From Outrage to Action

In one case a local judge declared a five-year-old sexual assault victima "particularly promiscuous young lady." In another, an innocentblack man died in police custody. In these cases and two others, outragedcitizens banded together to protest and seek redress for the injustices. Through in-depth interviews with activists, Laura Woliver examines these community actions, studying the groups involved and linking her conclusionsto larger questions of political power and the impact of social movements.Her findings will make fascinating reading for those interested in therise and fall of grass-roots interest groups, the nature of dissent, andthe reasons why people volunteer countless hours, sometimes in the faceof community opposition and isolation, to dedicate themselves to a cause.The ad hoc interest groups studied are the Committee to Recall JudgeArchie Simonson (Madison), the Coalition for Justice for Ernest Lacy (Milwaukee),Concerned Citizens for Children (Grant County, Wisconsin), and CitizensTaking Action (Madison). Woliver relates the community responses in thesecases to those in the Jeffrey Dahmer mass murder case and the beatingby Los Angeles police of Rodney King.