 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So on this show you are going to meet people who are making it possible to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People today who are making the words of the Declaration of Independence come true. Hi, my name is Michael Jacoby Brown and I'm your host for We Hold These Truths and today we are very lucky and honored to have Ken Galston, the former lead organizer, founder of the Intervalley Project, which has community groups throughout New England. Ken, welcome. I wonder if you can just tell us first a little bit just what the Intervalley Project is. You are the founder and have been for decades the lead organizer and then we'll talk a little bit more about you personally. Thanks for being here, Ken. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Intervalley Project, which I retired from as a lead organizer in June of 2020, is a New England community organizing network. Its first member group is the Nogga Tech Valley Project in Connecticut, which was founded in 1983 and that organization helps spawn the growth of similar groups in a variety of southern and northern New England communities. The original model focused on bringing together congregations, labor union locals, and other groups like public housing tenant organizations to stand up for their own needs and rights in communities that were hard hit at the time by plant closings, the loss of factory jobs. The organizations also from the start had an interest in starting cooperative and democratically owned undertakings such as an employee-owned home healthcare company helping create employee ownership, white and blue collar ownership of industrial jobs, community land trusts, cooperative housing. That's some of the background of the organization and it's helped develop scores of talented organizers and leaders over the years, achieved a lot of victories, helped build community cross lines of difference, and I'm very proud to have played a role in helping build those groups. More than played a role. I wonder if you can just tell us a little bit about where you come from Ken and how you got the values you had to do this kind of work for now almost four decades and longer really I know. Yes, you know when I think about how was I shaped so that I was interested in pursuing this work, I really of course go back to my roots. I'm Jewish, I'm the children, a child of two parents whose own parents, my grandparents, fled persecution as Jews from different parts of Russia. They came here in their late 1800s, early 1900s, settled on the Lower East Side and eventually moved to the Bronx and my parents therefore were first generation Americans. The values that shaped me in some ways are identified strongly with Jewish values but of course they're not exclusively Jewish values. They have to do with the dignity of individuals, with justice, with teaching and learning and when I think about my parents who are wonderful people, my father was a doctor and had a strong sense of right and wrong. My mother wrote but also was a homemaker and two things. My mother's mother died when my mother was 11 and my mother said at the age of 93 before she died that she continued to think of herself as a motherless child and practically speaking what that meant was that when she was in a group she often was the one that sought out or could identify people who might feel a little bit on the outs and she connected with them. She was great at building community and as I said I think from my father I got and from both of them the strong sense of justice. The one other thing I'd say is that as I went on and my organizing which went over as she said decades I really saw the parallel with healing that I think exemplified my father as a doctor. Can you tell us a little bit about your first experiences as an organizer and what you learned and who taught you and mentored you along the way when you were younger? Sure. You know I'll just say that as someone in my retirement as we've discussed I now I've been co-teaching of course at Tisch College at Tufts University with Dany LeBlanc, an old colleague and one of the exercises we have people engage in is to write their story of self meaning the story of what drew them. How do they think of their first experiences with justice with bringing people together and so for me in some ways the earliest experiences that I sometimes use as an example would be gathering neighborhood kids to go shovel out snow from a neighbor who might be older and not able to do it so that some of it it's gathering even gathering kids together to do stuff. As a community organizer I first learned that there was such a thing as getting paid to do this as a college student in a senior seminar on religion in American life. This is in 1967 where I learned about the work of Saul Olinsky as an organizer and I ended up writing my thesis my honors thesis about him. By the time I graduated from college I sort of knew all you could know about him from what was published. I had spent some time in Rochester, New York a brief amount of time learning about one of his groups fight and so on paper knew a lot about this. I'd also been involved in on campus in trying to bring together students to fight for benefits for people I went to Brown to people in Providence through the anti-poverty program. In terms of real learning I would say the first experience was as a VISTA volunteer in North Carolina sort of small town city of 10,000 Clinton North Carolina where I got to try out some of what I'd been reading about but I'd say that in some ways the most important introductory mentor for me was Dick Harman who was with the industrial areas foundation Olinsky's group and at a 10 day workshop for what they thought of as campus radicals I was coming there as a VISTA volunteer. Harman talked about organizing as art as creative work and that really connected with me. What was about what Harman said about creative work? How did that connect or why? I think that until that time I'd seen it as very interesting activity. I saw it as something that I would as a Jewish kid from Long Island that being in rural North Carolina was helping me understand America much better and that even then I thought I would go back and get a graduate degree and teach in a university American history or literature. Harman talked about his example in the workshop was what does the word issue mean and after 10 minutes of people talking about issue as a noun he finally said isn't issue also a verb and he then went on to use that to say issues emerge from communities a good organizer has to immerse themselves in that community in its history in everyday life in what's the background of people and it's he used the example of and this is a little bit arcane and organizers like someone who's sculpting in wood and of course it makes the community too passive but he was trying to get at you have to understand the grain of the wood you have to immerse yourself and it's very creative and I came out of that workshop I remember standing on the station of the L taking me from downtown Chicago to where I was staying feeling as if I'd met the women in my dreams not not Dick Harman organizing right well that sounds great and can you tell us a little bit about your you know earliest experiences where you immerse yourself in community and issue was a verb for you well I mean what I was doing in North Carolina yeah did fit that I mean I was again as a white 21 year old going door to door in this black neighborhood of Clinton knocking on the doors of African-American families who I'm sure I would after I got to know people people said that in the early days they wondered if I was a revenue agent they couldn't quite make sense of who was this guy and what was he doing right but I that was an early immersion because I really understood that my job was to listen to gather them together and to see what they thought of as their most urgent concerns that they wanted to act on I was there in the months after Martin Luther King had been assassinated he was April 68 I was there by July and there had been an outpouring I understood of people from the black community when that happened around the courthouse square and I think people were you know it's obviously much bigger than anything I was doing I think people were sort of primed to speak up and where did you go from there I mean I I know you've been to Yale School of Management and later founded the Inter Valley Project in Waterbury Connecticut but I wonder if you can talk a little bit about where you moved from there before you got into founding the Nagatuck Valley Project. Well I had I was you know very fortunate when I graduated from Brown I was one of three seniors who received what was called the Samuel Arnold Fellowship which was at the time $5,000 and you had to submit a proposal but you got it was a traveling fellowship and I had between when I submitted the proposal and when I did it I had really grown interested in the whole question of democratic voice and so I set out and looked for examples where people had voice over jobs over their communities and that meant a year 11 months in places like Belfast Northern Ireland where a very talented organizer Bob Overy was from England was trying to bring together Protestants and Catholics around common community issues I spent time in what was then Yugoslavia which had mandated self-managing self-management structures in schools factories interviewing people to understand what was that like I spent time in West Germany where the allies had mandated that the boards of coal and steel factories in other words companies that would be critical to any future war had to have union representatives on their boards it was called co-determination with the idea that that might slow down a march to war time in Sicily with Danilo Dultry who was organizing tenants tenants I mean peasants so anyway it was a very rich experience I came back I had gotten connected with the industrial areas foundation through that workshop they were starting a school as Alinsky was you know in his 60s to teach organizing to young people and I spent two years in Chicago organizing with a midway organization out near midway airport with Dick Harmon and then alternating between Dick Harmon and Ed Chambers as my mentors and what was that like extremely powerful I learned so much again I was by that time 24 I was working with leaders blue collar leaders this is an area of Chicago that was as far south and west of the inner city as you could get at the time police and firefighters had to live in the city to have their jobs and because of race this is where a lot of people moved and a lot of the leaders I was working with were in their 30s 40s they were what have been would have been considered a silent generation the people that Nixon and the Republicans were after trying to move Democrats to the Republican party and part of the idea was to engage people in public life with the hope that they would you know see the value of that they would instead of feeling absolutely alienated and driven maybe to that party that they would feel that they had some agency so I learned a huge amount working with them on pollution flights stopping the crosstown expressway with the city white campaign yeah what would you say you were the main lessons from those years that what did you feel like you learned from Harmon and Ed Chambers and you know from doing the work obviously yeah yeah well the first thing I'd say was you did weekly reflections you it was interesting you actually dictated a weekly report that was typed up by a talented office manager and given to Harmon or Chambers and so the first thing was that