By Jerry Kellman
Director of Organizing, Gamaliel Metro Chicago

This is the second part of a talk delivered to the International Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with groups.  The talk was on the experience and learning gained from training Barack Obama as an organizer.  The first part of the talk emphasized how Barack had to decide, and all of us must decide, whether we are going to define ourselves or let others define us. The first part of the talk developed this by talking about the importance of story (narrative) and action for organizing.

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By Jerry Kellman
Director of Organizing, Gamaliel Metro Chicago

I’ll begin by sharing some of President Barack Obama’s inner struggles during the time he was organizing and how his training as an organizer helped him with these struggles.

When I met Barack Obama for the first time at a coffee shop in New York City in 1985, most of the issues that he would have to grapple with in political life, and the gifts that he would draw on to overcome them were already present.  Barack was African American on the outside.   But on the inside, he was a citizen of the world.  He was struggling to figure out how to respond to the varied misconceptions that people had of him. People judged him by his skin color.  Some liked it, some did not. People judged him by his pattern of speech and the prestige of his education. Some liked it and some did not.  Being judged by whom people think you are, rather than who you know yourself to be is difficult for anyone, but it was particularly difficult for a young man who wanted to make a difference in the world.

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