Cortes argues that community organizing cultivates the practices needed for democracy to thrive, including one-on-one relational meetings, house meetings, and systemic reflection on them afterwards. This book contains several examples from organizations in California, Louisiana, and Texas that helped local congregations and other mediating institutions identify, confront, and change things that were destroying their families and communities. No one in America has thought harder, longer, and more creatively about what ails our democracy and how to fit it than Ernie Cortes.