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You Only Get What You're Organized to Take

Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty

Author Liz Theoharis, Noam Sandweiss-Back

Hardcover

$27.95 US

Beacon Press

On sale Apr 08, 2025 | 272 Pages | 9780807008645

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One of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizers and moral voices shares the largely untold story of the movement to end poverty, open to all, and led by the poor themselves

As one of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizers and moral voices, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis explores the largely untold history of poor people’s movements in the United States and traces her own journey through some of the most significant anti-poverty struggles of the past thirty years.

In this book, Theoharis introduces us to the people leading the movement to end poverty, including:

multiracial groups of homeless people rising up from the streets and seizing empty, federally-owned homes;
mothers on welfare shutting down entire city blocks and going toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful people in the country;
farmworkers busting modern-day slave rings and winning living wages from multinational fast-food companies; and
coal miners, veterans, unemployed workers, students, artists, and more joining together in unusual and creative alliances to fight, sing, and pray their way toward freedom.

Drawing from personal experience, history, religion, political strategy, and more, Theoharis argues that American poverty will not end because of the goodwill of the powerful or through the charitable actions of well-meaning people alone. It will happen through a mass movement to end poverty, open to all, and led by the poor.

Theoharis passionately reminds us that poor people are not condemned to be subjects of history, but have always been agents of transformative change, and can be once again. Indeed, to reorient our society around the needs of everyone and reinvigorate the promise of democracy, the poor can and must become the architects of a new America.

Author’s Note
Introduction

CHAPTER ONE
Is It Possible to End Poverty?

CHAPTER TWO
The Lies We’re Told

CHAPTER THREE
Up and Out of Poverty Now!

CHAPTER FOUR
The Right to Not Be Poor

CHAPTER FIVE
The Struggle Is the School

CHAPTER SIX
The Battle for the Bible

CHAPTER SEVEN
Our Kairos Moment

Acknowledgments
Notes

The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis is founder and codirector of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice and coordinator of the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, Theoharis is a popular speaker, teacher, and activist, and has published numerous books and articles including Always With Us?: What Jesus Really Said About the Poor.

Noam Sandweiss-Back is the Director of Partnerships for the Kairos Center and the Poor People’s Campaign. His political work has taken him from Jerusalem to Louisiana and he now works with organizations across the country to build the movement to end poverty.

Liz Theoharis View titles by Liz Theoharis

Noam Sandweiss-Back View titles by Noam Sandweiss-Back

“The writing is clear and animated by a sense of spiritual urgency . . . Memoir and historical retellings are woven together easily . . . A useful introduction to an oft-ignored history.”
—Booklist

“Theoharis, who is also a theologian, movingly reflects on how the New Testament passage ‘The poor you will always have with you’ is not a justification of inaction but a paraphrase of a segment of Deuteronomy that calls for an end to the exploitation of the poor. The authors’ firm belief in the possibility of change, from the bottom up, is an inspiration.”
—Publishers Weekly

“We face a confluence of unprecedented crises today, none greater than ever-widening inequality and the poverty that is its stain. There are no easy answers to their resolution, but the hard work of organizing, movement building, and solidarity give us a fighting chance. You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take is the book we need for the moment we are in right now.”
—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

“You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take should be read by anyone who wants to know how we can not only save democracy but finally achieve what I call a democracy worth saving.”
—William J. Barber II, author of White Poverty

“Part memoir, part political history, part moral polemic—this book arrives at a critical time for our nation. You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take is a must-have for every organizer interested in building big, durable, coalitions that materially change the lives of the poor and working class.”
—Maurice Mitchell, national director, Working Families Party

“I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time. Theoharis and Sandweiss-Back brilliantly remind us what’s possible when the disinherited of our nation overcome the politics of divide-and-conquer to take bold and united action together. In these pages, you’ll find not only the plight of the poor—so often swept under the rug in our society—but also their courageous fight and visionary insight.”
—Willie Baptist, author of Pedagogy of the Poor

“This beautiful book is the world turned upside down in the best of ways, a crucial reminder in times when coercive state power is growing frighteningly that the most potent and meaningful visions of change and actions for justice spring from the grass roots.”
—Annelise Orleck, author of We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now

“This book is a must-read for today’s changemakers and organizers. Examining stories of courageous, creative movements, it teaches us how others have tried to create change by building solidarity. You’ll come away with new ideas and renewed hope that, together, creating change is possible.”
—Sara Nelson, president, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO

About

multiracial groups of homeless people rising up from the streets and seizing empty, federally-owned homes;
mothers on welfare shutting down entire city blocks and going toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful people in the country;
farmworkers busting modern-day slave rings and winning living wages from multinational fast-food companies; and
coal miners, veterans, unemployed workers, students, artists, and more joining together in unusual and creative alliances to fight, sing, and pray their way toward freedom.