Other Voices: Defending community organizing

In the contest over who will be our next president, community organizing is the latest political football under attack. Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama credits his experience as a community organizer in Chicago as grounding him in the experiences of America's struggling working class.

In response, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocked the community organizing, saying that being a small-town mayor as she was is like community organizing "except that you have actual responsibilities." As community organizing becomes a proxy in the character battle between the candidates, lost in the shuffle is any real appreciation of the role of community organizing in our past and its value for our future.

Hillary Clinton wrote her college thesis on Saul Alinsky and the organizations for which Barack Obama worked in Chicago were descended from the ones Alinsky started, but the tradition of community organizing runs much deeper in our history. The United States was founded as a democracy, on the ideal that all people are created equal and our government should be of, by and for the people. It is an aspiration we have been struggling to realize ever since. Observing America in the 1800s, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, "The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through."

Despite our best intentions, the United States has often been the land of promise for many but real opportunity for only a few. Many Americans work long, hard hours and even two or three jobs to try and stay afloat, but the average family's income is actually declining while CEO salaries are higher than ever. Many Americans are voting and volunteering this election like never before, but the political process remains heavily controlled by lobbyists and narrow, elite interests. America, deeply democratic in principle, is often ruled by the few in practice. Community organizing is the way everyday Americans make our democracy work.

There is an old saying in community organizing that there are two kinds of power: money and people. From big oil to big pharmaceuticals to big media, to the fact that "Brangelina" dominates our attention more than the needs of farmers and truck drivers and janitors, Americans are well aware of the outsized influence of those with money in our country.The rest of us have the power of our ideas, our will, our commitment to our principles of shared responsibility and shared prosperity that, when connected together, form a movement that cannot be outspent.

From abolishing slavery to granting women the right to vote to ending the Vietnam War to recognizing civil rights, every significant step forward in our nation's history has come from regular people standing together to demand change. And from winning living wages to guaranteeing affordable housing to improving the quality of public schools to getting health coverage for poor people and seniors, community organizers continue to help ordinary Americans win real changes, everyday, to make our country better for all of us.

Though at the center of the very visible jabs between presidential candidates, community organizing is a very invisible act.Go to a meeting of any grassroots organization in any town or city and the folks doing the talking won't be the organizers. The organizers will be sitting in the back somewhere with a clipboard. As organizers, our job is to nurture the leadership of others, not to speak for communities but to help communities speak for themselves. In a way, especially for communities long locked out of the political process, community organizers are the coaches of our democracy.

In the her speech at the Republican convention in which she attacked community organizing, Governor Palin also said she wants to go to Washington to "serve the people of this country" and "challenge the status quo, to serve the common good." People power is essential to get our democracy working again, press for change in Washington and make America work for all of us. If that's Palin's agenda, she should be courting community organizers, not condemning us.

Sally Kohn is the campaign chairman for Center for Community Change, based in Washington, D.C. The organization helps establish and develop community organizations.