Community Organizing and the True Birth of a Nation

September 6, 2008

Near the conclusion of the 2008 Republican National Convention, the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and the new Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, were shamefully over the top in their attack on the credibility of Senator Barack Obama’s service as a community organizer. Giuliani started his rant on the meaninglessness of service as a community organizer as it appears on Obama’s resume by sneering, “I don't even know what that is.” Palin had the audacity to disparage the resume of Senator Obama in comparison with her own as she declared, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”

Palin, Giuliani and the speechwriters of the GOP thus display an ignorance of the history of our own United States that is breathtaking. The United States as we now know it would not exist if it weren’t for the responsibilities shouldered by selfless community organizers and activists:

• The United States won its independence from the British Empire because of the service of community organizers. Paul Revere made his midnight ride to alert and organize the community! Community organizers in each colony were responsible for pulling together the groups of untrained local militia that were the first soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. To unite these widespread and loosely connected communities of local militia, George Washington was appointed as commander-in-chief by the Continental Congress in order to better organize their fighting efforts.

• The practice of slavery was defeated on American soil in large part because of the community organizing work of the early abolitionists.

• Women gained the right to vote in the United States because of the community organizing efforts of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement.

• The community organizers in charitable organizations like the Children’s Aid Society led the fight for child labor laws in the United States, and also originated innovations in child protection and welfare such as the first parent-teacher associations, the first free school lunch programs, the first free dental clinics for children, the first day schools for disabled children, the first kindergarten in the United States, and the first foster homes.

• The Civil Rights Movement of the United States was a nonviolent movement of community organizers who were willing to shed their blood and sacrifice their lives so that every citizen of our nation might be recognized as having the same rights by law regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.

Giuliani, Palin, McCain, and the speechwriters of the GOP all need a refresher course in basic American history. Giuliani and Palin also need to pick up their nearest Bible as soon as possible. Because as far as having responsibilities is concerned, the responsibility of a community organizer is the greatest responsibility of all, a responsibility understood only by those willing to follow the greatest commandment of all—Christ’s commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

James Haywood Rolling, Jr.