The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart

Chapter 4 covers the time Garza spent organizing at Bayview Hunters Point. This period is when she truly learned the tools of the trade. Bayview Hunters Point is where Garza experienced some of her most cherished connections but also where she had her heart repeatedly broken. It is during this time she learned about power, defined as “the ability to impact and affect the conditions of your own life and the lives of others” (67). She distinguishes power from “empowerment,” the feeling of self-esteem. The purpose of movements is to build power.

Garza cautions against romanticizing the work of organizing. She believes the actual work to be difficult, requiring tenacity and dedication. Organizers need to be flexible, ready to challenge their own beliefs, and capable of working alone or with others.

Her time at Bayview Hunters Point began in 2005, after she joined People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a grassroots organization uniquely focused on improving the lives of the Black community in San Francisco. Garza’s first project revolved around fighting the gentrification of the Bayview Hunters Point area. Previously an abandoned shipyard, it had since been the home of San Francisco’s decreasing Black population. Garza knocked on doors to connect with the residents and learn about the community’s concerns. Over time, Garza began to earn the trust of the residents.

Although the area did not lack in organizations, it lacked power. Garza realized there were two types of leaders in the area. The first type, “mothers of the community,” worked on behalf of Black women, while the second sought influence through building connections with corporations. She came to this conclusion while working on her first task, which involved helping locals with a mandatory community beautification project that would relocate overhead wiring underground and cost residence owners $1,400 for this service. Garza immediately organized community meetings and informed the residents of programs that would help shoulder the cost. Through repeated discussions with the residents, Garza and POWER came up with a list of demands, one of which required the city to pay for the wiring improvements. These demands, when presented to city administrators, were initially shrugged off. However, upon performing a “direct action” (a gathering in the city office pointing out the program’s racism), Garza’s organization convinced the city to accept all their conditions. She concludes that when petitions and demands are unsuccessful, movements should turn to direct action, an escalating tactic that pressures those in power. Additionally, forcing policy makers to confront community members helps the people in power visualize the impact of their decisions.

In 2007, POWER, led by Chris Daly, joined forces with other organizations such as the Nation of Islam to introduce a ballot measure securing affordable housing in redevelopment zones. To accomplish this, POWER had to gather 8,000 signatures in three weeks and 40,000 votes for the general election in June 2008. Through hard work and efficient organizing, POWER succeeded in qualifying the measure for the ballot, and this project became Proposition F.

Although successful, Proposition F forced Garza to confront the other side of the equation: Black people who worked for corporations, attempting to sell redevelopment to the Black residents of Bayview Hunters Point and delegitimize POWER. Garza dubs this “patronage politics,” a survival measure for some Black people. She cautions against viewing Black people as a monolith and encourages organizations to understand the specific historical circumstances that “shaped the community’s understanding of how the world functions and why” (85). In the end, a competing proposition that fought to give corporations the ability to redevelop Bayview Hunters Point won, undermining Proposition F.

Garza concludes at the end of the chapter that Black people are underrepresented in progressive circles. This highlights two major problems with the progressive agenda: The concerns of Black communities are often disregarded, and progress itself is impossible without representing Black voices. Consequently, Black communities may become disillusioned or even turn their backs against progressivism. Garza attributes Proposition F’s failure to a lack of greater community support. Without the people, POWER’s radical politics alone could not bring about change. Garza realizes that if the ultimate goal is to build power, it is at times necessary to set aside minor political differences for the sake of rallying a bigger and more diverse crowd.

In Chapter 5, Garza elaborates on her reason for turning to organizing. To begin, she cites the 99% to 1% equation that emerged from the 2011-2012 Occupy movement. It illustrates how most people—women, some white men, people of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities—are exploited by the extremely wealthy 1%—a group dominated by white men. The goal of organizing is to unite the 99% against the true reason for their impoverished state: the top 1% who oppress and exploit them. Garza summarizes this as the “unite to fight” principle, one that she hopes will bring about a globally interdependent world.

Garza explains that the 99% has been traditionally segregated by race and class by the 1%. Moving forward, movements need to engage in authentic discussions about multiracial organizing as the model of the future. This is not an easy task: Even in integrated spaces, people can hold stereotypes or prejudices against others as a way to explain or cast blame for their own powerlessness.

Garza found it was easiest to have honest conversations in spaces where people felt safe and comfortable. Behind closed doors, she could engage in honest discussions about prejudices people of color might hold against one another. In one example, a Black resident expressed their displeasure and incomprehension at seeing their Latino neighbors cram multiple people into a single household. Later, a Latino resident complained about seeing Black men loitering around the neighborhood during the day instead of working.

