University of Virginia Library

Another Side of Righter

Throughout the life of the Congregation for Reconciliation, Richard Righter has served as its principal action strategist. His primary technique has been confrontation and conflict. We have attempted to interpret this from the theoretical perspective of symbolic interaction or dramatism. This seems to us a useful

model for understanding the Congregation's activities and explaining their measure of success.

Other social scientists might well employ other theoretical models and see Righter and the Congregation in a different light. To be sure, our approach is not without limitations. When pressed for an explanation to the question of why confrontation, our model can say little more than "because it works." In the American tradition of pragmatism, this may well be sufficient. In another sense, it begs other important questions: How do you know that other strategies wouldn't be equally effective? What can be said about the motives or value presuppositions which led Righter and the Congregation to pursue confrontation?

The fact of the matter is the Congregation has seldom employed other strategies. Thus, insofar as the community of Dayton and the specific projects of the Congregation are concerned, we cannot be certain that other strategies would not have worked. We have presented Righter's theological rationale for confrontation, but this too may beg the question of motive. Are there not other ways than conflict to seek reconciliation of " `all things' to God's purpose?"

Conflict theory would argue that institutions are extremely reluctant to change. Only the mustering of countervailing power can pressure for institutional change. For those who are essentially powerless, their main hope for building power is in the street and through the media, that is, in the public arena.

The "power elite" thesis has traditionally been associated with the "radical left" and Marxist ideology. In recent years, however, the growing evidence of massive concentration and abuse of power by certain sectors of society has moved scholars heretofore considered to be only slightly left of center to entertain more seriously the power elite thesis. [5] Perhaps we now need seriously to consider the possibility that the labeling of potentially effective strategies as "leftist" may present a most valuable tool for elites in the public drama. [6]

As already noted, Righter's quiet, low-key style is disarming to his adversaries. It is not easy to dislike him, and even more difficult to pin him with a "leftist" label. As a student of economics, with a master's degree in business administration, he can't be easily snowed with free enterprise rhetoric. He believes

in free enterprise and invests in the stock market. His bone of contention is not with the economic system but rather with corporate and individual abuse of power. Theologically, his views are far more conservative than most Presbyterian and United Church of Christ pastors in metropolitan Dayton. Were he theologically liberal in a conservative denomination, he would be vulnerable to the charge that his "radical" theology has led him astray on social issues. But as a theological conservative, he is immune to such attacks.

At the beginning of this book, we indicated that in telling the story of Righter and his congregation we would not make them wistful heroes. It is not our intent to do so now. What we have tried to say in this chapter is that, in terms of strategy and personal style, Righter has some things going for him that help render his actions effective.

To fail to see Righter as a complex man, however, would do him a great disservice and fall short of providing data to those interested in studying leadership style. Of our many conversations with Righter, the one most revealing of his value presuppositions about the nature of the social order and how one effects social change occurred late on a hot summer night in 1972. We want to quote this conversation verbatim, not to malign him or point to weakness in his character. Such a conclusion, in our opinion, would be an unwarranted value judgment. Rather, we want to provide readers an opportunity to see an important dimension of a complex man. Let us further preface this transcript by explicitly acknowledging that this conversation also reveals a good deal about our own presuppositions about change. At the conclusion of the transcript, we will attempt to interpret it further in light of our different presuppositions as well as in the context of the interview itself.

We asked Righter to talk about how the United People campaign emerged as a central project for the Congregation for Reconciliation and why they decided to pursue a boycott strategy.

RIGHTER:

"This was kind of an issue that I always had in the back of my mind. In my opinion, United Fund was kind of irrelevant in Philadelphia and I knew it wouldn't take me long to research this issue in Dayton. Also, one of the church executives

responsible for starting the experimental congregations in Ohio mentioned the United Fund to me as a possible social issue. I was not in any way directly responsible to him, but his mentioning of the United Fund as a possible issue led me to believe that I had some kind of institutional `blessing' to pursue the project.

"Shortly after arriving in Dayton, I asked a campus minister if he knew anything about United Fund locally. He gave me the name of a gal who's a social worker whom he knew to be concerned about United Fund. I went to talk with her and she encouraged me to get involved in this area. I can't remember if we talked boycott at that time or not. At any rate, I decided that this was an issue that I ought to pursue and I encouraged five or six people in our congregation to form a study group. I went around and collected several key reports from United Fund agencies and passed them around to the study committee. I also went around and interviewed five or six agency executives.

"At that point in the life of the Congregation I promoted the concept of study committees and action committees. After the study committee had prepared a brief report, some of these people opted out of pursuing any action. The Congregation then voted to try and get other organizations concerned and to develop a coalition. That was along toward the end of 1969 or early 1970. We got seven organizations into this project. . . . We had a couple of community meetings. We had some people come and talk, with different points of view presented. Sam Morris of the United Fund [as throughout this manuscript, the names of individuals other than the Righters have been changed to protect their anonymity] came to one of these meetings. During the spring we met with some of the staff people, but I don't believe we met with any board people. At this point we weren't rattling fences or threatening boycott. We were simply trying to relate to some of these people and recommend changes.

"Sometime during the spring, at a peace demonstration, I talked with a guy named Bob Shifflett who was very active in a group called Social Welfare Workers Movement. We decided to get our two groups together and sit down and talk about this. . . . In late spring, SWWM and the Congregation voted to work together on a boycott."

[Righter then discussed in considerable detail the next six

months of planning for the boycott, launched in the fall just prior to the annual United Appeal campaign.]

"After that campaign we moved into some serious work to detail what we wanted to recommend. We didn't do this because anyone was screaming but because we felt we really ought to get ourselves together. We came up with a five-page list of recommendations which we sent to United Fund and released to the press."

INTERVIEWER:

"From what you told me, it seems you really decided on a boycott fairly early, and now you tell me that it was not until after the first boycott that you presented United Fund with a series of demands or recommendations. I am of the opinion that a boycott is a pretty serious kind of action which one takes only as a last resort, after everything else has failed. It seems to me that you either proceeded on the assumption that the boycott was only symbolic, or underneath your rhetoric you did not desire reform but sabotage of the United Fund."

RIGHTER:

"I don't see those as the only alternatives, but let me respond. First of all, we could not, even with a tremendously effective boycott, hope to touch more than five or ten percent of their funds. . . . A very large percentage of their funds comes from big business and from employees of big businesses who are pressured into signing pledges. On the other matter, there has been a long history of establishment-type efforts at reform and the United Fund was absolutely unresponsive. In 1963 there was a very extensive study done by a professor from the area, under the aegis of the Health and Welfare Planning Body, as to how United Fund was serving the community and who was getting services. That study was ignored. They also ignored editorializing by the newspapers for reform. Then there were the riots in 1967 which failed to produce any response. Furthermore, our attempts to relate to the executive director indicated that he was totally unwilling to sit down and negotiate with us. It was my opinion after not being here too long, and knowing something about the board members, that a boycott was the only way to relate to the situation. They weren't going to make any changes without a power base for change over against some fifty-five agencies who have full-time lobbyists at the United Appeal to get funds.

Moreover, these agencies have interlocking boards that assure the continuation of the status quo. I take it that you were saying that you would have functioned differently?"

INTERVIEWER:

"Yes, I think so. . . . You said that your coalition group presented a list of demands to United Fund. Do I have that in my files?"

RIGHTER:

"They didn't present a list of solid demands but they raised some of the basic questions of who United Fund is serving and not serving."

INTERVIEWER:

"From what you and others have told me, I would say that the boycott tactic was pursued without first pursuing other alternatives, including presenting the United Fund Board with a formal set of demands."

RIGHTER:

"Oh, yes, no doubt about it. We did not use proper process. We never used proper process. We never go the proper way."

INTERVIEWER:

"Why?"

RIGHTER:

"Because the proper way is established by those who control the system. The system has a proper way of functioning. First you go and meet with them. If you have some clout they'll set up a committee to work on it. But they don't want to change anything. Their proper way of dealing with problems never results in any change."

INTERVIEWER:

"Now you're telling me something very fundamental about your philosophy."

RIGHTER:

"Yeah, maybe so. Our tactics are not the acceptable tactics of the established decision-makers that we attempt to relate to. Most of the people we are dealing with are not really interested in change. We don't have any power to pressure change from within. This is the only way we have of relating to issues."

INTERVIEWER:

"What about the activities of your [Poverty Committee]? From what I have learned, your tactics here were quite different and some people I have talked with would say you have had relatively greater success in effecting change here."

