WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
New Orleans ACORN has often been critical of the United Way and its corporate coziness for contributions supporting band-aid services, rather than real change for lower-income families. In the early days of the organization in Arkansas, our members even did an action at one of their local fundraising lunches where they voiced demands …
New Orleans People talk about swag as just something to maybe make an extra couple of bucks, if they are lucky. Or, perhaps to build solidarity in an action where everyone is given a button or a t-shirt to make sure it is unmistakable for the target to ignore who is in the …
Philadelphia Another Saturday and it’s another training day with community-based organizations and members of the Anthropocene Alliance with ACORN. Groups came from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland, so there were numerous perspectives on social and environmental issues. We were meeting in the old ACORN building on Broad Street. Decades ago, we used …