Freedom is an endless meeting : democracy in American social movements / Francesca Polletta.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Strategy and democracy -- Army, town meeting, or church in the Catacombs? -- The organization of American protest, 1900-1960 -- A band of brothers standing in a circle of trust: Southern civil rights organizing, 1961-64 -- Letting which people decide what? SNCC's crisis of democracy, 1964-65 -- Participatory democracy in the New Left, 1960-67 -- Friendship and equality in the women's liberation movement, 1967-77 -- Democracy in relationship: Community organizing and direct action today -- Rules, rituals, and relationships.

Print version record.

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change. Polletta traces the history of democracy in early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, in the.

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