Blessed are the Organized

Princeton University Professor Jeffrey Stout travels across the country — from post-Katrina New Orleans to the Rio Grande Valley to Los Angeles — to document how ordinary citizens build power through institutional community organizing, holding elected officials and corporations accountable to their communities. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) serves as Stout's central focus, with the West/Southwest IAF winning concrete victories like water and sewer service for Texas border colonias and the reversal of predatory traffic checkpoints in Maywood, California. Stout argues that democracy's survival depends not on electing the "right leaders" but on the patient, face-to-face work of building organized, accountable power. According to Princeton University Press, "Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes."