Building Alliances: The Key to Success in California
By André Jones
Executive Director, The Hearts and Minds Alliance

The need for the progressive and civil rights communities to be more aggressive has become increasingly apparent in recent years.  Recent loses at the ballot box - Propositions 187, 209, 21 and 22 - have made three things very clear.  First, there is a real need to organize at the grassroots level in California. Second, the progressive community has to do a better job of communicating with the general public.  Third, we must do a better job of working together.  We need to create an infrast  ructure that will allow us to be better   prepared, both in defending past gains from conservative assault and advancing our own agenda.

The success of future organizing efforts requires a sustained effort to build and maintain coalitions.  Too often we react to a conservative assault by assembling like-minded organizations to defend whatever our opponents are attacking (affirmative action, criminal justice, woman's rights, etc.).  There are two inevitable results of this.  First, too often we lose because these hastily formed coalitions do not have the history or the experience together necessary to run effective, coordinated campaigns.  Second, the coalitions formed lack a long-range strategic plan.  Because they were created out of crisis, once the problem dissipates the need for the coalition is no longer clear.

The key to winning campaigns (both in combating conservative assaults and in the advancement of our own agenda) is a sustained, statewide alliance of organizations committed to social justice and progressive causes.  Conservatives have been quite adept at bridging the gaps between their disparate wings (economic conservatives and social conservatives).  This has allowed them to run better-coordinated campaigns and put forward a proactive agenda.  Alliance building by progressives has not been as successful.  The result has been a reactive agenda where the focus is in defending rather than advancing.

The Hearts & Minds Alliance is     dedicated to the realization of a proactive, aggressive civil rights agenda that sees conservatives responding to our campaigns as we advocate for better schools, a fairer criminal justice system, less economic inequality and greater opportunities for people of color.  The key to the advancement of this agenda is our ability to systematically organize the state to realize these goals.  For example, we must create an infrastructure that allows us to simultaneously hold media events in the Bay Area, Sacramento, the Central Valley, and Orange County.  This coordinated and visible presence will capture the attention of elected officials, the media and the general public.  As these efforts gain us credibility, we will find it easier to pass legislation, influence the political debate and advocate on behalf of our   constituents.

Failure to create a statewide coalition that lasts beyond any individual campaign will mean continued failure at the ballot box, in the courtroom and with the general public.  The most important element to a successful and far reaching civil rights movement is our ability to work together.