Social Movements for Justice Embody Collaborative Organization Working for the Common Good.

Social movements for justice are built up when diverse groups discover common ground for effective collaborative action for the common good. Social movements for justice focus on organizing and empowering poor people suffering under oppressive conditions to move beyond the victim mentality and collaborate with others to take charge of shaping their own destiny.

When groups of oppressed people organize social movements for justice to deal with root causes of injustice, they can be transformed themselves. They become individually and collectively strengthened to seek to change public policy as well as economic and social structures. In this social movement for justice process, the people come to embody the change that they seek to achieve.

The book Journeys into Justice describes and documents how social movements for justice become successful collaborative organizations that achieve positive social change for the common good. The ten case histories narrated in the book portray how collaborative social movements accomplished major improvements in affordable rental housing, living wage legislation, worker unionization, family empowerment, juvenile justice, and environmental responsibility.

Social movements for justice become more effective when they are transformed into highly disciplined collaboratives that embody deep humane values, build up mutual trust, include diverse cultures, creatively pool human and financial resources, focus on limited goals, plan carefully, and act strategically for the common good. With this type of collaborative organization, social movements for justice are able to sustain long-term creative action that can bring good ideas forward and influence large policymaking institutions toward more just social and economic arrangements.

Want to read more about the power of social movements for justice? Get your copy of Journeys into Justice today!