Anger—at the bad guys, at injustice—brought Madeline to community organizing.

Warmth—that of the people in the lower-income neighborhoods—kept her in the work.

Love—as Zora Neale Hurston said, the kind that drew her out of her hiding place—brought her to Keith and then to marvelous daughters Aileen and Ryan, later Ana, then sons-in-law John and Brandon, now granddaughter Effie, the sources of constant delight in her life.

Madeline is a retired community organizer who spent 37 years working with ACORN and Action Now.  She became known for building big organizations and sometimes figuring out winning campaign strategies, though she never did a single thing by herself. She liked fighting the banks against redlining and predatory lending; the corporations against such stingy minimum wages; the standardized testers for keeping talented potential teachers out of the classroom, not to mention for polarizing the country into so-called elites vs working class. She loved working on the origins of Fight for 15, organizing squatting campaigns, building dues-paying membership organizations, co-creating wonderful coalitions, and watching marvelous community leaders grow and excel. Now she likes trying out how to organize white folks around racial justice, climate change, and self-interest, and she enjoys writing about the work.

MY EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN