Ann Arbor Tribal Council Getting Together! Join the People's Committees Now!

STATEMENT OF THE ANN ARBOR TRIBAL COUNCIL                             JULY 27, 1971

Sisters and Brothers of Ann Arbor:

     As our community grows it becomes more and more necessary for us to begin to provide for our own needs.  And since so many of us face the same problems in our daily lives it becomes more and more apparent that we have to find collective solutions which will help us take care of people's ourselves and our common needs.  We have already created a lot of new people' s institutions and service organizations which have developed spontaneously out of the conditions in which we live, but our needs are such by now that we have to start thinking about how to pull everything together so we can make the most effective use of our present and potential resources.

     A number of people from the community have been working for some months to create an Ann Arbor Tribal Council which can serve as the framework for our future growth and development as a community of new people.  We have been meeting and discussing our common problems, working on projects like the Community Parks Program, and trying to come up with ways to involve more people in community service work.  We know that there are lots of people who would like to do things with brothers and sisters but don't know how to get together.  At the same time we are concerned with expanding the present scope of the Tribal Council so we can take on larger projects and get more done in terms of serving the needs of the people.

     What we are now trying to do is funnel energy into existing community service groups and create People's Committees to meet the needs not now being met in the areas of food, health, community activities, education, housing, transportation, and defense, with the Tribal Council as the linking organization.  The idea is to have all the interests in the community represented on a Steering Committee, and to have as many people as possible involved in work with one or more of the existing organizations or the new People's Committees, so all of us can share in the decisions and in the work which affects the whole community.  The Steering Committee would then meet once a month to get reports from the various committees and to plan new projects which would require the cooperation of two or more of the People's Committees or organizations.  The People' s committees, on the other hand, would meet whenever necessary and carry on their work independently of the Steering Committee or the other Committees unless they had common projects to work on together.

     But the Tribal Council has to be responsive to the community, whether they work with the committees or organizations or not.  We want to make sure that everybody's views are represented in matters which affect the whole community, and we will schedule mass meetings from time to time at which all the people who want to say anything about anything that's happening can do so.  The People's Committees will be open to everyone who wants to work on them, and we hope they will provide a framework which will enable the community to make the best possible use of its own energies, resources, and time so we can deal with our problems as a people and grow as a people.

     Only by taking advantage of every opportunity open to us and working together to deal with our own needs can we come to have some control over our own lives and the life of our new community as a whole.  All Power to the People!

                   Ann Arbor Tribal Council

     The Tribal Council as an idea has been with the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti community for a long time.  It has actually met on various occasions to deal with problems and solutions within the community, but it has always been faced with the problem of structure.  During the summer of 1970 it met weekly in the Old Ozone House in Marshall's Bookstore.  These meetings were particularly frustrating because there was a lot of energy visible, but the lack of organization eventually spelled the end of those meetings.  Since then, representatives of various community groups -- Ozone House, Free People's Clinic, the Rainbow People's Party, Drug Help, Marks' etc. -- have been meeting trying to deal with getting a Tribal Council together on a working basis.  The statement you just read is a result of those meetings.

     The purpose of this plan is to get ourselves together to serve all the needs of our community.  Right now, for example, the Free People's Clinic is seeing to our health needs, but they can use more energy for expansion in order to better serve the people.  But on the other hand there is no community bail fund, so anyone who gets busted is at the total mercy of the police unless their friends are really together, A People's Defense Committee could get this together and the entire community would be stronger for it.  I hope you're listening because the People's Committees are where you come in.  To truly be a community means that we are all working together to determine our own destiny.  We need to get high with our brothers and sisters in the park on Sunday, and we also need to work with them on one of the established Serve the People organizations; Drug Help, Ozone House, or the Clinic, as well as work to set up institutions that will serve our other needs -- Legal Defense, Music, Education, Housing, Communications, etc. -- through the various People's Committees which will be set up for each specific area.

     We will call a mass meeting to get these committees going real soon; in the meantime, for more information talk to anyone at the Rainbow People's Party House, or give me a call at 769-5065 or 769-6540.

CONSPIRE TO GET HIGH! GET ORGANIZED! ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

                 --Joe Tiboni for the Tribal Council.