Al Giordano
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Blog: Power through Organizing: Lessons from the Field (2)

Philippe Duhamel's picture

bush beforeAl Giordano says the most threatening thing to the ruling elite is people working together across race, religion, and class. But the Left, he says, is one of the most segregated places in America. While segregation used to be enforced by law, it is now consumer culture, through market segmentation and advertising niches, that separates people. The key to the success of the Obama campaign, and how an underdog won the US presidency, can be summarized in two words: community organizing. It showed the tremendous power that comes from bridging the divides, from getting the latinos, blacks, whites and mulatos to work together.

Blog: Power through Organizing: Lessons from the Field (1)

Philippe Duhamel's picture

Before nuke plant

How often do you get the chance to take in wisdom garnered through decades of smart organizing work?

In 1979, from a remote summer camp cabin in the Berkshire mountains, nineteen-year-old Al Giordano started organizing the Rowe Nuclear Conversion Campaign. Thirty-two years later, he's back in the same summer camp to share with us, lucky few, some of his best stories. A rare treat; not many organizers lasted as many seasons, or make the effort to patiently share their crop of battle-tested insights.