'Nationalizing Local Struggles'

Chapter 2 offers a new model for understanding the dynamic relationship between local community organizing and national movement building. It highlights the critical contributions of local organizing to building the participation and leadership of those most impacted by injustice and to create organizational forms capable of sustaining campaigns to win policy changes. At the same time, it reveals the limitations of local organizing to dismantle a system of racial inequity deeply embedded in national structures, policies, and consciousness. It considers the contributions of national movements like influencing federal policy and challenging racist stereotypes and narratives. However, they are typically too narrowly focused on federal policy and dominated by Washington-based professional advocacy groups. Instead, movements can be stronger when they seek to strengthen and spread local organizing, “nationalizing local struggles,” and when groups grounded in communities most impacted by injustice share power with professional advocates.