Oliver Tambo Quotes

In 2008, I was a full-time volunteer for Barack Obama's first election. I'd take a carload of people and we'd go and canvass in a Native American community every evening.

My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics.

We've got to figure out a way to cause communities to also want them, the political, organized bodies.

When I was in charge of the Christian Coalition I was available to mobilize grass roots support for somebody.

My style is a little bit different than most conventional Republican Party chairmen. My style is more grass roots-oriented. I'm much more of a street guy. I love hanging out in boardrooms, but I prefer to be in neighborhoods and communities.

Use your voice on the local level where it has the potential to be more widely heard.

I'd never rule anything out, to be honest with you, whether it be the small of volunteer status for a community organization or national politics, who knows?

As the documentary 'True Son' illustrates, my campaign for city council started really small - with eight mostly political neophytes in my living room and with young people knocking on doors.

The reason that I started the Black Futures Lab is because I have some clarity about what I think needs to happen in relationship to electoral organizing. It's not a destination. It is a set of tools that we use to engage people that we care about, en masse, around issues that are important to us.

By themselves, they are not enough; we also need to engage in political action.

There are many ways of encouraging people to make life better other than joining a political party. Politics with a small 'p' isn't just about darkened committee rooms, endless meetings - it is about giving people the right to make decisions about our lives.

Anytime there's an actual grassroots movement that isn't funded by people trying to create a grassroots movement, I find that interesting.

Mandela always came forward and presented himself as a leading figure in the ANC. He ignored office as the criterion of leadership and very often he did and said things which should have been said by those who held office. Yet, he would say it. It was perhaps a kind of supreme confidence. I don't know if one could call it arrogance, but he was very confident, maybe over confident in himself. He was regarded as fearless. It was known that he was fearless as a person. He was always ready to volunteer to be the first to do something, anything that had to be done, Mandela would volunteer to do it.

The best way you make policy in Washington is by doing it yourself.

Influence elected government officials, don't just elect them. Your right is to govern yourselves, not just to choose your governors.

You can't build a lasting political movement based on hostility to government.

You never get to too big to phone bank, that's my opinion.

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.

Put a lawn sign on your lawn; go door to door for your candidate. Register people to vote. There's so much we can do through our voices and time. That's what flips elections.

I have decided to create a new political movement.

The first step in community organization is community disorganization.

When we go and play live... we go and we work with like different organizations: the food banks, homeless shelters, children's hospitals or different homes that are reaching out to people. And just to actually go and say, 'Hey, don't just hear me play, come to my concert, that's it, hope you have a good night.' It's like, 'Hey, come be a part.'

Points of Light - through our affiliates in 250 U.S. communities and 15 international sites - engages 4 million volunteers in 30 million hours of service each year touching countless lives.

A small group of motivated citizens can potentially have as much influence as a lobby group spending millions of dollars.

I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.