"To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for what it might become. America - this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into 'yes' - needs citizens who love it enough to reimagine and remake it."
- Cornel West
|
Since 1965 I've worked with grassroots community groups and others on issues of inequality, race, and power. In the Peace Corps I taught community development, sociology, and political science at an Iranian university which combined practical experience in village development with related courses.
Back in the US I worked on site with community organizing and development organizations for 35 years through the Center for Community Change (CCC), while also serving as founding Chair of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Coalition on Human Needs. More recently I've worked with others to develop the Community Learning Partnership (CLP) to help develop the next generation of social change leaders and organizers from communities of color and low-income backgrounds. After almost six decades of work and learning, I've felt strongly that it's past time for me to reflect on these joint efforts and share my personal observations and conclusions on strategies for creating positive change in a society which desperately needs reform and social progress. This site focuses on ways of developing the strong, effective leaders, organizers and community-based organizations which are needed in low-income and working class communities and by people of color. I've therefore written two books and developed this site based largely on my experience with CLP and CCC. I'd love to have any comments, advice and ideas you may have as you use this website, especially leads on additional approaches and materials which can enrich the site and expand learning in the crucial field of social and community change. Andy Mott
Senior Fellow Community Learning Partnership PS. Many, many thanks to Madeleine Mott Ewing for her extraordinary help in creating this website. She has been a dream to work with -- incredibly quick, patient, and thoughtful. Great thanks also to Don Elmer, an organizing great and now video historian whose interviews for CCC's Organizer Genealogy Project provided a great source for creating several short videos to highlight key themes of this website. Over 110 of Don's hour-long videos are now housed with the Brown Community Organizing Initiative https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/collections/id_783
|
|