Going Public — This Week's Insight

"I am an organizer. Not a consultant to so-called faith-based programs. Not a facilitator. Not an advisor. Not a service provider or do-gooder. Not an ideologue. Not a political operative. Not a pundit. Not a progressive. Not an activist...I won't begin to make sense unless I follow the advise of my former college professor and poet laureate, the late Robert Penn Warren, and tell some stories."

- Mike Gecan, Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to to Citizen Action (page 4)

Civic Reflection

I’m grateful to share a new initiative on Civic Parent in collaboration with Dr Jyl Josephson. Jyl and I have been organizing in community for nearly a decade through our civic work with Jersey City Together. We both teach in higher education; she is a political science professor at Rutgers Newark and I am an accounting professor at Saint Peter's University. We are also parents and neighbors in Jersey City. And we have been advocating as engaged members of community to make sense of, and try to improve, the public schools with Jersey City Together's Education Team. 

Jyl and I are excited to co-host a summer series book club using the book Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action by Mike Gecan.  Our hope is to foster learning, dialogue, and action around what is possible when we learn about, and engage in, the discipline of community organizing. 

Our book's author, Mike Gecan, has held multiple roles with Metro IAF, the parent affiliate of New Jersey Together and Jersey City Together. While on the forefront of community organizing with East Brooklyn Congregations, Mr. Gecan helped community leaders, among other things, create the Nehemiah housing project in the 1980s  a precursor inspiration for Jersey City's Bayfront. We're sharing that clip below as it helps frame the scope of how impactful this organizing can be.

A Brief Intro to the Book Club & Our "Why"

1--Why a book club?

Brigid: I recall a few years ago, looking down at my iPhone and realizing that I could not make my way through a lengthy news article; I had the attention span of a gnat, my brain was tapped out from being pulled into a million different directions, from Twitter to Facebook, Civic Parent to my job, my family and, everything else. I realized I needed a change so I made a conscious choice to start waking up early and reading. I gravitated towards books that focused on helping me teach better and inform me about philosophy and religion because those were my interests. It changed my life for the better and helped me be more intentional about how I think and act on things. That memory and reflection draws me to this project. 

Jyl: I had a similar experience with how the combination of social media and the pandemic affected my attention span. Turning back to books is really rewarding. I saw it with my students as well though recently I have seen encouraging signs that we are all trying to read more. I teach political theory and you have to be able to focus to read Plato, or Hobbes. Going Public is a good summer read! And reading and discussing in community is the best way to learn.

2--Why this book?

Brigid: I get asked a lot, because of my role in writing Civic Parent and being active in the community: “how can I engage?” I struggle to respond because there is so much you can do, but accompaniment and journeying together - not virtually, though a blog - is truly the best way forward. In my experience, community organizing is the most impactful, slow-growth, seed-sowing, collaborative work I've been a part of. I went searching for a book that could help frame what I've experienced and Going Public seemed to do it really well. 

Jyl: I have been teaching a community organizing class at Rutgers for ten years now, and I have always used excerpts from this book in the class. It does a great job of really explaining what organizing is, and how it is different from other kinds of political engagement. Gecan is a well respected organizer, and he tells great stories. Plus the book has one of my favorite chapter titles: “All real living is meeting”.

3--What do you hope to accomplish with this club and series?

Brigid: My hope is that we can help others learn how to engage using a disciplined, time-tested approach to growing power in the community. This is intended for ordinary people who want to have a say in how their local communities function. My hope is that we can encourage neighbors to read a book together, get in real life with each other, and learn in real life together about what the book is pointing to, which is growing power to address issues of common concern. This is more than a book club. It's an invitation to engage with others in the civic arena. 

Jyl: The basic question of political life is: what shall we do? Even when things are not going well in public life, there are always things that you can do. And we can act most effectively in our local communities and with our neighbors. So I am hoping that we can have a good conversation that will help inspire us to act, and find concrete answers to the question of what we should do, together.

This Week's Action