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Dismantling Racism Resource Book

Lack of infrastructure People of color-led organizations (progressive or otherwise) lacked
the experience to lead a statewide voter organizing campaign. In this context, the inevitable
tensions between community and electoral organizing approaches became racialized, with a
white-led “no” campaign (that built its approach around gender) and various poc-led
community education and voter registration efforts.

A culture of activism and advocacy Few community organizations in the Northwest are
engaged in base building of any scale. Most organizations are home grown and few
organizers have apprenticed in a successful organizing model. Advocacy and activism often
pass for organizing. While present in some areas, the national organizing networks have not
had the impact on organizing culture here that they’ve had in the Midwest or other places
around the country.

Absence of multi-racial people of color organizing In a region where the small, diverse
and isolated nature of communities of color would seem to make alliance-building a strategic
priority, there are in fact few people of color organizing projects.

Working the white masses Very few predominantly white social justice groups weighed in
during the affirmative action ballot fight. The demographic realities of the region mean that,
to be successful, most campaigns (unless they’re strictly local) will need a strategy for
working with white organizations and developing messages for a white audience. While this
is true to varying degrees in most parts of the country, building effective alliances from
positions of strength is a particular challenge for racial justice organizers in the Northwest.

Despite the difficulties, racial justice organizers in the Northwest are fighting and winning
important victories. I spoke with organizers from several states and communities about how the
racial realities of the region have shaped their approaches to making change in the Northwest.

Against White Supremacy—Up South

If the rest of the country and the world thinks about racial justice struggles in the Northwest,
chances are they think of white supremacists: Aryan Nations, Militia of Montana, Posse
Comitatus, The Order, neo-Nazi skinheads, and various anti-Indian groups. Loretta Ross, who
for many years organized against the Klan and other bigots down South with the Center for
Democratic Renewal, only half-jokingly refers to the Northwest as up South. But unlike the
South, whites in the Northwest have never been made to answer for white supremacy, which has
reigned here since the end of the Indian Wars.

As director of the Seattle-based Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity, Eric Ward fights
organized bigots in a six-state region that stretches from Washington to Wyoming. Ward was
trained by human rights organizers who cut their teeth in the South, but the racial realities of the
Northwest have given rise to a different organizing approach.
“In the South there’s a large black community that would be sympathetic to taking on the Klan.
That doesn’t exist here in the Northwest,” says Ward. “And so you have to engage a constituency
that, because of white privilege and societal bigotry, doesn’t often see its interest in taking on the

Dismantling Racism Project 81 Western States Center