(Note from Keith: This is an essay by Chloë, a member of the George Mason chapter of SDS, about her experiences working with Rutger's SDS's summer in the city project.)
I went to New Jersey a bit cynical. It was about a month before I was scheduled to leave for Taiwan and at best seemed like a nice way to occupy myself before the real adventure started. I also went into it feeling pessimistic about my current situation, watching my Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) chapter fall apart and dreading the inevitably, large amount of effort that it will take to put it back together again. A task that at a large commuter/suitcase school seems more like a chore than something that I would take pleasure in. Going to Summer in the City, sponsored by
“Empower our Neighborhoods” (EONS) Campaign and Tent State/SDS at Rutgers, New Brunswick, may not have brighten my outlook when it comes to George Mason but it definitely reminded me, again, why I organize.
The campaign that they are running is to change the city from an at-large electoral system for city council member to a ward based system, touting that it will increase democracy in the City of New Brunswick. Like most of New Jersey, New Brunswick is largely corrupt with little to no checks and balance. The people that are in power are old guard democrats who surprisingly (or not) supported Hillary Clinton in the primary. They like the way the city is run and call it a vibrant city, focusing on the gentrified parts of town and the grandiose hospitals. New Brunswick residents will paint a different picture though. The schools, which are failing, stand in stark contrast to the newer gentrified parts of town that hold the head quarters for Johnson and Johnson. Some wards streets haven't been paved in decades and gang violence, like unemployment, is forever on the rise.
As I went around the city gathering signatures, I couldn't help but notice the differences that exist in the city. A lot of the people that I talked to remembered better days and had small requests for improvement. One man told me how at one point they paved the curbs but never came back to pave the roads. This part of town is mostly populated by working class Blacks and Latinos. Others had different comments; at least two women that I talked to seemed troubled by the gang violence that happens almost daily on their door steps. At a town meeting, gang violence was one of the most popularly cited problems in the city to the extent that it has moved into the towns south of New Brunswick, stemming from the city. This comment was not surprisingly followed by complaints about the condition of the schools and the education that the students, K-12, receive in New Brunswick.
In adopting a ward based system with 6 council people from each of the wards and 3 elected at-large, there is a great hope within New Brunswick that these problems will be addressed. But it doesn't stop there. EONS wants to push for neighborhood councils that will make direct demands on their council people, allowing everyone in the community to have a say including undocumented immigrants, a population that is growing rapidly in New Brunswick.
The majority of things that I have done in my organizing career, which is very short, have been protests. I am quickly accumulating a laundry list of protests that I have attended and helped plan in D.C. and as that number grows I haven't become anymore confident in the lefts ability to change the United States or stop the War in Iraq. Each protest, minus those that have become a fad recently in D.C. (Funk the War) have grown smaller and smaller, signifying rightly the publics waning hope in the anti-war movement and the radical left as a whole, something that has been happening since the 1960's and something that is quite justified.
But the more I talked to people, the more my excitement grew for the ward campaign. Not only did the organizers have a clear plan with theoretical backing on how to change their city but I saw every day the direct result of how the ward system could change New Brunswick and maybe people's lives.
The campaign in New Brunswick signifies a new sort of movement, focused around the theory of revolutionary democracy; they hope to make change on a local level. The organizers are not unrealistic in thinking that this is going to be easy or clean, or that protests are the answer. They know that they are little more than a tactic that one can use among many a tactics. They understand that sometimes you have to work within the system to change it but that you have to be smart about it and know how to fight dirty. EONS knows the city government's weaknesses and they know their tactics and because of this they know how to work against them. They also understand the history of the city and where the current city machine came from. They have studied and been a part of other campaigns so they know what works and what doesn't and how to learn and adapt when challenges present themselves.
One of the most important parts of this is that they also understand what can happen if they don't win. The organizers see the importance of bringing the community together and getting to know people and the problems that they face. They are not trying to help people in a detached fashion by throwing money at their problems or protesting things that are happening half-way around the world but by talking to the public directly and seeing exactly what the people want to change about their city and how they want it done. Something that is invaluable.
After about a month of working with Tent State/SDS (or EONS), I began to realize how much I valued the work that they were doing. Not only do they have an awesome sense of community within themselves, but they are able to connect and understand the community that makes up New Brunswick. I now have a greater sense of the work that progressive organization can do and some of the best ways to do it. I have a new found confidence in the American Left and I have the greatest hope that we can all learn from Tent States/SDS projects and bring back their ideas to our communities. I also see the Summer in the City program as sort of training camp for those who want to learn about making change on a local level. I hope that as more local movements grow, we can learn from each other and give the left a new face that will help inspire and change America into a truly more democratic society.
