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sary to restate that I favor a coalition of labor, Negroes, progressive
religious forces, middle-class liberals and the poor, who are not
presently organized. And because the poor are unorganized, the
coalition of which we speak does not yet exist, except embryonically.
It
is
neither fair nor helpful to describe this strategy as a coali–
tion of leaders against the masses. We are talking about a coalition
of social forces.
If
these forces are represented, actively or by
defa~t,
through bureaucratic organizational shells, then that is a commentary
on the state of political action in this country.
It
is not a fact that
was created or peculiarly favored by the advocates of coalition, and
it cannot be hung around their necks as an albatross.
It
is rather a
part of the backdrop of American political life against which every–
body works in common. Surely it is a mistake for young radicals to
abandon the middle and organized working classes on
this
score and
to flock instead to the poor, who have no organization, bureaucratic
or otherwise.
Community organization and coalition politics are not to
be
counterposed. The necessary relationship between them can best
be
perceived by raising two questions: (1) can the poor be organized
without the vigorous support of the existing coalition, and (2) once
organized, will they become part of the coalition-retaining, like
everyone else, their special aims and outlook--or will they be encour–
aged to boycott or oppose the coalition?
If
the coalition is constantly
attacked as the
enemy,
it may be difficult to reverse this trend once
the poor are mobilized to the point where they can play an effective
role among the organized power forces in the society. Moreover, there
is the danger that the leaders of this mobilization will have developed
a vested interest in the maintenance of alienated and hostile attitudes
toward the
alli~
of the poor, in much the way some Negro ministers
and businessmen oppose integration because of the threat it poses to
their own base.
Community organizers who fall into this posture will of course
be rendering their constituents a profound disservice. The plain fact
of the matter is that the fundamental problems of the poor are not
soluble on the local level but only on the level of national politics.
In
The New Equality}
Nat Hentoff estimates that the cost of tearing
down all the slums in New York City alone and replacing them with
decent public housing comes to $17 billion. To deal with problems
