Civic Participation and Community Action Sourcebook

Section Two

The “Clinic”:

A Community Organizes in Philadelphia

by the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy, Philadelphia

The Community Educational Project (CEP) is located in Kensington, formerly a booming manufacturing neighborhood in the Northeast section of Philadelphia. In the seventies, factories started closing down, laying employees off, or moving out of the neighborhood. CEP was established in 1980 in a vacant elementary school building in order to provide education to local residents attempting to return to the work force. Over the next fifteen years, Kensington continued to decline, and 1995 found it a depressed and fairly run-down section of town, a place that made even long-time residents nervous about traveling at night.

The “Clinic” made traveling to CEP, even during the day, precarious. An abandoned rowhouse located diagonally across from the CEP parking lot, the “Clinic” was a notorious hangout for drug dealers and users. Crack vials littered the sidewalk there and for blocks around. Cars had been broken into and women threatened if they passed nearby. Some people had been mugged. Students would detour several blocks in order to enter the CEP building from the other side, especially to avoid exposing their children to that atmosphere and possible harm. The dealers sold their “wares” flagrantly there, seemingly with no fear of the law; the house sported the word “Clinic” and an arrow pointing to the door in neon spray paint.

While learners, staff, and community members alike often complained about the crackhouse, they did nothing for years. A few people had called the police, who claimed that they could not make arrests unless someone was “caught in the act.” Soon most residents gave up trying and learned to live with the nuisance and fear. “Besides,” they said, “the cops chase them off and they just come back the next day.” People cared but had become frustrated and did not believe that they could make a change.

Then CEP became part of a Kensington community action network. This collaboration of groups and individuals agreed to take on the Clinic. One of the interesting things about Kensington is its ethnic and racial diversity, a population that includes Latinos, African-Americans, Southeast Asian-Americans, and European-Americans. Diverse ethnic populations can sometimes be at odds with each other, but in this case, a common cause brought them together.

A meeting was called by the network and held in the CEP building. Learners were at first reticent to attend the meeting when informed about it. Many of them had never been to a community or organizing meeting and were either nervous about it or “didn’t see the point.” Learners and instructors engaged in class discussions, starting first from students’ experiences, asking if any had ever had or knew about successful strategies to “make a difference” on a community issue. Stories were shared. Some teachers brought in current newspaper or magazine articles or historical case studies of citizen action which were read, discussed, and written about in classes. Reflection on these led learners to be more open to the possibility of change. Some decided to attend the meeting.

The first meeting was an airing of the issue in which everyone got to speak about both the problem and also offer solutions. This participation in and of itself, the “entering into the public debate,” seemed empowering to those attending. Many had never felt listened to and valued in reference to a public issue. Strategies were brainstormed, and the group decided to request a meeting with the Philadelphia Police Sergeant in charge of the area, as well as the officers who usually worked that beat. One student volunteered to be on the contact committee that gathered the police force information and made the phone calls. Another was on the committee that contacted the media.

Before the meeting with the police, neighborhood residents who were more experienced in organizing reviewed the strategies which the group intended to use with the police:

• speaking from an attitude of collaboration and “win-win” negotiation
• using clear communication to advocate for the needs of the community
• not lapsing into complaining but focusing on the issue in order to specify solutions during the “speakout” time
• keeping the focus on results which the police could help effect as opposed to railing against the city or the “pipers”
• and accepting responsibility for the network’s part in keeping the neighborhood safe while continuing to assert the community’s right to protection from the police

The meeting was effective. Community members, including CEP students, told moving stories and critically but respectfully challenged the police policy of not arresting known drug dealers. “I know,” one student said, “that if this was happening on the Main Line (a wealthier neighborhood bordering Philadelphia) you all would find a way to arrest the guys who were doing it.” (During a later class trip to the library, students researched Americans’ rights under the law versus policies, and discussed which were enforced when, which could be changed and how.) The police agreed to more frequent sweeps through the area, including signing in to a log when they came through. They and community members agreed to collaborate in a community policing effort. Finally, all agreed to have a future meeting in several months’ time to discuss the effects of these actions. A story about the meeting was reported in the local weekly newspaper.

Learners who attended the meeting shared their experiences with classmates. It was evident that the experience had had an effect on their attitudes as well as their knowledge and skills. They had first-hand knowledge of an effective citizen action which would have concrete results in their own lives. They could not help but believe that they could make a difference. They had not heard the news; they were news! Some had learned more about the law enforcement system, others about media. Everyone had had opportunities to think critically about city government, economics (from law enforcement spending in their neighborhood to the economics of dealing drugs), and community history. In groups or individually, people honed reading, writing, computer, communication, information “processing,” and participation skills.

By the spring of 1996, the Clinic was shut down. Its windows and doors were boarded up and the graffiti painted over. Community residents expressed that the area felt safer for themselves and their children. CEP learners expressed pride and a sense of responsibility in being a part of this contribution to their neighborhood.

Reprinted with permission from the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy’s Equipped for the Future Content/Standards Report to the National Institute for Literacy, 1996. This “case study” is a composite of various inquiry-based citizenship educational experiences but is most closely based on an actual series of events which occurred at CWEP, an educational project in Kensington, a section of Philadelphia, PA.

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