Acknowledgments

My life has been a process of collective work. I am very appreciative of Gayatri Patnaik, Joanna Green, and the Beacon Press board for believing in this project and giving it the light of day. My editor, Joanna Green, has provided structure and insight into my work. She has always been on my side and was instrumental in getting this project to the finish line. My managing editor, Susan Lumenello, brought greater sentence-by-sentence clarity that strengthened the line of argument.

Daniel Won-gu Kim graduated from the National School for Strategic Organizing in 2001, and he commuted from Denver to Los Angeles to push the completion of Playbook from 2007 to 2010. As a scholar and writer, he willed me on to write when I needed encouragement and focus.

Lian Hurst Mann is my partner in everything and is my advisor, mentor, and comrade. After thirty-five years together, it’s hard to figure out where her ideas start and my ideas end—we are so much a product of collective practice. She played a critical role in refining the politics of the book.

Daniel, Lian, and I found a groove working together and went over every piece before we sent it to Joanna, who then took it to another level of clarity and sharpness—we all functioned as successful organizers in the production of this book.

My grandmother, Sarah Mandell, was a Russian Jewish immigrant who fled the pogroms in 1910. She came to the United States, where she worked in a sweatshop and helped form the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. My father, Howard Mann, was a union organizer and socialist. My mother, Libby Mann, was a feminist and socialist and my ethical mentor. I am very appreciative to them for bringing me into the world and exposing me to the ideas that would shape my life.

This is the book I have been writing for many years, although other books have taken precedence. Apparently this is finally the time to complete it. I have been committed to left movement-building all my life and have spent more than four decades as a civil rights, antiwar, labor, and environmental organizer. I have had so many teachers and mentors, and have been a student all my life. My greatest friends have been my best comrades in The Movement, and I am indebted to all of them for shaping Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer through their own organizing practice. Some of them are characters in my book; many others influenced my thinking and are thanked here to recognize their formative contributions.

In the Congress of Racial Equality, I am indebted to Lou Smith who hired me, the late Herb Callender, Ed Day, Dave Dennis, the late James Farmer, Joyce Ware, the late George Wiley, and the late James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner. I am also deeply appreciative of the work of Jim Peck and other CORE Freedom Riders and to the Trailways workers Eddie Barnes, Noel Quiñones, and Big Sam.

In the Newark Community Union Project, Jesse Allen, Daisy Ash, Steve Block, Connie Brown, Corinna Fales, George Fontaine, Carol Glassman, Tom Hayden, Melvin Higgins, David Hungerford, Phil Hutchings, Nancy Ingraham, Terry Jefferson, Marian Kidd, Wyla McClain, Betty Moss, Louise Patterson, George Richardson, Bessie Smith, Thurman Smith, and Anita Warren supported and elevated my work.

In Students for a Democratic Society, I am very grateful to Fran Ansley, Karen Ashley, Ellen Bravo, Sarah Driscoll, Roxanne Dunbar, Susan Hagedorn, the late Abbie Hoffman, Craig Kaplan, the late Murray Levin, Sandy Lillydahl, Marge Piercy, the late Howard Zinn, my brother, Richard Mann, who was of great support, and my daughter, Lisa, who at three traveled around New England with me on buses as I worked as a “regional traveler” to help build SDS chapters.

United Auto Workers: I worked on UAW assembly lines for a decade at the Ford Milpitas, GM Southgate, and GM Van Nuys plants and was helped by New Directions leaders Jerry Tucker and the late Victor and Sophie Reuther and by UAW Local 645 leaders Pete Beltran, Jake Flukers, Mike Gomez, Manuel Hurtado, Kelly Jenco, and Mark Masaoka, who provided companionship and never let me walk alone.

Labor/Community Coalition to Keep GM Van Nuys Open: in the predecessor to the Strategy Center, I was trained by Rudy Acuña, Ed Asner, Jorge Garcia, the late Rev. Frank Higgins, Nadine Kerner, Jack Koszdin, the late Father Luis Olivares, and the late Eloy Salazar.

I have been with the Labor/Community Strategy Center for more than twenty years. So many people helped us build the scaffolding, the foundation, and floor after floor of a still-growing structure: Lisa Adler, Maria Aguirre, Kelly Archbold, Elena Astilleros, Damon Azali-Rojas, Kirti Baranwal, Tanya Bernard, Della Bonner, Sanyika Bryant, Rita Burgos, Tom Camarella, Gilbert Cedillo, Woodrow Coleman, Manuel Criollo, Patrisse Cullors, the late Pearl Daniels, Dan DiPasquo, Lisa Durán, Amos Dyson, the late Pat Elmore, the late Mytyl Gomboske, Carla Gonzalez, Maria Guardado, Stephen Gutwillig, Cynthia Hamilton, Georgia Hayashi, the late Ted Hays, Norma Henry, Martín Hernández, Carol Jackson, Mark-Anthony Johnson, the late Cirilo Juarez, Daniel Kim, Grandma Hee Pok Kim, Kate Kinkade, Bianca Kovar, Richard Larson, Nancy Lawrence, Lissett Lazo, Bill Lann Lee, Alejandra Lemus, Joe Linton, Barbara Lott-Holland, Tammy Bang Luu, Lian Hurst Mann, Esperanza Martinez, Chris Mathis, Rosalio Mendiola, the late Dick Meyers, Scott Miller, Sonissa Norman, Peter Olney, Deborah Orosz, Alex Caputo Pearl, Shepherd Petit, Rudy and Rosa Pisani, Francisca Porchas, Michele Prichard, Laura Pulido, Geoff Ramsey-Ray, Kikanza Ramsey-Ray, Patrick Ramsey, Judi Redman, Connie Rice, Ted Robertson, Cynthia Rojas, Eric Romann, Gloria Romero, Tom Rubin, Palak Shah, Ryan Snyder, Dae-Han Song, Erica Teasley, Andy Terranova, Anthony Thigpenn, Dean Toji, Layla Welborn, Kendra Williby, Sunyoung Yang, and Ricardo and Noemi Zelada. I want to thank Francisca, Manuel, and Tammy for taking up additional leadership roles and responsibilities to allow me to finish this book.

Then there are old friends and others made along the way who are part of my support circle as advisors, confidantes, and comrades: Aris and Isaura Anagnos, Sam Anderson, Patricia Bauman, Rachel Beller, Jaron Browne, Bob Bullard, Charlotte Bullock, Robin Cannon, the late Luke Cole, Cecil Corbin-Mark, Gary Delgado, Michelle DePass, Tom and Janis Dutton, Juliet Ellis, Reese Erlich, Leslie Fields, Rich Finigan, Bill Fletcher, Bill Gallegos, Fernando Gapasin, Juana and Ricardo Gutierrez, Inez Hedges, Anne Hess, Fred Ho, the late David Hunter, Glenn Johnson, Robin D. G. Kelley, Jay Levin, the late Manning Marable, Mildred McClain, Mauricio Michaels, Vernice Miller, Carlos Montes, Richard Moore, Ai-jen Poo, Doris Puehringer, Rinku Sen, Peggy Shephard, Peter and Phyllis Skaller, the late Damu Smith, Hoby Spalding, Angel Torres, Swamy Venuturupalli, Victor Wallis, Haskell Wexler, Beverly Wright, and Haeyoung Yoon.

Lian and I have been able to integrate a loving family and passionate politics. Lian’s mother, Melinda Hurst, has been a dear friend and advocate from the first day I met her. Our daughters, Celia and Melinda, are working in the inner city and have been constant supporters of our work. Our sons-in-law, Joe Ward-Wallace and Maurice Rivera, are regulars at the Strategy Center political parties and have expanded the project of our family’s work. My brother- and sister-in-law, Hank and Mindy Askin, have been rooting me on. It really does take a village to get just one book done. And our grandkids, Ava, Ethan, Josh, Layla, and Raider, are part of the billions of youth all over the world who deserve and demand a better and healthier future.

While I have learned from many people throughout my life, no mention of an organization or individual constitutes their endorsement of my views as presented in this book. The synthesis remains my own and my responsibility.

This book was written, as Marge Piercy has said, “to be of use” to organizers all over the world. I look forward with excitement to hearing feedback from my comrades in Harlem and Johannesburg, Phoenix and Berlin, Compton and Caracas, Kensington and Kuala Lumpur, and my many comrades from the grassroots movements operating at the United Nations and the World Social Forum. We urgently need a mass movement for peace and social justice. I welcome the discussion, debate, deliberation, and demonstrations; the caucusing, campaigns, and coalitions; and the broad united front against racism, ecological destruction, war, and empire that I hope this book encourages and moves forward.