Crumbling social institutions, disintegrating structures, and a profound sense of uncertainty are the signs of our time. In this book, this contemporary crisis is explored and illuminated, providing narratives that suggest how the notion of hope can be leveraged to create powerful methods of organizing for the future. Chapters first consider theoretical and philosophical perspectives on hopeful organizing, followed by both empirical discussions about achieving change and more imaginative narratives of alternative and utopian futures, including an exploration of the differing roles of work, creativity, idealism, inclusivity and activism.

The Nature of Hope focuses on the dynamics of environmental activism at the local level, examining the environmental and political cultures that emerge in the context of conflict. The book considers how ordinary people have coalesced to demand environmental justice and highlights the powerful role of intersectionality in shaping the on-the-ground dynamics of popular protest and social change. Through lively and accessible storytelling, The Nature of Hope reveals unsung and unstinting efforts to protect the physical environment and human health in the face of continuing economic growth and development and the failure of state and federal governments to deal adequately with the resulting degradation of air, water, and soils. In an age of environmental crisis, apathy, and deep-seated cynicism, these efforts suggest the dynamic power of a “politics of hope” to offer compelling models of resistance, regeneration, and resilience. The contributors frame their chapters around the drive for greater democracy and improved human and ecological health and demonstrate that local activism is essential to the preservation of democracy and the protection of the environment. The book also brings to light new styles of leadership and new structures for activist organizations, complicating assumptions about the environmental movement in the United States that have focused on particular leaders, agencies, thematic orientations, and human perceptions of nature. The critical implications that emerge from these stories about ecological activism are crucial to understanding the essential role that protecting the environment plays in sustaining the health of civil society. The Nature of Hope will be crucial reading for scholars interested in environmentalism and the mechanics of social movements and will engage historians, geographers, political scientists, grassroots activists, humanists, and social scientists alike.

Texas-based affiliates in the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)—built on ideas, principles, and actions from the late Saul Alinsky—offer a strong, mature organizing model compared with other community organizations in the state and the United States as a whole. IAF affiliates’ members consist of institutions, most of them faith-based congregations and synagogues. Local volunteer leaders in those institutions work together in relationships of trust that draw strength, unity, and purpose from IAF principles and the social-justice precepts of their different faiths. In Hope for Justice and Power, Kathleen Staudt examines the twenty-first-century activities of the Texas IAF in multiple cities and towns around the state, drawing on forty years of academic teaching and on twenty years of active leadership experiences in the IAF. She identifies major contradictions, tensions, and their resolutions in IAF organizing related to centralism versus local control, reformist versus radical goals, stable revenue generation, greater gender balance in leadership, and evolving IAF principles. The political context in modern Texas is a challenging one compared to the Texas IAF founding period in the last quarter of the twentieth century, yet local IAF volunteer leaders achieve their goals with a strong political base in divergent urban regions around the state. With declining religious affiliation in U.S. society, the Texas IAF has begun to recruit members from broad-based institutions, such as schools and health clinics. The hope and winnable goals that sustain IAF organizing show the importance of organized power, trained volunteer leaders, and relationships with public officials in between elections. With cross-class alliances, IAF affiliates work to foster equitable change toward a more just society. To analyze the Texas IAF, Staudt draws on participant observation in El Paso, statewide meetings and training, on interviews, and on archival documents and media coverage. This book will appeal to those interested in community-based organizing and leadership, Mexican American and women’s politics, civic-capacity building in education, political socialization, and both Texas and urban politics.

The Organization of Hope tells the stories of a Jewish community and a white ethnic community as they plan for their futures. Though they differ in class, ethnicity, and culture, they struggle with the same questions: What identity will hold their communities together? How can they plan for their communities' economic, social, and spiritual survival? The book analyzes the future of urban communities, and presents models for community planning.

During times of crumbling social structures and deep divisions, we need to find ideas and values on which we as organizers and society members can build bridges, and unite in our journey towards a common future.

In the tradition of Octavia Butler, here is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. Change is constant. The world, our bodies, and our minds are in a constant state of flux. They are a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy teaches us to map and assess the swirling structures and to read them as they happen, all the better to shape that which ultimately shapes us, personally and politically. A resolutely materialist spirituality based equally on science and science fiction: a wild feminist and afro-futurist ride! adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.

Learn to overcome trauma, adversity, and struggle by unleashing the science of hope in your daily life with this inspiring and informative guide. Hope is much more than wishful thinking. Science tells us that it is the most predictive indicator of well-being in a person’s life. Hope is measurable. It is malleable. And it changes lives. In Hope Rising, Casey Gwinn and Chan Hellman reveal the latest science of hope using nearly 2,000 published studies, including their own research. Based on their findings, they make an impassioned call for hope to be the focus not only of our personal lives, but of public policy for education, business, social services, and every part of society. Hope Rising provides a roadmap to measure hope in your life. It teaches you to assess what may have robbed you of hope, and then provides strategies to let your hope flourish once again. The authors challenge every reader to be honest about their own struggles and end the cycle of shame and blame related to trauma, illness, and abuse. These are important first steps toward increasing your Hope score—and thriving because of it.

“[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker

Every two minutes, evil strips innocence from a child and sells her into slavery for sex. Not in a third-world country, but in the United States of America. Before you take another breath, the next victim will be tricked or taken from her family by a profit-hungry criminal. She could be a neighbor. A friend.Your sister. Your daughter. You. At fourteen, Hope Ellis is the all-American girl with a good lifeuntil the day she tries to help her mom with their cross-town move by supervising the movers. When they finish, one of the men returns to the house and rapes her. Held silent by his threats, darkness begins to engulf her. But the rape proves to be the least of Hopes troubles. In a gasping attempt at normalcy, she succumbs to the attention of a smooth-talking man on the subway. He promises acceptance. He declares his love. He lures her out from under the shelter of her suburban life. Hopes disappearance sets a community in motion. Shes one of their own. They determine to find Hope, whatever the cost, before shes lost forever. Will you?

How to organize everything, from America's most trusted lifestyle authority, with color photographs throughout and hundreds of ideas, projects, and tips