Profile of Doug Still for The Energy Activist
Sara Patton
1999
Doug Still's most recent election to the Emerald People's Utility District Board is a tribute to his lifelong devotion to his community. He withdrew his candidacy and endorsed a long-time ally who he knew would carry on his commitment both to consumers and to the environment. None-the-less, Doug was re-elected by a landslide and continues serving with distinction on the Board of the utility he helped found.
Doug began his career as a community organizer with the California Migrant Ministries in 1951-1953. He experienced the plight of migrant farm workers and the difficulties of getting the establishment to do anything to improve working conditions, housing, or education for this community. Doug decided he needed a credential to make him more effective and received his divinity degree after studying at Union Seminary and the New York School of Social Work for practical theology. His thesis on organizing farm workers turned into a grant for three years of training with Saul Alinsky of the Industrial Areas Foundation in community organizing.
From 1956-1961, Doug directed the Migrant Ministry in California training staff for leadership in rural slum areas around the state. He had worked with Cesar Chavez when Chavez was at the Industrial Areas Foundation and continued to work with him after Chavez headed up the National Farmworkers Organizing Committee. Doug brought church resources to the effort, which eventually resulted in the United Farmworkers Union.
In 1961 Doug went to Chicago to be Director of Social Welfare for the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. Once again he focused on community organizing, working on civil rights, housing and schooling in collaboration with Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation and other organizations. During this period, he responded to a telegram from Martin Luther King asking Chicago clergy to join a prayer meeting in Albany, Georgia in support of the civil rights struggle there. Doug ended up in jail for three days. Doug marched for civil rights in the south and in Chicago throughout this period. The most famous demonstration he participated in was the march on Selma, Alabama for voting rights, which was stopped at the Pettus Bridge.
The riots in Chicago sparked by Martin Luther King's assassination caused the Chicago churches to lose heart, and in 1967 Doug left the Federation and went to the National Council of Churches and helped found the United Ministries in Public Education. This group mobilized parents and students to achieve equal opportunity in education regardless of race or poverty. It worked to end the domination of schooling by the community elite. In 1970 Doug went to Washington, DC to head the United Ministries in Public Education.
It was not until 1974 that Doug made his way to Oregon. He came to work with the Oregon Center for Environmental Action, which later became the Oregon Ecumenical Center for Environmental Action, a member of the Coalition. He came to join an intentional community called Cerro Gordo (or Fat Hill) near Cottage Grove. He hoped Cerro Gordo would be an opportunity to practice community organization as the ultimate education. Part of his inspiration comes from the thinking of Paulo Freire, Director of Education under the Allende government in Chile, who believed that community organization is the ultimate education. Organizing the poor and disenfranchised to share power in the community is an education for the poor, but it is also an education for the rest of the community as the political influence of the disenfranchised is brought to bear upon it. Freire called this process "conscientization." Cerro Gordo was planned as a model of environmental consciousness and co-operation.
The Center for Environmental Action looked at the plans for 30 nuclear and coal plants in the Northwest and decided to work on energy issues. Doug's commitment to community organizing made it impossible for him to be simply anti-nuclear. He helped found the Solar Energy Association of Oregon, which promotes much better alternatives to nuclear and fossil fuel power. Doug was active in the efforts, which made sure the "Regional Power Bill" became the "Northwest Conservation Act." At the same time he worked to organize the community to establish the Emerald People's Utility District out of Pacific Power & Light's service territory south of Eugene.
In 1978 he remodeled a house to be the Lane Energy Center and built the Cottage Grove Restaurant as a passive solar demonstration. The Cottage Grove Restaurant is operating today and continues superbly to demonstrate the virtues and advantages of passive solar design. It has stood the test of time and it serves great food, too. Doug lives in a small house behind the restaurant and eats there nearly once a day.
Doug Still was one of the founders of the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition. He says that NCAC is one of the most significant developments he has participated in because the Coalition engages the community in energy issues and it engages the political order effectively. "NCAC is one of the things I feel best about over all my years working for a better community," said this remarkable man and Chair Emeritus of NCAC.