What do you think?
Rate this book
Igniting Justice and Progressive Power: The Partnership for Working Families Cities
A progressive resurgence is happening across the United States. This book shows how long-lasting coalitions have built progressive power from the regional level on up. Anchored by the "think and act" affiliate organizations of the Partnership for Working Families (PWF) these regional power building projects are putting in place the vision, policy agenda, political savvy, and grassroots mobilization needed for progressive governance.
Through six sections, the book explores how Partnership for Working Families projects are a core part of the defeat of the right-wing in states such as California; the challenge to corporate neoliberalism in traditionally "liberal" areas; and contests for power in such formally solid red states as Arizona, Georgia, and Colorado. This book considers how these PWF groups work on economic, racial and environmental justice challenges, equitable development, and other critical issues. It addresses how, at their core, they bring together labor, community, environmental, and faith-based organizations and the coalitions and campaigns that they developed have won and continue to win substantial victories for their communities.
Igniting Justice and Progressive Power will be of interest to activists and concerned citizens looking to understand how lasting political change actually happens as well as all scholars and students of social work, urban geography, political sociology, community development, social movements and political science more broadly.
Through six sections, the book explores how Partnership for Working Families projects are a core part of the defeat of the right-wing in states such as California; the challenge to corporate neoliberalism in traditionally "liberal" areas; and contests for power in such formally solid red states as Arizona, Georgia, and Colorado. This book considers how these PWF groups work on economic, racial and environmental justice challenges, equitable development, and other critical issues. It addresses how, at their core, they bring together labor, community, environmental, and faith-based organizations and the coalitions and campaigns that they developed have won and continue to win substantial victories for their communities.
Igniting Justice and Progressive Power will be of interest to activists and concerned citizens looking to understand how lasting political change actually happens as well as all scholars and students of social work, urban geography, political sociology, community development, social movements and political science more broadly.
354 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 21, 2021
3 people want to read
About the author
David B. Reynolds
5 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Current profile:
David Reynolds is an author, activist, and researcher based in southeast Michigan.
Reynolds has a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. He helps develop leadership skills among working adults at the Center for Labor and Community Studies, University of Michigan. He also teaches State and Local Government at Eastern Michigan University.
For twenty years he has led a research network that works with the national AFL-CIO to document the regional and state labor movement innovations that, among other things, have produced many of the Partnership for Working Families affiliates.
Reynolds has not simply studied progressive power-building but led local and regional efforts. He is a founder and serves on the board of Doing Development Differently in Metro Detroit (D4) – a labor-community coalition aimed at maximizing worker and community benefits from current and future investments in the metropolitan area. He helped facilitate and supported with research over a dozen successful living wage efforts in south-east Michigan. In his hometown he leads Rising for Economic Democracy in Ypsilanti, which in 2019 passed a Community Benefits Ordinance that increases community participation in local economic development. He currently is helping grow broad-based open roundtable to build greater community and communication among progressive groups and individuals in Washtenaw County.
Disambiguated authors:
(1) David B. Reynolds - Economic Politics (Current Profile)
(2) David B. Reynolds - American, self-published romance author, technical writer
Current profile:
David Reynolds is an author, activist, and researcher based in southeast Michigan.
Reynolds has a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. He helps develop leadership skills among working adults at the Center for Labor and Community Studies, University of Michigan. He also teaches State and Local Government at Eastern Michigan University.
For twenty years he has led a research network that works with the national AFL-CIO to document the regional and state labor movement innovations that, among other things, have produced many of the Partnership for Working Families affiliates.
Reynolds has not simply studied progressive power-building but led local and regional efforts. He is a founder and serves on the board of Doing Development Differently in Metro Detroit (D4) – a labor-community coalition aimed at maximizing worker and community benefits from current and future investments in the metropolitan area. He helped facilitate and supported with research over a dozen successful living wage efforts in south-east Michigan. In his hometown he leads Rising for Economic Democracy in Ypsilanti, which in 2019 passed a Community Benefits Ordinance that increases community participation in local economic development. He currently is helping grow broad-based open roundtable to build greater community and communication among progressive groups and individuals in Washtenaw County.
Disambiguated authors:
(1) David B. Reynolds - Economic Politics (Current Profile)
(2) David B. Reynolds - American, self-published romance author, technical writer
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 9, 2021
Watching the news can leave you depressed about the possibilities of real change in America. Fortunately Igniting Justice and Progressive Power provides a wonderful anecdote by showing that not only is progressive political change possible, it is already happening in cities and regions around the country. Going back two decades the Partnership for Working Families is a network of over 20 affiliates that have been movement building in their regions. These projects have brought together multi-racial working-class coalitions, fought to pass innovative public policy around such issues as living wages, affordable housing, community benefits on developments, climate justice, and participatory budgets. They have helped elect progressive champions to local and state offices. Most important, as the authors argue, these projects aim to establish progressive governance – setting the debate, key questions, agenda, and policies for politics in their region. These are the steppingstones to state and national change. And we are already seeing this change in states like California, Arizona, and Georgia. This book is for anyone looking to learn how to build progressive power from the ground up.
Displaying 1 of 1 review