We can often sense changes in the political climate based on the kinds of orders people place. Election years are tricky ’cause a lot of funds that would ordinarily go into organizing end up in political campaigns. In flush years the political spending includes T-shirts and signs and buttons and in leaner years there are […]

Organizing is a challenging craft. It’s more like gardening than construction. You have to know general rules about soil and sun, water and pests but the results are at best a controlled accident. One of the factors that doesn’t get enough attention is the quality of the soil. We can plant our great organizing seeds […]

March 2008
Northland led a workshop to help a coalition of immigrant high school students plan a rally at out state capitol in early March. The goal was to build pressure for passage of the Dream Act, which would make it possible for immigrant young people to go to college. The kids came up with a […]

I am convinced that movements go through particular stages and phases of development, whether we are aware of those stages or not.
Take, for example, the current movement for immigrant rights. Last March it burst into the consciousness of English speakers with enormous rallies, marches, and (in May) a one-day general strike. It seemed to errupt […]

Of all the slogans Northland has ever popularized, the one which has gone the farthest is “Unions: The Folks Who Brought You the Weekend”. As far as we know, it originated with a local labor council on the West Coast, but we borrowed it and put it (and its sister, “The Labor Movement: The […]

Gandhi’s cheerful description of the progress of campaigns and movements appears on several products we sell — mugs, t-shirts, posters, and note cards. If only it were that simple in real life! I would guess the Mahatma said this with a twinkle in his eye.
Anyone who’s done any grassroots organizing knows that campaigns are not […]

Among our “vintage” posters is one showing Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela hugging one another. The legend below is, “Love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will embrace.” The picture was taken in 1987.
Well, in view of the revelations about Madikizela-Mandela’s gang of body guards, which victimized her political opponents and innocent neighbors […]

I first came across this quote in the earlt-mid 1990s. “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” The poster I made with these words first appears in a Northland catalog in […]