Participation and Power

the first of a three-part series on organizing people and communities, we talk with Hahrie Han, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University who studies civic and political participation, and hear from Bruce Poinsette, Marcus LeGrand, Joy Alise Davis, and Keith Jenkins, four Black Oregonians who have been working on community organizing in different parts of the state amid a complex set of conditions.

We ask, What does it mean to organize community? Is it something all of us do, whether we mean to or not? Or is it something more technical than that, something that experts do to the rest of us, often with their sleeves casually rolled up? If it is in fact possible to organize people or communities, can we learn what it takes to organize people well or to organize for the good?