Occupation: Organizer: A Critical History of Community Organizing in America

by Clément Petitjean

A trenchant history of community organizing and a must-read for the next generation of organizers seeking to learn from the successes, failures, and contradictions of the past.

The community organizing tradition is long overdue for reexamination. In  Organizer , scholar and activist Clément Petitjean traces that history from its roots in the Progressive movement to its expansion and diverging paths during the social movements of the 1960s and ’70s, when Saul Alinsky became the most popular “professional radical” in the US while groups like Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Panthers recast organizers as horizontal, antihierarchical spadeworkers—those who do the work as part of the community, rather than standing apart from it.

But in the years since, the professionalization of organizing work has only increased, despite the critiques. Only by grappling with its limitations and pitfalls, Petitjean insists, can we learn to build durable, effective organizations for change.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Activism, Politics

340 pages, Paperback

Published April 18, 2023

Reviews

[Nadav David · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5: This book really took me for a ride. When I first started it, I felt captivated by the history and critique that the author offered and by the end of the book I felt underwhelmed. As someone who’s spent the last 5+ years as a paid organizer of regional/national movement organizations (and longer as a volunteer member) this book felt important to read and I would suggest for others with similar work. The author offers an important critique of the professionalization of community organizing, taking a close look at the role of Saul Alinsky and his lineage of organizing in creating many of these dynamics, while offering a useful comparison to “spadework”, popularized by Ella Baker and SNCC during the Civil Rights/Black Freedom movements. After discussing the book with a former colleague, we were both left feeling unclear with what the book was offering beyond the historical context and the overarching critique (which is maybe a result of it being an academic text), since there was very little about what this means for organizing and movements now.

[Canyon Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty solid. i started reading this with a coworker as part of a small book club but we never got around to discussing so i finally just wrapped it up.

I'm only left with few questions, and i feel like Petitjean did a good job in the conclusion of answering the questions i did have along the way.

i would like to know where the term leader come from. It has always seemed disingenuous to refer to a community member as a leader when you - as the organizer - are actually leading them. and i think this organizer-leader dialectic got solid consideration in the book, but was never really resolved despite efforts in the conclusion to address that power dynamic.

i do wish there was a larger conversation on c3/c4 cages and the purposeful pacification of nonprofits. there's a brief note of the inherently political work and space that "CBOs" take on but little discussion about how to actually address the issue, which does seem like part of the problem of depoliticization & professionalization. like what role did the introduction of these tax statuses have on the apolitical Alinskyism v. the hyper political work that was vibrant in the 60s and 70s, since this was the era of the professionalization that is so critical to the book.