Myra Glassman
Myra Glassman joined ACORN on July 21, 1981 as an organizer in St. Louis. After a successful campaign to have a neighborhood lot cleaned up, she was sent to Pine Bluffs, AK, where she worked first as an organizer, then head organizer until 1983. Taking 10 months off, she then applied to ACORN’s ULU/Local 880 office in Chicago, meeting Madeline Talbott and Keith Kelleher. She has worked with Local 880, now SEIU HCIIMK, from 1984 to the present. Her positions there have included field organizer, lead organizer, regional organizer, chief of staff, secretary/treasurer and, since 2017, Vice President. A committed organizer, she talks about how she came to organizing, ACORN’s organizing training, and her passion for fighting for what she believes in. She also discusses how she’s had to realize and address her own implicit racial biases as a progressive white Jewish woman working with predominantly Black and LatinX people. She talks about the ACORN leaders who influenced her, especially Susie Thomas, who “calmed me down and got me through” when she was a new organizer in Little Rock. She concludes her interview leaving the audience with two bits of advice: 1. Fight for what you truly believe and 2. Recognize that Black woman have always led us. This interview may be of interest to those wanting to hear a first hand account of learning to be an ACORN organizer and the relationships that were built during the work.