Municipalism in Carbondale, Illinois

Are you concerned about the results of the 2024 election? Do you want to get involved in your local community? Are you already involved but wondering how local people and community groups can work together to build power at the local level and beyond?

Building Power in Place: A Municipalist Organizing Toolkit offers an approach to social change that is firmly rooted at the local level. It starts with local organizing and strives to build local power in a way that contributes to change beyond the local level. It’s a nonpartisan approach that’s compatible with many other efforts to create social change. I wrote a blog post about why municipalism is so important right now.

Municipalism in Carbondale, Illinois

If you’re looking for information about municipalism in other areas, check out the Municipalism Learning Series and their list of partners.

If you’re in/near Carbondale, please check out this Google poll for an in-person discussion of this toolkit.

We don’t currently have an explicitly municipalist organization here in Carbondale, Illinois. I would like to start a municipalist group that would study this toolkit and implement its approach. This would include, but not be limited to, holding meetings where the public can discuss issues that are on the City Council agenda (or should be). Please contact me if you would like to come to any meetings or other events related to municipalism here in Carbondale.

In the meantime, we do have local community groups that are already doing great work related to municipalism. The following list is just a starting point. Let me know if there are any others you would like me to add to this list.

• Carbondale Assembly for Radical Equity (CARE). This is a general assembly that meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month at 6 pm at Rainbow Cafe LGBTQ Center. Though they don’t label themselves as municipalist, I see the work that they’re doing as an important part of building power at the local level.

If you live in the Carbondale area and this approach sounds promising to you, let me know! You can find my contact information on my contact page. You can also feel free to share the toolkit directly with anyone else who may be interested.

I anticipate that the current Trump presidency will be far more destructive than the last. But I also believe that people in local communities can work together to survive, to meet our needs, and to build power together. Hopefully this toolkit will help us do that!