The Birth of ACCE: First Post in a New Series
Post #1 of a series – An interview with Amy Schur provided insights into the launch of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
The announcement that California ACORN, a state chapter of the national organization, had decided to split from ACORN and form a new organization, ACCE – the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, began by paying tribute to the thousands of Californians living near the poverty level who have “leveraged their significant numbers with coordinated grassroots organizing to achieve victory” in political battles over several decades as members of the California chapter of ACORN. The statement by Amy Schur praises ACORN and its new leadership, acknowledges the national organization’s past mistakes, objects to attacks by ACORN’s political enemies, and then pivots:
“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 suggested in my initial post on this announcement, “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.” I have no reason to reconsider this assessment; the controversies ensnaring ACORN – represented as three strikes against the organization and, as Amy Schur put it, “a huge distraction” – just weren’t going away, providing ample reason to consider splitting off and starting anew.
But there was a history of simmering dissent within ACORN that preceded the first strike (the May 2008 revelation of the embezzlement and cover-up). There had been rumblings among senior staff over the increasingly imperious control that Wade Rathke (pictured above) – ACORN’s founder and leader for nearly four decades – wielded over the organization.
On February 2, I interviewed Amy Schur – former lead organizer of California ACORN and now the executive director of ACCE – about the decision to launch ACCE, the history that led up to it, and challenges for the new group going forward. I followed up my initial post on ACCE with a series on ACORN, beginning with three controversies that enveloped the national organization. While these posts established a backdrop and offered perspective on ACORN nationally, they diverted us from ACCE. Now I will circle back and begin (in this second series of posts) to look at the ACORN story from the point of view of the California chapter that has transformed into the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
ACORN’s presence in California goes back nearly two and a half decades – first in Oakland and Salinas – followed by expansion throughout the Bay Area and then Los Angeles. Amy Schur led California ACORN during this era of growth. What she had to say provides many insights into the schism that developed within ACORN and the problems it has struggled to put behind it.
My February 5 post is the prequel to this series.
Next post: Simmering Dissent Within ACORN Preceded Break Up
(Image from a YouTube video of Wade Rathke, ACORN founder, on Fox News.)
