Civic Parent

07/17/2026

Check out the latest from the Going Public book club. Core theme: Recognition is about power. And Gecan writes, as a warning: “Bureaucrats seek to stifle it…Celebrity self-promoters try to monopolize it…Our leaders study and practice it.”

From the reflection:

“Intelligent action, even public confrontation, is at bottom an attempt to engage and relate,” he writes, for the larger, fundamental purpose of recognition. He notes that most activists fail to appreciate this. He is pointing to an important distinction that serves what activists presumably want, but do not get, because they are not perhaps aware of the tools and discipline of organizing: Recognition, he explains, is “the most basic sign of respect, the start of reciprocity, and the precondition for a working public relationship.”

07/11/2026

Check out the latest from the Going Public book club.
"Power" is built - with intentionality and discipline. And then it can be used to compel the justice you want to see. But it requires public action. Chapter 3 of Going Public looks at this idea and we also relate some of the concepts back to the multi-year fight to turn on the water fountains in The School District of Jersey City

New Jersey Together

Going Public — This Week’s Insight “But constructive and creative action doesn’t just happen. Rosa Parks didn’t wake up one morning and spontaneously decide to sit on a seat near …

07/05/2026

Not yet a member of the Going Public book club? Signup at civicparent.org/bookclub
Link in bio
Includes opportunities to connect and learn later this month w and New Jersey Together
Jyl Josephson

07/04/2026

Happy 4th of July! A great day to 🇺🇸
Join Jyl Josephson and me for Week #3 of the Going Public book club. This week's reflection, tied to Chapter 2, looks at how community organizing broke through bureaucratic inertia to 'the world as it should be' with the water fountain remediation project in The School District of Jersey City

Don't be discouraged; rather, organize to grow power to get the justice you want to compel. New Jersey Together

This week's "Going Public" excerpt: "How do you think new and better schools will be built? Because they are desperately needed? Because it’s a good idea? Because the honchos at the Board of Education wake up in the morning and decide to do the right thing? Because the city is appalled by the chronic overcrowding? No, new and better schools will be built when you have the power to force them to build them.” - Mike Gecan, Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to to Citizen Action (page 37)
Brigid D'Souza

Going Public — This Week’s Insight “How do you think new and better schools will be built? Because they are desperately needed? Because it’s a good idea? Because the honchos at the Board of E…

06/20/2026

This story is decades old but as relevant today as it was in the 1980s - building civic power in community to obtain results you want in a community.
Join Jyl Josephson and me as we co-host a public book club that explores this topic of building civic power. We are using Mike Gecan's "Going Public," a quick but powerful read. In that book, Gecan shares perspective on the East Brooklyn Nehemiah project, a focus of CBS News a few years ago (see below), and a powerful example of ordinary citizens achieving extraordinary outcomes when they engage they organize to build civic power

This video is included in the Week 1 book club post, where Jyl and I reflect on the Preface & introduction of the book: https://civicparent.org/2026/06/03/week-1/

Learn more, sign up for book club updates, and explore the book club outline at https://civicparent.org/bookclub

New Jersey Together

https://youtu.be/sWAFSt9VabA?si=uehk8mlGeYTw0Gib

A program organized more than 40 years ago by local churches in Eas...

06/19/2026

This is what it looks like when ordinary people build power.

In 2018, parents in Jersey City packed a room at Monumental Baptist Church. The prompt was simple, part of a listening session: what one thing would you change about your school? Over and over, the same answer: “no water.”

That night didn’t fix anything by itself. But it was the start of something, what Michael Gecan, author of Going Public, calls the raw material of organizing: not apathy, but people naming issues they care about with intentionality to learn and act for change

Seven years, hundreds of one-to-one meetings, and a lot of showing up later: 1,169 water fountains. 44 schools. 27,000+ of our kids with safe drinking water. $17 million invested.

That’s the result of organized people; not money, not connections, not luck.

Starting this week, we’re reading Going Public together; one chapter at a time, all summer, connecting it to real Jersey City issues. Free. Open to everyone.

We’re using Jersey City to make the context concrete, but these principles apply in all communities.

Sign up to join the weekly email list and be in the loop on in-person events: civicparent.org/bookclub
13 weeks · June 19 to September 11
Hosted by Brigid D’Souza and .Josephson

06/17/2026

Every year across NJ gather in for the annual NJCPA - New Jersey Society of CPAs convention

Great to be here with the chapter members; we learn together throughout the year in Secaucus but fun to travel to AC once a year and see others in the Society

06/16/2026

A beautiful day to travel down to for the annual NJCPA - New Jersey Society of CPAs convention
I love stopping at the Jon Bon Jovi rest area because … it’s Bon Jovi

06/15/2026

I recall a few years ago, looking down at my iPhone, realizing that I could not make my way through a lengthy news article; my brain was tapped out from being pulled into a million different directions, from Twitter to Facebook, Civic Parent to my job, my family and, at the time, community organizing. I realized I needed a change so I made a conscious choice to make time to start waking up early and just start reading. I gravitated towards nonfiction focused on how to teach better, philosophy, and religion because those were my interests. But the point was reading was really helpful and life-giving. It’s changed my life for the better and helped me be more intentional about how I think and act on things. So, just reading with intentionality and focus is one thing that draws me to this project. - Brigid D’Souza

I had a similar experience with how the combination of social media and the pandemic affected my attention span. Turning back to books is really rewarding. Reading and discussing in community is the best way to learn. - .Josephson

The Going Public book club launches June 19 on Civic Parent.
Stay tuned …

06/14/2026

In Going Public, Gecan recounts hearing that the plan to build affordable housing in East Brooklyn was too big.

They organized in the face of the naysayers

By 2002, at the time Going Public was published, Nehemiah homes had been built on 140 vacant acres in East Brooklyn worth $400M+.

This is what organizing at scale looks like, and why Going Public is worth your summer reading list.

The Going Public book club launches June 19 on Civic Parent.
Stay tuned …