Community Organizing Quotes

“Phillip. the Dream Defenders founder, had a similar insight. For him, the experience of the Blackout had been a lesson in the varieties of power. Borrowing a concept from Joseph Nye, the political scientist, he now came to understand social media as a form of 'soft power,' a force that shapes culture through argument and story. But there was also 'hard power,' which Nye, in assessing the capacity of different nation-states, characterized as military and economic might. For movements, hard power was the ability to lobby for legislation, elect sympathetic political leaders, get resources allocated toward your cause. Social media, Phillip now saw more clearly, was good at building soft power. But when it came to hard power, it could do very little. And if for Nye every successful state needed a mix of the two, this was doubly true of social movements, which didn't stare with a store of either.

The only way to built hard power was on the ground. As Rachel put it, 'You just can't shortcut organizing.' It made them want to stop the performance, the race for followers, even the reflex to always make their actions public-they would think carefully about if and when to use tactics like occupations and sit-ins.”
― Gal Beckerman, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

“The seven core members also became more involved in local Minneapolis politics. Drawing attention at a national level had been the driving impetus of the earlier Black Lives Matter protests, which had relied on getting that hashtag to spike. Now it was clear that if their focal point was police funding, it would need to be a local effort, dependent on a partnership with the city council and the mayor's office, where these budgetary decisions were made. They would need to learn the mechanics and make some allies.

This was organizing as it had long been done, and they got good at it. It was also, in a way, what separated Minneapolis from Cairo. Whereas the Middle East lacked a democratic or grassroots political tradition-and had no way to even imagining how to create one-this wasn't the case in America....But there was a long history of African American organizing that predated Silicon Galley. Miski and their friends got to know city council members and their aides, inundated them with research material, visited their offices, and maybe most important, brought people out to hearings when the budget was being discussed, arguing in forum after forum against the belief that all the police needed were a few more bodycams. All this happened without much fanfare and largely off-line.”
― Gal Beckerman, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas

“If the parents of schoolchildren in an elementary school in Austin worry most about the dangers their children face crossing busy streets near the school, they getting a stop sign installed or a traffic pattern changed will be their first goal. Other aims and actions may follow, once they experience their collective power. "Winning creates imagination," says Sister Judy Donovan, leading organizer of Valley Interfaith. "Once they see they can get a stop sign, they start thinking about what might be done in the school." Successful action gives people lessons in their own power.”
― Robert D. Putnam, Better Together