RIGHTER:

"Yes, our tactics were very different with the [poverty] project. We functioned differently because we felt there were people within with a lot of clout that we could work cooperatively with to bring about change. I think we have had

some success with the [poverty] project, but I'd say we've been much more successful with the United Fund, no doubt about that in my mind. You see, most of the people you ended up talking with are pretty much establishment people and they have a different view of our effectiveness. But we don't get too much opportunity to work with those who really have some clout."

INTERVIEWER:

"But I'm wondering if you have thoroughly exhausted the possibilities of working with, rather than against, those who are establishment people. What I've picked up from some of your strongest establishment supporters is that they would like to see you doing many more things with them rather than against them. The scenario or model has repeated itself thousands of times in American politics. There are people on the inside who would like to effect change but do not themselves have the authority or power to do so. Then along comes a group from the outside raising hell or threatening to do so. At that point the person on the inside can go to others and say, 'We've got to respond to their demands.' Perhaps the community leaders I have been talking with are giving me a lot of rhetoric or hot air, but I have a sense that they are more willing to pursue issues with you than you may realize."

RIGHTER:

"Yeah, maybe so, but I'm not sure."

When confronted with this interview in an interim report several months later, Righter was quite defensive. "When I read it," he said, "I felt that I had been stripped naked." He would not have been so forceful in his statements, he argued, had the interviewer not pushed so hard. The interview and Righter's reaction to it in print seem to us revealing on several counts. We have little doubt that Righter overstated his views, but consider the context. It was late at night and terribly hot. Prior to this encounter, we had shown only sympathy for the cause. Suddenly and without forewarning, the rules changed. Not only did Righter learn we had serious reservations about the particular strategy in question but, in the context of our impending report to the National Missions Committee, our presence seemed suddenly to shift from support to threat. And Righter blew his cool.

But this is insufficient interpretation. Did he lose control in saying more than he normally would to an outsider or, under fire,

did he reveal something to himself about his own presuppositions? We cannot, of course, be certain, but we suspect a bit of each. In any event, this raises yet another interesting question. In the course of pursuing confrontation tactics, Righter has most assuredly faced many threatening and unnerving situations. While we met no adversaries who cited specific instances of Righter being backed into a corner and losing his composure, it is hard to imagine this has never happened. After all, what politician or public figure has not made his faux pas? And to one pursuing confrontation strategies while trying to guard an image of reason and credibility against adversaries looking to discredit, blunders can be costly.

Even if we assume Righter substantially overstated his views, the interview seems nonetheless revealing of certain assumptions about the nature of power and the social order. It is a view from the bottom, championing the causes of the powerless against powerful establishments immune to sentiment or pleas to ethical or religious principles. Power only acknowledges power. And the most viable power of the little man is his ability to disrupt normal activities, to embarrass powerful institutions and their representatives, to threaten public relations images; it is the power of the villain to ridicule and upset the hero.

Righter's overreaction to our probing resulted in his articulation of a harder line than he would normally espouse either privately or publicly. But it also permitted us to get a glimpse of the kinds of taken-for-granted assumptions which inform his action strategies. In sum, when we examine this interview from the perspective of what it tells us about Righter's underlying value presuppositions, we see a logical link between his views about power and social change and the types of strategies and tactics the Congregation has employed.

Alvin Gouldner, in The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, attacks the young American radical of the 1960s for viewing the task of developing theory as "a form of escapism, if not of moral cowardice." The following passage might well serve as an epitaph to the student radicalism of the sixties.

We also believe this analysis says a great deal about why Richard Righter and-the Congregation for Reconciliation are still in the battle long after social activists, inside and outside the church, have yielded to alienation, frustration, and despair. Our points of disagreemcnt with the Congregation's strategies and tactics are quite irrelevant in this context. What they boil down to, as Righter indicates in the interview, is that we believe we, in a similar situation, would pursue a different strategy informed by different assumptions. Our disagreement, however, cannot take away what we believe to be clear evidence that their action is informed by a theory of social order and change. As analysts charged with the responsibility to evaluate their activities, we see a clear relationship between their success and their adherence to strategies informed by theory. And as human beings who can imagine ourselves in the role of the Congregation's adversaries, their consistency and integrity commands our respect.

Having reviewed in some detail two social-action projects of the Congregation, and now having reflected on the nature and implications of its approach to social action, we will turn in the next chapter to an examination of the internal difficulties experienced by the Congregation and recent attempts to overcome them.