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Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists, and Quiet Lovers of Justice
Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons—all are considered fair game. Through stories, analysis, impassioned argument—even song lyrics—Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich show that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to fulfill effectively what have traditionally been the responsibilities of government. They make a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy.
212 pages, Paperback
First published April 4, 1960
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March 14, 2010
Well, this book has 9 pages of praise from prestigious reviewers ranging from Congressmen to veteran activists to prominent academics. Judging from that, this should be the greatest book about community organizing ever! While I don't believe it is, I think that it is a unique contribution to the field (if you'd like to call it that).
This is my first introduction to Si Kahn, but clearly many other know and cherish him for his organizing “for the long haul,” as Myles Horton would put it. Because of Kahn's deep and varied involvement in organizing (civil rights, labor, immigrant, anti-prison) and protest music, Kahn's writing is authoritative like a researcher's and plain, yet eloquent like a folk musician. A great strength of the book is that one without any experience practicing or reading about community organizing can jump in without missing anything. However, it is Kahn's call for culture that makes his book unique.
As the title suggests, Kahn argues for an integration of culture in organizing. While he discourages an “add culture and stir” approach, the stories he tells are not much more than that—singing to maintain hope and solidarity while being arrested, role playing to prepare leaders for campaigns, conscious design of an organization's logo to be inclusive and communicate mission and values. Other examples he cites as “creative” organizing see to me simply “good” organizing. Perhaps I'm already a “creative” organizer, and I'm not Kahn's intended audience!
One thing his stories, even parables, do accomplish is effectively critique some core assumptions of Alinsky-style organizing. While dissing Alisnky is certainly en vogue, (with the assimilation of Freire and popular education in foundation-speak), so is evoking him (as Alinsky was revisited by the media amidst Obama, the former community organizer's presidential campaign). Kahn distances himself from Alinsky when he writes that community organizing must not only change power, but also people's relationship to it. In other words, he calls for an organizing that raises consciousness—what some of us would call transformative organizing.
At the same time, Kahn holds Alinsky tradition fundamental concepts, like self-interest, even when he has to stretch its definition to describe his own motivations for organizing. He struggles to explain the complete reason he is compelled to act, but stuck in Alinsky vocabulary, when he writes of a “moral self-interest” to do what is right. But why not abandon the concept, at least temporarily, and recognize that sometimes we are motivated by solidarity? Sure, self-interest may motivate us to first get involved, but solidarity may be what sustains us in movement. Workers join the Worker Center, where I work, most often out of the self-interest of seeking justice for exploitation on the job. But others join our organization because they believe in our mission to organize low-wage and immigrant workers. Sure, we can reduce this impulse to a self-interest of “feeling good” or “feeling a part of something” but I find the concept useless by the time we dice things this small.
Kahn poignantly questions the utility of the traditionally-held “stop sign principle,” in which an organizer organizes the community around an “easy,” “winnable,” target, like compelling the local official to install a stop sign at a dangerous intersection, thereby teaching the community that they have power. In this way, the theory goes, an organizer can prepare the community for increasingly bold campaigns for concessions from power-holders. Kahn points out that “you run out of fixed fights pretty quickly.” After winning some of these “easy wins,” the community may be unprepared and unable to deal with the loss in some real fights. The other problem (and this may be more a reflection of the limits of place-based organizing) is that when the community starts fighting for something substantial, like jobs, the reality is that you're fighting against umpteen other neighborhoods demanding the same thing. Not only may the stop sign approach set up the community to fail, it also places one's organization in direct competition with the organizations of other neighborhoods.
Kahn argues for a more poetic vision of organizing in which we fight for “the impossible,” or those campaigns which at the time seemed out of reach, but in hindsight now seem inevitable. Why not organize the community to fight for those bigger issues that they really want? In fact, this is a major theme of the book, and Kahn provides plenty of evidence for it, from the civil rights movement and anti-prison movement, among others. Kahn adopts a modest optimism and advises us that “you never know what is possible....and therefore we can never compromise with injustice.”
Another enduring message from the book is that progressive values cannot be abandoned for strategic positioning. In a particularly moving passage, he recounts how the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had targeted “the Jew store” in order to divide the unity of local businesses in a campaign to hire blacks (Kahn, at the time a civil rights worker from the North, is Jewish). While strategic move, the story returns us to the point for the need to ensure that the experience of organizing be transformative, challenging prejudicial and oppressive power at all levels.
Complicated, challenging, touching, inspiring stories like these are the strengths of “Creative Community Organizing.” Kahn's story-telling give cause to reflect on both ourselves as organizers and our practice with community members. As such, the book seems aimed for organizers who are allies to the communities they work with. For the student of organizing, Kahn's book is best when complemented by other books like Linda Stout's “Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing,” (see my review) which emphasizes the need for organizers who come from constituent communities. Overall, “Creative Community Organizing” is both imaginative and practical, not unlike the organizing Kahn champions.
This is my first introduction to Si Kahn, but clearly many other know and cherish him for his organizing “for the long haul,” as Myles Horton would put it. Because of Kahn's deep and varied involvement in organizing (civil rights, labor, immigrant, anti-prison) and protest music, Kahn's writing is authoritative like a researcher's and plain, yet eloquent like a folk musician. A great strength of the book is that one without any experience practicing or reading about community organizing can jump in without missing anything. However, it is Kahn's call for culture that makes his book unique.
As the title suggests, Kahn argues for an integration of culture in organizing. While he discourages an “add culture and stir” approach, the stories he tells are not much more than that—singing to maintain hope and solidarity while being arrested, role playing to prepare leaders for campaigns, conscious design of an organization's logo to be inclusive and communicate mission and values. Other examples he cites as “creative” organizing see to me simply “good” organizing. Perhaps I'm already a “creative” organizer, and I'm not Kahn's intended audience!
One thing his stories, even parables, do accomplish is effectively critique some core assumptions of Alinsky-style organizing. While dissing Alisnky is certainly en vogue, (with the assimilation of Freire and popular education in foundation-speak), so is evoking him (as Alinsky was revisited by the media amidst Obama, the former community organizer's presidential campaign). Kahn distances himself from Alinsky when he writes that community organizing must not only change power, but also people's relationship to it. In other words, he calls for an organizing that raises consciousness—what some of us would call transformative organizing.
At the same time, Kahn holds Alinsky tradition fundamental concepts, like self-interest, even when he has to stretch its definition to describe his own motivations for organizing. He struggles to explain the complete reason he is compelled to act, but stuck in Alinsky vocabulary, when he writes of a “moral self-interest” to do what is right. But why not abandon the concept, at least temporarily, and recognize that sometimes we are motivated by solidarity? Sure, self-interest may motivate us to first get involved, but solidarity may be what sustains us in movement. Workers join the Worker Center, where I work, most often out of the self-interest of seeking justice for exploitation on the job. But others join our organization because they believe in our mission to organize low-wage and immigrant workers. Sure, we can reduce this impulse to a self-interest of “feeling good” or “feeling a part of something” but I find the concept useless by the time we dice things this small.
Kahn poignantly questions the utility of the traditionally-held “stop sign principle,” in which an organizer organizes the community around an “easy,” “winnable,” target, like compelling the local official to install a stop sign at a dangerous intersection, thereby teaching the community that they have power. In this way, the theory goes, an organizer can prepare the community for increasingly bold campaigns for concessions from power-holders. Kahn points out that “you run out of fixed fights pretty quickly.” After winning some of these “easy wins,” the community may be unprepared and unable to deal with the loss in some real fights. The other problem (and this may be more a reflection of the limits of place-based organizing) is that when the community starts fighting for something substantial, like jobs, the reality is that you're fighting against umpteen other neighborhoods demanding the same thing. Not only may the stop sign approach set up the community to fail, it also places one's organization in direct competition with the organizations of other neighborhoods.
Kahn argues for a more poetic vision of organizing in which we fight for “the impossible,” or those campaigns which at the time seemed out of reach, but in hindsight now seem inevitable. Why not organize the community to fight for those bigger issues that they really want? In fact, this is a major theme of the book, and Kahn provides plenty of evidence for it, from the civil rights movement and anti-prison movement, among others. Kahn adopts a modest optimism and advises us that “you never know what is possible....and therefore we can never compromise with injustice.”
Another enduring message from the book is that progressive values cannot be abandoned for strategic positioning. In a particularly moving passage, he recounts how the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had targeted “the Jew store” in order to divide the unity of local businesses in a campaign to hire blacks (Kahn, at the time a civil rights worker from the North, is Jewish). While strategic move, the story returns us to the point for the need to ensure that the experience of organizing be transformative, challenging prejudicial and oppressive power at all levels.
Complicated, challenging, touching, inspiring stories like these are the strengths of “Creative Community Organizing.” Kahn's story-telling give cause to reflect on both ourselves as organizers and our practice with community members. As such, the book seems aimed for organizers who are allies to the communities they work with. For the student of organizing, Kahn's book is best when complemented by other books like Linda Stout's “Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing,” (see my review) which emphasizes the need for organizers who come from constituent communities. Overall, “Creative Community Organizing” is both imaginative and practical, not unlike the organizing Kahn champions.
March 10, 2022
More of a memoir than a how-to, but good stories and good thoughts on incorporating ideas.
