Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action, and Justice

by Edward T. Chambers

Roots for Radicals is a distillation of the IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation) philosophy and its unique approach to community organizing. The IAF is the oldest and largest institution for community organizing in the United States. For sixty years, its mission has been to train people to take responsibility for solving the problems in their own communities and to renew the interest of citizens in public life. The IAF, now headed by the author, Edward T. Chambers, has taken founder Saul Alinsky's original vision, refined it, and created a sophisticated national network of citizens' organizations. One of the key activities is its 10-day training sessions for community organizers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Social Justice, Politics, School, Activism, Sociology

152 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kiki Tapiero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tell me this was written by a white man without telling me this was written by a white man. This book was way too theoretical for my liking, the concrete examples he used were over simplified. There were some good tips on leadership and the importance of relationship building, but it was overshadowed by this weird image the author has of what a good organizer looks like - down to the age. There are critiques of capitalism but it's still a bit elitist and uncritical of elitism and the non profit industrial complex. It's also very outdated, making at times inappropriate jokes/comments. Because of it publication year it doesn't get into technological organizing either. Finally, I especially have qualms with its chapter about boundaries between the personal and the public - while organizers should have boundaries, the political is also personal; we live our values in so many ways that he doesn't get into. Overall, I'm a bit disappointed that a book that claims that you can't learn organizing from a book does such a poor job at writing about it in such an overly abstract way.

[Greg Bolt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fired Up

This book calls us to a paradigm shift from western, white dominate, euro-American capitalism to a more just, collective mindset for the common good across ideologies.

[Jose Murillo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some useful ideas but mostly reads like a memoir made by someone who felt they never got the recognition they thought they deserved. Read for book club and we all disliked it.

Advice basically boils down to creating an organization that creates broad coalitions to tackle solvable issues, which CBTM tbh. Riddled with unrelated anecdotes and quotes so many other political scientists that it's begging you to read someone more qualified.

[CTEP]

This book was recommended to me by a friend because she thought it had good guidelines for setting boundaries between work and personal life, among other things. Roots for Radicals is written by a Chicago organizer who advocates strongly for non-partisan citizen organizing, particularly around housing and health care issues.

How does this apply to your work?

As intended, this book did teach me something about boundaries. Chambers makes a particular distinction between public and private life and argues that “what people need in public life is to be respected, which is similar to, but different from, being liked.” He claims that being liked should be in the private realm but, in public life, gaining respect increases your bargaining power. Working in the service profession, I think it can feel like our job is to be nice; Chambers argument, however, suggests that we will benefit more from being assertive, even if it does not always garner sympathy.

Chambers provided another set of guidelines that I found useful. In particular, I found these four universals of organizing informative:

1) Iron rule: Never, never do for others what they can do for themselves.
2) Power without love is tyranny; love without power is sentimental mush
3) Have-nots should not be romanticized; they cheat, lie, steal, double-cross, and play victim just like the haves do
4) Given the opportunity, people tend to do the right thing

Would you recommend this book to others?

Yes. The author is very opinionated but doesn’t tip toe around issues and shares some pretty impressive achievements that his organizing has achieved.

[Alejandro Núñez baladrón · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book should be called instead “Roots for pragmatics”. It denounces the impoverishment of the public life of western culture, calls for the development of a really participatory democracy, and makes a profound enough analysis of the pitfalls of capitalism, however, the “techniques” laid down in this book bear the burden of a narrow idea of how social change is brought about: that is: build a mass support by joining organizations together (mostly churches) and use these masses of people (refered as followers) to scare politicians. The book basically insinuate that this is the only valid way to make real changes in the “world as it is”, and dismisses any other approaches, specially truly radical activism, using arguments that are at best debatable, like it being ambiguous in their claims, not goal oriented, short-lived, or serving only to scare people away from public life (¿?). This book seems mostly and exercise in propaganda to purchase a training at IAF, a course whose content can be summarize in a few pages and is mostly made of platitudes. The concept of the relational meeting though seems interesting and I would have liked the author to focus more on that technique and how it can be used effectively and with which particular aims, rather than just offering a long account of his personal successes and those of IAF during the years.

[Andres Velazquez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written in the language of pragmatism, this book offers a view that while grasping of the critique of capital, is effectively reformist.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roots for Radicals by Ed Brown posits that the best way to re-engage the American public in political issues is to develop broad-based community organizations. Mr. Brown studied under the tutelage of Saul Alinksy, and this book completes Alinsky's trilogy on community organizing. While I am not ready to pursue the broad-based organizing that Brown encourages, and I don't always agree with the tactics described in the book, reading Roots for Radicals did make me more willing to listen to, or participate in, a broad-based community action group. The book highlighted or reinforced the following messages to me:
1. There is a constant tension between "the world as it is" and "the world as it should be" - we need to creatively leverage that tension to create changes in our neighborhood, helping people be at peace with their "being" while still striving for their "becoming."
3. The most powerful organizing tool to cultivate is face-to-face meetings with individuals where each person shares their deepest commitments and experiences.
4. Christian organizations can and should partner with outside organizations, secular and of other faiths, to work towards common goals of social justice. They can do this without risking the loss of their identity in Christ.
5. Action should always be sandwiched in between intense periods of reflection - research beforehand and evaluation afterwards.
6. Helping community members find their political voice can be a powerful step towards building stronger, healthier neighborhoods.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome. This book is a great introduction to principles of organizing based on the experience of the veteran organizer Ed Chambers. Chambers founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in order to reflect upon and institutionalize more than a decade of organizing work he did with Saul Alinsky. This book is great for those who wants to better understand the concept of power, for those who find themselves overwhelmed by cynicism about public policy, and for those who want to understand the difference between aimless activism and pragmatic mobilization on behalf of attainable goals.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book for three years. It's a slim volum (abour 150 pages) but the text is dense, and completely worth it. Ed Chambers gives a step by step on how to organize for social change based on his decades of experience under Saul Alinsky and with the Industrial Areas Foundation. While this give a good back round, it also lays clear that a book will not change the world, but that we must all go out and engage and agitate each other.

[Ryan Greer · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a slim book it's still a relatively tough read. Organizing for social action is not something I'm all that familiar with, and while this book helped with that somewhat, I still had difficulty identifying with many of the points Chambers describes. I would probably rate it higher if I had more experience in the field, as it stands much of the book came off more as a "Leadership How-To" Manual rather than an introduction into social action.

[Jim Talbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Takes a long time to get through because some of the concepts are relatively foreign (at least to me). Not sure how to move forward though. We live in a place without IAF affiliates, but we'll see if we can change that.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give this 6 stars if I had the option. Practical and profound, is informing my approach to my work and the people I work with in important ways.