Cliff Pearson

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Clifford Blake "Cliff" Pearson (born July 16, 1966) is an American activist from Dallas, Texas who began his career in nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience, social protest, and organizing in 1977 – giving him nearly 30 years experience by 2007.^[1] He has worked with, or co-founded several activist organizations, including national and international groups. Pearson has nearly 20 years experience ^[2] in the communications industry, having worked in broadcasting,^[3] alternative news,^[4] and public relations.^[5] He has worked mostly as a human rights journalist and news media activist.^[6]^[7]

According to an online biography^[8] of Cliff Pearson, his commitment to activism and social justice began when he was only 11-years-old, when he became a summer-time office volunteer for Greenpeace in Seattle, Washington. The biography says he helped with their campaigns to stop the hunting of whales and seals. He remains a member of Greenpeace as of 2007, and was involved in the 2003 Greenpeace protest of the Exxon Mobil Corporation at their world headquarters in Irving, Texas, which resulted in a lawsuit against Greenpeace.^[9]

The biography further reports: when Pearson was 14-years-old in 1880, he joined the American Civil Liberties Union and petitioned his apartment complex management in Longview, Texas to improve living conditions for the residents; when he moved to Tyler, Texas in 1985, according to the biography, he worked for KTBB Radio; and in 1988, he became an office worker in Tyler for the Democratic Party and the Michael Dukakis presidential campaign.

Pearson remained employed by KTBB Radio until 1990, according to the biography, when he left to attend college full-time. He reportedly attended Tyler Junior College as a recipient of the Brady P. Gentry Performance Scholarship. After completing his studies there, he transferred to the University of Texas at Tyler where he majored in communications and minored in sociology.

The online biography of Pearson goes on to report that while Pearson attended college at the University of Texas at Tyler, he was an office volunteer for the Ann Richards Texas gubernatorial race in 1990, and the Bill Clinton presidential campaign in 1992. Well known in Democratic circles in Tyler, Pearson was asked by party officials to help form the first chapter of the Smith County, Texas Young Democrats in 1991.^[10]

Pearson's activism and dedication to social justice also led him to get together with several other people to help create the "Tyler Together Race Relations Task Force" – an anti-racism group dedicated to building bridges and encouraging dialogue between all people.^[11] He also continued his anti-war activism by protesting the 1991 Gulf War, according to the biographical Web site.

Continuing his commitment to environmentalism, Pearson joined Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sin (M.O.S.E.S.), an environmental group led by Phyllis Glazer, in 1992^[12] to fight a hazardous waste disposal company whose injection well was devastating the town of Winona, Texas.^[13]

Becoming increasingly concerned about the stigmatizing of people living with AIDS, in 1993 Pearson began volunteering with an intentional community in Tyler, Texas modeled after the Catholic Worker Movement called the Order of Christian Workers. Pearson helped feed and care for people living with AIDS at the community's hospice.

In 1994, after the brutal kidnapping and murder of gay man Nicholus West from a Tyler park,^[14] Pearson wrote an article denouncing homophobia and hate crimes.^[15]

Pearson moved back to his hometown of Dallas in 1995, where he continued his career in journalism. He was an assignment editor with Dallas' CBS affiliate, KTVT Channel 11 News.

In 1996, Pearson became a board member^[16] of the Dallas Peace Center, a Dallas anti-war organization, and later left the television station to become a full-time staff member of the nonprofit organization. As communications director for the activist group, he was able to do extensive human rights journalism.^[17] For example, Pearson traveled to Chiapas^[18] (Mexico), Turkey, the Republic of Macedonia, and Kosovo (Yugoslavia)^[19] to report on the human rights situations in those regions.

Also in 1996, Pearson was elected to represent the South Central Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers) before the international Friends Peace Teams Project. As a member of the international governing body, Pearson helped to create the African Great Lakes Initiative to build a trauma center to aid those affected by the wars in Rwanda and Uganda.

While on the board of the Dallas Peace Center, Pearson was in demand as a public speaker. He spoke before the Presbyterian Church USA at their annual national convention in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1998, about the human rights situation in the Balkans,^[20] to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas about humanitarian intervention and to El Centro College about the Zapatista Army of National Liberation rebellion in Mexico.

He spoke to the Dallas Neighborhood Crime Watch Association about hate crimes, to the University of Texas at Dallas' Student-Labor Coalition on the dangers of globalization, and participated in a panel discussion before the Progressive Film Society of the University of North Texas about bias in the mainstream media.^[21]

While at the Dallas Peace Center, Pearson remained an activist. When a large grocery store chain tried to put a huge store in Old East Dallas, which would have displaced hundreds of refugee families, he investigated and reported as a journalist on a property deal between the grocery chain and a low-income housing group, and the efforts of a coalition of 27 community groups in their ultimately successful campaign to oppose the grocery giant's plans.^[22]

In 1999, Pearson left the Dallas Peace Center to work as an account manager for the public relations firm Holland-McAllister, Inc.. ^[23]

In 2000, Pearson began work as a freelance journalist and wrote for such publications as: The Dallas Morning News, ^[24]^[25] Z Magazine,^[26] and Synthesis/Regeneration magazine.^[27]^[28]

Pearson also worked with the direct action group, Uproar, which he helped create, in 2000.^[29]

Also in 2000, Pearson participated in the mass-action R2K Protest of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania He was one of the handful of activists who escaped the police raid on the "puppet space" warehouse, where people had gathered to work on street theatre projects to nonviolently protest the agenda of the Republican Party (United States).^[30]^[31]

In 2000, Pearson also participated in the large, mass-action A16 Protest in Washington, D.C. of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's lending policies.^[32]

In 2001 Pearson started his own consulting business, Pearson Communications, specializing in media relations for non-profit organizations and advocacy groups.^[33]

(In the years prior to forming his own agency, Pearson provided free expertise and assistance as North Texas publicity agent for visits by actor and activist Martin Sheen,^[34] and consumer advocate and former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.)^[35]

He also traveled to Canada in 2001 to participate in the Quebec City Summit of the Americas protest of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39]

Pearson is also a founding member^[40] of the North Texas Independent Media Center, an affiliate of the global Independent Media Center network, formed in Denton, Texas in 2002. From 2002 until 2004, he also operated the now defunct www.CLIFFPEARSON.com Web site to offer alternative news, commentary, and policy analysis.

In 2002, Pearson was a founding member of the Dallas affiliate of the anti-police brutality group Copwatch. The group patrolled the streets as trained legal observers videotaping police misconduct, and advocating greater public oversight of the police.^[41]

Also in 2002, Pearson became a popular guest host and commentator on the Radio Left syndicated radio station and Web site.

Pearson also served as campaign manager for Jason Lantz, a city council candidate in Plano, Texas in 2002.^[42] Although the campaign lost, Lantz gained nearly 40 percent of the vote against the incumbent, a 26-year veteran politician and the treasurer of the local county's Republican Party. Lantz was 24 and politically inexperienced. He was also endorsed by Plano, Texas' police and firefighters' associations, and the Texas Public Workers Union.^[43]

In 2003, Pearson participated in a protest of the Exxon Mobil Corporation at the company's world headquarters in Irving, Texas.^[44] The protest resulted in the arrests of several activists, and a lawsuit against Greenpeace by Exxon Mobil. (The suit was eventually settled.)^[45]

As of 2007, Pearson once again resides in Tyler, Texas where he has returned to the University of Texas at Tyler to seek an advanced degree in communications.^[46]