Cultural Organizer
...a combination of methods is needed to keep people engaged and involved.
...the daunting obstacles to mobilizing communities...
The impact of community-building projects do not tend to manifest
themselves quickly. Community-building tends to be a very slow,
sometimes painfully gradual, process.
Only three months have passed since the end of the Weaving the Web
demonstration project, however, and there is already much to report.
Some highlights include:
Arts organizations are now active partners engaged in the dialogue to
create, plan and implement a model for social change in Douglass
High School and the community.
A twenty-five year Strategic Vision for the community was developed by
the coalition that integrates the arts as a central activity in
community-building efforts. A Resource Development Task Force has
raised multi-year funding for implementing this vision through the
Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Ford Foundation.
The outlines of a one-year Cultural Calendar was created and adopted
by the coalition. The calendar includes monthly activities developed
with, by and for the local residents, including a second residency by
Luminating Works and Will Power. These activities will tie directly to
larger development efforts around the Frederick Douglass High School
Auditorium.
Furthermore, Weaving the Web demonstrates the benefits of
tying community residencies by touring performing artists to
locally-based grassroots education and organizing efforts.
Even in a period as short as a week, the excitement that a
visiting artist can generate is exponential. This "outside"
energy, if it is planned, supported and channeled in a
conscious, bottom-up fashion, can contribute to change on
the "inside" of a community.
It is also clear to all concerned that the Weaving the Web effort and the
artists' residencies would not have reached their level of success
without the investment of time, ideas, relationships, facilities, goods
and services of the "targeted community" (to use the language of
audience development). The community and its network of social change
organizations took on this project and embraced it, in large part
because of the combination of education, art and organizing strategies
that are becoming a defining feature of the Douglass Community
Coalition.
In turn, through their participation in Weaving the Web, coalition
organizations have developed new capacities and a better understanding
of their existing ones, such as:
North Star Village has become more effective at mobilizing its
constituent families through cultural events.
Contemporary Arts Center has co-developed new strategies and made
new connections for their audience development efforts.
Students at the Center has provided a new arena of opportunities
for students to participate as leaders in planning cultural events.
The story continues, but not without some cautionary elements.
Important lessons have been learned through this demonstration that are
as important as the new techniques and relationships that have been
developed. Some of these lessons include:
Although consensus-building techniques such as the Story Circle are
somewhat effective, they are not a guarantee. People respond to the
same methodologies in different ways. Story circles do not assure ideas
and comments will be incorporated in the thinking and plans of the
group. A few will always be more vocal and passionate about their
positions, overriding those who are not as articulate or as forceful.
One alternative technique is one-on-one conversations outside of
meetings used for those uncomfortable in a group setting.
Still missing are important voices essential to the work of the
coalition, such as Frederick Douglass High School administration and
teachers, more area residents and businesses, and neighborhood
organizations. The Community School task force of the Coalition is
creating a plan to bring more of these essential partners to the table
in the coming year. One emblematic incident of both success and
difficulty in this effort involves the participation of an Assistant
Principal in a key coalition retreat, followed by a citywide
re-organization of the schools by the School District.
The coalition emphasized the artistic component, partly due to the
already planned and scheduled events of artists, partly due to the
funding stream that contracted the Cultural Organizer. Point people are
needed for the other two areas. An education organizer will assure that
projects such as making Frederick Douglass a community school, or
involving and partnering with the school administration, staff, students
and parents, are accomplished. The community organizer would handle the
outreach, assuring that organizations and individuals key to the
development of the coalition are brought to the table. A community
organizer would also oversee the general health of the coalition and
make certain the culture and education areas function well.
A balance has to be struck between short-term, more immediately
gratifying projects (like artist residencies) and longer-term, more
broad-based efforts (such as rehabilitation of the Frederick Douglass
High School Auditorium), to keep people engaged. A grassroots
data-gathering effort is now under way by North Star Village and the
Community Data Center (www.gnocdc.org) to assess local residents assets and interests.
While the decision to focus on a particular community was wise, it
cost the participation of Ashe Cultural Center, one of the founding
project collaborators that is based in a different underserved part of
New Orleans. In future activities, those organizations who made up
Weaving the Web will work within the Coalition framework to connect
with, involve and support Ashe's efforts more directly.
As in any project like this, much of what actually gets demonstrated by
"Weaving the Web of Community" are the contradictions of social change:
the daunting obstacles to mobilizing communities across lines of
culture, class and gender, coupled with the incredible tenacity and
creativity of people with few material resources and little to lose.
What seems truly key from this project is the importance of artists,
cultural organizers, educators and activists working from the bottom up
and across the boundaries of our institutionalized and internalized
thought-patterns. We do ourselves and our communities a disservice when
our social change efforts do not integrate the struggle for power with
the struggles for knowledge and freedom. Only through a combination of
these forces will fundamental social change come about.
The weaving will continue...
"This will become a community resource."
— Christopher Burton
North Star Village Students at the Center
"Organizing is every day for a lifetime."
— Curtis Muhammad
Community Labor United
"...more ideas about what people want to see done in this neighborhood."
— Reggie Lawson
Crescent City Peace Alliance North Star Village
"It would be a lot better if there were a menu of artists to look at."
— Stephen Bradberry
