Building coalitions that work for everyone

The power of coalitions can be seen in several landmark victories of labor movements of the late 20th century: strikes in the mining and steel industries, unionization struggles, and successful legislative changes through electoral coalitions. These combinations of labor and social movements highlighted situations where a vast majority of people (workers) could effect change only through coordinated mass action [1]. Scholars began to term these coalition movements as “communalist” and “female consciousness” because of the emphasis placed on community wellbeing and so-called “women’s issues” of housing, education, and peace where women often take the forefront [2]. What I propose with my project is derivative of these movements (in name, too), with the added hope that community-conscious organizing is flexible enough to deal with diverse issues and movements within communities across the nation—now and in the future.

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To learn more, I considered: when does coalition and allyship fail? History provides a remarkable example in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), founded in 1960 to organize sit-ins and other direct actions during the Civil Rights Movement. SNCC was brought about by Ella Baker, an activist at the time working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. While it began as an organization made up of individuals of different races, classes, and educations, SNCC risked reproducing existing hierarchies if primarily white men were elevated to organize black people. In order to remain dedicated to their founding mission, the organization decided to dispel all white members. As consequence, SNCC retained its ethos that required equally high commitment from its members, but the organization rapidly declined in the months following this decision [3]. While this decision may constitute a failure to form a coalition, SNCC is very much a success in direct action and voting rights history and still influences social movements today.

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The history of coalition movements in our nation can teach present and future organizations about ethos, leadership structure, and when coalition building may not be right for an organization or its particular ethos. Failures are often not wholly failed attempts, but push the boundaries of what coalitions are and can do, and they still affect future endeavors if we learn from them. Ella Baker is still acknowledged for setting up SNCC leadership to be non-hierarchical and interdependent [4], uncommon in community organizing at the time, which can clearly be seen in successful “female consciousness” movements later in the century.

 

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[1] Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello. Building Bridges: The Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor and Community. New York City: Monthly Review Press, 1990.

[2] Temma Kaplan, in Building Bridges: The Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor and Community [Eds. Brecher and Costello], 210.

[3] Emily Stoper, “The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: Rise and Fall of a Redemptive Organization,” Journal of Black Studies (1977).

[4] Pamela Petty, “Non-Positional Leadership: The Case of Ella Baker and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,” 1996.