Fannie Lou Hamer was 44 years old when she joined SNCC.

This fact and who SNCC organized: young students for sure, but also middle aged and older Black folks I think should trouble our analysis that how we build movement should singularly focus on young folks

It seems to me our orgs and movements eco-systems have been strongest when they are multi-generational & and don't seek to fetishize one group as a vanguard.

You see similar analysis around PMC vs working class, but when you look at the history, most orgs had professionals (whether formally or informally) as well as working class folks.

I think the better questions about how to understand what worked in the past and what can or can't be applied to now should fall more in the sphere of "how did these orgs makes decisions (internal democracy), do leadership development, choose and execute campaigns, etc"

Another point about democracy, decision making & when orgs & movements are there strongest

is making sure we have democratic decision making structures (a healthy mix of representative & direct democracy) that enable elected member leadership & rank & file members to lead

instead of staff.

vs decision making structures that lean too heavily on either staff (NGO's & at times Labor), elected leadership (rep democracy reductionism) or rank & file membership (direct democracy reductionism).

This is what I mean by a healthy mix of rep & direct democracy that can enable democratic decision making by to elected leadership, rank & file member leadership and even staff leadership.

Vs how decisions making structures get argued as the sole solution to solving the riddle of how do orgs make decisions & lead an org. Rep democracy, direct democracy or staff leadership init of itself can't get us there, but a healthy mix of those decision making forms can.

& we need democratic decision making structures that are able to work thru the multiple political tendencies an org has in order to build a general political consensus about how to lead & run the org (what campaigns to take on, what poli ed to do, what tactics to use, etc)

vs a approach that quashes other tendencies (which can happen when you too much rep democracy) instead of having democratic processes that can build consensus with opposing tendencies or defeat them (via elections, proposal votes, debate, etc)

Or an approach that says all political tendencies should politically lead & run the org no matter how little membership support their tendency has (a approach when you have too much direct democracy)

This approach allows political tendencies that lack relative or absolute majority support in an org to run & lead the org at the exclusion of relative or absolute majorities.

or causes the org to become bogged down in decision making processes that are posing as democracy or organizing work but in fact doesn't allow for political & organizing direction of the org to decided on & undermines the org ability to do outward facing organizing.

The internal org decision making process itself starts to be viewed of as "the work" or as organizing

vs having an org democratic decision making process that supports and enables better conditions for extermal organizing

Point being (I know I sound like a broken record). Having the right mix of elected member leadership (representative democracy), rank & file leadership (direct democracy) and staff leadership is what we should be after

vs falling into reductionism when it comes to any of these democratic decision making structures, process and approaches

thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

If you are looking to join an org that is trying to do the things I was just talking about please join @AFROSOCDSA

You can sign up here, https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdBFeISywiDyoZBJe_kanChBKZ75ekUJXeScXb3R61mMWqurA/viewform

Last thing, I promise, I think, LOL

I think there should be youth only orgs, & identity based only org in general, I just think there is a way to do it that doesnt fall into vanguardism or fetishizing such formations as the thing that will singularly save our movements.

Just as important as identity only spaces, orgs and leadership is multi-identity (race, age, gender, etc) spaces, leadership and orgs. We need it all in order to win.