[COMM-ORG] New Book: Community Organizing: A Brief Introduction, by Mike Miller

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

From: Aaron Schutz <schutz at uwm.edu>


Announcing a new book:

Mike Miller, Community Organizing: A Brief Introduction (Euclid Avenue 
Press, 2012), 76pp.
Paperback: $6.50 (http://amzn.to/IzN2C7) ; Kindle, $2.99 
(http://amzn.to/I3sf7g)

I believe this is the best short introduction to “faith-based” or 
“institution-based” community organizing currently available. It would 
be a great book to give to people who are completely new to organizing, 
or for courses that only have time for a single week or module on 
organizing.

In addition to the overview chapter on organizing, the book also 
includes brief chapters on “Teaching Politics as if It Matters,” and 
“Conflict Tactics.” Note that all royalties go directly to Miller.

Book Description:

Grounded in a composite case study of an actual organizing effort, the 
book shows how local communities can be organized for power. It 
illustrates key organizing concepts and strategies through stories of 
real encounters with leaders, communities, and powerful opposition figures.

Saul Alinsky developed the foundations of the tradition of organizing 
described here, an approach that remains dominant in the U.S. today. 
Alinsky rooted power deeply in the lives, relationships and institutions 
of marginalized and oppressed people. In his early efforts his 
organizations brought together a wide range of institutions: religious 
congregations and labor unions, as well as mutual aid, self-help, 
athletic, sororal and fraternal, neighborhood and other voluntary 
associations. By the late 1970s, as non-congregational neighborhood 
associations fell into decline, organizers in the Alinsky tradition 
started looking more carefully at how to sustain the vibrancy of the 
religious institutions that remained. Organizers sought to help 
congregation members become co-creators, rather than consumers, of the 
life of their churches, and worked to help members connect their faith 
more directly to action in the world. In this way, they helped make both 
faith and the action more meaningful.

This little book tells the story of one congregation that was a member 
of a "broadly-based community organization," and how a community 
organizer assisted its development as a true community.


Aaron Schutz
Professor & Chair
Dept. of Ed. Policy & Comm. Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Enderis Hall rm. 553
P.O. Box 413; Milwaukee, WI 53201
Office: (414) 229-4150; Fax: (414) 229-3700
Website: www.educationaction.org