July 8, 2015
I first briefly met Si Kahn five years ago in Mountain View, Arkansas. Two months ago we met again at the Southeast Regional Folk Alliance conference and had a chance for a chat. We started off talking about music and inevitably the conversation turned to the effect music has on people once artists decide to go beyond entertainment. Singers, songwriters, musicians, presenters, promoters and producers sometime forget the powerful effect that song can have on the audience. Music is a universal language that doesn’t always need translation, but often goes through the ears and straight into the heart. Si left me with a copy of his recent book, Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists & Quiet Lovers of Justice. It is actually several books in one. On the surface it is a guide for community organizers with practical advice on strategy and tactics for affecting social change on any level. It is also a memoir of Si’s more than forty-five years as an organizer from voter registration drives in the South during the Freedom Movement of the Sixties, union organizing in the coal fields of Kentucky to the drive to protect Bristol Bay in the Arctic. Parallel to Si’s story is the history of progressive movements in America over the last half century. Creative Community Organizing is also a book of political philosophy and the importance of people-centered thinking. Finally, Si has written a book of great ethical importance. Without preaching or moralizing he reminds us about focusing our lives around “doing the right thing.”
January 13, 2017
Having met Si a few times in my nearly 15 years in the South, I have always been moved by his dedication and passion for movement music and typically inspired by whatever cause he was currently fighting for. Though I am not always a fan of folk music, he is someone worthy of a listen to and respect. This book, though more memoir than organizing guide is an enjoyable and quick read filled with interesting anecdotes and great snapshots of campaigns for civil rights, workers rights, and social justice. I loved hearing him openly admit to both mistakes and accidental victories and especially appreciated learning more about the not so public front lines of the civil rights and workers movement like Forrest City, Arkansas and Rocky Mount, NC. He has led an interesting life and there are nuggets amongst the stories to glean for anyone that wants to be an organizer or even veteran organizers. I would recommend this one for anyone that wants a snapshot of community organizing over the last 45 years or if you just need a light read for some renewed inspirations.
January 13, 2017
This book is a fast and thoughtful read, which is to say, it offers a grounded perspective on how power and advocacy work, in a format that organizers and advocates can read and absorb without a lot of extra rumination required. It seems to me that, in the field of social justice literature, there must be a sub-genre of memoirs by long-time organizers. The books of this kind that I've read often have useful insights to share about power and change, if you can squeeze past the oversized ego of the author that takes up so much space in the center of their book. In this book, though, Kahn's self is much more contained, and the narrative is pretty compelling. An appendix, a 'top 20' list of advice for organizers, contains some helpful distilled wisdom - nothing exotic, but worth keeping around to reread from time to time.
November 24, 2014
To me this was not a "guide" so much as it was a memoir. While I enjoyed Kahn's personal experiences and reading what he learned from them, I feel like the title was misleading. I did not get as much from this book as I wanted to.
April 7, 2011
Very interesting, took me back to the basics of way I do the work that I do. Just passed it off to a young man finding his way in community organizing.
February 1, 2025
This guidebook for those of us interested in justice of any kind is a gift to the world. Kahn's narrative style and straight-up tone make this an easy and inviting read. Whether you are coming to this book with an interest in privatization of prisons, the Civil Rights Movement, or advice on how to be an organizer, anyone with an interest in how we can come together to fight for a more just world will find something within these pages. Kahn's forty plus years of experience as a creative community organizer come to life in the various stories he recalls, offering us a glimpse into the life of an organizer dedicated not only to fighting injustice, but to building a more just world. From stories about his time spent with the SNCC, to his work building Grassroots Leadership, Kahn does not miss a detail, and each phone call, meeting over coffee, and front porch conversation is a gem. Kahn's lyrics shine as artistic artifacts of a life spent in service of others. These songs, in harmony with the lessons only a seasoned veteran can impart, blend to create a truly inspiring call to action which plainly and courageously sets out the work at hand for all of us. Here, in the space between political action and cultural creation, Kahn makes a powerful argument for how we may collectively build a more just world. What, I think, he hopes to impart is that without building a culture of love, reciprocity, and solidarity, organizing is no more than people yelling upwind. What we need in movements where justice is concerned, is people willing to build the world we are fighting for. On the ground level, that means sifting through the haze of helplessness to decide how you, with your skills, culture, and experience, may come to the work of building a more just world. Kahn's words give us some hope. Whether you are an artist, musician, poet, writer, reader, dancer, cook, mom, dad, and on, you have a role to play. No matter how you come to the movement of building a better, more just world, you will have a place. The more people who stand up to co-create this future, the more people will be represented from the foundational level our world (paraphrased from Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown). If, in some small (or grand) way, we can all take a little more time to imagine how we may bring our own particular skills and passions to the movement of creating a more just world, maybe we will have an easier time building it. As Kahn reminds us citing the words of Dr. King, the dream we seek happens not in some far-off land, but in the everyday experience of working together to build a world that truly, bravely, works for everyone
November 22, 2017
Creative Community Organizing is a great tool to learn from--it's full of strategy and thoughts that I haven't been able to successfully put into words before, as well as out-there, fantastic ideas. My only issue is the storytelling Kahn tries to use to relate the meat of the chapter to reality. The autobiographical portions of the book aren't effective and sometimes don't make any sense at all.
