Listen, Organize, Act! Organizing & Democratic Politics

The Listen, Organize, Act podcast focuses on the history and contemporary practice of community organizing and democratic politics. Alongside this specific focus are two others: the first is to explore how organizing connects democracy and religion, particularly at a local level; the second is to explore the visions and practices that shape small 'd,' participatory democratic politics. The name of the podcast reflects these concerns. Through a series of conversations with folk who live and breathe the work of organizing, each series looks at democracy as not first and foremost about a system of government, or set of laws, or an ideology but as rooted in three things. The first is a commitment to listen to others different to oneself because their experience, their story, who they are as a person matters. Listening honors fundamental premises of democracy, as it marks a way of respecting the dignity of each individual, the importance of dialogue as against killing and coercion as means of resolving conflicts, and that people should have a say in decisions that affect them. The second is that democracy does not just happen, it needs organizing. And if it is to be democratic, it needs people organizing between themselves to determine their living and working conditions. If ordinary people don’t get organized then they are subject to others acting on them and their living and working conditions being determined by systems and structures controlled by others who either won’t listen to them, don’t have their interests at heart, or are actively hostile, wanting them silenced or disenfranchised. And finally, democracy lives or dies by shared action. Listening and organizing generate the means of coming together, but at a certain point people must act together to move the world as it is towards becoming a more just and generous one in which all may flourish. Each episode is a stand alone discussion, but when listened to together, the episodes build on each other to form an integrated series. Season 1 is a foundational course in the meaning, purpose and mechanics of how to do community organizing and build a more just and generous common life through democratic means. Season 2 is a foundational course in the meaning, purpose, and character of democracy.

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Listen, Organize, Act! Organizing & Democratic Politics

S2.E4.1: Bayard Rustin - Part 1

August 29, 2022 • Sarah Azaransky • Season 2 • Episode 4

This episode discusses the remarkable figure of Bayard Rustin who pioneered many of the tactics and strategies still used in large scale organizing work. A lifelong and committed Quaker, Rustin is in many ways a paradoxical figure. A utopian realist or pragmatic radical he was criticized for many of the positions he took yet his commitment to people power manifested through nonviolent, democratic means of change and his holistic vision of social, economic, and political transformation was deeply revolutionary. From the 1940s onwards he was at the forefront of struggles for peace, racial equality, economic justice, and the dignity of all people. And as an openly gay man he was constantly harassed and excluded by those he worked with because of his sexuality. Alongside his life, work as an organizer, Quaker theology, and democratic vision, this two part episode discusses his seminal essay "From Protest to Politics," still used by organizers today.

In this first part, I talk to Sarah Azaransky who teaches at Union Theological Seminary. Sarah is writing a book on Rustin and has researched and written extensively on the historical influences and figures that shaped the civil rights movement. These include a biography of Pauli Murray, another key figure of the struggle for civil rights, as well as a history of the interaction between civil rights leaders in the US and the Indian independence movement led by Gandhi.

Guest

Sarah Azaransky teaches social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is author of The Dream is Freedom: Pauli Murray and American Democratic Faith (2011) and This Worldwide Struggle: Religion and the International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement (2017). She is working on a volume about Bayard Rustin to be published in Eerdmans' "Library of Religious Biography" series.

Resources for Going Deeper

Bayard Rustin, “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement (1964),” Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin, eds., Devon Carbado & Donald Wise, 2nd edn (New York: Cleis Press, 2015), 116-146. Also available online.

Bayard Rustin, Strategies for Freedom: The Changing Patterns of Black Protest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).

Jerald Podair, Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). Concise biography that directly addresses Rustin’s work as an organizer and his political philosophy.

George Shulman, “Bayard Rustin: Between Democratic Theory and Black Political Thought,” African American Political Thought: A Collected History (Chicago” Chicago University Press, 2021), 439-459. A superb essay that reflects on how the tensions and contradictions in Rustin’s life and how his debates with Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Staughton Lynd articulate the condition and possibilities of democratic politics today.

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003), dir. Nancy Kates & Bennett Singer. Documentary film about Rustin’s life.

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For readings to download relevant to or discussed in an episode visit: https://ormondcenter.com/listen-organize-act-podcast