Community Organization Today
“Today, no major metropolitan area is without broadly based community organizing efforts, often affiliated with one of more of the national organizing networks. Whatever their form, these organizations seek to provide an effective voice for the powerless. They are guided by the justice and democratic values, teachings, and traditions of the religious faiths of their members, or the secular, small-d democratic origins of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
The massive organization of large numbers of people who have been excluded from participation in, and receipt of the benefits of , society is not only possible, it has occurred in American history. Visionary leaders have expressed, focused, and inspired organizing that took place at the base. The leaders and the base are yin and yang to each other, not either-or.
If we look at the great steps forward for the marginalized, excluded, discriminated against, and exploited in the U.S. in the last seventy-five years, it is impossible not observe that they led by men and women of vision whose overall objectives went beyond building one particular organization of winning one specific victory.” (253)A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER'S TALE by Mike Miller, Berkeley:Heyday Books, 2009. CSCO believes this is the best book on organizing. Miller has been with CSCO for many years.