In this uplifting collection of profiles, Siceloff and Maloney, producers of the PBS program Now
, spotlight individuals who have sparked successful community action without resources or (in most cases) any political or organizing experience. Highlighted individuals include Lucas Benitez, a Mexican migrant worker who led a movement to improve the egregious working conditions in tomato fields in Florida; Jackie Thrasher, a school teacher who beat back the special interest money poisoning local electoral politics in Arizona; and Diane Wilson, a shrimp boat captain who started a campaign to halt toxic dumping of polyvinyl chloride in the Gulf of Mexico. The focus in these in-depth follow-up pieces to the Now
profiles is less on a particular issue than on how such unassuming community leaders are born and how many paths to civic activism are forged from local concerns. Most of the featured individuals—aside from former civil rights activist Robert Moses and government whistle-blower Bunny Greenhouse of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—are ordinary citizens, and their abilities to devise creative solutions to serious problems and persevere against vastly influential antagonistic interests will inspire and embolden all readers. (July)
