Meet the Your MBTA Heroes
Oh to be young and bold again. Susan Blair from the Globe did a terrific job with this series of photos. The super group was created not by a nuclear accident or super serum, but by an organization from Roxbury called the Alternatives for Community & Environment. According group, it aims to empower low income...
Outstanding! 2000 Young People Rally for Summer Jobs
They came from all over the state. Including Lynn. And, after months of prep work and meetings they got a splendid editorial in the Boston Globe (who described the young people as “earnest” a throwback to Tom Winship we think.) MANY BOSTONIANS over the age of 40 can recall the ease of finding summer employment during their...
The Videos: History and Legacy of Welfare Rights with Frances Fox Piven
Here is Frances Fox Piven telling us all the Occupy movement has set the stage for a resurgence of organizing the poor. We hope this very special session in the Organizing to Change series gave new organizers and activists in the Boston area a deeper history of organizing in Boston and some inspiration. Here are...
Leadership Series: Fridays in March
WOULD YOU LIKE TO STEP FORWARD? BECOME A LEADER IN THESE HARD ECONOMIC TIMES! Sign up today for the Academy’s March Leadership Program. Build a successful campaign from the ground up for your issue, even now, during the current fiscal crisis. Walk step by step through campaign planning and practice with Massachusetts advocacy and organizing...
Thousand Flowers around the MBTA
STOP the MBTA Attacks on Seniors & People with Disabilities It seems like a thousand new partnerships and coalitions are popping up all over the place protesting the proposed MBTA cuts and fare hikes – not quite the thousand flowers Chairman Mao was encouraging but apparently that was a misquote anyway . After weeks...
The Path To Change from Mel King and “do something”
Those of us who were in attendance at the January 25 session where Mel King shared with us the lessons he learned as an organizer in Boston are still digesting those words of wisdom and trying to integrate them into their work. We are still editing the video we took that night into some 15 minute...
The Cycle of Organizing
At the Mass Leadership’s January 25 session called Organizing for Change, Lew Finfer did not have time to walk people through this particular handout called the Cycle of Organizing. As an introduction Lew writes ……….. Listen Challenge Act Organizing is about listening, challenging people to come forward on their deeply felt interest, and acting together;...
Good grass-roots organizing always beats money, no matter how much,’’ Dukakis said in an interview.
And he’s absolutely right. This Globe story describes the pressure that the volunteer town officials face as “big money out of town casino developers” move in to get the necessary permissions to build a destination casino in their town. The state’s legalization of casino gambling is putting unprecedented demands and pressures on part-time local officials, calling...
Resisting the Advocates
The folk at at Spare Change News are the ones who got the State House News story out first about the tinyest possiblity that the Governer’s budget may — just may — include some revenue measures. We particulary appreciate the image of the our good, decent hardworking Secretary of Admininstration and Finance “warding off ” advocates who want...
Lessons from Macedonia
I never would have noticed this article on the inside Pages of the New York Times “Before Macedonia”, meaning before my trip to Macedonia last month, WASHINGTON — Egypt’s military rulers privately signaled a retreat on Friday in a crackdown on organizations that promote democracy and human rights, senior American officials said, even as the authorities in Cairo...
