Has Someone Had a Profound Impact on You from AMA
Today's question comes from the November Indy Web Carnival - "Has someone had a profound impact on you?"
My transition from a person who viewed the world as something that just happens around us to a person who sees the world as a place that is ours to change came about under the tutelage of a unique man whose life story is unlike anyone I've ever met. I became interested in a local group formed to oppose the death penalty. Even when I was an uninformed, apolitical prison guard, I knew at a deep level that state-sanctioned killing was wrong. Even though I'm not religious and the name of the group was People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, I decided to attend. That's where I met the most revolutionary man with whom I've ever been associated, a man with the unlikely name of Chip Smith.
Chip was from Philadelphia's main line. His father had been a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company and ended up a wealthy man. Chip was nearly 70 when I met him, and he still had a trust fund left to him by his father, but he was hardly typical of that breed. In the '60s, while the war in Vietnam was raging, Chip had gone to work for the Agency for International Development in Laos, living among the American community there, rife with CIA agents and other clandestine operatives. When he returned to the United States, he fell into the radical left movement and stayed there for the rest of his life.
American communist and socialist organizations have Byzantine family trees. Groups continually split over differences in political philosophy and tactics. I can't describe every group Chip was a member of, but in 1979 he was a part of the People's Viewpoint organization, composed mostly of educated professionals who went to work alongside the working class to organize them into what would hopefully become a revolutionary movement. Despite having a doctorate in economics and that trust fund I mentioned, Chip went to work in a steel mill and became a shop steward in the union. His wife, an actual neurosurgeon by trade, went to work in a garment factory. The organizing of the People's Viewpoint organization came to a bloody end in November 1979 when a rally they organized in a Greensboro, NC housing project was attacked by the KKK in an ambush the police knew was going to happen and did nothing to stop. Five people were killed.
Chip's wife went back to work in the hospital, but Chip kept on working towards revolutionary changes in the U.S. By the late '90s, the organization he was a member of in Philly had a plan for members to move to the U.S. South to organize. Despite the bloody history that had touched their lives, Chip and his wife moved to NC. His plan was to join local progressive groups, assist them in their mission, and help them grow. He successfully mentored us into actually getting the city council of our city to endorse a death penalty moratorium in a campaign that succeeded. NC hasn't had an execution in 17 years.
When 9/11 happened and the U.S. government went to war, Chip used his extensive contacts to help the little peace group we organized do things like help military resisters, hold giant demonstrations, and direct military families towards others like them against the war.
On a personal level, he taught me so much. I learned about the history of the Palestinian people from Chip. I had no experience with organized labor or unions, being from the least unionized state in the country. Chip taught me what they've done for workers and why they are needed. Chip patiently taught me about the societal cost of white privilege. In fact, he wrote a book about it. Chip taught me about the importance of inclusion, about how as two white guys, we should work towards building organizations that valued women and people of color. I spent many, many hours riding around the state in Chip's old van, going to meetings at labor councils and organizations like Black Workers for Justice. He never talked all that much, but everyone knew him and respected him.
He wasn't just a political mentor either. When I was struggling to get sober, Chip and his wife were there for me, kind of like loving but very disapproving village elders urging me to do better. Eventually, his wife took a position in a hospital a couple of hours away, and they moved. Of course, he immediately identified the issues most pressing to the workers in that area, joined a local organization to help them out, and worked with them until he died a few years later, dedicated until the very end to making a better world with other people.
When making decisions, I often ask myself what Chip would do in my situation. He never got too bent out of shape about the news of the day, viewing the struggle for revolutionary change to be a long and slow, but constant, process. In these trying times, I do my best to emulate that thought process. I believe in my heart of hearts that people, organized together towards a common goal, have immense power. I learned that from Chip Smith.
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