Community Organizing for Social Justice: Grassroots Groups for Power

Abstract

Social justice, community organizing, and task-oriented groups are inextricably connected. Collective action through community organizing can generate the requisite power to overcome unjust social relations and achieve changes that further human rights, participatory democracy, and distributive justice. Most community-organizing work is conducted through task-oriented groups that enable organizational activists to engage directly in collective action for social change. This article presents examples of the use of task groups by a variety of constituencies, in multiple arenas, employing citizen participation, community development, and social action community-organizing approaches and strategies.