REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD A. CLOWARD Ken Grossinger Ken Grossinger, M.S. W., was Richard Cloward's student and a long time friend. He works at the AFL-CIO. I am not sure whether Richard Cloward and mentor. As Richard's student, I was stmck took me under his wing of his own volition, or instantly by his enormous intellect and if I was so persistent in my determination that scholarship. In the classroom, he spoke with he had no altemative. In 1980, after a four- dry humor, sharp insight and passion, and year hiatus from undergraduate school, I always with a thought provoking style. He entered the Columbia University School of possessed a sweeping knowledge of history Social Work (CUSSW). I had all but resigned and delivered a bravura performance for his myself to doing some combination of law and students. social work in order to make a living, or perhaps Before entering CUSSW, I worked at a I would eam a Ph.D. and teach. I assumed residential treatment home for delinquent youth. politics, my first love, would have to become One day, I was describing my experiences at an avocation. the home to Richard, talking to him about Then, as today, if one is not exposed to delinquency and arguing that society wrongfiilly political careers through family or friends, or defined deviant behavior as a psychological as part of a social movement, there is no dysfunction when it actually expressed obvious way to become famiUar with and leam something more. The next day he brought me about job opportunities in community organizing, Medicalization of Deviance, a book that philanthropy, labor, or other public interest work. exactly captured the points I tried to articulate. That was my situation- until I met Richard It was sometime later that I leamed Richard Cloward. co-authored Delinquency and Opportunity Richard recognized the fire in iny belly. (1960) with Lloyd Ohlin, the landmark book He nurtured my intellectual curiosity, helping that provided the intellectual underpinnings for to shape my ideas about poverty, race, class, progressive work with gang related problems. and social movements. And he helped legitimize Richard's interest in deviant behavior my way of thinking about the world and my shaped his thinking about social movements. political relationship to it. He argued that participants in social Richard introduced me to class conflict in movements deviated from the norms; therefore, concrete ways, through organizing campaigns they were, by definition, deviants. They broke and by challenging elite ideas that derided the laws. They sat down at lunch counters to poor! He introduced me to intellectuals and to protest segregation. They got arrested organizers in community, labor, and social demanding an adequate income. Richard welfare advocacy organizations. In large part, maintained that, while some deviance might Richard Cloward is the reason I've worked reflect mental illness, other forms of deviance over the last 20 years as a community and labor had political or sociological explanations. organizer and, now at the AFL-CIO, on Delinquency and Opportunity influenced the campaigns for social and economic justice. formation of Mobilization for Youth (MIY), Our 21 -year relationship took many forms. which Cloward helped found in 1961 and went Student-teacher, employee-employer, friend on to become the model for the Federal War 34 REFLECTIONS - WINTER 2002 Reflections on Richard A. Cloward on Poverty, including anti-poverty legal services Shortly thereafter, Richard and Frances and community action programs. had a new idea, and they tumed their attention Richard did not just teach me in the to building support for the social and health classroom, but one on one, often over breakfast programs by focusing on registering millions at the Mills Café, a luncheonette near Columbia of poor people who depend upon these run by two holocaust survivors. There he would programs to vote. They argued that welfare order a lime-rickey to drink with his eggs and agencies and motor vehicle departments should pontificate. We also met after class up the offer voter registration services at intake as a street from Mills at the West End, a bar once way to bring millions of low income and minority famous for patrons like Allen Ginsberg, Jack voters into the electorate. This tj'pe of voter Kerouac, and other 50's beat-era poets. registration was called agency based voter One night after class in the early 198O's, registration. Richard said that social workers needed a An early version of their article outlining vehicle to express more militant opposition to this strategy was entitled "Toward a Class then-President Reagan's attacks on the welfare Based Realignment of American Politics." state. He was sensitive to the 501(C)3 non- Excited about the idea, Richard asked me to profit status of private sector welfare agencies read and comment on the draft during one of and the constraints under which they operated, our regular evening meetings, section by including the possibility that their public ftinds section. All I could think about was the article cbuld be put at risk if used for direct advocacy. Richard and Frances published roughly 20 He wanted to create a new vehicle for more years earlier called a "Strategy to End strident forms of action without duplicating the Poverty," which appeared in The Nation and work of existing social welfare agencies. I was gave rise to the National Welfare Rights just graduating from CUSSW, and he and Organization (NWRO). And the uncommon Frances Fox Piven, his partner and collaborator, humility of a scholar and activist of Richard's asked me to staff what would become known stature asking a 20-something, fresh out of for a short period as the Emergency Campaign graduate school, to comment on his work. to Save Human Services. Paying me out of We shared a taxi ride up to Harlem the their pockets, Richard and Frances gave me following week and discussed the article again. my first organizing job when I finished graduate He told me I was about to go on the ride of my school. The position opened doors for me life. And he was right. We transformed the throughout the New York City and national Emergency Campaign to Save Human social welfare community. Services into the Human Service Employees In 1983, when President Reagan received Registration and Voter Education Campaign an award from the National Council of (Human SERVE). I would become its first Christian and Jews at the New York Hilton, staffer. the Emergency Campaign network organized Richard taught me to test the waters a rally to protest Reagan's proposed cuts in before undertaking projects, and to keep school lunch programs. The President was checking the temperature. That seems to be trying to redefine nutrition to include kitchen little more than common sense. But history is table condiments such as ketchup and mustard. filled with policy advocates and in particular We plarmed to use a flat bed tmck as the stage. academics, who generate seemingly good ideas But the Emergency Campaign's steering and solutions to problems that have absolutely committee member who ordered the tmck no grounding in real world politics. Sensitive to ordered it from Brooklyn. Sure enough, the drawing scant money away from other tmck was delayed on the Brooklyn Bridge and organizing work, Richard was careful not to didn't get to the New York Hilton on time. This raise money or build coalitions for projects until tmck became a metaphor in our political work there was a basis to assess their value and the for years to come: "Make sure the tmck shows possibility of achieving their goals. up!" I can still hear it now. It is a lesson I have And so it was that in the coming months never forgotten. he and Frances tested the agency-based voter REFLECTIONS - WINTER 2002 35 Reflections on Richard A. Cloward registration idea. They held a series of meetings laws. with a range of constituent groups; ACORN Human SERVE initiated many campaigns founders, leading social welfare community over the next 17 years. It sought executive executives, religious leaders including William orders from big state govemors, litigated to Sloane Coffin, philanthropists brought together implement agency-based voter registration, and by David Hunter and Richard Boone, students, promoted national legislation. Human and as many relevant constituent groups as SERVE'S idea was eventually incorporated possible. into the National Voter Registration Act and Community organizers did not need to be became law in 1993. On stage with then- sold on the value of bringing into the electorate President Clinton at the signing ceremony, millions of low income and minority voters. Richard and Frances reflected that "this They wanted to talk nuts and bolts: Was it legislation represents an historic advance in the possible? How long did it take to register a stmggle to win full enfranchisement for low- person to vote? Would there be trouble income people and people of color. The Voting accessing enough voter registration cards to Rights Act of 1965 stopped govemment from do this on a scale that mattered? Because of preventing people from registering to vote. This these discussions, I leamed about an historic act goes further by embodying the principle difference in orientation between community- that govemment has an affirmative obligation and movement-oriented organizers that shaped to register the eligible electorate." my approach to organizing throughout my I left Human SERVE in the mid-1980's career. and went to work for the Service Employees This difference was about the role of Intemational Union (SEIU), one of the few organization and the extent to which organizers unions organizing low-income and minority can control the direction of campaigns, workers.