May 9, 2024
read this for a class (social work practice with groups and organizations) and hoped it was going to be more of a how-to than a somewhat poorly written memoir with, in my opinion, an over-focus on #peaceandlove. but maybe i'm too pessimistic to really appreciate that. it did have a lot of valuable elements. loved the intro by angela davis!
June 14, 2025
I loved hearing about Si’s experiences with local and national community organizing, successful immigration reform campaigns, and incorporating his music and art into his work. The humor was great, too.
While this is more of a memoir than an outright guide, the last chapters of the book outline specific advice for organizers, in case anyone is interested in bullet point / step-by-step insight.
While this is more of a memoir than an outright guide, the last chapters of the book outline specific advice for organizers, in case anyone is interested in bullet point / step-by-step insight.
March 21, 2022
Really good read about organizing principles and Kahn's experience as an organizer. I really appreciate that he went into some of the complexities of organizing and the obligations we take on when we commit to our convictions.
December 23, 2023
This was a really meaningful memoir-esque piece. With the title and description, I was eager to get nuts-and-bolts strategy and insight. This book is an undeniable first person account of a veteran of movement work. Again, great book just not what it advertises itself to be.
August 9, 2025
I could have saved time reading through all the author’s song lyrics by simply going to the last chapter where he summarized his top 20. I’m a reader looking for guidance, not inspiration at this time in life.
May 1, 2018
An interesting look at the life and strategies of a Community Organizer
July 2, 2012
Si Kahn is a veteran community organizer who got his start in the 1960's with SNCC and has worked on civil rights, coal mine union organizing, and movements against for-profit prisons. He is the founder and past leader of Grassroots Leadership, and a song writer. In this book, he writes about his insights in to community organizing thru storytelling. In the process we learn a lot of about organizing but also about the joys and struggles of working for social justice in an all too imperfect world. For anyone wishing to learn about how to work for social change this is a very insightful and inspiring book. It is not a manual for organizing as much as it speaks to the personal joys and challenges of being an organizer.
June 6, 2013
Ini salah satu buku aktivisme yang saya suka dan sering rekomendasikan ke teman-teman relawan atau aktivis sosial. Buku ini bernas, masuk ke jantung permasalahan (terutama masalah metodis). Oleh karena itu, buku ini sangat membantu Anda para pembaca yang gatal untuk segera bertindak untuk orang-orang sekitar Anda.
Permasalahan buku ini adalah pada kedalaman. Barangkali memang tidak pad tempatnya saya berbicara kedalaman di sini, tapi ada kekhawatiran pada diri saya sendiri ketika membaca buku ini saya akan terjebak hanya pada aras yang-penting-gerak tanpa berpikir mendalam.
Ah... tapi sudahlah. Kekhawatiran saya juga tak terlalu penting. Hidup aktivisme!
Permasalahan buku ini adalah pada kedalaman. Barangkali memang tidak pad tempatnya saya berbicara kedalaman di sini, tapi ada kekhawatiran pada diri saya sendiri ketika membaca buku ini saya akan terjebak hanya pada aras yang-penting-gerak tanpa berpikir mendalam.
Ah... tapi sudahlah. Kekhawatiran saya juga tak terlalu penting. Hidup aktivisme!
August 4, 2016
Between this book and You HAve the Power, I hope to be further strengthening my sharpness for The Work in the world. Si Kahn.... what is NOT to love!! His music, gravelly voice... his work ... EARLY... to warn against the Prison Industrial Complex. He spoke at FGC Gathering back when... I was hoping Friends would get on board then. Trouble with the format of Gathering then was no format to pull together folks. Is that changing maybe... people at Gathering feeling more bullish... o hope so...
April 7, 2014
Not just for those who fancy themselves "community organizers" or leaders in any sense. As the subtitle puts it, it is truly an inspiring "Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists, and Quiet Lovers of Justice."
September 16, 2013
A bit of a memoir, yet inspiring stories and techniques for social activism.
December 27, 2014
very fine organizing manual
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews