California Chapter Splits from ACORN to Form New Group
On January 13, 2010, a news release / statement from Amy Schur – with the headline, “California Chapter Splits from National ACORN to Form New Group” – announced the formation of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
Amy Schur, the new organization’s Executive Director, had been the lead organizer of California ACORN – the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – and had spent 21 years working for ACORN in a number of cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, San Jose and, most recently, Los Angeles.
The news release praised ACORN’s accomplishments on behalf of working families in California and the new leadership of ACORN nationally, but observed that recent controversies that have engulfed the national organization threatened to jeopardize the effectiveness of the group’s grassroots organizing throughout California.
The California group had been a chapter of ACORN, a national organization. “Until now, governance and financial management resided at the national level. In recent months it has become increasingly clear to the leadership, staff and members in California that the serious challenges ACORN is facing are jeopardizing the important work we are doing here in California.”
While the statement acknowledged missteps by ACORN, there was more emphasis on unfounded, malicious political attacks. The decision to step away was clearly pragmatic – based on a clear-eyed assessment of how to sustain the level of effectiveness of the group’s community organizing activities throughout California.
“We, the California leadership, staff and members who have been working with ACORN, believe that ACORN, both locally and nationally, has been a tremendous force advancing the interests of low-income and working families in this country. At the same time, very real internal mistakes have been made and vicious politically motivated attacks have led to right-wing activists digging through our trash and editing undercover videos to tell a lie so malicious that, if it were true, would upset any citizen.”
…
“Nevertheless, those of us who have been working with ACORN in California believe that we can’t wait any longer to be in full control over our destiny. The leadership and staff that were working with ACORN in California made the decision to break off from ACORN and launch a new organization here in California called Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). The organization will work to advance the mission of organizing and empowering low-income communities, and launch a statewide, multi-year campaign to win key policy changes that will break the cycle of continuous fiscal crisis in the state of California and cuts that hurt ordinary people and their communities.”
I sat down this week with Amy Schur at the Los Angeles office of ACCE (which formerly housed California ACORN) to discuss the launch of the new organization. The interview focused on a number of issues related to the decision to found ACCE (pronounced like the playing card, ‘ās’).
We discussed the former relationship of California ACORN with the national group, recent ACORN controversies – which Ms. Schur described as “Three strikes,” her career with ACORN, and the challenges she, the staff, and volunteers of the new organization face in establishing ACCE on a firm footing.
Over the next two weeks, I will present a series of posts on the national organization ACORN, including three controversies that have engulfed the group, a brief assessment of ACORN’s accomplishments, and a final post with comments on the independent report commissioned by ACORN. Then, I will turn again to ACCE, with a second series of posts on the decision to break away from the national organization and a sketch of the challenges going forward with the new group.
(Update: I have revised the paragraph immediately above to reflect the direction the series has taken.)
Next post in a 7-part series on ACORN: Three Strikes: A Mighty Grassroots Group Goes Down Swinging.
Next post in the series on ACCE: The Birth of ACCE: First Post in a New Series.
(Image from Wallpapers-Free.)
