Community Organizing for Social Justice: Grassroots Groups for Power

Abstract

Social justice, community organizing, and task-oriented groups are inextricably connected. Collective action through community organizing can generate the requisite power to overcome unjust social relations and achieve changes that further human rights, participatory democracy, and distributive justice. Most community-organizing work is conducted through task-oriented groups that enable organizational activists to engage directly in collective action for social change. This article presents examples of the use of task groups by a variety of constituencies, in multiple arenas, employing citizen participation, community development, and social action community-organizing approaches and strategies.

Keywords:

• social justice
• community organizing
• task-oriented groups
• citizen participation
• community development
• social action

INTRODUCTION

Social justice is strongly connected to community organizing and group work. According to Weil (2004),

social justice implies commitment to fairness in our dealings with each other in the major aspects of our lives—the political, economic, social and civic realms. In society, social justice should foster equal human rights, distributive justice, and a structure of opportunity and be grounded in representative and participatory democracy. (p. 8)

Staples (2004) defined community organizing as, “collective action by community members drawing on the strength of numbers, participatory processes, and indigenous leadership to decrease power disparities and achieve shared goals for social change” (pp. 1–2). The organizing modality is fundamentally linked to distributive justice, equal rights, self-advocacy, and collective empowerment. Furthermore, the vast majority of community-organizing work is conducted through task-oriented groups, including organizing committees, recruitment teams, house meetings, issue committees, leadership training cohorts, governance boards, task forces, lobbying committees, negotiating teams, fundraising committees, media teams, special events committees, and a host of other configurations that provide structural access points for community members to participate in research, consciousness raising, strategic analysis, planning, decision making, collective action, and evaluation/assessment.

Citizen Participation

In many instances, community involvement takes place through official channels, in task-oriented groups such as governmental boards, advisory committees, commissions, and task forces, consistent with Checkoway's (1995) classic designation of “citizen participation.” There are multiple reasons why such civic engagement is desirable and usually leads to more just decisions. When community members are actively involved in decision-making processes, there usually will be greater “buy-in” and cooperation. There is fidelity to the old refrain, “Nothing about us without us,” and even when disagreements may exist between institutional decision makers and community members, there is greater potential for compromise and bottom-up/top-down synergy that alters existing relations of power. When community members actively participate, the lived expertise and local knowledge that they bring to the problem-solving process usually result in better ideas and solutions. Participatory processes draw on the strengths of grassroots leaders who can engage other community assets and resources; these influential individuals also have the power to mobilize a base of supporters—instead of opponents. Additionally, community participation provides access points for new emerging community leaders to develop their experience, confidence and skills, thereby building community capacity, which increases voluntary action through “people power” and insures greater sustainability and staying power due to the increased commitment and follow through by community members.

Essentially, citizen participation builds social capital (Berkman, 2000; Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2000), increasing connections among individual community members by strengthening social ties, relations, and networks. However, Putnam's influential book Bowling Alone (2000) presented extensive data documenting the decline of participation in activities such as voting, volunteerism, joining clubs, church attendance, and board participation. Although not a panacea for all forms of declining involvement, community organizing certainly does increase the level of citizen participation in formal governmental bodies and processes; organizational members are more likely to become engaged either as individual activists or as designated representatives of their respective groups helping to hold public officials more accountable while protecting and advancing the interests of communities that otherwise might be marginalized and ignored.

Community Development

Community organizing usually transcends participation in official governmental operations. In many instances, it fills voids where elected or appointed officials have failed to act in a manner that meets the needs of community members. At times, the most appropriate organizing form will be community development that “involves participants in constructive activities and processes to produce improvements, opportunities, structures, goods, and services that increase the quality of life, build individual and collective capacities, and enhance social solidarity” (Staples, 2004, p. 7). This approach brings about change without “rocking the boat” in a significant way. It often features self-help by community members who take collective action to improve their neighborhoods, such as the Mill Creek Salt Marsh Restoration Project, a subcommittee of the Chelsea Greenspace Committee.

