Redemptive Organizations and the Politics of Hope

The politics of hope of this article is rooted in the local leadership of low income, repressed communities. One central element of the politics of hope is redemptive organizations. These organizations are a variant of voluntary associations that are distinguished by their explicitly political purpose of social transformation and concomitant requirement of personal sacrifice and transformation. This article specifies the internal characteristics of redemptive organizations and their role in change over time. The history of four rural, southern, low-income, and predominantly black communities offer numerous instances of redemptive organizations that deal with educational, economic, and political conditions These organizations link change efforts from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement to the present. As such, they offer insight into constituent elements of social movements Voluntary organizations play a peculiar role in American society. De Tocqueville commented on this early in our history, and recently, Robert Bellah and his associate authors (1985) reminded us about voluntary associations and their peculiar significance for Americans. They elaborated on de Tocqueville's analysis of voluntary agencies in American life to include a set of explicitly political organizations related to those that James Q. Wilson termed "purposive" and "redemptive" (1973). This article deals with redemptive organizations, a set of voluntary associations with explicitly political purposes of social transformation and a concomitant requirement of personal transformation. It traces their role in political change efforts over more than a century in four different communities. These *Material for this article is taken from Richard A. Couto, Sick for Justice: Race, Leadership and Change (forthcoming from Temple University Press)