Years before it was even called the Community Rights movement, there was the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy .
Jane Anne Morris was one of its core members in the early 1990’s, along with Richard Grossman and others. Jane Anne and Richard (and Peter Kellman) did most of the original research and writings which made the Community Rights movement’s ideas and strategies spring to life.
In the late 1990’s Jane Anne was instrumental in convincing Thomas Linzey, Director of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund , to stop battling one corporate harm at a time – almost entirely through the dead-end regulatory and zoning process – and to instead focus on the work of dismantling the corporate so-called constitutional “rights” that allow corporations to harm us in the first place.
She and Richard Grossman were my primary mentors – two of the wisest people I have ever met.
I would never have become such an effective Community Rights workshop leader or public speaker or community organizer had it not been for Jane Anne and Richard.
Sadly, Jane Anne’s health is failing, so today I am celebrating her extraordinary life and work. Jane Anne Morris – corporate anthropologist – my mentor and friend.
I have spent a fair bit of time with her over the past few months, helping her to go through her extensive files, video and audio, to ensure that these materials will be properly preserved long into the future. Community Rights US will become the depository for these significant archives.
You can show her the respect that she so well deserves by devoting some time to reading her dozens of truly extraordinary essays from her website, DemocracyThemePark.org . And by sharing them widely with others.
Here’s one of my favorite essays of hers, from 1998 – as necessary for us to pay attention to today as it was 21 years ago!
(This tribute to Jane Anne Morris was taken from a previous edition of our newsletter. We invite you to take a look at the rest of that newsletter HERE.)