Saturday night Dr. Helen Caldicott
was speaking at Redwood Gardens in Berkeley and I went, not so much to
hear her as to hear and meet the opening act, Lynda Williams, physics
chanteuse. Yes, folks, you read that right. She is a physics professor
at Santa Rosa Junior College and also a singer/songwriter. She
specializes in writing and performing songs for conferences of
scientists, and does anti-nuke work on the side. She does a sort of
multi-media karaoke, singing to recorded accompaniment and visuals on
her computer. Neat stuff, and I got to talk to her beforehand. She told
me about the Science Songwriters Association, which I am joining. The only name I recognized on their roster was the Banana Slug String Band. Actually, the moderator, Andrea Joyce Turner, director of Vukani Mawethu,
opened the meeting with a verse of “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me
Around” and then introduced Max Ventura, who sang a poignant and
powerful song by Peggy Seeger about losing the future to nuclear war.
Then we heard the opening act. Caldicott admitted herself that her
speech was rambling, but it was informative and I enjoyed watching her
field questions and stay in control (“no statements, just questions”).
Sunday
afternoon we went to a program called “The Making of a President:
Investing in Leadership...Transforming the World” featuring three
community organizers who trained Barak Obama back in the day. It was a
fundraiser for Genesis and I was surprised that there was no live music at all, since I had been so impressed by the use of music at the first of their meetings
I went to. Our friend Lynice Pinkard (pastor of Oakland’s First
Congregational Church) spoke on the history of leadership, beginning
with an affecting account of her five-year-old self sitting with her
extended family watching Martin Luther King’s funeral. She quoted John
Quincy Adams saying “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn
more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” Leaders can’t be just
visionaries, they are “undomesticated agitators” who must be able to
mount carefully planned campaigns.
The first of the three community organizers and Obama mentors, Gerald Kellman, talked about stories.
About the importance of the organizer first listening to people’s
stories, and then getting members of the community to listen to each
others’ stories. He asks each participant
1) what is your grief and hope?
2) how does it connect to others’ griefs and hopes?
3) what do we do about it?
This leads to action, he said, and action teaches us. He quoted Paula D’Arcy saying
“God comes to us disguised as our own life.” The other two, Mike
Kruglik and Gregory Galluzzo. gave good speeches too, and our friend Carl Anthony gave
a rousing collection speech. He was funny, as usual, but I hadn’t heard
him so impassioned before. In the speech he said he hadn’t been this
excited since 1962, when he heard a young man speak about being arrested
multiple times in the Civil Rights Movement and Carl decided he had to
get busy. He talked about working for the Ford Foundation, looking for
good people to give money to, and finding Gamaliel Foundation
in Chicago, which trained Obama and is the national organization of
which Genesis is the Bay Area part. (I suspect he was also excited
because he was holding his first hot-off-the-press copy of Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis,
for which he wrote the forward. Paloma Pavel, who was the MC for the
meeting, is the editor. I’ll write about the book when I get my hands on
a copy.
Carl Anthony, agitator for environmental justiceMy
favorite moment came during the question period. A young Asian-American
woman came to the mike, introduced herself as a beginning community
organizer, and asked the panel of community organizers how the field was
different now from when they started. I think it was Gregory Galluzzo
who answered. He said that the difference was that people like her were
in it now. “Look at us,” he said, gesturing at the other two organizers,
“we’re male, pale and stale.”
Technical
note: I accidentally disabled the Add-a-comment function when I had to
re-post my entire blog back in February, and didn’t realize I had till
somebody told me. I just fixed it and you can comment now. Please do. I
started this blog when I started to write my mother’s biography because I
was, being a songwriter, used to faster feedback than book writers get.
So I’d like to hear from you. Thanks.
©2009 by Nancy Schimmel
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
OPENING ACT
