ABSTRACT
According to many writers America is presently on the brink of a period of change, one that will have a significant impact on American life for many decades to come. "Social change" can mean many things. "The establishment" sees the major dimension of social change in contemporary America as the orderly incorporation of outsiders over an extended period of time into full participation in the American way of life–as assimilation. Many attempts to build political organizations in lower-class communities have been based on the establishment view of what is problematic in these materially destitute parts of American cities. These organizations are built on ordinary definitions of social change and of the condition of lower-class black people. The public definition of social change leads to the kinds of ideology that has guided The Woodlawn Organization, many parts of the civil rights movement, and Jobs Or Income Now.
