Bridging the Class Divide: And Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing

Synopsis

Where literature on community organizing circulates, the often contrarian views of the working-class founder of North Carolina's Piedmont Peace Project (PPP) are likely to draw attention. Stout, now executive director of the Peace Development Fund in Massachusetts, had often found herself–as a native southern woman with a high-school education in the early '80s peace movement–closed out of functions like public speaking. PPP, formed by and for working-class and poor people (predominantly women and African Americans), has developed its own organizing model based on seven principles: focusing on social change; working across lines of race and class; including indigenous leaders and organizers; encouraging diversity through ongoing outreach and training; linking local and national issues; developing and maintaining personal empowerment while working for organizational power; and staying flexible to adapt to participants' needs and leadership styles. Stout describes the "invisible walls" –of language, assumed knowledge, logistics, meeting format and structure–that middle-class organizations often unintentionally erect and suggests mutually respectful ways citizens can work together for social and economic justice. Mary Carroll