“Community organizing” is a phrase that’s taken on an almost elastic quality in this fraught political moment. When it isn’t being wielded by right-leaning ideologues to slight grassroots politics (see the 2008 US presidential and 2025 New York City mayoral elections), it’s being embraced by progressives who believe that hopscotching among major protest movements and voting every four years will eventually turn the tide.
But lost in the back-and-forth is a basic truth: the most effective community organizing is as much art as it is science. “Talk to younger [activist] groups, and they say: ‘Oh, we do things online’ – and some of them get this kind of burst of attention,” says Raymond Telles, a venerable documentarian with a 35-year history of following people-powered movements for PBS, ABC and other US networks. “But it doesn’t last. There isn’t that person-to-person follow-up. You can’t just demonstrate and be a flash in the pan. You’ve got to stick to it.”
