STEPPING UP:
MOVEMENTS AND POWER
To build the power that we need to win, we need not just our own powerful organization, but we need our allies and peers to be strong as well. All the alliance building, the training and capacity building was built on that premise. – Anthony Thigpenn, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education
The third wave of fashioning movements and building power came in 2001-2005. In this era, the organizing work and a sophisticated insideoutside strategy began to come together, particularly around electoral strategies, new policy innovations, and strategic alignment of multiple efforts. One key marker of the movement maturation – of working together to achieve something bigger – was the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) negotiated around the expansion of the Staples Center sports arena in downtown Los Angeles. Completed in 2001, it involved a wide swath of community groups, environmental advocates, and labor allies – and at the top of the negotiating team were SAJE and LAANE. With the pattern set, another group of disparate forces – led by LAANE and joined by many others – secured a $500 million CBA in 2004, this time around the
The 1992 Civil Unrest, the Arc of Social Justice Organizing, and the Lessons for Today’s Movement Building
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