This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Memorial Day also marks the culmination of a year-long national commemoration to thank and honor Vietnam veterans and their families for the sacrifices they made on behalf of our nation.
Here is a tribute video produced by the Oklahoma-based law firm of McAfee & Taft.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
People standing along each other, arm in arm.
Door after door, the response was the same: “Why would I vote? It’s not going to change anything.” Even in Grand Rapids, one of the key swing counties of the 2024 election, people felt despondent—powerless. But three months later, those neighbors had organized with hundreds of others in the city to win $20 million for their community—and that sense of powerlessness was changing.
We’ve swallowed a myth that the only change worth pursuing is national, forgetting it was historically robust networks of local clubs, organizations, and associations that made national change possible in the first place. This is what good organizing can do, and we need more of it.
The community members in Grand Rapids didn’t do it with a 30-second sales pitch to garner votes for election day. Instead, they simply asked: “What are the pressures facing your family?”
Everyone had a story—deaths due to a lack of traffic safety, a public water main failure that flooded dozens of homes, and rising housing prices. At the heart of each was a feeling that wealthy interests kept pouring the city’s resources into beautifying the downtown while ignoring the needs of everyday people.
Canvassers were trained not to offer solutions but to issue a challenge: “What do you want to do about that?” Neighbors who expressed an interest in taking action were invited to begin organizing with others who had similar concerns.
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The organization behind this was Together West Michigan (TWM), a coalition of faith communities, schools, and neighborhood groups and an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (the oldest and largest community organizing network in the U.S.). Their goal was to put the needs of everyday people at the center of the coming elections.
In this process, leaders discovered plans for a major development in the heart of downtown: a request for $565 million in taxpayer subsidies to build luxury condominiums, a hotel, and an office building. For residents, it was more of the same—gilding the lily while people fighting to keep their homes and streets safe were patted on the head and told it would all trickle down. One leader called the proposal “a slap in the face.”
Jumping into action, veteran TWM leaders worked with neighbors to meet with City Commissioners who would be voting on the deal. Residents made clear that, while they did not oppose development, they did oppose a deal that took half a billion dollars in taxpayer money in exchange for minuscule investments in affordable housing and a token promise to “improve the downtown”.
When the developers refused to budge, Together West Michigan turned up the heat. 140 of its leaders held a press conference in front of City Hall, calling for a “public benefit that matches the public’s investment,” before packing the Commission Chambers to deliver testimony.
A month later, after tough negotiations, their work paid off. In front of another packed audience, the City Commission approved an amended proposal that required developers to invest an additional $20 million in local women and minority-owned businesses in exchange for the public subsidy.
But that wasn’t the only victory. In an election year where voter turnout dropped drastically across Michigan, in the precincts where TWM organized, turnout decline was drastically slowed. People voted when they saw the impact on their own lives.
At a time when it feels harder than ever to rein in the abuses of those in power, stories like this give us a clear message of hope and a model for future action. They remind us that when communities organize strategically, people really can—and often do—win.
To be sure, the evidence of Grand Rapids is anecdotal. But it’s not unique. The civil rights movement, women’s suffrage, the 40-hour work week, the abolition of child labor, and other pivotal victories in American history drew on the same type of hyper-local organizing work grounded in kitchen-table issues.
Today, in living rooms, church basements, union halls, and schools across the country, thousands of Americans carry on this legacy. They meet to identify shared concerns, organize, and take action. Their work has led to billions of dollars in public investment and corporate accountability that has transformed communities.
It’s time we brush aside the failed conviction that our problems will be solved by electing better leaders and instead recommit to investing in citizens. It’s time to return to the foundation of local organizing that networks like the IAF have pioneered and get back to the day-to-day work of developing citizens well versed in the habits of a democratic culture.
Cameron Conner is a professional community organiser currently serving as a Professor of the Practice at the Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.
Public schools are essential for democracy—and they’re under attack. But the very policies being championed as their salvation may have a catastrophic impact on American education for generations. Public education advocate and historian Diane Ravitch unpacks how school choice policies like vouchers and charter schools are dangerous for democracy.
Diane Ravitch is a former assistant secretary in the United States Department of Education. She is the author of several books on the history and policy of American public schools. Her memoir, about her life as a leading public education reformer, will be published this fall. It’s called An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Almost Everything.
Alex Lovit is a senior program officer and historian at the Kettering Foundation. He hosts and executive produces the Kettering Foundation podcast The Context.
The Context is a podcast from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, about the history, trends, and ideas shaping democracy in the United States and around the world. Every episode, host Alex Lovit, a senior program officer and historian with the foundation, interviews someone who has seen it all—scholars, politicians, journalists, and public servants.
High school and college students will take over the airwaves on the first and third Saturday in Arkansas in the revival of the PHAT LIP! You(th)Talk Radio show
A groundbreaking radio show from the early 1990s is returning this weekend in Arkansas. The PHAT LIP! You(th)Talk Radio show will be back on the airwaves Saturday on KABF 88.3 FM Community Radio in Little Rock.
The show, produced by Washitaw Foothills Youth Media Arts and Literacy Collective, features young people ages 16 to 24.
Director Kwami Abdul-Bey says the broadcast gives teens and young adults a chance to express their feelings about a variety of topics.
"We want all young people involved in the conversation, so you'll be hearing what they have to say particularly as it has to deal with civic engagement and electoral justice," he said.
The show will air from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. the first and third Saturday of each month, and is also available on KABF.org and through the Shortwave Relay Service.
The talk show is funded by a three-year grant. Some of the topics the students want to address are medical and student debt and funding cuts for social programs.
