Book Launch: You Only Get What You're Organized to Take

On April 8th I was present at Union Theological Seminary in New York to support my Kairos Center movement family as we gathered with songs, prayers, testimonies and stories to launch a new book and the Survival Revival Organizing Tour. As they say in their introduction,

"In this time of existential concern, when so many of us feel a deep sense of insecurity and are asking big questions about how we can change things for the better, it is important to learn from the people who have organized, who are organizing, in the many abandoned and forgotten corners of this country." (p. xxxi)

In You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty, my friends Rev. Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back chronicle stories and learnings from some of the most significant anti-poverty struggles of the past 30 years. This book offers not only a powerful examination of the past, but a roadmap for how we ignite a new era of movement-building and democratic awakening.

Ciara Taylor (Kairos Center) read from the book to explain the title:

"There is another National Union of the Homeless slogan that has echoed through the years: "You only get what you're organized to take." This is a personal favorite because it expresses a core argument of this book. Poverty in this country will not end because of the goodwill of those who hold political power and wealth or through the charitable actions of well-meaning and sympathetic people alone. A change of such scale requires a protagonist with a more pressing and compelling agenda. Poverty will end when poor people refuse to allow it to exist; when they and their allies refuse to allow society to be complacent about the death and suffering caused by economic deprivation. Poverty will end when poor people become a united and organized force, not for one action, campaign, political moment, or election, but through a long-term human rights movement that can rally a critical mass of society to their cause and reorder the political and economic priorities of our nation. It is a simple and explosive idea." (p.9-10)

In the coming weeks, the Kairos Center will begin the Survival Revival Organizing Tour. They will be connecting with communities across the country, bringing lessons from this history together alongside new forms of struggle, survival and revival in times of crises, with song, storytelling and more! Grassroots leaders will criss-cross the country, connecting with and linking up community-level struggles for housing, food, wages, water, land, immigrant rights, bodily autonomy, peace, belonging, and more.