The people shall rule
Subtitle: ACORN, community organizing, and the struggle for economic justice
By: Robert Fisher, editor.
Contributors: Fisher, Robert, 1947-
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Nashville, Tenn
Language: eng
Number of pages: 300
ISBN-13: 9780826516565; 9780826516572
Subjects: ACORN (Organization); Community organization -- United States; Community development, Urban -- United States
Description: "With the election of a community organizer as president of the United States, the time is right to evaluate the current state of community organizing and the effectiveness of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Since 2002, ACORN has been dramatically expanding and raising its national profile; it has also been weathering controversy over its voter registration campaigns and an internal financial scandal.

The twelve chapters in this volume present the perspectives of insiders like founder Wade Rathke and leading outside practitioners and academics. The result is a thorough detailing of ACORN's founding and its changing strategies, including vivid accounts and analyses of its campaigns on the living wage, voter turnout, predatory lending, redlining, school reform, and community redevelopment, as well as a critical perspective on ACORN's place in the community organizing landscape."--pub. desc.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Community organizing, ACORN and progressive politics in America / Peter Dreier; title: Understanding ACORN : sweat and social change / Wade Rathke; title: Education as a field for community organizing : a comparative perspective / Elaine Simon and Eva Gold; title: From redlining to reinvestment : economic justice advocacy, ACORN, and the emergence of a community reinvestment infrastructure / Gregory Squires and Jan Chadwick; title: Community organizing theory and practice : conservative trends, oppositional alternatives / James DeFilippis, Robert Fisher and Eric Shragge; title: ACORN and the living wage movement / Stephanie Luce; title: The battle of Brooklyn : ACORN's modus operandi / John Atlas; title: Community resistance to school privatization : the case of New York City / Janelle Scott and Norm Fruchter; title: 'Don't be a blockhead' : ACORN, protest tactics, and refund anticipation loans / Robert Fisher, Fred Brooks and Daniel Russell; title: ACORN experiments in minority voter mobilization / Donald Green and Melissa R. Michelson; title: Does ACORN's work contribute to movement building? / Gary Delgado; title: What direction community organizing? / Robert Fisher.