A friend asked me the other day to remind him why I don’t like to use the word empower when I am doing organizing work. I believe that when we talk about “empowering” people, we make an inherent assumption that the people we are working with don’t already have power, and our action is what gives them power. I believe that everyone has power, and that my job as an organizer is to support people in using their power, share my power with them, and build collective power to stop oppression.

Before going to law school and becoming a professional advocate I had plans to change the world one performance at a time. When I was growing up, my parents ran a professional summer theater in southern Vermont. There I was lucky enough to get hundreds of hours of professional stage time before getting a degree

Truth is one of the core principles of the Action Circles Model. It is important to recognize that truth is different from facts. Facts are things that are known and objectively proven to be true, where truth is subjective is based on that individual’s lived experience. A person’s truth is more than just how they