Alicia Garza’s The Purpose of Power is equal parts memoir and organizing manual. Garza chronicles the birth of Black Lives Matter while offering hard-earned lessons about building movements in the age of social media. She rejects the myth of the “lone charismatic leader” and instead highlights the networks, infrastructure, and care work required to sustain mass mobilizations. The book is perfect for coalitions wrestling with questions of leadership, decentralization, and the tension between online virality and offline capacity.
What You’ll Learn
Infrastructure matters. Garza lets us peek behind the curtain at chapter agreements, resource-sharing plans, and conflict protocols. Inspiration sparks movements; systems keep them alive.
Identity-based organizing is strategic. Centering Black, queer, and femme leadership wasn’t symbolic—it made the network sharper and more representative, drawing lessons from reproductive justice and immigrant rights movements.
Storytelling is strategy. Personal narrative can mobilize donors and sway policy when it’s tethered to clear demands and accountability.
How to Put These Lessons to Work
Start by auditing your infrastructure against Garza’s checklists: do you have communication norms, conflict plans, and resource-sharing agreements? Build political education into your calendar so strategy instincts stay sharp. And craft a “purpose of power” statement so every organizer can explain why you’re building power and how you intend to wield it.