community organizer

The CivicMinded Companion

community organizer - An individual who brings people together and nurtures leaders at the local level to solve a common problem or meet a shared need such as improving schools, expanding employment opportunities, widening access to affordable health care and housing, seeking relief from environmental hazards, securing equal rights for immigrants, etc. >> COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS, ACTIVIST, GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY

>> Connections and quotes about community organizing <<

"Martin Luther King Jr. was a community organizer. Mahatma Gandhi was a community organizer. Cesar Chavez was a community organizer. Great religious leaders, rebels, civil rights activists and just about anyone who has risen up against the status quo and tyranny have been, at heart, community organizers."
-- Ed Sills, Houston Chronicle Sept 10, 2008




"What do community organizers do?" New York Times Sept 13, 2008

"Well, consider Hugh Espey, an organizer with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. On a typical day, he might help low-income residents of Des Moines organize to keep a neighborhood grocery store open or work with family farmers to persuade a state agency to deny a permit for a proposed factory farm, or meet with Mexican families in Marshalltown about ways to advance immigration reform. He brings various constituencies together to find common ground, build relationships and support each other’s causes."
-- Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director, Center for Community Change - working to strengthen community-led, grassroots organizations.





"The safest neighborhoods aren’t the ones with the most prisons and the most police. They’re the ones with the best schools, the cleanest environment, and the most opportunities for young people and working people. That’s what we want for urban America: justice in the system; opportunity in our cities; and peace on our streets."
--Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Oakland, CA




ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is "the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities."




National Council of La Raza - "the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States – working to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans through its network of nearly 300 affiliated community-based organizations (CBOs) in 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia."




Highlander "serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South....The founding principle and guiding philosophy of Highlander is that the answers to the problems facing society lie in the experiences of ordinary people. Those experiences, so often belittled and denigrated in our society, are the keys to grassroots power."




"All over the country, organizers and activists are leading heroic efforts to resolve long-standing social, economic and environmental problems, from rebuilding the Gulf Coast and defending immigrant rights to expanding affordable housing and protecting workers rights. We all benefit from their work to expand civil and human rights, win economic justice and improve the environment."
Read about the Windcall Institute and community organizers in Changing Course: Windcall and the Art of Renewal by Susan Wells (Heyday Books, Berkeley).