‘I’m hoping people get inspired’: what can we learn from the godfather of community organizing?

Community organizing” is a phrase that’s taken on an almost elastic quality in this fraught political moment. When it isn’t being wielded by right-leaning ideologues to slight grassroots politics (see the 2008 US presidential and 2025 New York City mayoral elections), it’s being embraced by progressives who believe that hopscotching among major protest movements and voting every four years will eventually turn the tide.