They're some older folks who've been meeting every month at these 'town halls' at Schneider Drug in Prospect Park, Minneapolis. Actually, they're almost all older folks; UMN students have participated here and there by way of their professors, and there's also me. The meetings are a free-for-all and they explore some really great questions about society, history, civic participation and social change. They're also a bit old-fashioned--liberal not radical, still sold on the promise of America, still very optimistic despite the erosion of communities, and way too optimistic about Obama and Al Franken--but it's good company.
The owner of the drugstore, Tom, has been contemplating a project for a few years now, and wants to move forward with it, which is why he dragged me in to a brunch meeting at Nicollet Island Inn. Five elegant courses on a Sunday, sitting with Tom, the visionary, and Doug, the artist to be commissioned. They want to bring me on as Stevie, the gruntwork.
For Tom, the vision is straightforward. Create a sculpture that commemorates "all the people who have stuck to their ideals during times of great duress." My task: collect their names.
After asking a few clarifying questions (which I also hoped would winnow the list down), I got some basic criteria:
--The project should recognize people from all over the world and throughout all of human history.
--The project lists names of individuals as well as peoples (i.e., both Ehren Watada and the No-No Boys).
--The project includes the action/stand an individual/people took at a time when those in power were misguiding and manipulating the oppressed. It doesn't matter if such an individual/people eventually rose to power and did terrible things. It also doesn't matter if they were complicit in/encouraged terrible things at other times during their lives.
--The project includes individuals/peoples who also took a stand/action among their peers when it was their peers who shamed them/criticized them/made them suffer (i.e. James Baldwin leaving the U.S. after his fellow black literary luminaries demonized him for his sexuality).
--The project emphasizes that, despite the long arc of history, the wide terrain, and the unfathomable changes through it all, "there is a common thread" among the people it commemorates.
So now that we've narrowed the list down to 500 million people or so, I've been playing a little mental game. Who ends up on the list of saints? Here's some that would turn up.
Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford I figure I'd start out with someone obscure. Frank Pakenham was recognized at his height as being a staunch advocate for prisoners' rights, even in the case of Myra Hindley, a prominent serial killer behind the Moors murders in the UK. He met with Myra constantly while she was in prison and demanded her parole and release, all to no avail. It was his sticktoitiveness that alienated him in the eyes of the public and press, making him the subject of ridicule that he never recovered from. Then again, Frank Pakenham was also a staunch opponent of gay rights not long after the Hindley debacle; he was certain that gay teachers would make their students homosexual.
Conor Cash Friend of mine and fellow Team Colors collective member. He is the only person in America to be (falsely) charged with domestic terrorism since 2001 and found innocent on all counts. He refused to fold, and an incredibly amount of community work and activity developed in support of him. A rare victory in the end. However, the stress, turmoil, and agony over the duration of his trial has left him with PTSD.
Stevie Peace Okay, okay, but this is the risk you take when you ask someone to collect all the names in all the world in all of human history. I suppose my most noticeable contribution here is calling out a rash of sexual assaults at the organization I used to work at in New Orleans, Common Ground. I was one of many, and we were eventually listened to, but not without me getting banned from all Common Ground Collective meetings and otherwise alienated by a great many of my peers. Very messy and I'm not sure I want to be recognized for it anyway.
Coleman Young Former mayor of Detroit. Before his career as a politician, he was a stalwart in the civil rights movement and refused to back down in Black Power struggles despite a wide range of consequences. After he was elected as the first Black mayor of Detroit, Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs and many others watched, dismayed, as he sought to bring back jobs through casinos. Soon, his former peers were organizing and winning victories against his messed-up agendas.
Jesus Christ This guy must make it on every commemorative list. Refused to abandon his ideals to the point of persecution and crucifixion? Damn.
