Pearl River Fifty-five is old, there’s no two ways about it. ACORN celebrated its 55th birthday on June 18th, having been founded in 1970 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. Now, with almost 300,000 members among lower income communities and lower waged workplaces in more than 15 countries, like people that age, the organization has had its aches and pains, its ups and downs, but is proud to say, it’s still in good health, doing well, and looking forward to the future.
How would ACORN celebrate a birthday like that? The answer seems obvious: with a global action! ACORN members came out in cities from Nairobi to Paris, London to Toronto, Dallas to Little Rock, and many in between. Were there birthday candles? Of course not, there were flags and picket signs. The pinata was the Adani Group and its founder Gautam Adani, one of the richest men in the world. The demand was for companies to stop investing and start divesting from the Adani Group and its various enterprises to stop Adani from dislocating and evicting hundreds of thousands of people in the Dharavi community in the middle of Mumbai, India. Adani is managing a multi-year redevelopment project there, and ACORN has supported residents and workers in Dharavi for more than a decade. These solidarity actions weren’t huge, but they were fun, effective, and carried the message.
Adani and the Adani Group have been raising flags in recent years for more than just their plans for land grabbing and evictions in Dharavi. The Hindenburg Group several years ago hammered them for financial shenanigans in their accounting between related companies that inflated their value. More recently, the US Department of Justice indicted Adani along with members of his family and companies, under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, alleging $250 million in bribes to state officials in India connected to its billion dollar solar contract from his friend Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while the Security and Exchange Commission also charged him with deceiving US investors because of the bribes, which were called incentive payments on its own books. Adani’s businesses seem to be based not just on coal, shipping, ports, and construction, but impunity and disregard for standard business practices, communities, and investors.
In several cities, like Toronto and Edinburgh, ACORN members showed up at buildings where the giant private equity company, BlackRock, had offices to demand that they reevaluate their extensive investments in Adani’s various enterprises. In London, ACORN members demanded that the Science Museum reevaluate Adani as a major donor. In Paris, ACORN affiliates demanded accountability from Total Oil for its huge investment in these controversial and scandal ridden solar projects. In New Orleans, members hit the Port Commission’s office where Adani had had a shipping contract in the past, but hopefully not in the future. Throughout Canada and the United States, members delivered letters to parliamentarians and elected officials demanding that they maintain their vigilance over Adani operations and resist the pressure to withdraw indictments and close investigations, but let the matters come to trial so justice can be done.
Just like any birthday, where emails and phone calls come in during the day and on social media, ACORN starting getting reports and postings on WhatsApp and Facebook throughout the day across the time zones, wishing the organization a great 55th and many more, and sharing pictures and videos of their actions. Signs were raised, flags were waving, there were confrontations and smiles.
What a great birthday! It’s not too late to join in – sign the petition on the website, send a letter, and join us now. The best present ACORN hopes is still coming, and that’s for the pressure to work, and Adani to do better in Dharavi for the million people that live and work there.