| |
|
Fall 2002
This information effective
for Fall 2002.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Instructor: Paul Ortiz
Phone: 459-5583
E-mail: portiz@cats.ucsc.edu
Times would pass, old empires would fall and new ones take their place, the
relations of countries and the relations of classes had to change, before I
discovered that it is not the quality of goods and utility which matter, but
movement; not where you are or what you have, but where you have come from,
where you are going and the rate at which you are getting there. —C.L.R.
James, Beyond a Boundary
The goal of this seminar is to learn how to organize a revolution. We will learn what communities past and present have done and are doing to resist, challenge, and overcome systems of power including (but not limited to) global capitalism, state oppression, and racism. Along the way, we will explore the following questions: Where do ideas for democratic social change come from? How do “ordinary people” forge resistance in the face of exploitation? How does historical memory shape identity and political action? How do people build the relationships of trust that form the building blocks of new social movements? Emphasis will be placed on studying subaltern groups including slaves, peasants, migrants, workers, “second-class citizens.” The people that Melville referred to as the “mariners, renegades and castaways” of the emerging global economy from 1492 to present.
We will examine the intersection between past and present struggles using an interdisciplinary approach that keeps individual agency and power in constant dialogue and tension. We will draw upon films, oral testimony, music, poetry, “incendiary literature” and other forms of evidence.
The course is designed for Community Studies majors who plan to do a six-month field study. Non-majors interested in the course are welcome to participate if there is enrollment space.
Reading, writing, and research assignments for this course will be substantial. To paraphrase C.L.R. James, “You don’t play with revolution.”
COURSE FORMAT
Class Participation and Response Papers: This seminar is designed to promote vibrant discussion and debate. The primary purpose of the weekly Response Paper is to help you to explore key questions as well as to prepare for seminar participation. Each student will write eight response papers (each will be 2–3 pages, typed and double-spaced). Papers will be due on Tuesdays. On alternate weeks you will also circulate discussion questions in advance to your colleagues via our class email list.
Final/Research Project: Each student will identify an organization, or movement-past or present-involved in the work of social change, broadly defined and write a fifteen-page essay regarding this movement’s origins as well as the movement’s theory and practice of resistance and recruitment.
Grading: Class participation (20%); Response papers (40%); Final Research Project (40%) Class participation includes circulating questions to your colleagues in advance of seminar meetings.
Response Papers
A response paper is not a summary. Response papers critically engage with class
readings. I welcome papers that take issue with the reading. Indeed, the reading
assignments have been chosen to provoke debate. Whether you agree or not with
the reading you will need to employ hard evidence in your response papers. It
is not acceptable to say: “I feel like the author’s point is unfair,”
or “I like what the author says…” You must demonstrate why the
author’s point is valid, incorrect, etc. You should be writing to convince
a general audience rather than a narrow, academic one. In other words, avoid
jargon.
Research Projects
The most successful social activists are keen students of the human condition.
The purpose of the research project is to give you the space to carefully explore
a field of endeavor that you may want to pursue as a field study option. For
example, at this point you may be interested in working with an agricultural
cooperative. You might use your research project to examine the emergence of
agricultural cooperatives in Central America or the United States, to take just
two examples.
Your research project will incorporate three levels of evidence: 1) secondary sources; 2) primary research; 3) at least one documented discussion with a living person engaged in the kind of social activity you are describing. We will meet on an individual basis twice during the quarter—during the week of January 29 as well as the week of February 19—to discuss your work and share ideas.
Research projects will consist of four formal elements: 1) A prospectus or outline, due on January 29. This prospectus, which we will discuss in class, is essentially your research outline. 2) A bibliography or list of suggested readings/resources. These are records, films, web sites, etc. you used in the making of your research project. 3) A jargon-free hypothesis stated at the beginning of the research project, and re-visited in your conclusion. You are not expected to reinvent the wheel in your paper. However, you must be able to give a clear exposition on your given topic. You must also be able to explain why your topic is important This is also a way to acquire the skills you will need to write field notes, grants, and other fun things in the future. 4) Footnotes. You must document all of your sources.
Class Discussions
I expect each of us to observe mutual respect towards each other. Social movements
are built upon relationships of trust and reciprocity. Please design a name-tag
that will help us learn your name.
Attendance
More than two absences without a signed medical excuse will have a profound
impact on your grade.
Office Hours
My office is #208, College Eight. My office hours are Tue/Thu 10:00–11:30.
I am happy to meet with you outside of these times. My home number is 469-3306.
You should schedule a meeting with me to discuss the progress of your final
research projects during the weeks of January 29 and February 19th.
Mid-Quarter Evaluations
On February 12, I will give you a written evaluation of your work based on class
participation, response papers as well as progress on your research project.
I will also ask you to evaluate my work as a classroom teacher.
Community Studies Department
Potluck
Our department is having a potluck late in January for majors and potential
majors to meet and chat with each others as well as faculty and staff. More
info to follow.
Major Texts We Will Sample
From: (Available at Slug Books and at McHenry Library Reserves.)
Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists Against Terror: Guatemala City,
1954–1985; James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden
Transcripts; C.L.R. James, Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture
and the San Domingo Revolution; Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The
Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the
Revolutionary Atlantic; Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short
History of the Agrarian Revolt in America; Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian
Woman’s Story of Politics and Love; Charles Payne, I’ve Got
the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle
Reading List
“To denounce hierarchy does not get us anywhere. Instead what must be changed are the conditions that make this hierarchy exist both in reality and in minds.” —Piere Bordieu
WEEK OF JANUARY 3: COURSE OVERVIEW
Thursday syllabus and course review, admin work. Community Studies majors’ essays.
WEEK OF JANUARY 8: SOCIAL THEORIES OF RESISTANCE, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Bring A Nametag!
Tuesday Introductions; syllabus review
In-class reading: Barbara Trent, “How We Got the Buses Rolling,” Santa Monica Messenger, November 16, 1983.
Small Group exercise: Attend A Local Martin Luther King Celebration. Write brief summary (1–2 pages) due January 22.
Thursday Discussion: James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, 1–107; 136–152; Ortiz, “Social Theory, Resistance and Social Movements: Some Key Analytical Terms”
Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, vii–xxiv.
Delia Aguilar, “Questionable Claims: Colonialism Redux, Feminist Style,” Race & Class 41, no. 3 (2000), 1–12. Electronic Reserve (ER)
(Response papers due today; in the future: response papers due every Tuesday.)
Suggested Readings
Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire, Interviews with David Barsamian (Foreword
by Edward W. Said)
C.L.R. James, Modern Politics
Leo Howe, “Scrounger, Worker, Beggarman, Cheat: The Dynamics Of Unemployment
And The Politics Of Resistance In Belfast,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute, v4 n3, (Sept 1998), 531–551.
WEEK OF JAN 15: WOMEN IN STRUGGLE; GENDER AND ORGANIZING
Key Themes: Gender, class, and race; political struggle; REFUSING
TO BE A VICTIM; religion and social change; Worker’s Party of Brazil; Memoirs
and resistance; Telengana Peasant Revolt, 1946–51
Tuesday Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman’s Story of Politics and Love
Film: “With Babies and Banners” (Women’s Emergency Brigade, Flint, Michigan 1936–37)
Thursday Benedita
da Silva, cont. and The Frente Autentico del Trabajo, “Women Would
Make a Beginning and Then Their Husbands Could Join,” in Staughton Lynd
and Alice Lynd, The New Rank and File, 181–186. (ER)
Suggested Reading
Jacquelyn Cole, “The Taliban and Women In Afghanistan,” Works in
Progress (November, 2001), 13.
Fran Leeper Buss, ed., Forged Under the Sun/Forjada Bajo El Sol: The Life
of Maria Elena Lucas
Stree S. Sangathana, We Were Making History: Women in the Telangana People’s
Struggle
WEEK OF JANUARY 22: CAPITALISM, SLAVERY AND INTERNATIONALISM
Key Themes: Emergence of capitalism and slavery; internationalism; Liberation theology; radical Christianity; leveller and digger traditions; anti-capitalism; commonism; American Revolution from below.
Tuesday Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic 8–70; 174–247.
Thomas Frank, “Preface: A Deadhead in Davos,” in: One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy, ix–xvii. (ER)
Thursday Peter Linebaugh, Rediker, and Frank, cont. The Many-Headed Hydra, cont.
C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 6–26.
Film: Africans in America, Part II: “Revolution” (The American Revolution)
Suggested Reading
Ray Raphael, People’s History of the American Revolution
Howard Fast, The Proud and the Free
Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the
English Revolution, 87–183; 324–386. (Suggested: 57–72)
David J. Weber, ed., What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?
Daniel Burton-Rose, et.al., The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the
U.S. Prison Industry
In-class reading: Stan Goff, “Letter of Resignation from the Communist Party of the Carolinas”
WEEK OF JANUARY 29: SLAVE REVOLUTIONARIES/EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
Mandatory Individual Meetings to Discuss Final Projects
Key themes: The self-generation of democratic and revolutionary ideas among slaves. Relationship between “leaders” and the “led;” Experiential learning. Linkages between the French Revolution and the San Domingue revolutions. (And relevance to contemporary protests against “globalization.”)
Tuesday C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 27–61; 82–165;
In-Class reading: “Demands of the Colored People of Apalachicola, Florida” (1890)
Thursday C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 224–288.
Film: “Talking History: E.P. Thompson and C.L.R. James” (Two historians think outside of the box)
Suggested Reading
Martin Glaberman and Seymour Faber, “Back to the Future: The Continuing
Relevance of Marx,” in Critique, 32–33 (2000)
Film: “Sankofa”
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 5: BUILDING A MOVEMENT CULTURE
Key Themes: Recruitment as an organizing problem; sequential stages of organizing a social; Farmer’s Alliance; cooperative experience; Populism; decline of democracy in America
Guest speaker: Lawrence Goodwyn
Tuesday Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, 3–124; 264–322.
Thursday Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment, cont.
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 12:
IDENTITY, CULTURE, AND DYNAMIC TRADITIONS
Key Themes: Historical memory, iconography, and identity. Identity
politics. Identifying and overcoming divisions within movements. Invention of
tradition and uses of tradition in social movements and “imagined communities.”
Tuesday Robin D.G. Kelley, “Identity Politics & Class Struggle,” New Politics, vol 6, no. 2 (Winter 1997) (ER)
Paul Ortiz, “‘Eat Your Bread Without Butter, But Pay Your Poll Tax!’: Roots of the African American Voter Registration Movement in Florida, 1919–1920,” in: Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, eds., Charles Payne and Adam Green, 1–39.
Adolph Reed, “Why Is There No Black Political Movement,” in Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene, 3–9. (Electronic Reserve [ER])
C.L.R. James, “Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana,” C.L.R. James: At the Rendezvous of Victory: Selected Writings, 172–185. (ER)
Vinay Bahl, “What Went Wrong With the History From Below or, Why I Won’t Commit Sati,” Conference Paper at “Globalization From Below” conference, Duke, February 6, 1998 (Electronic Reserve [ER])
Thursday Hugo Hernandez, “Instead of Letting Me go Out Alone, They Went With Me,” in Lynd and Lynd, The New Rank & File, 54–62. (ER)
Film: “Oh Freedom, After While” (Missouri Sharecroppers’ Organizing Campaign, 1935–1941)
Suggested Reading
Staughton Lynd, “The Webbs, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg; Models of Renewal and
Decay in the Labor Community”
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 19: GENDER AND CROSS-GENERATIONAL ORGANIZING
Mandatory Individual Meetings to discuss final projects
Key Themes: Preparation for starting a protest movement; Organizing across generational divides; women’s leadership; Civil Rights Movement; citizenship; Highlander Folk School
Tuesday Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, 29–179
Film: “At the River I Stand” (Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike, 1968)
Thursday Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, 363–390.
WEEK FEBRUARY 26 : WORKERS'
CULTURE, RELIGION, & STATE TERROR, I
Key Themes: Organizing against multinational corporations; sustaining
a movement in a one-party state; surviving state and corporate-sponsored terrorism;
the question of armed insurrection
Tuesday Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists Against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954–1985, 1–79; Eqbal Ahmad, “Radical But Wrong,” in Regis Debrary and the Latin American Revolution, Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy, eds. (ER)
Thursday Reading discussion cont./discuss research works in progress.
Recommended Reading: E.P. Thompson, “The Segregation of Dissent,” and “Sir, Writing by Candlelight,” in Thompson, Writing by Candlelight (ER)
WEEK OF MARCH 5: WORKERS’ CULTURE, RELIGION, & STATE TERROR, II
Mandatory individual meetings to discuss final projects
Key Themes: Guatemalan workers’ struggles; discuss research works in progress.
Tuesday Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists Against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954–1985, 142–233;
Thursday Small groups reassess the following questions: 1) What is power? 2) What is resistance? 3) How are social movements organized? 4) What are the most effective ways of documenting resistance and social movements? Also Discuss research works in progress.
Suggested Reading
The Hebron Union of Workers and General Service Personnel, “The Worst
That They Can Do is to Put Me In Prison,” Lynd and Lynd, The New Rank
and File, 156–165.
WEEK OF MARCH 12: RETHINKING RESISTANCE AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
NO NEW READING
Key Themes: 1) Redefining resistance and social movements; 2) Making
the history relevant to contemporary struggles; 3) Discussion of research papers
in progress.
Tuesday Continue to discuss major questions/research works in progress.
Thursday Class Evaluations. Research works in progress. Wrap-up.
MARCH 14: CLASS ENDS
RESEARCH PROJECTS DUE: MARCH 19
“You must be able to write what you think—and maybe what you write
about your day-to-day, everyday, commonplace, ordinary life will be some of
the same problems that the people of the world are fighting out. You must be
able to write what you have to say, and know that that is what matters; and
I hope you can see that you can begin anywhere and end up as far as anybody
else has reached. I hope you are not scared to write about what concerns you,
what you know—these things matter.” —C.L.R. James
Social Theory, Resistance and Social Movements: Some Key Analytical Terms
Throughout the course of
the quarter we will use many terms in discussions that are taken for granted.
Some terms however, need to be clarified because we use often use them without
critical reflection. Below are some key words as well as the ways that I have
come to define these terms in my work as a historian/activist of social change.
It is important to note that these definitions are works in progress. You will
have your own important contributions to make in this discussion.
—Paul Ortiz
Recruitment
The most overlooked category of analysis in sociological literature on social
movements. The most overlooked factor in organizing. Too often, would-be organizers
assume that they will attract potential members by being “radical”
without understanding that “radical” is an abstraction at best and
a posture at worst. How do you go about recruiting folks to attend a meeting
or event? Why do you decide to attend a meeting? Do you attend events organized
by self-righteous individuals who have all of the answers? To quote Ronnie Cummins,
national director of the Pure Food Campaign, “We can’t go to the people
with a laundry list of politically correct ideas and say ‘Will you join
us?’ You’ve just got to say, ‘What do you think are the most
important issues?’”
Experiential Learning
To move forward in life it is necessary to learn from experience. Social movements
arise from the ways that people interpret their experiences. A group of people
may be impoverished for generations. It is not the poverty that spurs them to
organize. After all, they have always been poor. At a certain moment in history
however, this group may interpret their experience of poverty, their relations
to others, and draw certain conclusions that lead them to begin organizing.
Above all, people must develop a new level of self-confidence before
they engage in new types of social activity whether it is testifying before
a board of supervisors, organizing a cooperative, or going on strike. Experiential
learning stems from self-activity.
C.L.R. James emphasized
that self activity boost self-confidence: “You have to know what you are,
and what you can do. And this nobody can teach you except yourselves, by your
own activities and the lessons that you draw from them.”
In the following passage, James describes an example of experiential learning,
the formation of the workers’ councils in the Hungarian Revolution. People
used their experiences in workplace production to begin to build a democratic
society. These councils formed the basis of a new Hungary before they were smashed
by Soviet tanks:
“The secret of the workers’ councils is this. From the very start of the Hungarian revolution, these shop-floor organizations of the workers demonstrated such conscious mastery of the needs, processes, and inter-relations of production, that they did not have to exercise any domination over people. That mastery is the only basis of political power against the bureaucratic state. It is the very essence of any government which is to be based upon general consent and not on force. The administration of things by the workers’ councils established a basic coherence in society and from this coherence they derived automatically their right to govern.”
Vanguard
In contrast to the democratic model that we have outlined above, too many would-be
organizers employ a top-down model of recruitment that can charitably be described
as movement-killing politics. The “vanguard party” has been
a destructive concept in the history of the modern left. Unfortunately, it is
still a prevalent mode of organizing. Taken from V. I. Lenin’s What
is to be Done? (which V.I. later repudiated) Joseph Stalin and others took
the concept of the vanguard to mean that only educated, elite party bureaucrats
could lead the revolutionary process to success. This anti-democratic concept
is alive and well in capitalist societies that breed on hierarchy and inequality.
Arguably, the Democratic and Republican parties are vanguard parties—insofar
as they formulate policies and strategies that have little resonance among ordinary
people—that’s us. Thus, low voter turnout rates.
Social Movement
One of the most abused terms in social discourse. Nascent movements form every
day but few of them pass through the sequential phases necessary to qualify
for “social movement” status. Larry Goodwyn lays out four essential
elements of movement building: “(1) the creation of an autonomous institution
where new interpretations can materialize that run counter to those of prevailing
authority—a development which for the sake of simplicity, we may describe
as ‘the movement forming’; (2) the creation of a tactical means to
attract masses of people—‘the movement recruiting’; (3) the achievement
of a heretofore culturally unsanctioned level of social analysis—‘the
movement educating’; and (4) the creation of an institutional means whereby
the new ideas, shared now by the rank and file of the mass movement, can be
expressed in an autonomous political way—‘the movement politicized,’”
Populist Movement, xviii. Judged by this standard there are few if any
social groupings that currently qualify for the moniker “social movement.”
There are many social groups that could become social movements.
Education
There is no example of a successful social movement in history that does not
successfully educate its members especially after initial failures. When a new
social movement runs into trouble or suffers initial defeats—and this inevitably
happens in initial stages—movement organizers must be able to explain
why the failure has occurred or else the nascent movement will collapse.
Self-Righteousness
Here is a sure movement-killer. It is not that one does not have the right to
feel good about one’s philosophy. It is simply that condescending attitudes
of self-righteousness are barriers to recruitment of new members. During the
Montgomery Bus Boycott for example, no one asked potential boycotters to toe
a “party line.” Such ideologically correct thinking would have killed
the Bus Boycott in its tracks.
Ideology
Would-be organizers mistakenly think that correct ideology serves as the most
important tool of recruitment. Not much evidence to support this idea. Every
day hundreds of nascent movements shut themselves down in the process of drafting
ideological manifestos prior to engaging in any kind of meaningful social action.
This divorce between theory and practice is deadly. Few will join a group that
gives them long lectures on ideology. One can get this treatment in the workplace,
church, and family.
Relationships of Trust
Social movements are created by people who form relationships of trust with
each other. Activists who concentrate on writing manifestoes would do well to
think more deeply about the ways they interact with other people. On this note
it is disheartening to find activist organizations that purport to maintain
democratic ideologies yet maintain distinctly undemocratic social relations
among each other. Without a relationship of trust an organization drifts towards
bureaucratic inertia.
History
All social movements have a history. There is no documented case of a “spontaneous” social movement. Learn that history or it has a way of sneaking up on you and overwhelming your activism. The Peace Movement of the 1960s had a pre-history that stretched back to the formation of World War I-era peace organizations such as Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, not to mention the Quakers and other dissenting groups. In the 1960s proper, the “Peace Movement” stumbled through five years of experimentation (roughly, 1963–1968) before it began to effect real social change.
As Charles Payne shows in his work on the civil rights movement in Mississippi, young student activists succeeded in building the movement because they were able to productively engage in conversations with older African American activists who shared their experiences with the young folks. Intergenerational organizing was a prerequisite in the making of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Community
Like the term “social movement,” “community” has been so overused and ill-employed that it has been drained of meaning. Today, one hears of “the American community” the “business community” and the “Latino community” (to take only three such examples). Employed in this manner, the term is often invoked to create a static, homogenous social group with identical interests. This is inherently anti-democratic and retrogressive on issues of gender (men usually get to define the meaning of “community”) and it leads straight towards the politics of tokenism and demobilization. Adolph Reed notes that “Community presumes homogeneity of interest and perception, at least in principle. A politics stuck in its name is threatened by the heterogeneous tendencies put in motion by open debate. It is a politics that always has depended on narrowing the active black public and fastening the population as a whole to a middle-class—inflected program.” (Reed, “Issues in Black Public Life,” 12.)
Conservative
Analytically, not a very useful term of description. Does the term apply to
a white southerner in 1934 who is a Christian fundamentalist and a Socialist
involved in interracial union organizing? A word that lends itself to abstractions
and vapid analysis.
Liberal
Also not a very useful term of description. A convenient label used in a derogatory,
elitist manner by folks on all sides of the political spectrum. As in, “so
and so is a liberal, scoff, scoff.” Used in this manner the term is certainly
humorous to invoke during cocktail parties but tells us nothing about the social
content a person’s ideas and experiences.
Fall 2002
Instructor: Nancy Stoller
To see the syllabus and activities of the course for Winter 2002, go to:
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~nancys/cmmu148/
The readings and activities will be somewhat different in Fall 2002, but the basic philosophy and focus will remain constant.
Fall 2002
Instructor: Mike Rotkin
Office: 203 College 8
459-4601 (office); 423-4209 (home)
E-mail: openup@cats.ucsc.edu
This is a course on the
theory and practice of community organizing. Each week we will have two lectures/discussions,
and there will be a film series associated with the course. Readings will be
assigned for each class session and should be read before the session under
which they are listed. "Recommended readings" are to be read as time
and interest allow. Each day in class students will be called on to summarize
the main points or interesting/controversial points from each of the required
readings. Students will also take turns being responsible for developing the
questions that will be used to guide class discussions.
Each student in the course
will be required to do a minimum of four hours a week of practical organizing
with a community group and will be expected to set specific, attainable goals
for his or her work with the group during the quarter. (Students who would like
to spend more hours a week with their community organization can see the instructor
about getting additional independent study course credit. If you are able to
spend more time working with a community group, you will learn more.)
There will be two papers
assigned for the course. The first paper is to develop or explain your community
group's organizing strategy in the context of course readings, lectures, discussions,
and films. It is due [day 14], and should be about 5-8 pages long. The final
paper is due December [day 19] and should incorporate the first paper into an
expanded 8-15 page paper that projects your overall organizational, strategic,
and tactical approach to the solution of some social or environmental problem
(making use of course readings, lectures, discussions, and films).
Required Books for the
course (available at Slug Books):
Recommended books can all
be found at the Reserve Desk on the first floor of McHenry Library.
Day 1: no reading
Day 2: Use class time to
develop placements with students
Reading: Each student will read one book about an historical community organizing
effort. You can select from the list below or propose an alternative (The books
below are all available on Reserve for the course on the first floor at McHenry
Library):
Todd Gitlin and Nancie Hollander, Uptown: Poor Whites in Chicago
Abby Hoffman, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture
John Nichols, The Milagro Beanfield War
John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle
Howard Zinn, The New Abolitionists
Dick Cluster, et al, They Should Have Served that Cup of Coffee
Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements
Georgakas and Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying
Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment
Peter Medoff and Holly Sklar, Streets of Hope; the Fall and Rise of an Urban
Neighborhood
Barlow and Shapiro, An End to Silence
Horowitz and Friedland, The Knowledge Factory
Frank Adams, Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander
Ida Susser, Norman Street: Poverty and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood
Juliet Mitchel, Women's Estate
Kirkpatrick Sale, sds
Miller and Gilmore, Revolution at Berkeley
Harold Jacobs, Weatherman
Randy Shaw, Reclaiming America: Nike, Clean Air, and the new national Activism
James Forman, The Making of a Black Revolutionary
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
John S. Shockley, Chicano Revolt in a Texas Town
John Hall Fish, Black Power/White Control: The Struggle of the Woodlawn Organization
in Chicago
Elizabeth Levy, the People's Lobby: The SST Story
Paul Klegman, Senior Power: Growing Old Rebelliously
Cesar Chavez, An Organizer's Tale
Linda Stout, Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing
Mike Rotkin, " Westside Neighbors: A Case Study in Grassroots Organizing"
James Miller, Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago
Gary Delgado, Organizing the Movement
Day 3: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter 2*
Mike Rotkin, Class, Politics and Populist Politics: Santa Cruz, California,
1970-1982, Chapter 3, pp. 115-46*
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapter 2
Day 4: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Si Kahn, Organizing, Chapter 1*
Day 5: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, Chapters 2 and 9
Recommended Reading:
Saul Alinsky, "Principles of Citizen Action"*
Harry Boyte, The Backyard Revolution, Chapter 1*
Si Kahn, How People Get Power
Day 6: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Si Kahn, Organizing, Chapter 2*
Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, Chapter 5
Nicholas Hoffman, "Finding and Making Leaders"*
Day 7: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapters 10 and 11
Craig Merrilees, "Toward a Strategic Approach to Neighborhood Organizing,"
pp.83-91*
Linda Stout, Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing,
Chapter 8*
Recommended Reading:
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapter 13
Lakey, Lakey, Napier, and Robinson, Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership
Day 8: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Mike Rotkin, Class, Politics and Populist Politics: Santa Cruz, California,
1970-1982,, Chapter 3, pp. 146-59*
Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness"*
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapter 6
Day 9: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Si Kahn, Organizing Chapter 7*
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapter 12
"Decision Making and Meetings"*
Recommended Reading:
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapters 8, 13, and 15
Bartlett, The Future is Ours, Chapter 3
Day 10: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Rotkin, Institutionalized Racism*
Linda Stout, Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing,
Chapters 5, 6, and 7*
Day 11: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Lakey, Lakey, Napier, and Robinson, Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership, Chapters
12 and 13*
Stephanie Creaturo, "A Broader View for the Feminist Movement"*
Nahid Islam, "Fighting Bias Where It Lives"*
Malik Yoba, "Building Coalitions in Diverse Communities"*
Day 12: Show a part of the
film about Alinsky, Deciding to Organize, People and Power in class/Discussion
Reading:
Randy Shaw, The Activists' Handbook, Chapter 1
Andre Gorz, Strategy for Labor, Introduction*
Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, Chapter 7
Craig Merrilees, "Toward a Strategic Approach to Neighborhood Organizing"
pp. 42-55*
Si Kahn, Organizing, Chapter 17*
Day 13: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapters 3 and 4
Recommended Reading:
Mike Rotkin, Class, Politics and Populist Politics: Santa Cruz, California,
1970-1982, (the rest of chapter 3)
Andre Gorz, "Reform and Revolution" in Socialism and Revolution
"The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ" (xerox)*
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, pp. 126-164
Mike Miller, "Community Organizing Vision and the Electoral Tactic,"
in Socialist Review #63-64*
Gary Delgado, "Taking it to the Streets: Community Organizing and National
Politics," in Socialist Review #63-64
Mark E. Kahn, "Radicals in Power: Lessons from Santa Monica"
Mike Rotkin and Bruce VanAllen, "Community and Electoral Politics,"
in Socialist Review #47
Joan D. Mandel, "The Women's Movement and Electoral Politics: Where Do
We Go from Here?" in Socialist Review #86
Gene Sharp, The Politics of Non-Violent Action, Chapter one
Interview with Donna Warnock, "Mobilizing Emotion: Organizing the Women's
Pentagon Action," in Socialist Review, #63-4
Day 14: First Writing
Assignment Due / Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapters 5 and 7.
Si Kahn, Organizing, Chapters 10, 13, 14, 15*
Day 15: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Randy Shaw, The Activists' Handbook, Chapters 2,3,4, 7, and 8
Si Kahn, How People Get Power, Chapter 8*
OM Collective, The Organizer's Manual, pp. 19-77 & 105-172*
Get something on feminist tactics (consciousness raising groups)
Recommended Reading:
Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, Chapter 8
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapters 16-20.
Friedland, Barton, Dancis, Rotkin, and Spiro, Revolutionary Theory, Part 3
Bartlett, The Future is Ours
Day 16: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Jason Salzman, Making the News
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapter 14
Randy Shaw, The Activists' Handbook, Chapter 5
Recommended Reading:
Jan Sutter, Slinging Ink: A Practical Guide to Producing Booklets, Newspapers,
Leaflets
John W. Bartlett, "Media Manners: Courting the Fourth Estate"*
Day 17: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, Chapter 21 and 24
OM Collective, The OM Manual, pp. 19-25*
Recommended Reading:
Bobo, Kendall, and Max, Organize, The rest of Part III
Bartlett, The Future is Ours, Chapter 12*
Day 18: Lecture/Discussion
Reading:
Harry Boyte, The Backyard Revolution, Chapters 7 and 8*
Kahn, Organizing, Chapter 18*
Harry Boyte and Sara Evans, "Strategies in Search of America: Cultural
Radicalism, Populism and Democratic Culture"*
"Singing for Their Lives, An interview with Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert"*
Day 19: Final Assignment
Due / Lecture/Discussion
No reading
**********************************************
Films will be shown on Wednesday
evenings from 7-10 in Kresge 327.
Day 1: The Organizer
Day 2: Matawan
Day 3: Norma Rae
Day 4: American Dream
Day 5: Union Maids, Wilmar 8, The Troublemakers, Fundi
Day 6: Silkwood
Day 7: Streets of Hope
Day 8: TBA: sds or Harlen County, USA, or Blow for Blow, or With Babies and
Banners
Day 9: Salt of the Earth
Catalogue Description
A theoretical and practical study of grassroots and community organizing. Topics
include organizational theory, developing leadership, organizational structure,
strategy, tactics, using the media, fundraising, developing diversity and cultural
issues. Requires organizational work and includes a film series.
Answers to supplemental
sheet