187: Ken Grossinger Believes Art is Essential to Effective Organizing

Can the right song, painting, or museum exhibit spark real political change? What if culture is the missing strategy in today’s social movements?If you’ve ever felt like your efforts for justice aren’t hitting deep enough, it might be because the culture hasn’t caught up with your message. In this episode, labor organizer and social change strategist Ken Grossinger shares how his journey from labor organizing to cultural advocacy revealed a truth many overlook: policy changes fade, but stories—and the art that tells them—have staying power. In this episode:Discover how blending power analysis with artistic expression can amplify grassroots campaigns and drive long-term social change.Hear powerful case studies—from a revolutionary museum exhibit in Louisville to a musical uprising in Alaska—that reveal how art can expose injustice and build movements.Learn from real-world collaborations between artists and organizers that shift narratives, challenge power, and activate communities in ways no policy paper ever could.Tune in now to hear how Ken Grossinger’s book ART WORKS and his work in communities across the U.S. show us why art isn’t just a reflection of justice—it’s how we get there.Notable MentionsPeopleKen Grossinger — Longtime movement strategist and author of Art Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together, which explores the strategic partnership between artists and organizers across decades of social-justice campaigns.Richard Cloward — Columbia University sociologist and organizer whose power-analysis framework shaped generations of strategists; co-founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization and a chief architect of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act ("Motor Voter" law).Bernice Johnson Reagon — Civil rights song leader who co-founded the Freedom Singers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.Si Kahn — Veteran folk musician, author, and organizer who has spent decades writing songs in direct collaboration with the communities he serves, including the fishermen and Alaska Native communities fighting the Pebble Mine.Harry Belafonte — Singer and actor who became one of the civil rights movement's most trusted strategists and financiers, sitting at the strategy tables of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference alongside Martin Luther King Jr.Bryan Stevenson — Founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy; created the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.Amy Sherald — Painter whose 2020 Vanity Fair portrait of Breonna Taylor became the centerpiece of the Speed Art Museum's "Promise, Witness, Remembrance" exhibition.Stephen Reily — Director of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville at the time of Breonna Taylor's killing, who reorganized the museum's programming around community-led advisory boards.Norman Lear — Legendary TV producer and creator of All in the Family, who used Archie Bunker's bigotry to bring racism and homophobia into American living rooms as everyday conversation.Frances Stonor Saunders — British historian and author of The Cultural Cold War, which documents the CIA's covert promotion of Abstract Expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock as ideological counters to Soviet Social Realism.Jane Fonda, Karen Nussbaum & Ellen Cassedy — Actress-activist Jane Fonda partnered with 9to5 co-founders Karen Nussbaum and Ellen Cassedy to turn the working women's organizing movement into the hit 1980 comedy 9 to 5.Organizations & InstitutionsCenter for the Study of Art and Community — Producer of Art is Change and host organization for the Art in Action series exploring arts-based civic engagement.Charles F. Kettering Foundation — Nonprofit research foundation focused on deliberative democracy; partner for the Art in Action series through its Democracy and the Arts program.Equal Justice Initiative — Montgomery, Alabama human-rights organization founded by Bryan Stevenson; operates the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.Speed Art Museum — Louisville, Kentucky museum whose 2021 exhibition "Promise, Witness, Remembrance," built around Amy Sherald's portrait, became a national model for community-driven museum programming.Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) — New York institution whose mid-century ties to CIA-backed cultural promotion of Abstract Expressionism are documented in Frances Stonor Saunders's The Cultural Cold War.American Museum of Natural History & Smithsonian — Both institutions faced public pressure after climate scientists and advocacy groups called on them to sever ties with board member and fossil-fuel financier David Koch.Highlander Research and Education Center — Tennessee-based center for labor and civil-rights organizing, where staff such as Zilphia Horton adapted "We Shall Overcome" and other freedom songs used across the movement.Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) — Student-led civil rights organization that carried freedom songs into direct-action campaigns across the South and gave rise to groups like the Freedom Singers.International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) — Union whose cultural department trained its own members to write, sing, and perform, producing the Broadway hit Pins and Needles.9to5, National Association of Working Women — Organization founded by Karen Nussbaum and Ellen Cassedy to fight for office workers' rights, later dramatized in the film 9 to 5.Musicians United to Protect Bristol Bay — Network of musicians, co-organized by Si Kahn, that used songwriting and touring to build public opposition to Alaska's proposed Pebble Mine.Books, Films & RecordingsArt Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together — Ken Grossinger's book on the strategic collaborations between artists and organizers, discussed throughout this episode.Just Mercy — Bryan Stevenson's memoir recounting...