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Tom Tresser's introduction to Direct Action Organizing with a big "Thank You" to The Midwest Academy. http://www.midwestacademy.com. Reach Tom @ [email protected]. Tom teaches classes on publici policy, creativity, civic engagement and leadership for DePaul, Loyola, The Illinois Institute of Technology's Stuart School of Business and The University of Illinois at Chicago.
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INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZINGORGANIZING
“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle…Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning…Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out what the people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
- Frederick Douglass, 1857 speech on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of West India Emancipation
Thank You, Midwest Academywww.midwestacademy.com
FORMS OF COMMUNITY FORMS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZINGORGANIZING
Dire
ct S
erv
ice
Self H
elp
Ed
uca
tion
Ad
voca
cy
Dire
ct A
ction
Accepts ExistingPower
Relationships
ChallengesExistingPower
Relationships
Source: Midwest Academy
FORMS OF COMMUNITY FORMS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZINGORGANIZING
Dire
ct S
erv
ice
Self H
elp
Ed
uca
tion
Ad
voca
cy
Dire
ct A
ction
Accepts ExistingPower
Relationships
ChallengesExistingPower
Relationships
Source: Midwest Academy
Level of involvement
of people directly affected by
problem
FORMS OF COMMUNITY FORMS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZINGORGANIZING
Dire
ct S
erv
ice
Self H
elp
Ed
uca
tion
Ad
voca
cy
Dire
ct A
ction
Accepts ExistingPower
Relationships
ChallengesExistingPower
Relationships
Source: Midwest Academy
Change of people involved in
problem
FORMS OF COMMUNITY FORMS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZINGORGANIZING
Dire
ct S
erv
ice
Self H
elp
Ed
uca
tion
Ad
voca
cy
Dire
ct A
ction
Accepts ExistingPower
Relationships
ChallengesExistingPower
Relationships
Source: Midwest Academy
Level of Conflict
THREE PRINCIPLES OF THREE PRINCIPLES OF DIRECT ACTION ORGANIZINGDIRECT ACTION ORGANIZING
Source: Midwest Academy
1.Win real, immediate, concrete improvements in people’s live
2.Give people a sense of their own power
3.Alter the relationships of power
ISSUE EVALUATION CRITERIAWhat they
sayWhat you observe
1. Result in real improvement
2. Give people a sense of power
3. Alter the relations of power
4. Be worthwhile
5. Be winnable
6. Be widely felt
7. Be deeply felt
8. Be easy to understand
9. Have a clear target
10. Have a clear time frame
11. Be non-divisive
12. Builds leadership
13. Sets up organization for next campaign
14. Has a pocketbook angle
15. Raises money
STRATEGY CHART
GOALSORGANIZATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
CONSTITUENTS, ALLIESOPPONENTS TARGETS TACTICS
Introduction to Direct Action OrganizingIntroduction to Direct Action Organizing 1010
Wade Rathke has been an activist and organizer for more than 35 years. He founded ACORN, a national network of social justice groups representing low and middle-income people. He also helped unionize hotel workers in New Orleans, where he now lives.
About ACORN
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/23320
Introduction to Direct Action OrganizingIntroduction to Direct Action Organizing 1111
I believe in listening, even if that's not the typical image of an organizer. Movies provide the scenes: The organizer climbs on the soapbox to make the speech that turns the crowd, calls the strike and galvanizes the community into action. I've done all that, but none of that is the heart of organizing — at least to me.
I started doing this work when I was a teenager. What did I know about being a mother on welfare? What did I know about housing, education and jobs? Nothing.
But I found out quickly that if I listened — really listened — to what people were telling me about their lives and their problems, then I did know something. I knew what they knew.
Any morning of the week, for the price of a cup of coffee, Max Allison held court at the Walgreen's on Main Street in Little Rock. Allison, the political wizard behind a dozen Arkansas politicians, would lecture me on what he called "the equation" — how politics really worked. I listened. On long phone calls late at night, Mamie Ruth Williams taught me everything she had learned about dealing with the press from the 1957 school desegregation fights. I listened.
Introduction to Direct Action OrganizingIntroduction to Direct Action Organizing 1212
The more people talked and the more I listened, it became almost inevitable, maybe even irresistible, for us to organize and do something effective. I was just a young kid filled with rage, fear and passion who wanted to make a difference, who wanted to be part of the sweeping changes all around me.
Thirty-five years later, this is still how I feel. When Hurricane Katrina happened, none of us knew up from down. We worried that New Orleans had become a biohazard zone, that houses would have to be demolished, and that it would be irresponsible to help people to return. I was at a loss about what to do, how to organize.
So I listened hard to our members who were dislocated and relocated. Long-time ACORN leader Paul Fernandez was fighting to prevent foreclosure on his flooded home in the Lower Ninth Ward. He taught me that protecting that right, the right to return, was what our organization's role should be. I had been lost, but listening showed me the way.
Listening is good for everyone. When people have to explain something to me, it helps them understand their own needs better. We can decide together what needs to be done, and then take action. Listening strengthens all of our beliefs.
