1992 Statewide Travel Chronicle

1992 Living Room Conversations

In 1992 Marcy Westerling crisscrossed Oregon, logging thousands of miles, visiting hundreds of local human dignity activists, and catalyzing nearly 20 new Human Dignity Groups in rural and small towns across the state. Eventually, these groups would come together to form the Rural Organizing Project.

The Anne Frank exhibit

How does a group keep momentum after a crisis moment has passed? In the aftermath of intense campaigns to defeat the anti-gay Ballot Measure #9 (1992) and a subsequent rash of similar, county and city-wide initiatives (1993-94), a touring holocaust exhibit not only mobilizes and strengthens local human dignity groups–it helps prepare them for the next crisis.

Focusing on the numbers

A critical first task of new Human Dignity Groups is to build a broad base of supporters. Here, ROP Founder Marcy Westerling shares the small town-tailored approach that she and other local leaders used to build lists of supporters in their rural communities.

Kitchen Table Activism

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Kitchen Table Activism

First launched in 1998, Kitchen Table Activism (KTA) is a monthly project of the Rural Organizing Project. Often building on quarterly themes, short actions are described in each KTA. The theory is that basic steps and tasks can lead to powerful collective results as small groups of people gather to complete the same action throughout the state of Oregon. ROP works to keep the basic tasks easily achievable so that groups with other projects or groups with limited immediate energy can still manage to complete the KTA each month.