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.
Archives: Essays
Feminism’s Influence
ROP founder, Marcy Westerling, traces ROP’s style of political education back to her own education through the feminist movement and Oregon’s network of anti-violence advocates.
Edjamacation: An essay by Mike Edera
Local human dignity and ROP leader Mike Edera shares a time he saw good political education happen. And it wasn’t in a classroom.
The Democracy Grid: An essay by Marcy Westerling
ROP founder Marcy Westerling describes the origins, magic and limitations of the Democracy Grid, one of ROP’s key organizing tools for values-based issue analysis.
Being Developed – An essay by Mike Edera
In this short essay, long-time human dignity activist and ROP leader, Mike Edera, describes his personal journey from “an isolated guy calling into talk shows from a pay phone to an organizer with actual colleagues” – and the role of ROP in that transformation.