SWOP, CVH and Southern Echo, three Pushback Network anchor organizations from New Mexico, New York and Mississippi respectively, went to San Antonio Feb. 15-16 to support the Southwest Workers Union (SWU) in its 2-day training entitled, “’Mobilizing Grassroots Voting Power”. We had members of the Pushback Network collaborating together to assist a key grassroots network in a fourth state to build their organizing process from the bottom up. This assistance actually arose out of the SWU, SWOP and Echo South x Southwest Experiment that focused on building black-brown bridges across the south and southwest. Through this Experiment, the Pushback Network developed a relationship with SWU. All in all, a great time was had by all.

SWU was most interested in hearing how New Mexico, Mississippi and New York explained their different models of grassroots community organizing, both historically and programmatically, and how each state brought their community into the political process. SWU’s goal was both to understand what others have done and to see what it could take from each of the models that would be most useful in the south Texas context. What was interesting to me was that SWU was not seeking a singular black and white roll out of do-this and do-that, but an opportunity to obtain a more complex overview of vision and strategy, as well as the critical details of program, to assess the best that each of the models had to offer that flowed from the variety of approaches and experiences based on their different circumstances.

The Texas process brings to life one of the principal values that we projected from the outset as a goal of the Pushback process, and also in the South x Southwest process. The question was, can we build bottom up grassroots models of work that would not only further the work in our own states, but be useful to like-minded communities in other states? I think the answer is affirmative.

Reported to Pushbacknetwork.org by Mike Sayer, Southern Echo, MS