Palin tonight:
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/14183"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities . . ."from The Nation:
In 1985, freshly graduated from Columbia University and working for a New York business consultant, Barack Obama decided to become a community organizer. Though he liked the idea, he didn't understand what the job involved, and his inquiries turned up few opportunities.
Then he got a call from Jerry Kellman, an organizer working on Chicago's far South Side for a community group based in the churches of the region, an expanse of white, black and Latino blue-collar neighborhoods that were reeling from the steel-mill closings. Kellman was looking for an organizer for the new Developing Communities Project (DCP), which would focus on black city neighborhoods.
Obama, only 24, struck board members as "awesome" and "extremely impressive . . ."
Obama worked as an organizer at a time when Harold Washington's election as mayor stirred his hopes and dreams, as well as those of blacks and progressives in the city. Interviews with people who worked with him during that time elicited few complaints--virtually everyone described him in glowing terms, including dedicated, hard-working, dependable, intelligent, inspiring, a good listener, confident but self-effacing. They expressed admiration for him as an organizer who trained strong community leaders while keeping himself in the background and as a strategist who could turn general problems into specific, winnable issues. Loretta Augustine-Herron, a member of the DCP board that hired him, remembers him as someone who always followed the high road. "You've got to do it right," she recalls him insisting. "Be open with the issues. Include the community instead of going behind the community's back--and he would include people we didn't like sometimes. You've got to bring people together. If you exclude people, you're only weakening yourself. If you meet behind doors and make decisions for them, they'll never take ownership of the issue."
Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing, as translated through the Gamaliel Foundation, one of several networks of faith-based organizing. Often by confronting officials with insistent citizens--rather than exploiting personal connections, as traditional black Democrats proposed--Obama and DCP protected community interests regarding landfills and helped win employment training services, playgrounds, after-school programs, school reforms and other public amenities.
more:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/mobergfrom the LATimes:
"Ninety percent of the people in the U.S. would be terrified to walk the streets that Barack Obama walked," said Greg Galluzzo, whose Gamaliel Foundation served as a Chicago umbrella organization for groups including DCP.
He worked so hard that friends joke they had to coax him out to parties. Despite his seriousness, friends say he was a sought-after bachelor with a quick sense of humor.
Obama earned a reputation for being civil during confrontations with authorities, according to Illinois state Sen. Emil Jones Jr. He met Obama when the community organizer was leading about 30 picketers to protest soaring high-school dropout rates. The rally took place near Jones' office and he invited the group in.
"I was used to different groups coming in to state there was a problem. What impressed me about Barack was that he also had a list of recommended solutions," Jones recalled.
Their discussion led to DCP obtaining public funds for South Side at-risk high school students.
Jack Wuest, executive director of Chicago's Alternative Schools Network, marveled at Obama's ability to obtain the grant. "There were a lot of groups trying to get that money," he said.
more:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usobam025598601mar02,1,6933215,full.storyfrom U.S. News:
As a community organizer in the Altgeld Gardens public housing project in the mid-1980s, Obama, then 23, quickly emerged as a tireless and pragmatic advocate for the community—traits that characterize the kind of president he says he wants to be. "His work as a community organizer was really a defining moment in his life, not just his career," his wife, Michelle, told U.S. News. It helped him decide "how he would impact the world"—assisting people in defining their mutual interests and working together to improve their lives.
In a speech in February announcing his presidential bid, Obama said, "It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had." His work, he added, "taught me a lot about listening to people as opposed to coming in with a predetermined agenda."
After graduating from Columbia University in 1983 with a major in political science, Obama worked as a financial consultant in New York City. But he was bored—and drawn to public service. In 1985, he moved to Chicago to work with local churches organizing job training and other programs for poor and working-class residents of Altgeld Gardens, a public housing project where 5,300 African-Americans tried to survive amid shuttered steel mills, a nearby landfill, a putrid sewage treatment plant, and a pervasive feeling that the white establishment of Chicago would never give them a fair shake.
Jerry Kellman, a social activist who recruited Obama, recalls, "He was very bright, very articulate, very personable, and very idealistic," inspired by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of nonviolence. Kellman offered Obama a job at the annual salary of $10,000, and he threw in $2,000 so Obama could buy a ramshackle car to get around.
Obama was a stranger to the area but caught on quickly by showing humility and a strong work ethic. "We knew what was wrong in the community but we didn't know how to get something done about it," recalls Yvonne Lloyd, 78, who worked with Obama. Obama insisted on "staying in the background while he empowered us." By Obama's own admission, there were few big victories. But whether it was getting the city to fill potholes, provide summer jobs, or remove asbestos from the apartments or persuading the apartment managers to repair toilets, pipes, and ceilings, Obama encouraged residents to come up with their own priorities with the gentle admonition: "It's your community."
more:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070826/3obama.htm
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