I grew up within a progressive Unitarian Universalist family and began attending peace marches and anti-nuclear marches with them in the 1980s. I began some work as an anti-nuclear student activist in high school and later spent much of the last two years at school in Chicago working as a student activist. Whilst a student activist, I was recruited by Kim Bobo to kick off an organizer internship that would help get an affordable housing and jobs campaign started in Chicago.

A. The power of organizing is based on the power of relationships; collectively we are stronger than we are as individuals.
B. Movements are powerful, sustaining and may be the only way to win some changes. What became very clear to me during the immigrant marches of 2006 is the promise of how mass groups of people can stop and derail punitive federal legislation. I also believe the immigrant rights movement broadly conceived, holds out the promise of broad legalization for millions at some point in the next 2-4 years.

Certainly the most profound, sustaining influence on my early organizing career was that of faith-based institutional organizing as modeled by the Industrial Areas Foundation. One of my earliest mentors was Greg Pierce, an old school IAF organizer. I was mentored by Greg Pierce for two years in the art of relationships, agitation, self interest, power, strategy analysis and organizing.