The Activist's Handbook. Randy Shaw

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      Berkeley•Los Angeles•London

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2013 by The Regents of the University of California

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Shaw, Randy, 1956–.

      The activist’s handbook : winning social change in the 21st century / Randy Shaw.

      p.cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27405-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

      ISBN 978-0-520-95699-5 (ebook)

      1. Social action—United States. 2. Community organization—United States. 3. Political activists—United States. 4. Political participation—United States. 5. Social reformers—United States. I. Title.

      HN65.S482013

      303.480973—dc232013012617

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% postconsumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.

      To Erik Schapiro

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      1Don’t Respond, Strategize

      2Elected Officials: Inspiring Fear and Loathing

      3Coalition Activism: Rounding Up the Unusual Suspects

      4Ballot Initiatives: The Rules of the Game

      5The Media: Winning More Than Coverage

      6The Internet and Social Media: Maximizing the Power of Online Activism

      7Direct Action: Acting Up, Sitting In, Taking to the Streets

      8Lawyers: Allies or Obstacles to Social Change?

      9Student Activists Lead the Way

      Conclusion: New Activism for the Twenty-First Century

      Notes

      Index

      Acknowledgments

      I have learned much about social change from my fellow activists. Whether through one-time meetings or common struggles, my discussions with activists have been essential to the insights expressed in this book. I have been particularly inspired in writing this new edition by the young activists whose struggles are described in the pages that follow. From the DREAM Activists to those battling sweatshop labor, to the students fighting for the environment and against rising college tuition costs, it is heartening to see new generations working for greater social and economic justice.

      The Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which I co-founded in 1980 and have headed since 1982, has provided me with a perfect vehicle for implementing my ideas for achieving social change. When I wrote the original edition of this book, we had roughly twenty full-time staff; we now have closer to 250. I would not have had the mental energy to write this new edition without the strong, skillful leadership of Deputy Director Krista Gaeta, who administers much of the Clinic’s daily operations. This edition has greatly benefited from my discussions of activist strategies with other current and former Clinic staff. This group includes Tim Lee, Sam Dodge, Jeff Buckley, Dean Preston, Pratibha Tekkey, Jamie Sanbonmatsu, Paul Hogarth, and Clinic cofounder Chris Tiedemann. Mercy Gonzalez provided important clerical assistance.

      Leroy Looper, owner of the historic Cadillac Hotel who died in 2011, offered me a model of integrity and street-smart strategic savvy that I have benefited from for over thirty years. He and his wife, Kathy, became great friends, and I have always tried to live up to Leroy’s ideals. I barely knew Sister Bernie Galvin when the original version of this book was published, but soon after we became close confidants and friends. We have talked regularly for over a decade to plan activist strategies for local and national affordable-housing campaigns. Fred Ross, Jr., whom I got to know well when writing my prior book on the farmworkers movement, has also proved a valuable strategic sounding board. This new edition is dedicated to my longtime friend Erik Schapiro. Our early work in the Tenderloin and our collaboration during his days as a supervisor’s aide and in the Agnos administration still reverberate in my thinking about activism today.

      I am fortunate to have Naomi Schneider of UC Press as my editor. It was Naomi’s idea for me to write a new edition of this book, and she expressed continual confidence in its development.

      My children, Anita and Ariel, were young kids when I wrote the first edition of The Activist’s Handbook. Both are now out of college and working in public schools to assist low-income students. Their personal experiences have added to the concern over testing-driven education “reform” that I discuss in this new edition. My late grandmother Hylda Levin was a New Deal Democrat and McGovern supporter who always vowed she would take me to Canada, if necessary, to avoid the draft. Although she died in 1975, her spirit lives on.

      Finally, I am most indebted to Lainey Feingold, my wife and best friend since 1977. Lainey helped make me an activist and provided me with important and enthusiastic editorial assistance. This book could not have been written without her.

      Introduction

      When I wrote the original version of The Activist’s Handbook in the early 1990s, activists faced a very different social landscape. “Online activism” and “social media” were still in the future, and the potential of email and the Internet to boost activist campaigns was untapped. Americans got their news solely from television, radio, and daily newspapers. Campaigns for marriage equality were off the political radar, and a powerful national immigrant rights movement did not exist. We heard little about growing inequality between “the 99 percent and the 1 percent,” and few imagined the election of the nation’s first African American president in 2008.

      These and other changes in the past two decades require a completely new version of the original book. This second edition examines new strategies, tactics, issues, and grassroots campaigns, and revisits whether activists have learned from past mistakes. It allows me to describe how activists should harness social media and other new tools to achieve their goals, and how new media can be best connected to traditional organizing and “old media” strategies. Student activism, at a low point when the original book came out and little mentioned, has since surged and is now the subject of an entirely new chapter. I have expanded my discussion of direct action activism to include additional campaigns and groups, and I explain why greater innovation is needed in response to opposition tactics. Since the original book, activists have become far more engaged in electoral politics, and the new