Organizing the Movement: The Roots and Growth of ACORN

Labor and Social Change

by Gary Delgado

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is the single largest community organization in the United States. It has organized welfare recipients, homeowners, and farmers battling to save their lands and, like other community groups, it has combined work on the most local of neighborhood issues—redlining, street safety, and garbage collection—with larger fights concerning issues such as civil rights, utility rates, property taxes, and even national politics. It has 50,000 members, branches in more than twenty states, and is still growing.

No one is better qualified to write about the inner workings of ACORN than Gary Delgado. For over 14 years he has worked as an organizer, trainer, and recruiter with ACORN. He was given access to all organizational files, including internal memos and organizational archives, and through his work he has attempted to influence the political direction, social composition, tactics, and strategy of the Association.

In Organizing the Movement, Delgado investigates how community organizations can play a key role in building a progressive coalition for social justice in the U.S. He follows the development of community organizations from the early seventies through the mid-eighties, discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the major models of community organizing, and examines the relationship between the availability of financial, personnel, and ideological resources and the attainment of organizational goals.

Organizing the Movement is not simply the story of ACORN. It is an analysis of the process and the potentiality of community organization action groups and their ability to provide individuals with an opportunity to change at least a small portion of the world in which they live.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Lou Marchese · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had the pleasure of reading four ACORN books this year, and this is VERY clearly the one written by an organizer on the inside.

As a primer on ACORN’s history and legacy beyond the eighties, I still suggest Seeds of Change. But if you’re curious about the day to day of ACORN organizing, their staff culture, and how the model was built, this is your book!!

[Will Atkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dated, and ends before ACORN even got as big as it did (ends in ~1984). But it’s a good read if you’re looking for the early history and some of the tactics used before the internet with community organizing.