Jasmine Serrano, a show host, is a junior at Jacksonville High School in Jacksonville, and said she got involved with the project after speaking to members of the Arkansas Legislature.
"In society, we always look at the adults and we always look at the older folks and generations, but we don't really take the time to pay attention to how the current policies and societal perceptions are impacting youth," Serrano explained.
When Abdul-Bey started the original show in 1994, he said it was in response to a documentary that painted Arkansas youth in a bad light. His seventh-grade social studies students wanted to combat the negative stereotypes. He noted the name of the show reflects the music of the times.
"One of my favorite hip-hop artists back in the 1990s was Fat Lip from Digable Planets," he continued. "And 'pfat' at the time was something that was cool, something that was vital as far as the culture was concerned. And 'lip' just means you talk too much."
Radio Show Gives AR Students a Voice was originally published by the Public News Service and is republished with permission.
Freda Ross is a producer at the Public News Service, with more than 40 years of experience in radio broadcasting, reporting and journalism.
a person voting
We rely on Congress to make our laws. But what happens when members of the House and Senate enact policies that violate federal law -- and the Constitution? Well, apparently not much. Legislative activities are protected from judicial scrutiny by the doctrine of “sovereign immunity.” This stipulates that the actions of one branch of government cannot be challenged by the other two branches. Federal courts, for example, will not rule on the constitutionality of actions taken by lawmakers. This is also the case when government violations of our First Amendment rights are alleged. This is the fatal flaw in our constitutional system of government: laws can be ignored or broken without consequence.
We saw evidence of how this policy works last year when the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted for performing “official acts” even when these include purported violations of his oath of office (in inciting a mob to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021). Similarly, charges of ethical and financial impropriety leveled at Justice Clarence Thomas for not disclosing gifts from wealthy friends were dismissed on the grounds that SCOTUS is entitled to set its own code of conduct. And when Trump’s executive orders exceeded his constitutional authority in ordering federal agencies to be dissolved or congressionally approved funds to be withheld, Republican lawmakers did not cry foul.
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Even when it comes to violations of our right to free speech, the doctrine of sovereign immunity (not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, by the way) shields members of the federal government from legal action. Last year, I learned how this works. I had written to several members of Congress about expanding the Presidential Records Act so as to require the Executive Branch to maintain records of policy-related discussions in the Oval Office, for the benefit of future historians. I had not expected any replies – the Constitution does not mandate that! – But after none came, I decided to try writing emails. However, on the various congressional websites I visited, I ran into a roadblock: in order to write lawmakers, I had to first enter my zip code to confirm that I was a constituent.
I was taken aback. Back in the early 1970s, while serving in the Army on Okinawa, I had corresponded with Senators and House members from several states about protecting the First Amendment rights of service members. Where I was then living, or where I was from, was never an issue: those legislators recognized that the constitutional question being raised deserved a response – it was not a “constituent” issue. Half a century later, this was no longer so: members of Congress only want to hear from residents of their districts and states, potential voters. A quick check of the Constitution confirmed what I had thought: this policy ignored the First Amendment guarantee that all citizens have an unabridged right to “seek redress” by petitioning the government. Being able to contact only three lawmakers out of 535 seemed pretty abridged to me. In 1978, to clarify the scope of this First Amendment right, Congress adopted a statute (5 U.S.C. 7211) stating that federal employees – like all other citizens -- had the right “individually or collectively, to petition Congress or a Member of Congress.”
This drastic restriction on communicating with the public had come about for practical reasons: the advent of email in the early 1990s had led to a tidal wave of electronic messages, mostly spam, which overwhelmed small congressional staffs. In order to better handle correspondence, one office after another had limited access to constituents. This policy has been in effect so long that we accept it as reasonable and legitimate. But allowing the public to communicate with only a few members of Congress directly contradicts what the Founders had in mind when they contemplated how “We the people” would express their views under a republican form of government.
So I decided to mount a legal challenge to this policy. With the help of a pro bono attorney, I filed a complaint in the Connecticut federal district court arguing that it was unconstitutional. We based our case on the precedent set in a few instances in which SCOTUS has found that a government agency violated a person’s constitutional rights – so-called “Bivens” cases. But the judge in New Haven would have nothing of this: he dismissed our complaint on the grounds of sovereign immunity. The practical consequence of such rulings is that ordinary citizens will continue to have almost no input on the law-making and oversight processes in Congress. Most of the legislative business in Washington takes place in committees, and these bodies are essentially “off limits” to those of us who don’t happen to have one of our own Senators or Representatives serving on them. The chances are not so great: only 20 states are represented on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and only 27 congressional districts are on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Given the makeup and philosophy of the current Supreme Court, resorting to legal channels seems futile. What are we then to do? The ultimate power of the people lies with our votes – and with the contributions we make to candidates. To convince Congress to change its ways will only happen if this leverage is put to use. This will have to take place at the state and district levels, since current policy does not allow the opinions of non-constituents to be heard. The arguments that need to be made are 1) current restrictions on access are illegal and unconstitutional; 2) lawmakers need to have broad public input on issues of national importance; 3) electronic mail can now be managed efficiently by artificial intelligence; and 4) members of Congress who open up their communications can count on increased campaign contributions from outside their districts and states.
Regaining the right to petition as envisioned by the Founders will be a daunting task, but doing so will restore confidence and trust in government at a time when many feel no one in Washington is listening.
John V. H. Dippel, an independent historian, has written several books on various topics in modern American and European history. In the late 1960s, he successfully petitioned several Senators to take up the cause of increasing First Amendment rights for members of the U.S. military. He welcomes the chance to lay out the case for doing so now through The Fulcrum.
