“Intelligent action, even public confrontation, is at bottom an attempt to engage and relate.” Michael Gecan, Going Public

I have been thinking over the past day about a story that Michael Gecan tells in his book Going Public about an action that East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC) did in the early stages of their organizing. They were trying to get the city to repair a neighborhood pool that had been closed for several years. Funds for the repairs had been allocated, but the repairs were not happening, and children in the neighborhood–children of leaders in EBC–did not have a place to swim in the summer.

The action was a meeting with the public official whose department was supposed to be doing the repairs. EBC had done their research: they knew that most of the money allocated for the repairs had been spent, but very little repairing had occurred.

The plan for this action was simple: keep the focus on the agenda, to get an answer to the question, when will the pool be repaired? The leaders expected the public official and his staff to talk about everything except this. And so they had planned carefully, to keep their focus on their agenda, to be persistent and disciplined in asking for an answer.

After rounds the leaders presented the results of their research, and then persistently asked their key question: when will the repairs on the pool be completed? In response to every effort by the public official to distract from this question, EBC leaders returned to their question.

You should read the chapter–Gecan tells the story very effectively. By the end of the meeting the public official has begun screaming, and EBC leaders quietly gather their things and leave his office. And within a few days, work has begun on the repairs. Within a few months, the pool is renovated and EBC attends a grand opening celebration and thanks the public official.

Why was this so effective? They had done their research. They knew what they wanted, and it was very specific. They had prepared carefully for the meeting, including practicing how to respond to unexpected scenarios. As Gecan notes, “The discipline, as the director unraveled and became more and more volatile, was superb.” And they kept their focus on what they wanted. They kept asking for it. And when they didn’t get the commitment they sought in that meeting, they left. And within a few months, they got the reaction they were seeking, and the public resource that their children needed.

We don’t always win. Sometimes it takes time to win. And it certainly takes organizing. It takes building power. It takes doing your research, knowing what is possible and what is not. It takes making a clear request for something specific. You have to know the reaction that you want. And it takes focus and discipline.

As Emily Farris says, local politics is the best politics. You can often actually get things done–get a park renamed, get a public pool repaired. Maybe you can even get your children’s public schools to be fully funded. But to do that takes organizing, and it takes discipline. And sometimes, the discipline is the action.