The overarching Greenspace Committee has utilized a variety of community-organizing methods to involve adults and youth in efforts to develop new parks, to increase open space, and to fight for environmental justice in this low-income city that borders Boston. Members of the Restoration Project subcommittee volunteered to remove an invasive plant species that had overgrown a half-acre of polluted marshland within the city boundaries; next, they replanted the area with a native species of marsh grass. A research team determined the necessary steps to ensure that the removal operation would be effective, as well as to find the appropriate species for replacement and replanting. Voluntary work crews engaged in this muddy, physically taxing, and time-consuming clean-up process; and later the subcommittee leadership team sought assistance from external environmental organizations to find the resources to dredge 1,500 cubic yards of contaminated sediments from the creek's channel. The subcommittee moved forward to develop the new Mill Creek recreational/educational walkway, including launch areas for canoes and kayaks.

In addition to the utilization of a variety of task-oriented groups, this example illustrates that community development is not confined to self-help efforts. It also can encompass projects for community building, economic development, neighborhood improvement, and production of affordable housing (Ewalt, Freeman, & Poole, 1998; Hardcastle, Wenocur & Powers, 1997; Midgley & Livermore, 2005; Murphy & Cunningham, 2003; Rothman, 1969, 2001) whereby community members may collaborate with other allied organizations or institutional decision makers, rather than simply acting alone. When there are differences with external institutions, this approach will employ low-key persuasive campaign strategies to convince decision makers that fundamental interests are not in conflict, thereby avoiding adversarial contests (Netting, Kettner, & McMurtry, 2001; Warren, 1975).

A second community development project involving the Chelsea Greenspace Committee is instructive. The Chelsea Creek Action Group (CCAG) is an environmental coalition that includes grassroots organizations from both sides of the river that runs between Chelsea and East Boston. Subcommittees have formed task-oriented groups to work on a range of projects consistent with a comprehensive redevelopment plan, including the creation of Condor Street Urban Wild—East Boston's first public park along the Chelsea Creek; the development of a multiuse, recreational pathway that follows an unused rail line along the river; and joint sponsorship with the Urban Ecology Institute of an annual Chelsea River Revel Festival that includes a 5-K road race, children's games, ecology exhibits, boat tours and kayaking.

CCAG has engaged multiple bureaucracies, including the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the National Parks Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Boston Parks and Environment Department to move these projects forward. Without the vision and gentle, but firm, persuasion of CCAG's grassroots groups, these governmental bodies never would have undertaken these community development initiatives in the predominantly low-income Latino neighborhoods on each side of Chelsea Creek. Negotiating teams, environmental study task forces, planning groups, and design committees were organized to convince and then collaborate with the appropriate institutional decision-makers.

Social Action for Environmental Justice

Although routing a new bike path often can be accomplished with a minimum of bumps along the developmental road, and rooting plants in neighborhood parks usually is an outgrowth of productive relations between community members and “the powers that be,” issues that challenge deeper roots of oppression and injustice are much less likely to be resolved without substantial conflict. Social change efforts that seek to redress disparities in distributive justice by altering relations of power between dominant elites and marginalized groups usually will be met with resistance that is not easily overcome by collaborative or mildly persuasive strategies (Netting et al., 2001; Warren, 1975). Under such circumstances, a more adversarial social action approach will be necessary for oppressed groups to generate the requisite power to force institutional decision makers with conflicting interests to change their policies, practices, and procedures (Alinsky, 1971; Bobo, Kendall, & Max, 2001; Checkoway, 1995; Rothman, 1969, 2001; Sen, 2003; Staples, 1984, 2004). “Social Action brings people together to convince, pressure, or coerce external decision-makers to meet collective goals either to act in a specified manner or to modify or stop certain activities” (Staples, 2004, p. 9).

A third Greenspace committee example helps illustrate this approach. Recently, a private utility company with a reputation for being green and clean because of its development of wind turbine–generated electricity in other locations across Massachusetts attempted to build a 240-megawatt diesel power plant within 1,000 feet of a Chelsea elementary school. Community activists saw this move to construct a dirty facility in a low-income neighborhood of color as a clear case of environmental racism and classism. A research team quickly formed and gathered evidence about the odors and pollutants that exhaust fumes from the two large smokestacks would emit, especially particulate matter known to increase mortality, chronic bronchitis, heart attacks, lung disease, asthma, and pneumonia. Informational fact sheets were produced, and several outreach teams began recruiting residents using a variety of methods, including house meetings, knocking on doors, talking with parents when they picked up their children at the school, networking, presenting at religious services, informing human services agencies, and activating other community-based organizations.

The Greenspace committee targeted the power company, the state regulatory agency charged with deciding whether to approve construction, and the city manager, who initially had supported building this facility. They lined up an impressive group of allies including environmental justice organizations, other community groups, human services providers, faculty at schools of public health, and other energy experts. A lobbying team successfully secured commitments of oppositional support from 10 of the 11 Chelsea city councilors, as well as councilors from surrounding cities, the state senator, and all the local state representatives. A media team helped generate a number of highly critical news articles about the power plant proposal. Petitions were gathered and submitted to state regulators; leadership team activists testified at public hearings packed with angry community members; several large protest rallies were organized; and direct actions disrupted several power company presentations, including one at a Boston University function where the president of the company was receiving an environmental award. After a protracted and bitter battle, the power company eventually quietly withdrew its application to construct the plant.

Immigrant Worker Justice

The above examples demonstrate the role of task groups in community organizing for environmental justice. Immigrant Worker Centers (IWCs) are addressing issues related to justice in the workplace. Immigration to the United States has increased dramatically over the past four decades as economic hardship, political repression, war, famine, and dislocation have forced large numbers of people to leave their homelands. However, the recent economic downturn has contracted the labor market in the United States, often forcing newcomers to take jobs at lower wages, without benefits, and with harsher working conditions. The political climate for immigrants also has become more hostile, fueled by increased xenophobia since the 911 attack, right-wing talk radio programs, FOX News and other media outlets, hate groups, and elected officials who demonize immigrants.

The deteriorating political and economic environment has decreased the supply of good jobs available for immigrants, concurrently creating more space for unscrupulous employers to cut corners by decreasing wages, ignoring health and safety regulations, and engaging in other unfair labor practices, especially with regard to undocumented immigrant workers. Unfortunately, governmental regulators have failed to prevent or to halt many of these employer abuses that undermine distributive justice. IWCs have been created to fill this void by protecting workers' rights through services, support, advocacy, and organizing at the community level, rather than in the workplace or via labor unions (Fine, 2006).

IWCs address employer violations and also focus on subcontractors who break the law, as well as “temp agencies” that find immigrants to work on a temporary basis, so they won't qualify for the benefits afforded to permanent employees. Issues include discriminatory hiring practices, health and safety problems, sexual harassment, and failure to pay fair wages (underpayment, missed payments, collecting back wages, and lack of overtime pay). Allies include other IWCs, selected labor unions, economic justice organizations, grassroots community groups, resettlement agencies, religious organizations, human services providers, academics, students, legal services organizations and individual immigration rights attorneys.

IWCs recruit participants through word-of-mouth, kinship and social networks, religious groups, human services agencies, “walk-ins,” referrals from legal services organizations and individual immigration rights lawyers. Clinics and workshops providing information about worker rights are standard, but the emphasis is on taking collective action, rather than the provision of individual services. Small-group leadership development sessions offer popular education to raise political consciousness about globalization, systemic oppression and discrimination, worker exploitation, immigration policy, economic and social justice, often employing the methodology of Paolo Freire (1970, 1973). Workshops also teach organizing skills such as recruitment, action research, building coalitions, strategic analysis, facilitating meetings, action planning, direct action tactics, negotiating, and evaluation/assessment. All of this political education and skills training are conducted in a small group format.

IWCs utilize a variety of strategies and tactics (frequently in coalition campaigns with organizational allies) including: public release of information about violations of workers' rights, petitions, “whistle-blowing,” media exposés, class action lawsuits, rallies, protest demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts, marches, and vigils. The planning, implementation, and assessment of these classic social action tactics for economic justice is carried out through a range of committees, subcommittees, task forces, decision-making bodies, teams, and other task-oriented groups.

