Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action

Urban decay can sap the determination—not to mention the soul—of anyone who experiences it. But there are forces that can and do reverse it. They are not spectators, or critics, or occasional demonstrators. They are groups of citizens, encouraged and trained to take power with dignity and creativity and unrelenting determination, and to make it work for them, day by day, month by month, and year to year.

For more than twenty-five years, Michael Gecan has been a professional organizer with Industrial Areas Foundation, which has trained thousands of little-known community groups from Brownsville, Texas, to Brownsville, Brooklyn. Having grown up witnessing at close range the destructive effects of political patronage on powerless, disenfranchised Chicago communities, Gecan knows from experience that strong relationships in the public sphere and sustained and disciplined organizing can spark the public and private alchemy necessary to achieve sidewalks, parks, schools, housing—and the collective renewal that results.

Full of good advice and entertaining accounts of success, Going Public is the story of those who, says Gecan, “succeed in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.”

Urban decay can sap the determination—not to mention the soul—of anyone who experiences it. But there are forces that can and do reverse it. They are not spectators, or critics, or occasional demonstrators. They are groups of citizens, encouraged and trained to take power with dignity and creativity and unrelenting determination, and to make it work for them, day by day, month by month, and year to year.

For more than twenty-five years, Michael Gecan has been a professional organizer with Industrial Areas Foundation, which has trained thousands of little-known community groups from Brownsville, Texas, to Brownsville, Brooklyn. Having grown up witnessing at close range the destructive effects of political patronage on powerless, disenfranchised Chicago communities, Gecan knows from experience that strong relationships in the public sphere and sustained and disciplined organizing can spark the public and private alchemy necessary to achieve sidewalks, parks, schools, housing--and the collective renewal that results.

Full of good advice and entertaining accounts of success, Going Public is the story of those who, says Gecan, “succeed in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.”

Nola Theiss - KLIATT

Michael Gecan is a longtime organizer of citizen groups in places like Chicago, Brooklyn, and Brownsville, Texas. His book is full of advice to citizen activists and organizers and stories from his personal experience. He is an admirer of Saul Alinsky, who wrote a book on organizing 50 years ago, but he has updated and modernized some of his "Rules for Radicals." He gives interesting advice and examples of how sometimes in order to be effective old organizations have to disorganize, to use leaders better, and how being creative can draw attention to a group that will then gain access to the politicians and bureaucrats who were ignoring them. He describes the three cultures in America: the market culture, the bureaucratic culture and the "relational" culture, in which community, church and interest groups move. How the three cultures interact is the key to effective citizen action. KLIATT Codes: JSA—Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Random House, Anchor, 192p. index., Ages 12 to adult.

Michael Gecan has worked as an organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore for more than twenty-five years. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.