Version 2.1 (March 25, 2009)

Theory and Practice of Community Organizing
PS 389 (Section 4) meets with RCSSCI 360 (Section 3)

Gregory B. Markus
Professor of Political Science and Research Professor, Center for Political Studies
6735 Haven Hall
(734) 763-2222, gmarkus@umich.edu

Class meets: Wednesdays. 10:10 am to noon, G228 Angell Hall
Office hours: Wednesdays, 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm, or by appointment

COURSE OVERVIEW

After he graduated from college and before he entered Harvard Law School, Barack Obama worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago's south side. According to Obama (1990):

Organizing begins with the premise that (1) the problems facing inner-city communities do not result from a lack of effective solutions, but from a lack of power to implement these solutions; (2) that the only way for communities to build viable long-term power is by organizing people and money around a common vision; and (3) that a viable organization can only be achieved if a broadly based indigenous leadership -- and not one or two charismatic leaders -- can knit together the diverse interests of their local institutions.

In this course we will study, question, put into action, and reflect upon what Obama was talking about. Through readings, discussion, writing, and practical action, you will learn how to develop effective, resilient organizations that build the leadership capacities of individuals and the democratic power of communities to control their own futures. In addition, you will gain insight into how this practical work can inform our understandings of democratic theory and organizational processes -- and vice versa.

How the Course Proceeds

Class meetings. Because we meet as a class only once a week and because this is, after all, a course in organizing, missing a session is to be avoided at all costs. I may ask students who miss more than one session to drop the course (or else fail it). Really.

Experiential learning. You will engage in relevant activities and events out of class (including in metropolitan Detroit) as an integral part of this course, and you should expect to devote approximately 25 hours (plus travel time) to such experiential learning over the semester. Your organizing team members and the community leaders with whom you will be working deserve no less than your best effort.

Journaling. Keep a journal of your experiences and reflections. Your journal will be useful for preparing your four papers (see below) and for your own reference, in this class and in the future.

Grading. Grading is on a standard, no-curve 100-point system. There is no competition among you for a pre-set number of "A" grades. To the contrary, I encourage cooperation, studying together, and learning from one another. Of course, all work that you turn in must be your own.

Papers. You will write four 2000-word papers during the semester, worth 15 points each (60 points total). These papers should not merely summarize the readings or provide a chronology of your organizing activities. Rather, they should integrate and reflect upon the key ideas and insights you are acquiring from the readings of the relevant weeks, our class discussions, and your course-related experiences. Please submit your papers to me as email attachments, either as plain text or as .doc or .rtf documents (not .docx) with filenames of the form “Smith1.doc”, so I can tell whose paper and which assignment it is. Paper deadlines are as noted below. Except in the case of a significant emergency, these papers must be submitted on time.

Paper assignment schedule:

Paper 1 covers Jan 7 - Jan 21, due by 9 pm Sunday, Jan 25
Paper 2 covers Jan 22 - Feb 18, due by 9 pm Sunday, Feb 22
Paper 3 covers Feb 19 - Mar 18, due by 9 pm Sunday, Mar 22
Paper 4 covers Mar 19 - Apr 19, due by 9 pm Tuesday, Apr 21

Class Participation. An additional 20 points reflect the quality and consistency of your participation in our class discussions, including in-class presentations at the end of the semester.

Experiential Learning. The last 20 points are based on the seriousness and depth of your engagement in our experiential learning activities. Active, consistent engagement in community organizing is an essential element of this course.

COURSE READINGS

I suggest that you purchase the following books for this course:

Jacobsen, Dennis A. 2001. Doing Justice. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Obama, Barack. 2004 [1995]. Dreams From My Father. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Warren, Mark R. 2001. Dry Bones Rattling. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

All other required readings (and most supplementary ones) are available through links in our online syllabus, which is available from my homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~gmarkus/. Access to some readings (e.g., New York Times) may require (no-cost) web registration.

In the Course Outline below, readings marked with an asterisk are to be read by everyone. The supplementary readings are there for you to sample as you wish, or as I assign to individual students from time to time for them to present in class.

Many journal articles are available online through ProQuest, JSTOR, or other services. A simple way to locate journals online is to search for the journal title in MIRLYN. It will serve you well to become experienced in using these services.

COURSE OUTLINE

Jan 7. Introduction to the Course and Overview of Organizing

* Obama, Barack. 1990. "Why organize? Problems and promise in the inner city." In Peg Knoepfle (ed.), After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. Springfield, IL: Illinois Issues, University of Illinois at Springfield, Ch. 4.

