I first “met” Dr. King in the fall of 1968, months after he died, when I was a rookie teacher at a liberal arts college in Chicago.
Diane Allen, an African-American student energized by the Black Pride Movement, asked me to direct an independent study course on the writings of Dr. King. Feeling young, overworked, inexperienced, and ignorant, my first inclination was to say, “no, I’m sorry but I won’t have time,” or “I haven’t read his writings,” or “you waited too long to ask me; I’m fully booked for this semester.”
Instead, I said, “let me think about it over the weekend.” The thinking that dominated that weekend was a question, “how do you say ‘no’ to a student who wants to learn?” The answer: “you don’t.” And so I met with Ms. Allen on Monday, saying, “Yes, let’s read the works of Dr. King together. I can’t be your expert, but I’m willing to be your partner.”
That was one of the finest decisions of my life, as it led me into the writings of Dr. King, to be sure, but also to those of many other impressive thinkers and community organizers evaluating and promoting nonviolent direct action on behalf of social justice.
Barack Obama, like King, hooks my attention, imagination, and hope because he, too, is an analytical thinker and community organizer working for important social change. Like King, he has shown himself to be energized by a moral sensibility that bends toward justice, to display a keen intelligence, and to act decisively as a leader in dialogue with others.
One key difference between a community organizer and the presidency of the United States, however, looms large at this time, namely, each one’s position vis-a-vis Power (with a capital P).
A community organizer mobilizes power from the bottom up, engaging and organizing the socially powerless so as to generate presence and voice in the halls of powerful institutions. A president appropriates and bears the preexisting power of institutional position; a president seeks to influence the power brokers of the world who are beholden to their constituents, who have a keen investment in personal reputation, and who are often moved by a desire to make a mark that is noticed.
The community organizer operates as a critic free to experiment in the moment since he/she comes from below or from without. The president operates from within a complicated and overlapping cluster of expectations as well as institutions, as an advocate and protector, but most of all, as a persuader that this or that initiative, action, response, or change is good.
Not all leaders focus on the common good. But Mr. Obama has campaigned on this claim. Persuading his administrative team, Congress, and leaders throughout the world to address governmental, financial, economic, educational, and health care needs on behalf of the common good will call on skills used as a community organizer to be sure, but also on skills that have not yet been displayed. Thus, we who voted for Mr. Obama cannot rest in joy that he has been elected. Now we move into hope that he will be effective in this post.
I shall think of Diane Allen as I watch the Inauguration, remembering her fondly. I trust that now, decades and miles apart, she and I will feel keenly both gratitude and hope as we witness this community organizer from our hometown of Chicago become president of the United States.
