The Purpose of Power: How to build movements for the 21st Century

Dear Colleagues,

I was honoured to be invited to chair a panel discussion on 9th September with Alicia Garza - co-founder of Black Lives Matter - to discuss her new book, The purpose of power. Although the book is frameworked around her life in the form of biography, it is a powerful insight to the challenges and opportunities of mobilising maginalised and excluded people. 

The event was organised by the Ella Baker School of Organising, of which I am proudly a founder member: https://www.ellabakerorganising.org.uk/

A video of the panel discussion is available here: https://www.facebook.com/ellabakerschooloforganising/

I found the book to be one of the best I have read in a long time on the sheer hard of organising for social justice. And so, the opportunity to interview Alicia was a really priveledged opportunity to hear from her first hand on what drove her towards a life of activism, and what she has learned from it.

Personally speaking, I find her finding that 'hashtags don't make a movement' to be such an instructive point. I tend to find that one of the challenges of organising - particularly amongst younger people - is that social media is the be all and end all of mobilisation.

Just as importantly though is here insistence that class is a key defining means to establish solidarity between all workers, and not least within an economy so brutally exploitative as that in the US.

Here, she says: There are very practical reasons why multiracial movements are vital to building the world we deserve. Segregation by race and class has been used throughout history to maintain power relationships. Segregation, whether through redlining or denying citizenship, helps to create an other, which helps in turn to justify why some people have and other people don't. It reinforces the narratives that make unequal power relationships normal.

I wholeheartedly recommend that you read the book, and that you take the time to read it in parts and reflect on what the key messages mean for you and your work in organising.

In solidarity

Ian