Madison Nguyen I only know about her because twin sis put me onto an Ira Glass segment on her and Brandon Darby. Madison is a city councilmember in San Jose, California. Her notable action? Wanting to name the Vietnamese section of town "Saigon Business District." The duress? Her Vietnamese American constituents were infuriated that it wasn't "Little Saigon." To the point where they associated her with Communist dictators at all her public forums. No joke. They even pushed for a recall vote.
Stokely Carmichael One of my favorite people, one of many people's favorite people actually, firebrand SNCC leader and essential figure in the Civil Rights movement. Unfortunately, Stokely stuck to his guns so much that he once held a one-person sit-in that he vowed would continue until "Black people unite." As Grace Lee Boggs has said, it was one of the more disappointing and deluded positions she had seen in a young national leader that had so much promise.
Brandon Darby Common Ground Collective co-founder, now and FBI informant who was exposed after two Texans were arrested for manufacturing Molotov cocktails during the 2008 Republican National Convention. He claims he turned to the government, at expected (and later proven) risk of alienating all of his activist comrades, so that he could stay true to his aims of stopping violence--including suspected violence planned by said comrades.
Common Ground Collective Risked police raids, government intervention, retaliation, and many other consequences in order to continue their grassroots relief work in New Orleans after Katrina. Also managed to draw lots of money, media coverage, and volunteers away from local grassroots relief efforts. Mixed bag.
Community Party front groups There's one in every big city. Annoying as fuck, but the reason they keep on going (and they have insinuated this many, many times) is that they know the truth and they organize around it and are often found to be correct, so they're going to keep doing what they're doing even though they really, really get on everyone's nerves. You name the struggle--housing, healthcare, employment--and you are going to find them, and they will be the resident assholes you will have to deal with, like it or not.
Martin Luther King Advocate of the 'beloved community.' Faced substantial ridicule, alienation, and suffering from everyone--government, peers, enemies.
Mother Jones Labor agitator. Significant difference from 'organizer.' She acquired a rep as a real pain-in-the-ass to the people actually doing the organizing.
Michael Jackson Well, it's hard to say what this ideals were, but there's no better or more prescient example of someone who refused to back down during a long, long period of concentrated duress.
Carrie Prejean She knew the pressure, she felt it, she could hear the devil at her ear, urging her to say something she didn't believe so that it would play better for Perez Hilton, for the adoring audience, something to ramp up her shot at the Miss USA crown. But she didn't cave, and she listened to God, and she said that 'opposite marriage' was the true definition of marriage. And she hasn't apologized for it since. Thus she has entered into the dominion of other non-apologists (Rush, Glenn, O'Reilly) who will speak the truth as they see it and do not give a fuck about the political pressure (aka dignity, openness, compassion) that would have them say otherwise. What a model for our times (no pun intended).
The Industrial Workers of the World Most radical of the labor organizers and have not shut up since. Have suffered greatly for it too, including abandonment by the more high-profile labor organizations today.
CODEPINK Yes, that is Medea Benjamin in pink you keep seeing in all those protest pictures. My heart goes out to these folks for their persistence and presence, but honestly...it's getting tiring.
Grace Lee Boggs She's so cool she even got her potrait taken by Robert Shetterly for his ongoing series called "Americans Who Speak The Truth." But if you're not much of head person, she could also qualify for a series called "Americans Who Are Exasperatingly Unhelpful."
What do I get after playing this mindgame? A startling mishmash of folks that wouldn't dare want to be on the same list together (i.e. Grace Lee Boggs and Coleman Young, Brandon Darby and Common Ground), whose only common factor is that they are human beings, irreducible and unquantifiable, subject to their own virtues and faults, at times central or irrelevant, pleasant or bitchy, complex not only in their own internal intricacies but in meandering through this rich social mess. This is what makes humanity endlessly and agonizingly fascinating. More power to humanity, I say.
But you won't come to appreciate it by perusing a list of 500 million names.
Times of great duress? We've been living it this whole time, baby. That our resilience, sacrifice, courage and vision has got us this far is a testament to our power. If you need an art project to see that, you're in a hell of a mess as a human being.
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