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".
Salvador Organizing low waged and informal workers around the world teaches an organizer a lot about the basic humanity and survival skills of workers. Humility and respect are constant companions, but so are the painful lessons about economics at the bottom of capitalism’s barrel. Call them waste pickers, trash workers, or, preferably, recyclers, I’ve …
Marble Falls In the mountains, we pack it in and pack it out. It makes you think about recycling. What do we drop off at the first opportunity along the road home, and what do we dutifully drive to New Orleans for our weekly pickup? In the virtue-seeking experience of modern life and …
Mumbai Laxmi, the longtime ACORN leader in Dharavi was pointing out various areas on the redevelopment map of the area, including where she lived and had finally been able to prove title to make the relocation threshold. I knew Laxmi. I had been sitting in the back of a large meeting she held in Dharavi …