Abstract
A year after graduating from Columbia University, Obama was hired as a community organizer in Chicago in an organization called the “Developing Communities Project,” part of the Gamaliel Foundation’s national community organizing network. During his three years there, working in and around a low-income African American housing complex, he grew in his skills as an organizer. He had successes, failures, and partial successes that ended up looking like failures. He learned how to get people to meetings, how to empower leaders, and how to develop the relationships necessary to hold an organization together. He discovered the incredible capacity of elected and bureaucratic officials to obfuscate, lie, and resist. And he struggled with the immobility of a population that had experienced so much disappointment that it had largely lost belief in real change.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995), 190.
David Moberg, “Obama’s Community Roots,” Nation, April 3 (2007), 2, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg (accessed February 2, 2010).
Marshall Ganz, Motivation, Story, and Celebration, Lecture Notes from Community Organizing Course at Harvard University (2006), http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k2139&pageid=icb.page60814 (accessed July 18, 2010).
Barack Obama, “Democratic National Convention Speech,” July 24 (2004), http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2004/demconvention/speeches/obama.html (accessed February 20, 2010).
Marshall Ganz, “The Power of Story in Movements,” unpublished working paper (2001), 3, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/mganz/publications.htm (accessed July 18, 2010).
Jonathan Tilove, “Barack Obama Crowd Looks Like ‘Cult’ or ‘Craze’, Pundits Say as Backlash Begins,” Newhouse News Service (February 23, 2008), http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2008/02/barack_obama_crowd_looks_like.html (accessed March 3, 2010).
Zack Exley, “Stories and Numbers—A Closer Look at Camp Obama,” Huff-ington Post, August 29 (2007), 2, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/stories-and-numbers-a-clo_b_62278.html (accessed July 18, 2010).
John Hill, “Obama Basic Training,” Sacramento Bee (January 21, 2008), A4, http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/canvassing+training+ volunteers (accessed July 19, 2010), original URL http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/649427.html (accessed February 2, 2010).
Kim Bardeesy, “Marshall Ganz: Lighting a Fire,” The Citizen: The Student Newspaper of the Kennedy School (February 12, 2008), http://harvardcitizen.com/2008/02/12/marshall-ganz-lighting-a-fire/(accessed March 3, 2009).
Marshall Ganz, “Notes on Storytelling,” unpublished working paper (2005), 12, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/mganz/publications.htm (accessed July 18, 2010).
Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, The Obama Revolution (Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2009), 63, 65.
Tyler Rogers, “Keeping Hope Alive,” New Organizing Institute (December 16, 2009), 2, http://www.neworganizing.com/jno/keeping-hope-alive-story-obama%E2%80%99s-neighborhood-teams-following-election-day (accessed July 18, 2010). Because the latter URL disappeared at the time of this book’s final editing, see also http://www.openmediaboston.org/node/1140, accessed December 8, 2010, for a summary of the article.
Tim Dickinson, “The Machinery of Hope,” Rolling Stone March 20 (2008), 1, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/obamamachineryofhopehttp://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/obamamachineryofhope (accessed February 20, 2010). Christi Parsons, “For Obama’s S.C. Troops, It’s a Campaign and a Lifestyle,” Chicago Tribune (January 25, 2008), http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/jan/25/news/chi-obama-grassrootsjan25 (accessed February 20, 2010). Dickinson, “The Machinery of Hope,” 2.
Tim Dickinson, “The Machinery of Hope,” Rolling Stone March 20 (2008), 1, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/obamamachineryofhope (accessed February 20, 2010).
Christi Parsons, “For Obama’s S.C. Troops, It’s a Campaign and a Lifestyle,” Chicago Tribune (January 25, 2008), http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/jan/25/news/chi-obama-grassrootsjan25 (accessed February 20, 2010). Dickinson, “The Machinery of Hope,” 2.
Ari Melber, “Online Activists Keep the Pressure on Obama,” Nation (July 7, 2008), 1, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/melber (accessed February 20, 2010).
Ari Melber, Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age (Washington, D.C.: tech President, 2010), 6, http://techpresident.com/ofayear1#toc (accessed February 20, 2010).
Peter Drier and Marshall Ganz, “We Have the Hope. Now Where’s the Audacity?” The Washington Post (August 30, 2009), 2–3, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082801817_pf.html (accessed February 24, 2010).
Hank De Zutter, “What Makes Obama Run?” Chicago Reader (December 8, 1995), 3.
Copyright information
© 2011 Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schutz, A., Sandy, M.G. (2011). Campaign versus Community Organizing: Storytelling in Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign. In: Collective Action for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118539_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118539_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-11125-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11853-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)