Category: Community organizing
The Billionaire and Right-Wing’s racist lies about Redlining
New Orleans With the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency leading the way to gut the Community Reinvestment Act along with some other federal regulators, the last thing we should be doing is having to…
Field testing voter purges and “drops”
Columbus As the Voter Purge Project moves forward, we are now analyzing the voter files on more than a dozen states on our way to double that number in coming weeks, many of them include the…
Don’t mourn, hit the doors!
New Orleans What a week! It was pretty much a full-on-Trump-arade! Rarely have we read or heard so many pundits wringing their hands and tearing their hair since they were forced to walk-back the headlines…
Cooperatives need to get broadband to the countryside
New Orleans How can I say this plainly? Electric cooperatives have become increasingly less cooperative, and, frankly, not even all that electric. What was a huge breakthrough in taking electricity the last mile into rural…
Trump is right – the Democrats are a hot mess
Greenville It’s like the line about a broken clock is still right two times a day. President Trump is right that the Democrats look like the gang that can’t shoot straight and might not be competent enough…
What’s the matter with Iowa?
New Orleans I’m not one of the political junkies that stays up late on the night of the Iowa caucus to see the results. Forty years ago, ACORN organized at the Iowa caucuses. I’ve followed them…
Sorting out social and other media
New Orleans On the last day of the ACORN family’s North American Year End / Year Begin meeting several of the workshops and group discussions centered on how to do a better job with social…
Learning from King’s last campaign
Before he died, Martin Luther King, Jr. joined a campaign to unify working people of all races. Today, nothing could be more powerful. Before he died, Martin Luther King, Jr. joined a campaign to unify working…
Tenants and communities organizing in Ireland
Dublin A change in plans pushed Tunisia off of my plane ticket and found me jumping instead from Manchester, England, to Dublin, Ireland, to meet with the officers of ACORN’s newest affiliate, CATU-Ireland or Communities and…
‘We Have so much more to do,’ youth climate activists declare as global elite close out Davos forum
“It is time to get out of our comfort zones.” by Andrea Germanos, staff writer Youth climate activists marched through the streets of Davos, Switzerland Friday as the World Economic Forum wrapped up in a Fridays…
Taking on the buses in England
Sheffield ACORN in the United Kingdom is known largely as the ACORN Tenants’ Union, and no matter where we have organized, the affordable housing crisis has come to the forefront even though there is a long…
‘Our planet is seriously burning and the adults keep letting us down’: Ninth Circuit throws out youth climate case
“Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation,” wrote Judge Josephine Staton in a scathing dissent opinion. “My colleagues throw up their hands,…
The refinery disaster
Toxic refinery leaks imperiled Philadelphia residents. By Corbin Hiar / E&E News and Lisa Riordan Seville / NBC News This story is part of Toxic Zones, a series about communities near refineries co-produced with E&E News…
The cynicism of emergency aid for Puerto Rico
Newark There seem to be no limits to the vengeful pettiness of President Trump and his administration. Nowhere is that clearer than looking at the deliberate obstacles placed in the way of Puerto Rico’s recovery –…
The big, fat, long tail of neighborhood segregation
Manchester The “long tail” is a tech-marketing concept that pundits and futurists promote with some enthusiasm. The heart of it is that some businesses, especially enabled by the internet and the Amazon world view, could make…
Fight for $15 is fight for 14 euros in Europe
Amsterdam In the second meeting of what we are now calling the “The Organizing Forum” or TOF, which I choose to pronounce as TOUGH, more than forty organizers from the Netherlands, France, Brussels, the United Kingdom,…
How one Utah community fought the fracking industry — and won
Kanab, a small Utah town that’s home to the famous Best Friends Animal Society, took an unconventional path to face down a frac sand mine that threatened the region’s aquifer. By Tara Lohan, The Revelator A…
Responding to peoples’ demand to organize
Manchester This is a classic organizing problem, but also in some ways an equally ubiquitous problem in all of life’s endeavors. In short, with fixed resources, including people, money, time, and distance, how does an organization…
“Power and Respect for the Working Class”
New Orleans I’m sorry, but whenever there’s a subhead in the Wall Street Journal in bold, italics heralding “Power and Respect for the Working Class,” it’s a signal that we have to pay special attention to…
New York Times offers more advice on activism
New Orleans The editorial page editor of the New York Times has embarked on an interesting strategy in recent years. I’ve made some small comments about this in the past, but the pattern is so…
Running a national desk
Leeds As a 20-year old organizer directing the staff of the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Organizer from Boston my few forays into Washington, D.C. to the national office on 14th Street NW were wide-eyed adventures to…
The issue at Parchman Prison is bad conditions not cellphones
Amsterdam If Parchman Prison in the fertile Mississippi River delta of Sunflower County is in the news, it means there’s bad news, never good news. Parchman is the only men’s state prison in Mississippi. Parchman is…
“Say Nothing” and “What You Have Heard is True”
New Orleans Maybe we have gotten lucky and dodged widening the war in the Middle East after what seems like an impulse killing of one of Iran’s top generals and a key spymaster. The full…
Teaching history through art: “The Uninvited”
New Orleans In a post-Christmas present, our crew was invited to an opening night play. Top that, bam! The staging was at the Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses in the heart of the French Quarter…
