Organizing Principles

If I am not for myself, who am I?
when I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?

--Rabbi Hillel

As I look back over the years, there are very few classes I took that transformed me, that I could say changed my life.  More transformative were moments I didn't see coming--a volunteer experience while studying abroad, a year volunteering with AmeriCorps after a planned job fell through.

I think I might be taking such a class this semester, though: "Organizing: People, Power, Change."

When I was an undergrad, my last two years on campus, every Wednesday, I attended the weekly meeting of a labor-rights group that advocated for (and alongside) the janitors, cooks, and groundskeepers who kept our campus humming.  Between meetings, I'd write op-eds, do outreach to students, plan events, and the such.  We started a Living Wage campaign--successful after I left campus. We walked picket lines in solidarity with a campus strike.  We didn't have a "leader": there were two coordinators, and everything was shared.  We rotated meeting facilitators, rotated note-takers, rotated op-ed writers.  Our group had people of all stripes: kids from backgrounds advantaged and challenged*, black and white and Latino, gay and straight, men and women.

Rarely in my life have I ever felt so alive as when I organized with them.  On the one hand, we were grappling with concepts of interracial understanding, capitalism, human rights; on the other, we were taking actions that, we hoped, would ultimately lead to direct benefits for the community we studied in.  Against the often theoretical background of being undergrads, we were doing stuff that felt real, that felt like it mattered not for tomorrow, not just to build our careers, but right now.  We had a extra-large dose of idealism, but we did genuinely good work.  We learned a lot--about communities, about ourselves, about commitment.  When I look back on my undergrad years, there are a few things I'd do differently if I could.  Being a student activist is never one of those.  I cherished those moments, and cherished them still.

One of the appeals of this class is that it's a more theoretical backing for organizing work.  Another is that it will let me test ideas of activism, even as I'm considering advocacy work upon graduation.  Another are the exercises: I will actually have to initiate an organizing campaign this semester.  Of all the classes I've signed up for, it feels scariest, hardest.  In the years since college, I've volunteered, I've canvassed for political campaigns.  But it's been many moons since I organized--and when I did, I did it in a group.  This feels like a step out into the wilderness.  I can't wait.

*Update.  This originally said "good backgrounds and bad" till a reader's comment made me take a second look at it and edit it.  Thanks for the input.