Community Agency, Ties that bind!

"Community Agency reflects the building of local relationships that increase the adaptive capacity of local people to manage, utilize, and enhance those resources available to them in addressing locality wide issues". Brennan & Israel (2008:89). However, what this perspective also reveals is that "the tendency toward homogeneity enhances similarities and conceals differences." Wiesenfeld (1996:33). This means that collective action through the process of collective agency inevitably leads to inequality and conflict. "Building local capacity through collective actions leads directly to the accumulation of power.". Brennan & Israel (2008:83). Through power, especially political power, a community can begin to incorporate the mechanism that is directly responsible for transitioning from a society of dependence to one of self-sufficiency. The Chester of the 1960s, through a grass roots community action coalition of educators, citizens, and political leaders, triumphed by successfully forcing the state to desegregate the public school system. With the power of the national civil rights agenda providing the framework for collective action, small groups were able to exert an amount of political strength. Within the context of this agenda, however collective action to address the issues of economic stability in African American communities was overshadowed by the desire to acquire political prominence. In its assessment, The New Agenda for Minority Business Development finds "the minority civil rights leadership, although highly motivated, never firmly established business development as a high priority".New Agenda for Minority Development (2005:17).