David Wood - Huffington Post

Heather Booth doesn’t look like a revolutionary. She sits demurely on a sofa, dressed simply in black, fingering a silver necklace. She speaks softly, selecting her words with care and enunciating cleanly. Dignity. Respect. Community.

But something comes over her when she begins to talk about helping people organize to make their world better. The sweet smile fades. She sits up straighter. Her voice tightens, the words come faster. Power. Together. Act. She strikes a gently curled fist into an open palm. IM-pact.

Booth, 71, is one of the nation’s most influential organizers for progressive causes. Inside almost every liberal drive over the past five decades ― for fair pay, equal justice, abortion rights, workers’ rights, voter rights, civil rights, immigration rights, child care ― you will find Booth. But you may have to look hard.

Because she’s not always at the head of the protest march. More often, she’s at a let’s-get-organized meeting in a suburban church basement or a late-night strategy session in a crumbling neighborhood’s community center. She’s helping people already roused to action figure out practical ways to move their cause forward. And always she’s advancing the credo she learned as a child: that you must not only treat people with dignity and respect, but you must shoulder your own responsibility to help build a society that reflects those values.

Read more on Huffington Post