ABSTRACT
At one of the Acting for a Better Community (ABC’s) student leadership forums, I stood before the group as a moderator and offered a metaphor for our organizing around literacy education. ABC is a student-centered movement for equity through adult literacy education. I compared our grassroots organizing to a starfish. Like the starfish, our groups have multiple arms that constitute the whole. Each arm is responsible for an important part of the whole. Sometimes, all of the arms work together. Other times, certain arms take over more of the work while other arms rest. Together, we apply constant, steady pressure to injustice and inequity. Such pressure, over time, forces change in people, in processes, and in institutions. This chapter is an illustration of my journey as a
community organizer and how the overlapping themes of relationships, organizing, and social change have played out in my work and life.
