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"This book features the stories and voices of parents, young people, community organizers and educators describing how they are fighting systemic racism in schools by building a new educational justice movement committed to community-based, high quality, humane and empowering education for all young people"--

Dry Bones Rattling offers the first in-depth treatment of how to rebuild the social capital of America's communities while promoting racially inclusive, democratic participation. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) network in Texas and the Southwest is gaining national attention as a model for reviving democratic life in the inner city--and beyond. This richly drawn study shows how the IAF network works with religious congregations and other community-based institutions to cultivate the participation and leadership of Americans most left out of our elite-centered politics. Interfai

Fire in the Heart uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice. The book reports powerful accounts of the development of racial awareness drawn from in-depth interviews with fifty white activists in the fields of community organizing, education, and criminal justice reform. Drawing extensively on the rich interview material, Mark Warren shows how white Americans can develop a commitment to racial justice, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because they embrace the cause as their own. Contrary to much contemporary thinking

'Fire in the Heart' presents a study of the processes through which white Americans become activists for racial justice. Warren shows how activists in community organizing, education & criminal justice reform develop a commitment to racial justice and embrace the cause as their own.

Dry Bones Rattling offers the first in-depth treatment of how to rebuild the social capital of America's communities while promoting racially inclusive, democratic participation. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) network in Texas and the Southwest is gaining national attention as a model for reviving democratic life in the inner city--and beyond. This richly drawn study shows how the IAF network works with religious congregations and other community-based institutions to cultivate the participation and leadership of Americans most left out of our elite-centered politics. Interfaith leaders from poor communities of color collaborate with those from more affluent communities to build organizations with the power to construct affordable housing, create job-training programs, improve schools, expand public services, and increase neighborhood safety.

This report presents the findings of research on parent organizing within what the report calls Education Reform Advocacy Organizations (ERAO), such as Stand for Children and Parent Revolution. The ERAO agendas focus on standards, test-based accountability, teacher tenure reform, and parent choice. The report recognizes that ERAOs are often criticized as astroturf organizations that mobilize parents behind their agendas instead of building authentic parent power; it then presents some evidence that many groups are committed to long-lasting parent engagement, and it reports on the community organizing practices they use to build parent leadership. Unfortunately, the report's presentation of research methods is so weak that the research cannot be relied upon without a better idea of the rigor or lack of rigor of its approach. The findings may be valid for the groups studied, but the selection is biased towards ERAOs that work to build sustainable forms of parent participation; it is unclear if those groups are representative of the broader field of ERAOs. While the report suggests some community organizing strategies can be used to advance the ERAO version of education reform, this approach undermines an understanding of community organizing as a democratic practice through which organizations and agendas emerge out of the concerns and through the actions of indigenous community leaders working to build a more inclusive public democracy.

Both the plight of African American young people and their feelings and thoughts about this plight are major issues of concern in U.S. politics. In 2003, the Black Youth Project was launched, with funding by the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to promote both social scientific analysis and public understanding of these issues (the project has an innovative and engaging Website that can be accessed at http://www.blackyouthproject.com/). Cathy J. Cohen is the principal investigator of the project and, in Democracy Remixed, she draws upon a new national survey of black youth to offer a mixed-method empirical description and theoretical analysis of "black youth and the future of American politics." In this symposium, a diverse group of political and social scientists have been asked to critically assess the book's account and to comment more broadly on the importance of black youth to the future of American politics.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor