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Organize!

organize-iconWhether we are engaging in acts of resistance or creating new, alternative institutions, we need to create sustainable, democratic organizations that empower their members while also protecting against disruption. This section provides articles about effective organizing, creating democratic decision-making structures, building coalitions with other groups, and more. Visit the Resources Page for tools to assist your organizing efforts.

Parks For The People

August 2, 2021 Olivia Riggio, The Indypendent. , , ,
It’s a mid-July evening in Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick, Brooklyn and people are out, enjoying the final few hours of daylight. The sounds of basketballs bouncing and sneakers squeaking echo in the nearby courts. Some people sit placidly on benches, others walk their dogs along the paths. Parents chase children teetering on their bicycles and teenagers skateboard over the cobblestone pavement. A group of 20-somethings sits talking on a blanket in the grass, which, in certain patches, is overgrown and littered with soda cans and plastic bags. Over by the volleyball court, a match has drawn a rowdy crowd along its perimeter. Maria Hernandez Park may not be a tourist destination, but it is a staple for the surrounding neighborhood, which is largely Hispanic and working class.

Defund The Police Groups, Atlanta Officials Are Still Miles Apart

July 31, 2021 Anjali Huynh, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. , ,
City Council meetings were dominated by residents’ and civil rights activists’ calls for police accountability. A year later, these activists say their relationships with City Council remain strained. Those hoping to redistribute police investment said they’re unsatisfied with the government’s response. Some City Council members say they understand the calls for change, but that change takes time.

Biden Needs To Grant Clemency To People On Home Confinement

July 31, 2021 Scott Roberts, The Root. , , ,
President Biden campaigned on the promise to cut the prison population by half and end racialized mass incarceration. However, if he doesn’t grant clemency for those on home confinement, he’ll be responsible for the fastest expansion of the federal prison population in history. Decades of failed legislation has led to the disproportionate and overwhelming incarceration of Black people, oftentimes on first offenses due to strict mandatory minimums and overly harsh sentencing guidelines.

The Movement Standing Up To Biden’s Maximum Pressure Campaign

July 29, 2021 Manolo De Los Santos and Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. , , ,
Most of the 193 member states of the United Nations made public statements to defend Cuba against the “maximum pressure” campaign. In a statement, the 120 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) “strongly condemn[ed] the international campaign organized… with the purpose of destabilizing the Republic of Cuba.” The NAM called for an end to the US blockade.

How Oakland Teachers Took Control Of Our Return To School

July 27, 2021 ShelZiesing and John Green, Labor Notes. , , ,
It was March when, with declining Covid case rates and expanding access to vaccinations, the Oakland Education Association’s Big Bargaining Team reached an agreement to end the school year in Oakland with in-person learning for small cohorts of students. A week later, our members ratified the agreement in a close vote. We had insisted on—and won—robust safety measures that exceeded state and federal guidelines: social distancing, small and stable cohorts of students, ventilation, health screening, universal face coverings, handwashing, personal protective equipment, and enough time for all school staff to be vaccinated before students returned. Our legal right to inspect workplaces for safety is ironclad in California.

Global Alliance For A Green New Deal

July 23, 2021 Pascale Hunt, 350.org. ,
As the impacts of climate change and Covid-19 compound, politicians from around the world on Monday July 19th launched the new Global Alliance for a Green New Deal (GGND). Founded by Rep. Ilhan Omar of the United States, Dep. Joenia Wapichana of Brazil, and Manon Aubry of France among others, the Alliance aims to advance global momentum for collaborative and transformational social, economic and environmental policy.

How Contingent Faculty Organizing Can Succeed In Higher Education

July 21, 2021 Steve Early, New Politics. ,
Despite recent organizing gains among some contingent faculty members, the adjunctification of higher education has left hundreds of thousands of college and university teachers with low pay, spotty benefit coverage, and little job security. As former adjuncts Joe Berry and Helena Worthen report in their new book. An estimated 70 to 80 percent of all contingent faculty in the U.S. still lack union representation.

Preserving A People’s History Through Quilts

July 21, 2021 Loretta Graceffo, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
More than 600,000 people in the United States have died of coronavirus since the pandemic began, a number that is incomprehensible. Few people understand the magnitude of this loss more than 14-year-old Madeleine Fugate. Since April 2020, the eighth grader from California has spent her weekends constructing the Covid Memorial Quilt, a tribute to the casualties of the virus.

Western Governments Chided At Arms Conference For ‘Enabling’ Arab Regimes

July 19, 2021 Nur Ayoubi, Middle East Eye. , ,
Western nations and arms companies are complicit in aiding regimes in the Middle East to spy on their citizens, speakers at an international conference shedding light on the human rights implications of the arms trade, said on Saturday. Attendees at Selling Death: why the international arms trade must be controlled, which was backed by former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, decried what they said  was a "corrupt" arms trade that reaped huge profits for the "global military-industrial complex." The Egyptian human rights activist, Sherif Mansour spoke of “the quiet war” which he says takes place every day across the Middle East whereby “governments use violence against their own population to build the fear barrier to stop them from ever dreaming to be free like they did 10 years ago in the Arab Spring.”

Oregon Bill Bans Police From Lying To Youth During Interrogations

July 17, 2021 Innocence Project. , , ,
Portland, OR –  On Wednesday, Governor Kate Brown signed legislation into law prohibiting law enforcement officers from using deception while interrogating people under the age of 18. The law bans commonly used deceptive interrogation tactics, including false promises of leniency and false claims about the existence of incriminating evidence. Both of these tactics have long been identified as significantly increasing the risk of false confessions, which have played a role in about 30% of all wrongful convictions overturned by DNA. False confessions are also the most frequent contributing factor in wrongful conviction cases involving homicides. And recent studies suggest that children under 18 are between two and three times more likely to falsely confess than adults.

At A Convention Like No Other, Teamster Challengers Turn A Corner

July 15, 2021 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
This was a Teamsters convention like no other—and not just because it was held online, avoiding the usual Las Vegas spectacle where a few brave reformers run a gauntlet of booing red-vested delegates. Even in person, the 2021 convention wouldn’t have gone down that way. The opposition slate didn’t just squeak past the 5 percent of delegates required to get on the ballot, as it often has before. This time it pulled half the votes—reflecting a power shift in the union. All 1.3 million Teamsters have the right to vote on their top officers. Now that the slates are nominated, members will be mailed a ballot on October 4; votes will be counted November 15. At the convention, members of the durable reform movement Teamsters for a Democratic Union and their allies achieved constitutional amendments they’ve been seeking for decades.

How Parent Organizing Has Shifted Classrooms Toward Racial Justice

July 15, 2021 Schott Foundation. , , ,
Over the past year, much of the nation’s education discussion has been where learning was taking place: on Zoom? In the classroom? Both? While COVID-19 exacerbated existing inequities around access, focus is now being drawn to what students are learning. Debate over curriculum isn’t new, but has been contested in varying degrees for decades. Before the right-wing-stoked controversy over so-called “Critical Race Theory” there was anger over Common Core standards, and before that No Child Left Behind. What is new is the incredible strides parent and community organizing has made in shifting the curriculum of the nation’s largest school district. Founded in 2006, the New York City Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) is a citywide collaborative of community-based organizations organizing the power of parents and community to create a more equitable education system.

At Schools Named For Robert E. Lee, Students Led The Way Toward Change

July 15, 2021 Coshandra Dillard, Learning For Justice. , , ,
Gertrude “Trude” Lamb, 16, describes herself as a shy person. She never wanted to be the center of attention. But, in the summer of 2020, when Trude became the face of a movement to rename Robert E. Lee High School in Tyler, Texas, she was suddenly in a spotlight she’d never imagined. A friend nudged her to join a local campaign and send a letter to the school board, but she wasn’t sure why. Trude, who emigrated from Ghana in 2014, wasn’t familiar with Lee or anything related to the Confederacy. So, she began to research. “At school, they usually just teach the good part about somebody,” she says. “They don’t teach the bad part.” A star athlete on her school’s varsity cross-country team, she’d penned a letter to school board members stating she’d no longer wear a jersey that bore the name of an enslaver.

Black Power And Anti-Carceral State Infrastructure

July 13, 2021 Joshua L. Crutchfield, Black Perspectives. , , ,
It should not be surprising that last year, mutual aid groups in the United States had to step in where the government has historically failed. Groups like Black Lives Matter Nashville distributed dozens of micro-grants—even as, at the height of the pandemic, federal and state governments drug their feet to help everyday people. As we reel from the pandemic, instead of providing more resources, the Biden administration has pledged to devote more federal spending to police.

Abolition Made Practical

July 12, 2021 Alysia Harris, Scalawag Magazine. ,
How does a society go from 7,147 jails, prisons, and detention facilities nationwide down to zero? Well, it's not by scrolling and wishing. The fight for prison abolition is being won by local people and organizations who are weaving together the frayed fibers of community care. We're taking abolitionist cues from platforms that emphasize affordable housing, better access to food, and empowerment programs that equip people with practical skills instead of punitive measures that harm the most vulnerable among us. Here are three Southern organizations making their communities safer and more sustainable—without prisons.
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