Vanderbilt University Press

 ACORN: On the front lines in the struggle for economic justice -- new perspectives on controversial community organizing group

Before the 2008 presidential election, when conservative pundits started complaining about Barack Obama's community organizing past and his connections to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), most Americans had probably not heard of the group.

            Things are certainly different now. Mentions of ACORN are ubiquitous. But how many people understand what the organization does and how it works?  In his new book, The People Shall Rule: ACORN, Community Organizing, and the Struggle for Economic Justice (Vanderbilt University Press, October 2009), editor Robert Fisher provides the perspectives of insiders like founder Wade Rathke and leading outside practitioners and academics to provide a critical perspective on ACORN's place in the community organizing landscape.

            "I've been studying community organizing since my days as a graduate student in the early 1970s," says Fisher. "For nearly 40 years ACORN has offered a model of progressive social change that has challenged those on the Right as well as the Left."

            The first book in more than two decades to give focus primarily on ACORN and its model of organizing, The People Shall Rule will be an indispensible resource for people on both sides of the political aisle.

            For a complete list of articles and contributors, click the Table of Contents tab here.