The Need for a United Front

"The survival of our communities and the majority of our people depends upon how we respond to current trends -- trends in crime, poverty, imprisonment, AIDS, and education, in particular computer illiteracy, just to name a few. Over the next few years, we can, and must build a united front both locally and nationally because we have no other realistic choice. There have been many attempts throughout our history to build united fronts. Some have been successful while others have failed. We need to learn from those efforts, in particular those that failed.

The Civil Rights struggle created a united front that proved successful in reaching many of its goals. The Anti-War movement was another success story of national and local united fronts in action. The Black Power Movement enjoyed some early success until the full force of the federal, state and local governments disrupted it. In all three cases we can see that many different organizations, groups and individuals worked together to achieve a common goal. The different perspectives ranged widely from labor unions to SNCC during the Civil Rights struggle, from priests and nuns to radical American students during the Anti-War Movement, and from Black businesses to Black Panthers during the Black Power Movement. In all these united fronts there were tens of thousands of concepts about how to achieve the main goals. The things that made them successful to the degree that they were was the fact that at some point the need for a strong united front became more important than the many individual perspectives.

On the other hand, those united fronts that failed or were only partially successful were successfully disrupted by outside forces using divide and conquer tactics. Those tactics played upon the differences among the groups, organizations and individuals who normally should have worked together around common issues.

Now we are once again faced with the need to mobilize mass support, energy and efforts around the survival of our communities. The degree of success will depend upon our ability to set aside our small differences and find common ground upon which to build and organize. We must guard against those who would attempt to keep us disorganized and fighting among ourselves about this principle or that position. We must move past such organizations, groups or individuals and organize with all those who can share a common goal around the survival of our communities, i.e., food, homes, jobs, protections, culture, education and self determination.

If we reach out beyond our individual goals to develop a local and national network around common goals, we can build a united front that will allow us to collectively address the main threats to our survival. We will have to start addressing some of these threats and work on collective solutions starting now. Some of those threats and solutions will be the topic of my next message."


Yours in Truth and Justice,
Marshall "Eddie" Conway