Recently, I was at a meeting participating in an awesome discussion about the Occupy movement. Several women were present who were very involved in the Occupy Pgh group, and I was just amazed and excited by the dialogue and what they brought to the discussion. One of the women had this book with her called From ACT UP to the WTO. I have for sometime been thinking about ACT UP, as the notion of new organizing is front and center in my mind in big ways.  The birth of the QUILTBAG group is one example, the Occupy movement certainly, but also the work I’m doing leading the Equality Partners project. Especially as I sit in QUILTBAG meetings, I realize that this younger generation of activists have all the right motivations and passion, but in many ways are re-inventing the wheel all over, sometimes spinning their wheels. Got me wondering if there were any great boks out there to help articulate the lessons learned from ACT UP or other grass roots movements. So, I decided to hunt down this book as a way to get started. I’m going to start reading, and I invite anyone to read along with me and then participate in a dialogue about the book, here within the blog as a virtual book club.

This is just a start. I’ll try to keep this project going after this book too.  There are two other books, I already haver in mind. One on Feminism and the other on Progressive Religious/Social Justice, but if you have a book you think is a great read about advocacy, activism or social Justice, let me know. I bought this as a used book on Amazon for abbout $2.50.  It took 2 weeks to reach me, but was in very good condition.