I first met Stewart Acuff when he came to Vermont for an International Human Rights Day rally in December of 2003.  A snowy weekend slowed us down enough to have more time together than such events usually allow.  He listened more than he spoke, but his passion for workers and their rights was clear.  He was prepared to undertake a massive national campaign for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and wanted me on board.  I was, and still am.

Over time, Stewart and I became friends.  We have shared some proud moments together.  I recall the time in my Senate office when Stewart watched me sign an agreement between McDonald’s and a farm workers’ organization in South Florida called the Coalition for Immokalee Workers. The workers gained improved pay and working conditions.  Though the document was signed in Washington, it was clear that the struggle had been waged – and won – by organizing in the fields in Florida.  At that time, I gained a greater appreciation for Stewart as an organizer for justice.  It is all too easy to think of Washington as a center of power.  Stewart knows that power flows everywhere there are organized Americans, and he is one of the best when it comes to helping Americans organize to get things done.

Today, America is locked in a bitter struggle between organized people and organized money.  The very simple political reality is that those of us in Congress who are prepared to stand up to organized money will not be successful without the strong support of millions of Americans at the grassroots level.  Equally true is the reality that the average American citizen - disgusted with tax breaks for billionaires, Wall Street greed, a never-ending recession, attacks on Social Security, two wars and minimal efforts against global warming - will not see his or her views translated into legislation without the support of organized people.  Without the support of organized people, we progressives in Congress are no match for organized money.

Never in my lifetime has more been at stake.  In the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing.  Meanwhile, the people at the top are doing phenomenally well.  The crooks on Wall Street whose greed precipitated this recession are now earning more money than before the American people bailed them out.  The top one percent in our country now earn over 23 percent of all income, more than the bottom 50 percent.  The U.S. today has by far the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. 

While “official” unemployment is at 9.8 percent, real unemployment is over 16 percent –and even higher for blue collar workers. Despite massive unemployment and the collapse of the middle class. the representatives of organized money want more tax breaks for the wealthy, more government deregulation, more unfettered free trade, more anti-union legislation and – as if this was not bad enough – they want an end of funding for unemployment benefits.

Playing Bigger than You Are is not a discussion and analysis of the issues we face.  Stewart did that in his last book, Getting America Back to Work.  Nor is it a manual on how to organize, which I hear Stewart may have simmering on his mind’s back burner.  No, it is more than either of these.  It is the day-to-day story of a life in organizing, a life dedicated to justice for all Americans.  Be it organizing citizens for stop signs at a busy intersection in Memphis, struggling to unionize the Atlanta Olympics, or guiding the nationwide organizing program of the AFL-CIO, we see in these pages a man with an uncanny mix of theory, compassion, and courage.  We see a man trying to hide his disappointment when campaigns go badly, and heaping credit on others when success comes calling.  We see a man living what his country preacher father taught him, that we are all, every one of us, deserving of respect and dignity.

Playing Bigger Than You Are is above all a story of hope’s triumph against all odds.  At this challenging time in our nation’s history it is a story we can learn much from.


Senator Bernie Sanders
Burlington, Vermont
September 2011