'Getting down with da sistas': Views of empowerment in a women's grassroots organization working for individual empowerment and social justice

This study examines the perceptions and meanings of empowerment as defined by members of a women's collective called "Sista II Sista" (SIIS), a community grassroots organization. "Personal empowerment" is an ubiquitous aspiration in educational and organizational endeavors, but how people understand the concept and what it looks like in action are unexplored in the research. SIIS runs a "Freedom School" that offers cultural and historical classes for teenage girls of color to increase their self-awareness and critical consciousness. SIIS intentionally uses an empowerment model to teach leadership-development skills and community organizing as techniques for creating social change. SIIS has a mission based on the notion that "personal is political" and the organization sees itself engaged in a collective struggle for individual empowerment and social justice.; The central question of this thesis is: "What are the meanings of empowerment as described by the members of SIIS and how do these meanings play out in their perceptions of themselves, their fellow sistas and the mission of the organization?"; My major finding is that most of my respondents, eight out of 12, define empowerment in a way that spontaneously incorporates two-dimensionality. These descriptions not only exemplify SIIS's model of focusing on the individual and the community but they personify their use of the term "personal is political and political is personal!"; I found that the young women are defining empowerment in three distinct ways: (1) Empowerment as two dimensional with personal and political aspects. This use of the term conveys a process that is dialectical, simultaneous and continuous (7 of 12). (2) Empowerment as linear with a sequential process (1). (3) Empowerment as personalistic, which is the more conventional definition (4).; It is the stories of these young women, and how they visualize and actualize empowerment using a two-dimensional and continual meaning, that is a new and important addition to the literature on empowerment and community organizing.