the Bootyful, the poor man's national anthem" ("...with purple mountains' majesty above a fruitless plain"). A large contingent called Alianza Dominicana appeared, chanting about education and fronted by a small boy with a big sign: "I'm worth the investment."

Former California Congressman Ron Dellums, a CCC board member, complained movingly that he had been hearing "What do we want: Justice! When do we want it? Now!" for too long. He called the last four decades "40 years of a dream deferred." He talked eloquently about the nature of poverty, pointing out that society creates jobs when it addresses its social problems. You can't expand health care, enhance education and embrace coherent housing policy without creating new jobs to meet those challenges, he said, "and you can't export those jobs. They have to be done in America."

Dellums also reminded the crowd that Martin Luther King said the most revolutionary act we can engage in is to assert our rights and prerogatives as citizens. "'I am a citizen' is a political statement," he said. "When I stand up I am a citizen, I will be dealt with. It's not about standing outside the building with a sign. Go in the building and sit at the table." This is an essentially important issue to people who are worried that their votes won't even be counted, and it brought them to their feet, with fists in the air. "I'm one of the O.G.'s," Dellums responded in a choked voice, "and you just made my blood flow like a young man's."

The Dialog with America's Families was to be broadcast over local station WIS TV News and shown on C-Span, so there were camera crews all around with a great sound system in place. (Clips from the event were all over the media the next few days.) When the moment was upon us, Joyner grabbed the mike and yelled, "I'm so sick of talking about Kobe and Michael Jackson. This is what we need to be talking about. This is reality."

And after a daily diet of sound-bite campaign rhetoric over radio, TV and the Internet, I was ready for a dose of reality myself. "The families" on stage looked ready too. The agenda called for each candidate (Joe Lieberman declined) to come out separately, make a 45-second statement and then carry on a conversation — "not a debate" — with specific family members, answering pointed questions. Each speaker was introduced to the candidate and told a short story from his/her own family life, followed by a pertinent query like: "Will you set a goal of reducing poverty as President? What goals will you set and how will you achieve them?"

Things got off to a poignant start for Wesley Clark, who spoke with "Lucile," a tearful grandmother from Indian People's Action in Montana. She held a framed photograph of her grandson who had passed away only three weeks before; he couldn't get the proper health care because of Medicaid cuts. Beginning to weep softly, she said, "He doesn't need it any more, but there are people out there who need it so badly." Clark was moved to step forward and put his hand on her shoulder. She wanted to know exactly how he would fix Medicaid. This kind of interchange happened several times during the following hour. A mother from South Carolina lost her son in the war in Iraq because he had no other viable life choice but the Army; she asked John Edwards how he would produce better college opportunities for young people like him.

A woman from Philadelphia told of escaping a brutal marriage, only to face workfare; then she began organizing for homeless women against the defeating workfare rules. She asked Kucinich if he agreed with President Bush that marriage is the best way for women to get out of poverty. A Chinese-American high-school student from New York told Howard Dean that the only way he could get a college education would be to shoulder loans that would take 20 years to pay off; he asked if we are creating a permanent class system by making it impossible for low-income people to go to college. A Cherokee Indian chief asked John Kerry how the American people can be asked to believe the government's promises when the U.S. failed to keep any of its promises to its first people. A Latina high-schooler from New York asked Al Sharpton if he had plans to improve the inequalities of the crumbling public-school system. Questions sent in by e-mail were read, from people living on Social Security, laid-off parents with teenage sons, single moms with deadbeat husbands, unemployed textile workers bewildered by jobs going overseas.

The candidates responded with the platform answers you have heard them give to the media, but with many more concrete ideas about how to address the issues put to them — and 100 percent more human. I won't go into detail here, except to say that Edwards was vague where the others were extremely specific; Sharpton was funny and got the best audience response; Kucinich was the only one to mention reparations for American slavery; Dean and Clark were both smart and clear. But when you see them all in person, Kerry is the only one who looks and sounds "presidential," which is probably why he's considered so "electable." (After this reality show, I remember the rest of them looking like concerned, smart, dedicated people and Kerry looking like a tall, graceful, groomed and polished actor.)

But I was far more impressed with the voices of the people themselves, both the artists and activists who spoke before the Dialog, and the families who appeared on stage. Ultimately, the kudos go to the organizers of the event, who showcased those voices. They packed the agenda with a lot of amateurs and made it run like clockwork with extraordinary compassion and humanity: community performance at its finest. The speakers were neither glib nor shrill nor over-rehearsed. In one case, a speaker was overcome with stuttering and had to hand the mike away. It felt like "keeping it real" was at the top of the People's Agenda for Economic Justice.

After the event, the Center for Community Change kept right on choogling, with lunch on the buses for 2,000, and a phone bank and door-knocking campaign in five precincts to try to get low-income families interested in voting. Walking around Columbia during the day I saw political activity wherever I went, and even overheard people telling others about the event at "the Township." The day finished with an Interfaith Worship Service at Washington Street United Methodist Church.

A few days later LaDon James called to tell me that she organized a youth caucus in Columbia on Saturday following the Dialog, which drew nearly 40 enthusiastic young people who had been at the event. Alternate ROOTer Carlton Turner of My Mississippi Eyes helped James teach them how to caucus in small groups and report back to the larger group with "creative expressions" like skits, movement and rap. She said she was more encouraged than ever about the ability of artists to enliven and deepen the political experience.

As we now know, John Edwards won the primary with his mantra of: "I'm just like you. I grew up here just like you and I won't forget where I came from." If he wins the election and he meant what he said to the people he faced at the Township Auditorium that day, we have an interesting four years ahead of us.

After 2000, I was deeply worried that voters of color in the South — chiseled, bamboozled and muscled aside by the operatives of the Right — would give up the precious right to vote, paid for so dearly by the Civil Rights Movement. But this year, I have felt the ground rumbling with energy as angry, heartbroken, ordinary people take to the streets, bolstering each other's determination to make their voices heard. It's a great year to get out there with them. So, get out there.

— Saxapahaw, N.C., February 8, 2004

Linda Frye Burnham is co-director of Art in the Public Interest and the Community Arts Network.

For more information about the Center for Community Change, see its Web site.

Original CAN/API publication: February 2004