Identity Organizing for Social Justice

Marginalized groups that share a common identity or experience related to race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, and physical or mental ability also have organized for social justice. Several brief examples are illustrative rather than exhaustive. Current and former psychiatric patients have organized to combat “mentalism,” stigma, and discrimination in society, as well as to prevent abusive practices that violate their human rights in mental health systems across the United States. Successful social action campaigns have been waged vis-à-vis mental health systems to eliminate or drastically reduce involuntary electroshock treatments; to create Informed Consent policies that specify the side effects of psychotropic drugs; to reduce and set guidelines for the use of seclusion and physical restraints in mental hospitals; and to establish versions of a “Mental Patients' Bill of Rights.” At the community level, organizing campaigns have reduced employer discrimination against individuals receiving psychiatric services, secured funding to create affordable housing units for mental health consumers, conducted antistigma programs, established a model and funding for individuals with dual mental health and substance abuse diagnoses, developed peer networking and support options, and protected funding for mental health services at the state and federal levels.

Another program “MassEquality, works to ensure that every lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) individual in Massachusetts is protected from cradle to grave—with equal rights and opportunities in school, in marriage and family life, at work and in retirement” (MassEquality, 2012). The organization has waged an ongoing campaign to protect and promote marriage equality, successfully lobbying legislators on multiple occasions not to repeal the state law enabling same-sex marriage. In November 2011, MassEquality celebrated the passage of the Transgender Equal Rights Bill, whereby after a long struggle, Massachusetts joined 15 other states and the District of Columbia by expanding protected civil rights for transgender individuals. Organizational lobbying teams were able to convince a number of key legislators to drop opposition to the bill, including a powerful committee chair who previously had kept the bill “bottled up” in his committee for several legislative sessions. MassEquality also was able to assemble a large group of allies from a wide array of human rights, professional, labor, women's, LGBTQ, legal, family, and religious organizations.

Finally, it is impossible to examine the growing phenomenon of youth-led community organizing without confronting social justice issues related to the power and domination of adults over youth (Delgado & Staples, 2008). “Adultism” is rooted in the unequal power relations between young people and adults; it prevents youth from receiving respect, recognition of their competencies, responsibility to make decisions, opportunities to act efficaciously, and acknowledgment for their contributions to their families, schools, communities, and the larger society. Delgado and Staples (2008) emphasized that problems associated with adultism are further compounded “when it intersects with other oppressive forces such as racism, classism, sexism, ableism, mentalism, and homophobia” resulting in “loss of self-esteem, hope for the future, and disengagement from the community” (p. 33).

Most youth-led organizing includes elements of community development and social action. Examples of the former would include community mural painting, working with municipal officials to establish a recycling program, neighborhood clean-ups, community gardening, developing programs to reduce interpersonal violence, and integration of film, fashion, music, dance, art, theater, food, poetry, prose, and use of technology into a variety of youth development projects. Social action might be undertaken to expand summer jobs for youth, institute school reform, eliminate racial profiling by the police, protect the rights and safety of LGBTQ students, secure in-state tuition rates for immigrant college students, and target corporate polluters, while building in opportunities for ice breakers, dialogue, debate, consciousness-raising, leadership training, role-playing, speak-outs, creative props and skits for direct actions.

CONCLUSION

Organizing for social justice entails “looking at the big picture” and then “connecting the dots” to immediate, specific and realistic goals and objectives (Alinsky, 1971) that can make concrete improvements in the lives of the members of marginalized and oppressed groups. Social justice organizing is rooted in collective processes for political education, critical analysis, consciousness-raising, reflecting, envisioning, goal setting, planning, acting, evaluating/assessing, and reflecting again. These processes all are undertaken in task-oriented groups, along with nuts-and-bolts activities such as action research, recruitment, cutting issues, strategic analysis, conducting meetings, developing leadership, gathering signatures, testifying in public forums, implementing direct action tactics, negotiating, lobbying, fundraising, holding special events, and working with the media.

Achieving social justice takes power, and community organizations are vehicles of collective empowerment. A social justice organization without task-oriented groups would be no more viable than a human body without its vital organs. Small groups are the people-sized structures enabling participants to acquire and process new information, learn skills, express opinions, make decisions, take action, experience their collective power, and develop a sense of organizational ownership. Organize for social justice; work in groups to organize!