How should activists use new media tools to expose issues and mobilize grassroots support? When should activists form coalitions, and with whom? How are students - be they Dreamers seeking immigration reform or college activists battling ever-increasing tuition costs - winning major campaigns? This title deals with these questions.
"A must read for grassroots activists, Shaw offers indispensable insights into the strategies and tactics necessary to overcome powerful interests. This new edition significantly expands and updates the original, which is an organizing classic."-Van Jones, author of Rebuild the Dream
Praise for Previous Edition:
"Anybody researching or writing anything about contemporary U.S. political life should be familiar with The Activist's Handbook. Anybody attempting to influence local, state, or national political decisions needs it desperately. Politicians may read it and tremble a bit. For that matter, the rich and powerful will probably read it to see how smart some of their enemies are becoming."-Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia
"Provides rare insight into the strategies and tactics environmentalists must use if they are to succeed in today's political climate. A must read."-Barbara Dudley, Executive Director, Greenpeace
"This is a unique book, wise, realistic, and enormously valuable for anyone interested in social change. It is practical in its advice, and inspiring in its stories of ordinary people successfully confronting powerful interests."-Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"The Activist's Handbook could not have come at a more opportune time. In an era when poverty is growing and national social programs are threatened, the Handbook is an invaluable tool for community groups wishing to mobilize efforts in the service of escalating human needs."-Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly and Double Vision
"Randy Shaw gives us a serious and respectful treatment of the strategic problems and opportunities that confront grassroots activists. This is a dimension of contemporary politics that is rarely treated, and welcome for that reason. Moreover, in developing his analysis, Shaw draws on numerous cases of local struggles to remind us of what the media has come to ignore, the persistent and insuppressible popular activism that is part of American political life."-Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
"The firsthand insights here are rich."
