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We Make Change
Community Organizers Talk About What They Do--and Why
by Kristin Layng Szakos and Joe Szakos
Introduction by Harry C. Boyte
Harry C. Boyte is Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy at Augsburg University and author of ten previous books. As a young man he worked as a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King's organization, in the civil rights movement.
Joe Szakos has been the Executive Director of the Virginia Organizing Project since 1994. He was the founding coordinator of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (1981-1993), as well as one of the founders of the Southern Empowerment Project and the Hungarian Environmental Partnership.
Kristin Layng Szakos is the former editor of The Appalachian Reader, a quarterly journal about citizen organizing in Appalachia.
...very interesting, very entertaining read.
--Colleen Everett, COMM-ORG Papers
The most wonderful thing about We Make Change is that it's so much fun to read. It's like a personal tour of America where you get to meet the most engaging, optimistic kind of citizens -- people who love this country's possibilities and are working to fulfill them. It is also a deeply informative portrait of community organizing -- how it works, why it is so important for our future.
--William Greider, author of The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
New organizers will appreciate the candor that veterans share about the difficulty of spending a lifetime organizing for change; veterans will find relief in the hopefulness that fuels the young organizers profiled in the book.
--Social Policy
Looking for a rewarding, meaningful career? In We Make Change, community organizers tell their own stories about one of the most adventurous careers available--grassroots organizing for social change. The pay is lousy, the hours are long, but, as these deeply engaging stories show, you won't find better company anywhere.
--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America