Memoir of a Community Organizer

Leon Kass , that is, who worked for a month in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in 1964.

Here’s what we learn: Some communities do need to be organized, although the key organization has to come from within. The situation of the African American in Mississippi really was in some ways more precarious, terrifying, degrading, and, well, racist than it was under slavery. It’s possible to write of “the Movement” while thinking of personal rights and dignity.

We can add that the Movement might not have gotten much of anywhere without the intrusive intervention of the national government.

It might be good to go on explain the continuity between Leon the community organizer and Leon the defender of personal dignity against run-amok biotechnology.

That would be explaining why a 1964 Democrat or Freedom Democrat would end up voting for Reagan and advising President Bush the younger. This is stuff, as Pete and Carl explain, that conservatives really have to think about in even figuring out what’s wrong with mocking “community organizers” as such.