First Published: Frontline, Vol. 6, No. 12, December 5, 1988.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The general election is over, and once again the question of consolidating an ongoing national progressive organization – the National Rainbow Coalition – is at the top of the progressive movement’s agenda.
Peace and justice activists have had great hopes for the Rainbow Coalition since the concept was first advanced by Jesse Jackson during the 1983-84 presidential campaign. The motion toward building a nationwide coalition across racial and sectoral lines, capable of functioning both within the electoral arena and outside of it, has created an opportunity for stabilizing a progressive trend in U.S. politics not seen in decades.
And the stakes in maturing the coalition to maximize its potential are self-evident to all who had experienced the lack of initiative of peace and justice forces during the early years of Reaganism. For these reasons, Jackson’s stated intention to focus on the development of the Rainbow Coalition – “I’ll be at my desk in the Rainbow office on Monday morning” he told a cheering crowd on the day after the Democratic National Convention – was met with enthusiastic support.
That was mid-July. In the intervening months, the energies of Jesse Jackson, and of most Rainbow activists, were devoted to the fight against George Bush and Dan Quayle. Not surprisingly, and probably inevitably, the Rainbow Coalition did not receive the level of attention and resources that many had hoped it would. But now the elections are over and the issue of how the Rainbow will develop cannot be postponed any longer.
Unfortunately, there are more than a few signs that the Rainbow’s future as a permanent, national, mass-based, activist, peace and justice organization is not yet secure. Questions have arisen about whether the present structure of the Rainbow; with its active chapters and membership, should be maintained or whether it should be replaced by a structure less geared toward an activist membership. Naturally, the left takes great interest in how this issue is resolved.
Up until now, the Rainbow has had to battle to become stable and institutionalized. In the whirlwind of activity the Jesse Jackson stirs up, the Rainbow has often enough been blown to the side. And the Rainbow cannot grow and develop without the strong support and leadership of its president.
A disturbing pattern has developed of subordinating the consolidation needs of the Rainbow Coalition to more immediate and seemingly more important demands. After the 1984 campaign, nearly two years elapsed before the Rainbow was regrouped, with the resultant dissipation of the tremendous energies that had been galvanized in 1983-84. After the national Rainbow convention in Raleigh, North Carolina, resources were pulled into Jackson’s primary campaign, leaving only a skeletal staff in place to carry out the convention mandates. And, once the 1988 presidential primaries were over, Rainbow chapters were discouraged from holding their state conventions on the grounds that all attention ought to be devoted to the general elections.
At each step of the way, the long-term goal of creating a stable and permanent expression of progressive politics was sacrificed to the urgent demands of the politics of the moment. Important as those immediate tasks have been – Jackson’s 1988 campaign was certainly a tremendous advance – the Rainbow cannot hope to realize its potential if it pursues such a course indefinitely.
There has, of course, been considerable progress since 1984. Each of the two national conventions of the National Rainbow Coalition has been an extremely important benchmark in the Rainbow’s political and organizational development. The first convention in April, 1986 established the organization’s by-laws and, therein, its basis to develop as an activist formation with chapters in every state. The second national convention in Raleigh in October of 1987 brought together activists who had committed themselves wholeheartedly to building the Rainbow in their respective areas.
With the able leadership of Rainbow staff, these Rainbow organizers wrestled with the practical problems they had encountered in trying to build the Rainbow, making changes in the by-laws and structure of the Rainbow to make it a more effective organization and to create structures within it that reflected the broad diversity of Rainbow membership and their varied areas of social justice activism.
At both these conventions, the common understanding of those most active in building the Rainbow at the state and local level was that the Rainbow would be most effective if it were, on the one hand, guided by common goals and engaged in common national campaigns, and, on the other hand, able to initiate electoral and grassroots activity at the state and local level in response to local issues. All were challenged by the difficulty of building such an organization from the ground up. But all were also inspired by the potential to create an enduring, broad-based organization based on peace and justice politics.
Yet, despite the fact that experienced Rainbow organizers have been painfully aware of the premium on consolidating the organization, the national structures of the Rainbow remain weak. Who will fill the executive director’s position remains in doubt, and, to a great degree, decisions about staffing, structure and direction appear to remain the prerogative of the national president, the national board not yet having come into its own as a policy and decision-making body.
One of the Rainbow’s great strengths. is the wide diversity of actors it has brought together on the same stage. At the same time, it is no secret and hardly a surprise that not all members and supporters of the Rainbow have the same vision of what the Rainbow should be. The Rainbow has always encompassed several potential paths of development and supporters of the Rainbow have favored one or another path depending on their political views and priorities.
The most obvious distinction is between those who see the Rainbow as purely an electoral vehicle and those who are more inclined to emphasize the potential of the Rainbow for grassroots organizing and mobilizing on a range of issues. Not surprisingly, the first view is held by the more moderate forces in the Rainbow while the progressive to left end of the Rainbow political spectrum has a stake in upholding the grassroots character of the organization. But of course the picture is more complex than this. Jackson’s campaigns, together with a wide range of initiatives at every level of government, have demonstrated incontrovertibly the centrality of the electoral arena to the advancement of progressive politics. How the Rainbow Coalition will function in this arena, however, is far from a settled question.
The Rainbow Coalition could become a powerful lever to challenge and transform the racist and anti-democratic status quo within the Democratic Party. But it can only do so through the long-term education, mobilization and empowerment of its own ranks. Short of this, it cannot develop the capacity to function on an ongoing basis, during presidential elections and between them, on a city-wide and state-wide basis, and at all levels of the Democratic Party.
The Rainbow Coalition must determine whether its mission is to gain experience and positioning in the electoral arena with the aim of thoroughly shaking up the Democratic Party and ultimately transforming electoral politics or, more narrowly, to open up the process a bit to make room for some players who have been left out of the game, or, more narrowly still, to constitute an electoral machine for Jesse Jackson’s quadrennial presidential campaigns. To fulfill the first role there is a pressing need for a national, activist, permanent, chapter-based, independent, progressive organization. To fulfill the others, a paper organization, without the ongoing, activist participation of the grassroots membership, will do.
The upcoming December national board meeting of the Rainbow Coalition is an extremely important one. Once again the leadership will grapple with how to place the consolidation needs of the Rainbow Coalition central and how to realize the potential to build the most effective vehicle for progressive politics our country has seen in many, many decades. The thousands of activists who have devoted themselves to organizing on behalf of Jackson’s platform of peace abroad, justice at home and economic common ground, and the millions who supported that vision in the presidential primaries, deserve an organization that is strong enough to fight to make that vision a reality.
Linda Burnham is chair of the Line of March Black Liberation Commission.