Lara Rusch ~ 30
involvement.
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In community organizing, an individual’s lack of experience
communicating with public officials or lack of formal knowledge about an issue is
balanced by lay leaders in the group with more experience, and the coaching presence of
the community organizer. So the newcomer enters a dynamic where he or she is able to
contribute and learn simultaneously.
Understanding what people gain from involvement in community organizing also
suggests what they were missing without it. When interviewees described their
engagement in politics through their congregations and through MOSES, some were also
explaining something deeper: their movement out of previous disengagement, alienation
from, and even fear of the political system.
Loretta Roldan is an activist in the Latino community: she previously organized
the Hispanic Women’s Center in Southwest Detroit, which provided ESL and business
training, spiritual activities, and a culturally-sensitive safe space for women. In our
interview, Roldan mentioned that she initially got involved in community politics and
social services by advocating for her children. In her words, the beginning of her
community involvement was necessary; it was “not by choice. Because you've got to be
involved with your children.” She was told to leave parent association meetings because
parents were not allowed to bring children. “The school wanted me to be participant for
my parent’s club […] and so I would get together all my children and go, and they would
reject us, and then I began to say hey, wait a minute. That's why the people are not
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For a similar story of persistent and successful recruitment, see “The Organizer’s Tale” by Cesar Chavez,
United Farm Workers, July 1966.
Convention