Organizing Playbook Pt.2 | Andrew Gillum SoloPod

all that good stuff. Anyway, So wherever you are, I hope you're doing well. This is uh me coming to you talking a little bit about this solo pod that I'm doing. We are how do you say? Angela and I. I think Tiffany soon will be sort of branching off to take various elements of either the news of the day or issues we want to you know, brief and educate people on, as well as strategies for how we make it through. Frankly, the trying days wherein we find ourselves.

I have made the choice, at least for the first many of my solo pods, to try to deepen into a question that we keep getting pretty regularly on the main show of Native Lampard around what do we do the moment that we're in, the fights that we're having, the apparent tyranny that goes unchecked at the national level, what we're dealing with in our states and in our cities.

And I really I like the question, but I hate the question because it puts it just loads up so much on you when you think, well, what do I do? What is the thing? People get you know, pressured and feel really not up to the task, that they're not the right people to do the thing that it is that needs to be done. And I just wanted to take a hit historical example of people getting together and organizing a thing and it becoming something you know, bigger, bigger,

I think, than their initial ambitions. And the example I'd like to use for on the aftermath of this past weekend's sixtieth remembrance of Bloody Sunday, the march across the

Edmond Petties Bridge. I want to use the Montgomery Bus boycotts as sort of a background and we know it, of course as the big transformational Montgomery bus boycotts today, But back then, if we were to trace back to, you know, the work of Rosa Parks nineteen fifty five when she made her refusal, it's important to note that there were those who had been arrested frankly prior to

Rosa Parks's refusal. Claudette Colving comes to mind, the fifteen year old who less than a year prior to to to Rosa Parks's refusal also refused to get up uh and give her seat away in the Negro section of the bus where she had paid her fare to be able to sit. Uh. But we thank all of those who came before. But I just wanted to provide a little bit of context for how this very local action kind of ballooned and when and and relate that to this big question of what do we do? What do

we do? What do we do? And it being almost

paralyzing to think about. Well, some of you may know, but there was a little room group at the time called the neighborhood uh improved the excuse me, Montgomery Improvement Association that doctor King would eventually come to lead, but prior to uh Doctor King leading it, it had the name of the Negro Council, the Local Negro Council, which the name was changed because because it was in such close assemblance to the White Council, which was a racist organization,

that in order for the framing to go right, they made the name change. Nonetheless, the Neighborhood Improvement Association there at Montgomery pre existed the work done around the bus boycotts.

They were formed with the pretty important but singular notion of how to improve life for black people in Montgomery at that time, very focused, very discrete in its orientation and its mission, certainly not you know, change American history and American law and make separate but equal, you know, inherently unequal, even as it relates to accommodations public accommodations. It started small. So as you think about things in your own community, things you want to see changed, improvements

you want to see made. I just want you to see that this sort of tracks with what happened back then, that there were things that people in the local community came together and said, ah, we got to change this, we need some some that it can be better and we can do the work to make it better. Montgomery Improvement Association m IA as it came to be called, not to be confused with missing in an action. It

was anything but. When the bus boycotts began that November fifth, with the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and obviously the local community, the empty buses on that day were shock, such a shock to the system, nobody expected it. The white folks in the

community didn't know what to do. And at the end of that day, the community meeting, the gathering which were being held nightly in churches, gathered at a local amb church, you know, packed with black folks there Montgomery, and at the time the Black censites of Montgomery was around seventeen five hundred people. They gathered and they took the position

that they had to continue the bus boycott. So what was initially a one day event, these folks make the decision when they fell the agency and the power of their actions that hey, hey we shook something up. This thing got to continue. Literally did they know that continuation meant three hundred and eighty two days of protests, of resistance, of inconvenience so that they could bring the system to heal.

And I got to imagine that over those many, many days, over that year's time, there were probably a lot of people who eventually said, all right, y'all, this system is too big. We can't break it. And I'm reminded of this poem. That line of the poem is when things seem worse, that you mustn't quit. A lot of times in our fights, things feel dark, they feel tough, they feel immovable, and quite frankly, it launches its fiercest attack

right before it crumbles, right before it falls. And so yes, these times of mobilization, we will have high and low days. But they persisted, and through their persistence and their commitment to the goal, we were able to see American history, not just you know, not just in Montgomery, but I think world history and the self efficacy that black folks felt that we could decide to do a thing and that thing can be done even when the power on the other side seems are all powerful, uh and not

not able to crumble. Where does this relate back to what it is that we're talking about today and what we're confronting. I just want to bring down the size the civil rights movement takes on such this huge space as it should. It was transformational for history and for us. A lot of times we refuse to pull back the layers of Okay, how did we get there? What happened to get us to this point? How did they organize it?

What did we? You know, who knew doctor King? You know, if doctor King doesn't exist in our communities anymore, well, you know, let the story be told on it. Doctor King was selected to lead uh the m I, a Montgomery Improvement Association. He was chosen, according to Rosa Parks, because he was young, relatively new, and frankly hadn't built up a lot of enemies amongst ministers and others in the Montgomery area. And so he was chosen to lead

this group. And he, after some you know, in trepidation, decided that he would he would take on that that mission. But the people made that choice, A group of folks in a community made those choices, and obviously history took its course, and diviner dimension being what it is, he was the right person, it was the right time, and they were the right group. But so too is that

possibility for all of us. I wanted to give three or maybe four pieces of advice as we approach what is going to be my series in this solo pod, which will bring to you individuals through interviews and through conversation like this movement examples and curricula that I'm going to borrow from an effort known as start sca art to try to walk us through. Okay, what are some of the steps and hopefully it can be useful to you. Everything may not be useful to you. This may not

be useful. You may know this history and it may not be important to you, but hopefully you can keep what is useful and suspend with the rest. All right, I'm humble enough to know that everything won't be directly applicable to everybody. But we trace these examples back over history because they give us the belief that the thing we want to do can be done. And in some cases, the thing we want to do may not have ever been attempted before, or maybe it was attempted and was unsuccessful,

and then you're birthing something very new. But in the time in which you're doing it, you can't be focused on making history or even changing history. They weren't in the Montgomery Improvement Association. They willocused on changing the lift conditions of black people every day in that city, just like many of us are challenged to do at a local, at a state, or at a national level. At this time, three pieces of advice. As we get at this question of what do we do and how do we get started?

The start and a number of other organizing movement strategies give us a little bit of hint into how we do that. And the first thing I want to suggest to you is that you began to assemble a group of people, small group folks you know, maybe some you don't know so well, but you have a sense that you share something in common. I don't want to give you all the criteria, but certainly there are to be some like minded concern amongst are gathering small group of folks.

And by the way, your action doesn't always have to be with groups. It can also be very individual. And we'll talk about that. If not, we're gonna get to it this time next time. But get a small group together. That's number one. Who are people who share generally your issue, your aks, your concern talk amongst each other. Number two?

And a house setting at a coffee shop. However it is you decide to organize this group of like minded people and allow everyone who's around that space, at that table to offer their real, true, heartfelt feelings about what is under their crawl, what's concerning them, what has them anxious, nervous, troubled by our community, by the country, by the state, by the local place where we are on our street, in our neighborhood. That's number two. Allow everybody to get

their voices out and be heard. The buy ind is greater when we do that. People feel greater ownership, They feel heard and hopefully reflected through the work of the group. When everybody gets to pour in their thoughts and feelings, that's number two. Number three. Once you all have gathered that, you have shared your thoughts, opinions, trepidations about what it is you are facing, you all as a group are facing.

The third thing that we want you to do is start to read, study, pull some examples, you know, look at some PBS documentaries on some things that may have happened that may give you just some advice on how to start approaching some of the core of the work, which will be the development of an action plan. All of the kinds of tactics and actions that you want

to execute on the way to the goal. But the resourcing just trying to educate yourselves as a group or appoint individuals to help bring the group under some common shared set of resources. And then the fourth and I think most important thing to do in this early phase is to decide what is this thing then that we

want to change, What do we do about it? What do we is it that we want to like the Montgomer Improvement Association, change the conditions of black folks and this community on transportation, public accommodations, bussing, you know, other specificities that of course we know history, and we know that it ballooned to become something much bigger than it

originally started. But I got to tell you, I think we would admit that those folks did not gather in that room necessarily believing they were going to change American

and world history. In fact, I have paused to anyone who would begin an effort like this with the goal of history change, frankly being at the center, and not change for the thing, the circumstance, the conditions that have gotten you to the point of frustration or action that you are but now together in a group of shared you know, like minded thinking you can determine, all right,

what do we want to do? If we had our drothers, if we were able to decide for ourselves, if we were able to build the outcome, and we are the only ones who had input and what that thing was going to be, what would it look like? It feels daunting and unachievable to day, but you know, we put some real strategy together, we can make this thing happen. So we want that. We want you to we we we we want you to begin with the goal in mind, the change, the delta, the change that you want to

have happen in mind. The absence of doing that allows for your work to be carried off in directions of which you never ever intended and are not consistent with the greater change that you want to see. It allows for every little thing that happens to pierce this body of people and get us distracted and off on different things. For those of you who are sort of faith in my comment or share faith tradition, you know, it's sort of this, this belief that the devil thrives in chaos,

They create chaos. You know, you want to you want to mess some people up and destroy a movement, or keep some things from happening amongst a group with with with with shared interest, give them different languages so that they can't communicate. Some of y'all will know what reference that is too, right, So the chaos is something we've got to deal with. But the central goal letting folks know, like man, this is the thing we want to see at the end of the day. And guess what Providence

will take its course. If it's meant to be something different and it aligns with you all in your heart and your core, it'll go that direction and consistent keeping with what brought you together. So it's crystally important if I could make crystal clear the importance of that shared goal, that shared outcome, y'all. I want to move quickly to questions because my intention is to try to keep these within twenty twenty five minutes, not to take too much

of your time. And by the way, I'm supposed to be on spring break with the kids. Oh yeah, there's that, so I want to invite my girl lol lol, I know you. Yeah, there you go. Well, welcome home, lolo. You guess some interesting background, what's up? But I like the flowers where you at last time we got a race car.

we do? How do we get started? And it feels so ballooning, and I just think it's part our job at this time to bring it down the side so that people feel like they can they can get a go at it.

I'll point to just two quick things. There's so last week, if you miss it, there was this twenty four hour heavy content field with some really joyous moments but also some real, real gifts and talents being shared by a lot of the names that you will know and recognize.

And we were trying to school people just across the range of issues and ways in which we've got to bring this fight right now or certainly respond to the fight that we're in and you can visit this was the State of the People that I'm referring to, and lolo, if I'm not mistaken, we have the link to watch it in its entirety or its parts actually.

as PPL for people on Instagram, follow that. We also have some stuff like it inspired so many people to come together and they're like, we can't just leave it here, so they have like this whole plan and we've been planning.

help helps us to do. But but there are very clear guidance that we should always have when reach when we're reaching out to people in power and an influence around the thing that we want them to do. The message simply has been around you know, doze and the cuts and all of this rabbit, you know, nonsensical action that is happening at the federal level is you are

the Congress of United States. To you, all of the first branch of government and a coequal system of three branches, stand up and do your job, stop them from what they're doing, stand in the way, ask questions whatever whatever is again the movement's goal at that time, those need to be. Those need to be the comments in which

that we are sharing with our members. Now, I'll tell you I've been elected and I've been on the receiving end of messages like this, and I got to tell you it's not every day that a Congressman's office blows up with phone calls. And when it does, it is a special thing. And let me tell you this, they take notice the reason why Republicans have been instructed to stop hosting town hall meetings around the country is because they're getting to hear directly from people and they liking

what they're seeing and they're demanding some change. So their leadership say, hey, y'all just stop having the meetings. Well, they can stop having them if they want, but they won't diminish the sentiment. In fact, the sentiment will likely grow stronger, louder, more resilient, and frankly closer to its

aims achieving its aims. So we want consistent messaging to come out as an elected I didn't like the whole threat thing, like I put you in, I put you out, I google your name in the database, and you ain't voted in seven years, So I'm not really terrified that you're going to do that, right. This is just thinking as a person who's like, it's this threat real. But if you are a voter and you do do this consistently, let them know I am a voter in your area

and I don't miss an election. I'm expecting you to be there and to represent me. So that kind of thing. Be clear about the message, the goal that we're trying to achieve and then in your tactics, you know, again the threat, make sure if you make it, you backing it up.

about the Montgomerymprovement Association. Do you think on the night of that town hall where they were asked at the end of the day, on the first day of the protest, when it was wildly successful and the buses were empty, do you think the answer would have still been a resounding yes, I'm gonna stick at this if it's going to take us three hundred and eighty two days to

get the outcome we want. And my guess is is if folks had to meet that challenge of how long I gotta do this upfront, many of us wouldn't choose to take the first step in the first place. So just know that what you are feeling is real. It is it is. It is not abnormal. It is very normal during these times. But the way I would caution you to resist is the folding and giving in and let be what will happen. Right live and let live

and carpetia. Whatever happens is what happens. The problem with that, particularly for US black folks, people of color, those who sit at the margins society, is just know that we are always going to be at the worst end of the consequence when these folks are in power, the worst end. They're coming for us, and they may be coming for some others too, but it's going to sweep us out

first and then they'll get to the next thing. And so if our if the consequence for us not being involved didn't savage us so greatly, I could get with I'm backing out, I'm tapping out, I can whatever. But because whether you tap in or out, you're on the front line of the negative side of this. We believe in harm reduction as a strategy as well, and so if you've got to do this just to reduce the harm that could be coming your way, let that maybe

be motivation. Let you know, the example of Montgomery three hundred and eighty two be a motivation, and there are probably other examples that we could point to as well. But resist the desire, the urge, the feeling to pull up, pull back, because that's exactly what the enemy wants. The reason why they're deluging us, you know, is a delusion, bad news every day and they're moving at the speed that they are is they want our heads on a swivel. They want us spinning to the point where we feel

like we have no recourse what we do. And when they get louder, this is when you know we're piercing them.

bites out of it. And when you the beautiful part about stress strategy and doing this with a group of people is when you're working your plan, you're kind of immune to all of the noise and the mess because you are working your plan and and you'll get fulfillment from the successes that you achieved along the way to the big goal. So resist, resist that urge that that's that's that's not of us, that's a that's a tool of the enemy. So I resist that.

activity on the ground. Y'all. If your people aren't doing what they're supposed to do, and I mean at every level of government, and you all collectively or individually have something to offer that could be better than what you've got the alternative, then we ought to be running and moving the alternatives to take on many of these seats. Moms for Liberty a group that has taken over many

school boards around the country, certainly in Florida. A lot of these candidates right wing, extreme folks who want history and black history and all mentions of anything that could offend white children no longer in textbooks or in assignments or of resources. They are getting on school boards with just slivers of votes and having all power to determine what happens to your children and our children at the

local educational level. And by the way, their kids either have been moved out and already in privacy school getting subsidized by taxpayers, or are in schools where basically everybody looks the same and so they'll get little resistance when they try to push things like our history out of libraries and out of textbooks. So the way we engage is we have to fight back. Joy's point, and I appreciate you bringing it up. Lo low you and do politics, but it does you. That is a very common refrain.

I don't talk about. It is in every aspect of our lives. The fact that we are even on this forum communicating, and the regulatory environment makes for it to be available for all of us. Doesn't have to be that way. The regulatory environment could be I gotta pay you for everybody who seize me, and for everything that you see, you gotta pay for. And by the way, we're gonna limit your ability to have lives like this

to ten minutes, and you got to do it. You gotta do a mat period and by the way, you can't do it more than once a month. Yeah, that could become the regulatory environment Instagram or TikTok TikTok. Sorry, I'm not on that, so I apologize for whatever. But the TikTok ban, right, if that were to be enforced, the ban on TikTok operating in the United States means you don't do politics as you do on your TikTok, but your TikTok can be taken away and now you've

got nothing. So I just those are hopefully some examples that show you in the ways in which it shows up in the most and most consequential ways, but also in ways that we don't even recognize or think about, but it bears consequence on. So get involved, organized, replace people where necessary, and in other places elect and elevate some people who are doing what we need them to do.

to them. And so on that Wednesday, you'll be able to go post your question and then we're gonna engage right back with you. So make sure that you tie your friends, tells people, but on Wednesday, this is going to be our new thing.

many names for all these goddamn things have has done. Anyway, these solo pods that we're doing again, I'm going to deepen into over the coming weeks through interviews and through examples various stages of organizing, and I will use curricula that you will also be able to access on your side, so that we can follow each other along as we as we try to do what we gotta do to

a build rather the beloved community. And with that, welcome home, everybody, Welcome home, Lolo, welcome home, y'all, see y'all later.