* Ganz, Marshal.  2004. "Organizing." In George R. Goethals, Georgia J. Sorenson, and James MacGregor Burns, eds. Encyclopedia of Leadership. Vol. 3. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

* Warren, Mark R. and Richard L. Wood. 2001. Faith-Based Community Organizing: The State of the Field. Jericho, NY: Interfaith Funders. Read the Executive Summary.

Alinsky, Saul D. 1968. Letter in reply to Hillary Rodham (Oct. 25).

Parachini, Larry, and Sally Covington. 2001. "Community organizing: The basics." The Community Organizing Toolbox. Washington, DC: National Funders Group.

Websites of: DART, Gamaliel, IAF, PICO, and ACORN ... also RCNO, NTIC, and Midwest Academy!

COMM-ORG -- "The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing and Development"

Jan 14. Values, Interests, and Power

* King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1967. "Where do we go from here?" (Excerpts)

* Ganz, Marshall. 2007. "Hillel's questions: A call to leadership," Sh'ma (Feb.).

* Jacobsen. Doing Justice. Chapters 1 - 3, 5, 6.

* Markus, Gregory B. 2002. "Civic participation in American cities." Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, pp. 1-29 and section 10 (pp. 38-42).

* Shown in class: "Awakenings (1954-1956)" (excerpts), from "Eyes on the Prize" (1987), produced and directed by Judith Vecchione.

Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969. "A ladder of citizen participation," Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35 (July): 216-224.

Elliott, Aprele. 1996. "Ella Baker: Free agent in the civil rights movement," Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 26 (May): 593-603.

Hayward, Clarissa Rile. 1998. "De-facing power," Polity, 31 (1): 1-22.

Morris, Aldon. 1981. "Black southern sit-in movement: An analysis of internal organization," American Sociological Review, 46 (6): 744-767.

Gaventa, John. 1980. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Kozol, Jonathan. 1995. Amazing Grace. New York: HarperPerennial.

Jan 19 (Monday). Attend at least one MLK Day Event, which we will discuss in class on Jan. 21. Recommended events:

Julian Bond, Keynote Speech. 10:00 am, Hill Auditorium

Taylor Branch, "Myth and Miracles from the King Years." 1:30 pm, Blau Auditorium, Ross School of Business

Dalton Conley, "A Dollar and a Dream: Wealth, Opportunity, and Security in the Post-Civil Rights Era." 4:00 pm, 250 Hutchins Hall, Law School

* Fausset, Richard. 2008. "Community organizers have deep roots in democracy," Los Angeles Times (Sept. 18).

* McNeil, Larry B. 1995. "The soft arts of organizing," Social Policy, 26 (2): 16-22.

* Jacobsen. Doing Justice. Chapters 7, 8.

* Shel Trapp. 1986. Basics of Organizing. Chicago: NTIC. Read the following three chapters: "Identifying Leaders," "Leadership Development," and "Leadership/Staff Roles"

Chavez, Cesar. 1966. "The organizer's tale," Ramparts (July 5): 43-50.

Green, Louise. (n.d.) "Sustainable action: Planting the seeds of relational organizing." Boston: Unitarian Universalist Association.

Harris, Fredrick C. 1994. "Something within: Religion as a mobilizer of African-American activism," Journal of Politics, 56 (1): 42-68.

Markus, Gregory B. 2002. "Civic participation in American cities." Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research. Read Section 9 (pp. 32-38).

McAdam, Doug. 1986. "Recruitment to high-risk activism: The case of Freedom Summer," American Journal of Sociology, 2 (1): 64-90.

Stall, Susan, and Randy Stoecker. 1998. "Community organizing or organizing community?: Gender and the crafts of empowerment," Gender and Society, 12 (Dec): 729-756.

Boyte, Harry. 1990. CommonWealth: A Return to Citizen Politics. New York: Free Press. Chapter 6 (excerpts).

Chambers, Ed. 2003. Roots for Radicals. New York: Continuum. Ch. 2, 4.

* Bhargava, Deepak. 2008. "Organizing principles," New York Times ((Sept. 14).

* Freire, Paulo. 1994. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Chapter 2.

* Warren. Dry Bones Rattling. Chapters 1, 8.

DeFilippis, James 2001. "The myth of social capital in community development," Housing Policy Debate, 12 (4): 781-806.

Eliasoph, Nina. 1997. "'Close to home': The work of avoiding politics," Theory and Society, 26 (5): 605-647.

Freire, Paulo. 1994. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Chapter 1.

Speer, Paul W., Joseph Hughey, Leah K. Gensheimer, and Warren Adams-Leavitt. 1995. "Organizing for power: A comparative case study," Journal of Community Psychology, 23: 57-73.