you took the time to reflect on what you and it's key yeah it was absolutely key I remember some early examples Harmon asking me about did we take time after a given action to do an evaluation with the leaders which absolutely key I mean some of the stuff you learned from these guys uh that they had instituted and their predecessors were so powerful for any group whether it's community organizing or anything so one was evaluation after the action you leave the room and I said he said did I do an evaluation with them I said well you know we just didn't have time and he said god damn it Galston the only reason you do the action is so you can do the evaluation yep um so the emphasis on leadership development absolutely key and learning obviously and reflection yeah you know I think that's uh uh as as you and I know that that is key and often unfortunately sometimes neglected yeah and uh so why don't you tell us a little bit uh you know if we can fast forward because we don't have all day I wish we did uh to the founding of the inner valley project and how that came about well I okay so I had um after working with the IAF in Chicago Minneapolis Buffalo I had uh and sometime with mass fair share where I learned a lot about labor um I'd gone to the school of management was then called school of organization management at Yale I was in my early 30s wanted to take a break from organizing wanted to have an option in case I didn't want to organize and came out of that and decided that no I still wanted to organize I wanted to try out a somewhat different model from what I've been doing with the IAF at that time that was all congregation based and so I wanted to include congregations but also labor I was living in New Haven the Nagatuck Valley which begins uh 12 miles west of New Haven in Derby and Sonya Derby and goes up the Nagatuck river through Waterbury the main city 106,000 I think at the time up to Torrington um that seemed like a very powerful place to try to build something Jeremy Brecker a wonderful labor historian uh had written uh an oral history done an oral history project called brass valley and I could learn a lot about it before I even got up there um I began to uh meet with people from the Catholic Church the United Auto Workers Union which had 12 locals in that region. Connecticut is an action group and the United Church of Christ and we put together a sponsoring committee we built that got into a lot of action um initially around plant closings but also around affordable housing other issues while I was there the woman that I am married to now and I had started a relationship she was working at the industrial areas industrial cooperative association on employee ownership and we done some work together at Seymour specialty wire we knew over a period of a few years that I was going to be moving to Boston where she was and so um inter valley that start because I raised with Nagatuck Valley project leaders that I was going to be heading into Boston and they said that they wanted to help me in building a new group so they paid me full time for two years allowed me to spend one day a week building Merrimack Valley project and they decided that they wanted to recognize that for themselves so they put it in their budget a line item called inter valley which represented their support for that inter valley project came next very powerful groups you know both of these groups still going um and that was my path while I was at Merrimack people came to us from Springfield from Providence and wanted to build similar groups with a similar model of congregations labor economic development democratic development so those are the first four groups eventually we were asked by Catholic campaign for human development a main funder of this work would we go into northern New England because there were no groups like this and so we helped build groups in New Hampshire main uh and Vermont right can you tell us a little bit more about the structure and even the funding you mentioned the Catholic campaign for human development which many of us know for decades has been a major funder of social justice organizations and community organizing and how that worked with the various organizations what the funding and structure and staffing was yeah I mean I would say first of all again we're we're always building on the shoulders of people come before so I knew the model of first the first funding is to when you're creating a new group is to create you do it in two stages and you create a sponsoring committee which is sponsoring the organizing drive of 18 months two years leading to the founding of the new community group so the first thing is to see if the sponsors will put up some money the local to say the office of social justice for the Catholic diocese or archdiocese in which you're working will you get money from the Episcopal diocese from the United Church of Christ when we started Merrimack Valley Project we had 11 sponsors labor union locals various religious groups they have reformed Jewish community for example I added to that so that's the first element of funding related to building power and building these groups that it has to you have to have some local funding if you're going to build a group that's going to be strong over time you of course as you're showing that you can actually achieve something you're in a better position to go to the national supporters religious organizations who support this work they have funds you're able to go to private foundations that support this type of work what becomes really critical when you're forming these groups is to set up a do system where member our model was organization of organization so the member groups are asked to put up money they're asked to participate in annual fundraising events our groups have followed a model of mica dinners basically dinners