HOW WE BECAME

It was February of 1979 when Madeline picked Keith up for his first ACORN neighborhood meeting on the southwest side of Detroit.  They took one look at each other—she, the young head organizer of the Detroit ACORN office, and he, the young Jesuit Volunteer Corps member who was working at a Detroit food bank—and immediately felt a spark.  They have been partners in love and organizing ever since.  Through it all—community, labor, and political organizing in different cities and states; building significant community organizations and unions in Chicago and Illinois; sharing victories and losses, good strategies and tragic or funny mistakes; training hundreds of members, leaders, and organizers; having wonderful children and raising a family together, dancing and laughing together, and finding a way to have some fun along the way.

Madeline built a number of ACORN community organizations with thousands of dues-paying members, Keith built the largest union local in Chicago and Illinois – from only 7 dues-paying members in 1983 to representing over 90,000 homecare, childcare, and healthcare members today.

Madeline built campaigns against bank redlining and for minimum and living wages, eventually, helping to found the Fight for 15 in Chicago, a campaign that grew nationally and eventually brought $15 an hour to over 22 million workers across the country; Keith originated some of the homecare and childcare organizing models that led to SEIU and other unions organizing over 750,000 homecare and childcare workers over the past 20+ years.

Along the way, they learned about race in America, albeit slowly with many mistakes. They learned a bit about organizing worth sharing, and they are sharing some of their mistakes too, because there may be as much or more to learn from those.