Whitman, Gordon. 2006. "Beyond advocacy: The history and vision of the PICO network." Social Policy (Winter): 50-59.

Wood, Richard L. 1997. "Social capital and political culture: God meets politics in the inner city," American Behavioral Scientist, 40 (March): 595-605.

Orr, Marion, ed. 2007. Transforming the City: Community Organizing and the Challenge of Community Change. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

* Jensen, Richard J., and John C. Hammerback. 2000. "Working in 'quiet places': The community organizing rhetoric of Robert Parris Moses," Howard Journal of Communications, 11 (1): 1-18.

* Jacobsen. Doing Justice. Chapter 4.

* Warren. Dry Bones Rattling. Chapters 2, 7.

Moses, Robert P., and Charles Cobb Jr. 2001. "Organizing algebra: The need to voice a demand," Social Policy, 31 (4): 4-12.

Reitzes, Donald C., and Dietrich C. Reitzes. 1987. "Alinsky in the 1980s: Two contemporary Chicago community organizations," Sociological Quarterly, 28 (2): 265-283.

Alinsky, Saul. 1969. Reveille for Radicals. New York: Vintage.

Alinsky, Saul. 1989. Rules for Radicals. New York: Vintage.

Fisher, Robert. 1994. Let the People Decide: Neighborhood Organizing in America. Updated ed. New York: Twayne.

Horwitt, Sanford D. 1989. Let Them Call Me Rebel. New York: Knopf.

Matthiessen, Peter. 2000. Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Morris, Aldon. 1984. Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press.

Payne, Charles M. 1995. I've Got the Light of Freedom. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Feb 11. The Life of an Organizer

* Obama, Barack. Dreams From My Father. Chapters 7 - 10, 12 - 14.

* Boyle, Mary-Ellen, and Ira Silver. 2005. "Poverty, partnerships, and privilege: Elite institutions and community empowerment," City and Community, 4 (3): 233-253.

* Jacobsen. Doing Justice. Chapter 9.

* Warren. Dry Bones Rattling. Chapters 4, 5.

* Kurth, Joel, et al. 2001. "Region is diverse, not mixed: Metro Detroit is most segregated area in nation, census shows," Detroit News (April 1).

Gecan, Mike. 2005. "Taking faith seriously," Boston Review, 30 (April/May).

Lowenstein, Roger. 2006. "The immigration equation," New York Times Magazine (July 9).

Morin, Richard. 2001. "Misperceptions cloud whites' view of blacks," Washington Post (July 11), p. A1.

Wood, Richard L. 2002. Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Naples, Nancy A., ed. 1998. Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing across Race, Class, and Gender. New York: Routledge.

Stout, Linda. 1996. Bridging the Class Divide. Boston: Beacon Press.

Mar 4. Meetings that Build Power and Effect Change

* Freeman, Jo. 1972-73. "The tyranny of structurelessness," Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 17: 151-165.

* Bobo, Kim, Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max. 2001. Organizing for Social Change, 3rd ed. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press. Chapter 12.

* Trapp, Shel. 1986. Basics of Organizing. Chicago: NTIC. Read four Chapters: "Organizing a Block Club Or Small Issue Group," "Leadership Meeting," "Public Meeting," and "Check List for the Public Meeting"

* "Six tips for effective meetings" 

Virginia Organizing Project. "House meetings."

Lencioni, Patrick M, 2002. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mar 11. Action, Reflection, and Celebration

* Beckwith, Dave, with Cristina Lopez. 1997. Community Organizing: People Power from the Grassroots. Washington, DC: Center for Community Change.

* Trapp, Shel. 1986. Basics of Organizing. Chicago: NTIC. Read three Chapters: "Identifying Issues," "Fliers," and "Working the Media."

* Bobo, Kim, Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max. 2001. Organizing for Social Change, 3rd ed. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press. Chapter 8 (all 10 sections).

The Access Project "Handles for organizing a healthy community."

Bobo, Kim, et al.. 2001. Organizing for Social Change, 3rd ed. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press. Ch. 5, 7.

Dionne, E. J., Jr. 2000. "After-school special," Washington Post (May 26).

Miller, Mike. 1997. "Tenderloin Senior Organizing Project," Shelterforce (May/June).

Chambers, Ed. 2003. Roots for Radicals. New York: Continuum. Ch. 5.

* Kretzmann, John P. 1995. "Building communities from the inside out," Shelterforce (Sept./Oct.)

* Ganz, Marshall. 2000. "Strategy, analytics, meetings." Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government.