that honor individuals from the community for their work and those have been very successful fundraisers that sort of thing that's good and I wonder you know today a lot of younger younger organizers and I know you've been very successful in developing younger people who've led the various projects of the intervalley project but what would you say are the lessons I mean I often think now many younger organizers organized through social media as opposed to developing the long lasting and deep relationships that you did you know when you have to go talk to a union and or a church leader and ask them for money that just doesn't happen because they you know like your looks or think you have a good idea can you tell a little bit about some of the lessons you've learned which you think are important to pass on one of the what are the things that really stick that are really important in developing powerful organizations well a couple quick things you know part of my perspective on young people coming into this work is on the one hand there's something to be learned just as I learned from mentors who were 10 or 15 years older than I was I think there is something to be learned from people of my vintage of your you know you and I are colleagues of similar the experience of of learning and about organizing on the other hand I feel that it's there's a value in people feeling that they can shape the organizing as they see changes going on in the country in society etc so that's the first thing having said that I think that there's no replacing some fundamental practices and one is learning your own story you know being able to articulate fairly briefly how you came to be in this person's living room or meeting with them at dockets so they build it builds some trust and it begins to build a sense of reciprocity that's one number two is learning how to listen well how to ask good questions your your individual meeting is not an even exchange you're trying to understand what what is this person facing how are they shaped so that they might be interested in this work so individual meetings right uh second is being able to work with groups small groups how do you how do you help a group of people articulate individually what's on their mind and see if they can come to some common agreement about priorities right um I would say that the other thing and these are things that Danny LeBlanc and I practices that we use in our course courses at Tufts which is to underscore that community organizing on the one hand absolutely exists to win issue campaigns concrete campaigns that bring about change in people's lives but that's sort of one element of a triangle the other two sides of the triangle are building community across lines of difference and the other is leadership development that's what I would say and challenge people coming into this work are they doing those three things it's not that that if they're not their work is not to be valued most of the change that's come about in our lifetime nationally has been through campaigns around identity the civil rights movement the women's movement lesbian gay transgender movement and so on disabled movements those are to be valued women's movements um those are absolutely to be valued but community organizing has its own role and it has to pay attention to these three activities if it's going to be around over 10 15 20 years to win to enforce what it's won and to move on and develop new generations of leaders yeah and how do you see yourself I know you're teaching this course with our colleague and friend Danny LeBlanc at Tufts what other things you see yourself doing in the coming years now that you've quote retired from being lean organizer at the inner valley project uh well one of the things that I actually helped start with some classmates at brown in 2003 is something called the brown community organizing initiative um and that grew out of conversations about you know we were in our 50s it led to conversations about what comes next and one of the ideas that had come up was could we create an archive at one of the libraries at brown for community organizers materials grows the part out of the question of when are you getting this stuff out of the basement um and so we did help create that uh one of the best uh contribution to that was a series of 100 videotaped interviews uh done by Don Elmer for the center for community change verse group of organizers that's now at the archive we've been organizing workshops for people who teach about organizing in academic settings everything from community colleges to divinity schools uh to learn from each other and in fact we have a workshop coming up in two weeks for people to compare notes on what do they think is the most transformative element of their teaching so I found ways to to I think support the movement hopefully strengthen it uh the teaching at Tufts I love teaching out in the street that's why I didn't pursue the academic teaching but the Tufts now that I'm no longer out in the street which I think is fine at the at the stage of life the chance to work with young people who some of whom come into the class having been organizers in high school or or are organizers on campus it's a lot of fun that's great well we're really honored to have you on uh we hold these truths Ken Galston uh now teaching at Tufts the uh founder and former lead organizer of the inner valley project which is has done and continues to do a world of good throughout New England and we want to thank you and again I'm Michael Jacoby Brown your host for we hold these truths we are very glad to have Ken Galston with us tonight uh as our honored guest and Ken uh thank you for all you've done and we look forward to uh much more good work from you in the years ahead so thank you and to those of you who've been listening thank you for tuning in