Early in her career, Garza might have denied or brushed off these claims. However, over the years, she realized the most effective way of addressing these differences is not to shut down the conversation or deny the observations, but to help people shift their points of view. In the first scenario, she learned to agree with the Black resident and raise the question of what it might be like to live with so many people in a small house and what might push someone to make that decision. Then, to their Latino counterpart, she would ask the reason behind daytime loitering, which would then lead to a discussion about the causes of high unemployment rates among Black residents. This type of speculation usually widens people’s perspectives.

The chapter concludes with a retelling of a collective trip with POWER to the United States Social Forum in Atlanta, Georgia. Garza and her coworkers—half of whom were Latina—learned more about African American history. Along with other museumgoers, the group learned that while Black resistance has seen multiple instances of success, the Black people of the United States were not free: Their unemployment rate remains high and they still endure racial discrimination. The narrative that many immigrants have learned, which presents Black people as ultimately victorious and independent, does not reflect reality. Ultimately, Garza remembers this trip as an instance of cross-culture political education. She highlights the importance of asking questions to broaden horizons and fight against prejudice.

In Chapter 6, Garza remembers the moments leading to the establishment of the Black Lives Matter movement. The events that have taught Garza hard lessons and informed her own sense of politics in Chapters 4 and 5 culminate in the watershed moment of Chapter 6: Garza’s Tweet about #blacklivesmatter in the aftermath of Zimmerman’s acquittal. The final two chapters of this section tie Garza’s experience to the start of Black Lives Matter and to the social events that enabled its founding.

Chapter 6 opens with a retelling of Trayvon Martin’s murder. George Zimmerman murdered Martin in Sanford, California, on February 26, 2012. The chapter then jumps to a retelling of the first time Garza experienced police violence in person. After attending a reproductive justice conference in Washington, DC, Garza saw a white officer assault a Black man who had just been walking casually down the street; the officer slammed the man against his police car. A nearby Black woman confronted the officer and asked Garza to note down the encounter, including the police car plate, and email the evidence to her. This incident left Garza to wonder if the police could really get away with such blatant abuse of power.

Garza’s childhood in Tiburon did not prepare her for this reality. Living in a predominantly white neighborhood where everyone knew each other and could call the officers by name, she did not grow up experiencing police violence. The one time she was caught smoking cannabis with a friend, the officer gave her a chance and let her go without alerting her parents or arresting her. However, her positive experiences do not reflect the reality of most Black people.

During her time at Bayview Hunters Point, Garza witnessed the killing of Kenneth Wade Harding for running away from fare enforcement officers. In 2009, two years prior to Harding’s murder, Oscar Grant was killed in Oakland on the train platforms for being in a car where a fight broke out. He was shot in the stomach in front of several eyewitnesses. The incident received heavy news coverage and caused community outrage, but the officer, Johannes Mehserle, was acquitted of second-degree murder one year later and only served prison time for involuntary manslaughter.

On July 13, 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of murder. Despite being keenly aware of systemic anti-Black racism, Garza had not truly believed Zimmerman would walk free. That night, she expressed her rage and grief on social media with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. Although Barack Obama had already become President at the time, his poor handling of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. incident indicated to Garza that law enforcement would not tolerate questioning, especially on their treatment of Black people. True to her intuition, Obama was reserved in his criticisms of the police after Zimmerman’s acquittal and instead appealed to Black people to solve their internal dysfunctions without provoking law enforcement. He would later introduce measures to address the difficulties Black men face. Citing intercommunal violence, Obama’s policies reflected the idea that offering Black people better opportunities would solve the problem. Garza points out, however, that white people kill each other at the same rate as Black people kill each other. Intercommunal violence is a natural result of “an uneven distribution of resources and power” (120). Because a lack of personal accountability is not the root of the problem, measures addressing it would not prevent systemic violence against Black people.

Garza then realized the problem could not be solved simply by voting or education. The fundamental problem is the devaluing of Black lives across the world. The day after Zimmerman’s acquittal, Garza saw protests erupt nationwide with the slogan Black Lives Matter. Along with Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors, Garza established Black Lives Matter’s social media presence. This provided a visible, national platform for discussing systemic racism and other common challenges for Black people in America. These discussions also highlighted the invisible threads that connect Black-led organizations. The movement became an organization in 2014.