* McKnight, John. 1995. "Politicizing health care." In John McKnight, The Careless Society. New York: Basic Books.

Trapp, Shel. 1986. Basics of Organizing. Chicago: NTIC.  Read two Chapters: "Negotiation," and "Presenting Facts and Research"

Mintzberg, Henry, and Frances Westley. 2001. "Decision making: It's not what you think," MIT Sloan Management Review, 42 (3): 89-93.

Whitman, Gordon. 2003. High School Issue Papers: For Youth and Adult Groups Organizing to Transform High School Education in the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Center for Public Policy.

Bobo, Kim, Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max. 2001. Organizing for Social Change, 3rd ed. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press. Ch. 3, 4, 20.

Ganz, Marshall. 2000. "Resource and resourcefulness: Strategic capacity in the unionization of California agriculture, 1959-1966," American Journal of Sociology, 105 (4): 1003-1062.

Stoecker, Randy. 2005. Research Methods for Community Change. Sage: Thousand Oaks.

* Warren. Dry Bones Rattling. Chapters 3, 6.

* Speer, Paul W., et al. 2003. "The intentional exercise of power: Community organizing in Camden, New Jersey," Journal of Community and Applied Psychology, 13: 399-408.

* Shown in class: Mahan, Leah and Mark Lipman. 1996. "Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street." Documentary video available at U-M Film and Video Library.

Walljasper, Jay 1997. "When activists win: the renaissance of Dudley St." The Nation, March 3. See also the DSNI Website.

Hertz, Judy. 2002. "Organizing for change: Stories of success." Washington, DC: Neighborhood Funders Group.

Ciezadlo, Annia. 2001. "The new wage movement," City Limits (March).

Gordon, Jennifer. 1995. "We make the road by walking: Immigrant workers, the Workplace Project, and the struggle for social change," Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 30 (Summer): 407-450.

Meyerson, Harold. 2000. "A clean sweep," The American Prospect, 11(15): 24-29.

Evans, Mike, George Goehl, and Kim Bobo, 1996. "Not another parking lot: Fight city hall -- and WIN!" Shelterforce (Jan/Feb).

Grengs, Joe. 2005. "Fighting for balanced transportation in the Motor City," Progressive Planning (Spring).

Mediratta, Kavitha, and Norman Fruchter. 2001. "Mapping the field of organizing for school improvement." New York: New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy.

Warren, Mark R. 2005. "Communities and schools: A new view of urban education reform," Harvard Educational Review, 75 (2): 133-174.

Shirley, Dennis. 1997. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

* Jacobsen. Doing Justice. Chapters 10 - 12.

* Trapp, Shel. 1986. Basics of Organizing. Chicago: NTIC.  Read three Chapters: "Staff Meetings," "Organizational Retreats," and "Task and Skill Check List"

Mott, Andrew. 2003. Evaluation: The good news for funders. Washington, DC: Neighborhood Funders Group.

O'Donnell, Sandy, Jane Beckett, and Jean Rudd. 2005. "Promising practices in revenue generation for community organizing." Washington, DC: Center for Community Change.

Rubin, Herbert J. 1995. "Renewing hope in the inner city: Conversations with community-based development practitioners," Administration and Society, 27 (May): 127-160.

Bobo, Kim, Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max. 2001. Organizing for Social Change, 3rd ed. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press. Ch. 16, 21-25.

Chambers, Ed. 2003. Roots for Radicals. New York: Continuum. Ch. 6.

Gecan, Michael. 2002. Going Public. Boston: Beacon Press.

Szakos, Kristin Layng, and Joe Szakos. 2007.  We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk about What They Do--and Why, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

* Ganz, Marshall. 2002. "Making democracy work?"  Contexts (Fall): 62-63.

* McKnight, John, and John Kretzmann. 1984. "Community organizing in the 80's: Toward a post-Alinsky agenda," Social Policy 14 (1): 15-17. 

* Immergluck, Dan. 2005. "Building power, losing power: The rise and fall of a prominent community economic development coalition," Economic Development Quarterly, 19 (Aug.): 211-224.

Calpotura, Francis, and Kim Fellner. 1997. "The square pegs find their groove: Reshaping the organizing circle."

Sullivan, Lisa Y. 1996. "The demise of black civil society: Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored meets the hip-hop generation," Social Policy, 27 (2): 6-11.

Lancourt, Joan E. 1979. Confront or Concede: The Alinsky Citizen Action Organizations. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

Piven, Frances Fox, and Richard Cloward. 1977. Poor People's Movements: How They Succeed, Why They Fail. New York: Random House.

Apr 15. Student Presentations