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This chapter explores the meaning of organizing and how grassroots organizing in Mississippi changed politics at the national level. It stresses the need for a greater focus on the history of organizing as a concept and argues that organizing is not only about large-scale efforts to raise money and attract voters common in electoral politics. It looks at the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as well as the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and cites particular forms of organizing ranging from self-defense and Freedom Schools to the accessibility of federal programs. The chapter also considers the Mississippi civil rights movement as a historical model that can be used to better understand other struggles for grassroots power.

When Barack Obama announced on February 10, 2007 that he would seek his party's nomination for president of the United States, he started by telling his audience how he came to Chicago in 1985. When Obama spoke at Grant Park on November 4, 2008 shortly after the networks announced that he had won the presidential election, he made a point of thanking his organisers in the field. He emphasised that his campaign was at heart a grassroots effort, begun ‘in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston’ and funded primarily by small donors. The election did not end the importance of volunteerism and grassroots organising. Obama extended the spirit of community organising to the challenges facing the nation by calling for a ‘new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice’. To underscore the importance of continuing the grassroots work that had been so vital to his victory, the campaign organisation, Obama for America, changed its name to Organising for America days after Obama was inaugurated.

On August 24, 2007, a forest fire struck the province of Ilias, a predominantly rural and semi-rural area in the Peloponnesus region of Greece. The fire killed 67 people and affected 5,392 others. It was considered the worst ‘natural disaster’ in Greece during the period 2001–2010. The economic damage was estimated to be about US $1,750,000,000; the environmental degradation was enormous. This chapter explores the immediate aftermath of the fires, the government response and the development of a grassroots network of community activists who campaigned for both compensation and the defence of their own and public lands against property developers. It considers testimony from farmers and activists and then outlines a social work student project initiated by the author at her previous higher education institution, TEI Patras, which involved senior social work students working in fire-affected communities and organising with the community to raise awareness about its situation. The chapter suggests that the educational project offers valuable insight for engaged social work in post-disaster situations, and, more broadly, for a grassroots community organising social work practice.

Political innovation is a process that unfolds over time. New practices have to be tested on the ground, in specific situations in which others are also acting. Accordingly, this chapter follows the development of populist mobilization practices over the course of the last few months of electoral campaigning in Peru’s 1931 election, paying particular attention to how the political actors adapted their innovative practices to the context at hand, as well as to how these practices were refined over time as the actors assessed their own actions and responded to the actions of their competitors. It argues that the dynamic of competition between the two political parties, and their assessments of their own strategic successes—that is, their experiential learning from themselves and from one another—led to a ratcheting up of the practices that they had been enacting since May. Focusing in particular on the Unión Revolucionaria and APRA parties’ grassroots organizing efforts, their practices at mass rallies, and their political rhetoric, it shows how populist mobilization crystallized and gained in coherence between July and October of 1931.

This chapter examines the role that grassroots organizing and leadership development play in tackling social and economic inequalities along multiple axes of difference, including race, gender, immigration status, and language ability. It locates immigrant women workers at the center of social change by focusing on Asian Immigrant Women Advocates's (AIWA) self-reflexive organizing approach. AIWA is a grassroots community-based organization whose mission is to improve the living and working conditions of Asian immigrant women employed in low-paid and socially devalued jobs. AIWA's English-language dominance workshop embodies many of its core principles and organizing philosophy. The chapter analyzes AIWA's theory and method of change as well as its intersectional organizing approach, with particular emphasis on its English-language classes, workplace literacy classes, and Community Transformational Organizing Strategy (CTOS). It shows that AIWA produces new kinds of politics, polities, and personalities by placing immigrant women workers at the center of the struggle.

This chapter examines the use of the arts in AIDS activism in Morocco, with particular emphasis on grassroots organizing and celebrity campaigns. AIDS activism began in Morocco in 1988 with the formation of Association de Lutte contre le Sida (ALCS). In 2005, with the support of King Mohammed VI, ALCS dramatically increased its visibility with a two-week campaign known as Sidaction, which included the participation of the country’s major radio and television networks. In the last few years, the use of celebrities from the world of entertainment to raise public awareness of HIV/AIDS has become an integral component of AIDS work in Morocco. ALCS, with the support of the state, has continued to stage Sidaction telethons, but the primary focus of its work remains grassroots organizing and education work. A newer organization, Ruban Rouge, bases its educational work on the participation of celebrity entertainers in publicity campaigns.

This chapter examines grassroots organizing around street vending in New York City since 2003, with particular emphasis on the debates surrounding vending in the city and the ways in which the issue has been framed by both activists and government officials. It begins with a discussion of the claims of street vendors within the context of neoliberal forms of urban governance and their contestation, asking how they work within and contest neoliberal forms of governance. It then considers two main issues faced by street vendors in New York City, one related to enforcement of street-vending rules and regulations, the other related to licensing and permits. It takes a look at one organization, Esperanza del Barrio, to find out how it uses ideas of respect, dignity, and rights to frame its advocacy of street vendors. The chapter shows that grassroots activists and their supporters have framed the demands of street vendors by appealing to ideas of free enterprise and individualism.

This chapter highlights the complex politics of alliance work and knowledge production at transnational, national, and even local scales, and between academics and activists, by describing the Sangtins' journey from a small writing and story-sharing collective of seven women to a peasant mass movement in Uttar Pradesh, India. Originally founded in 1999, Sangtin Kisaan Mazdoor Sangathan seeks to empower poor rural women through dialogue, autobiographical writing, and critical analysis. The Sangtins' journey, which began in 2002, sought to challenge the traditional separations among activist, academic, and creative labor by evolving methodologies through which grassroots leadership could emerge to collectively rearticulate the needs of the rural poor and to create the conditions under which they could organize to meet those needs. This chapter examines how Sangtin has tried to provide an ongoing critique of mainstream projects of empowerment while also pushing the state to implement its own policies adopted in the name of “the poorest of the poor,” along with their efforts to deepen connections between intellectual labor and grassroots organizing.

Twelve Michigan counties that voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 flipped to assure Donald Trump’s surprising 2016 victory in this supposed “blue wall” state. To understand how this happened, this chapter tracks the tactics and organizational capabilities of the statewide Trump and Clinton campaigns and looks closely at rural Manistee County, where a pronounced swing from Obama to Trump coincided with increased voter turnout. As the research reveals, the Trump campaign inspired new grassroots enthusiasm and tapped into preexisting conservative networks, including those built by Americans for Prosperity-Michigan and the Tea Party. While local Democrats exhibited tepid support for Clinton, strong anti-establishment and identity-based sentiments fueled support for Trump.

In this chapter, the author discusses the research that went into her book, Casino Women, in light of the legacy of labor historians David Montgomery and Shelton Stromquist, as well as her quandary about whether to become an academic or remain an activist. Her background as an activist spurred her desire to do work like Casino Women—which examines the grassroots organizing efforts of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas. She also reflects on the relationship between her years of activism and her scholarship, especially in the production of Casino Women. The author concludes that engaged scholarship has great benefits, both professionally and personally. She was able to raise issues important to her state and share her research with her students, but the engagement her research involved also meant that she was living a happier and committed life.