Building Power Across Difference – Hahrie Han's UK Tour with Act Build Change

This year, while teaching alongside the brilliant Professor Marshall Ganz at Harvard, I had the privilege of attending Hahrie Han’s Tanner Lectures on her transformative new book, Undivided. As someone who has devoured her previous works to better navigate the complex world of organising, I was eager for the opportunity to learn from her again. So when Hahrie agreed to visit Act Build Change for a series of events, I jumped at the chance. Despite stormy weather and train delays, organisers and social justice leaders from across the UK gathered to wrestle with a critical question:

How do we build authentic, sustainable social movements capable of transforming our country, so that all people can live with dignity and belonging?

The Challenge of Our Time

Undivided arrives at a moment of deep political instability, one that Hahrie describes as "unstable majorities." Across the world, from the UK’s Labour government to the Trump-era victories in the US, citizens are swinging between left and right, driven by frustration, fear, and a lack of faith in politicians. In the UK, voter turnout in the most recent election was dismally low with only 52% casting their vote, a sign of widespread apathy. Just weeks later, riots erupted in cities across the country.

Meanwhile, the movements that seek to build countervailing power often excel at generating outrage but struggle to convert that energy into lasting change. Hahrie challenges an assumption in organising: that movements must choose between broad appeal and strong principles. Instead, she shows how the most successful organisations do both— by grounding their work in people’s lived experiences and relationships.

Belonging Before Belief: A Radical Approach

Hahrie's definition of "radical" carries dual meaning: it means both getting to the root cause of issues and ensuring change grows from the ground up, driven by people themselves. At the heart of Hahrie’s book is the case study of Crossroads, an evangelical church in Cincinnati that grew from 11 founding members to a congregation of 35,000 weekly in-person attendees, plus 500,000 online worshipers. Hahrie documented the impacts of an anti-racist programme called “Undivided” and the impacts this had on members of Crossroads.

At Crossroads, success stems partly from a simple yet revolutionary principle: "Belonging comes before belief." This means welcoming people first, without demanding they prove their ideological alignment.

This approach stands in stark contrast to many progressive movements, where newcomers often face an unspoken test: they must demonstrate agreement with multiple beliefs and positions before being fully accepted. Even after gaining acceptance, their place in the movement remains precarious—one disagreement can lead to exclusion, with their contributions and commitment forgotten.

This difference reveals a crucial insight about building lasting movements: when we prioritise belonging over ideological purity, we can create stronger, more resilient communities capable of navigating differences while working toward shared goals.

Belonging before belief creates spaces where people with different views can build genuine relationships.

Hahrie reflected on her initial hesitations about how people would engage with her on this research project. As someone who is neither White nor Black, who is from an elite institution, and is not evangelical, she felt uncertain about how she would be received. But she discovered that people weren’t primarily focused on her race, faith, or political views. Instead, they asked, "I want to understand where your heart is"—prioritising human connection and values, over ideological alignment. It was learning to respect people in their contradictory fullness. In this way, transformation happens not by treating people as categories but by engaging with their complex humanity. It chimes with what I’ve always been taught, you can’t organise with people you don’t respect.

As a result, the worshipers involved in the Undivided programme led successful campaigns for racial justice, changed jobs, confronted their bosses, and had tough conversations with loved ones about racial solidarity. The process transformed them as people and agents of change. Through the structure of their groups, they found courage and renewed commitment to return to the public sphere again and again, advocating for racial justice.

Beyond Outsourced Outrage

One of Han’s sharpest insights for me addresses the current tendency in activism to "outsource our outrage." Too often, organisations treat citizens as tools for action—asking them to sign petitions, make donations, or join marches—without building lasting power. Hahrie shared the wisdom of U.S.-based organizer, Michael McBride, who says that many activists treat people as "ATMs for ballots, bucks, and bodies." But being loud on the streets or knowledgeable about your issues doesn’t equate to the power it takes to change a system. True power is built through committed people engaged in consistent, strategic actions. We need to get real about the resources (our people, skills, creativity, money, motivation) and how we turn them into what we need to win change. We can not pretend there is power when there isn’t. It requires honest reflection about our capacity and the work it will take to build power to win.

The real challenge, Hahrie argues, is not simply getting people to "do things," but helping them become the kind of people who will do what needs to be done. This is the work of organising. The people we seek to organise are not simply tools for action, but agents of change who can develop creative strategies and sustain their commitment over time. Movements need to meet moments with emotive fire and strategic rigour. There is a difference between doing the right thing at the right time and reacting momentarily out of urgency.

The Architecture of Transformation

The groups involved were able to act on big campaigns and stay committed to each other through what Hahrie called "honeycomb structures"—a model that combines intimate small-group experiences with larger interconnected networks and on-ramps of action. This structure allows organisations to "bend without breaking under the weight of disagreement." Small groups give people a safer space to take risks and try new strategies, while larger networks provide a sense of purpose and shared goals. These groups are made up of leaders who may not always agree but are committed to shared values and collective action. They meet regularly, learning how to negotiate their differences and find common ground.

This architecture is not unlike what Marshall Ganz calls leader-led "snowflake structures" (which we cover in our introductory online organising course), where small groups maintain strong connections to a broader web of networks committed to taking action on their values. This combination of intimacy and scale is essential for sustaining engagement and fostering the kind of transformative change we need.

Measuring What Matters

One of the key lessons from Han’s work is the need to reconsider how we measure success in movement building. Too often, organisations focus more on tracking funder relationships than being committed to community relationships. The truth is, you count what you value.

True power emerges from deep, mutual commitments to a shared future—not from transactional relationships. Crossroads offers a compelling example: its members contribute over $63 million annually because they feel genuinely invested in their community's vision and values.

This success reveals a crucial lesson about sustainable organizing: while funding matters, its real power comes when it flows from the grassroots. When ordinary people commit their own resources, it reflects and reinforces their ownership of the movement. This kind of financial solidarity, rooted in community investment rather than external dependency, creates lasting power for genuine change.

Rehearsing Transformation

During my time with Hahrie, the central question that lingered for me was the tension between building deep solidarity within movements and maintaining the ability to strategically oppose and confront when necessary. It’s a delicate balance, one that feels overwhelmingly challenging at times and hopeful at others.

I was reminded of Martin Luther King Jr.’s words from his Letter from Birmingham Jail: "First, I must confess that over the last few years, I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate... who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

King’s critique of the "white moderate" is crucial. It challenges us to think about how we navigate the tensions within our movements: which divisions must we confront head-on because it is the north star of our values, and which differences can we hold without fracturing the coalition and losing our capacity to act with the weight of real power to win? Without such tension, our work risks becoming complacent and self-satisfied. But without our north star, we “win” at the cost of those we leave behind. We must not shy away from the discomfort of real change.

Han's analysis of Undivided reveals a revolutionary approach to addressing racial justice. Unlike conventional DEI programs that prescribe rigid solutions from above, Undivided empowers people and communities to craft their own paths toward change.

This approach deliberately breaks from the "professional technocrat" model, where experts dictate solutions and communities follow. Instead, Undivided creates spaces where people learn to engage and act across differences with dignity and respect.

This methodology reflects a deeper truth about social transformation: lasting change requires more than just shifting individual hearts and minds. It demands that communities develop their capacity to challenge and reshape the structures of oppression— work that can only be done effectively when people are truly empowered to lead their own change.

Looking Forward

Hahrie's insights come at a crucial moment when many movements struggle to sustain momentum beyond initial moments of outrage. Her work suggests that building lasting power requires us to move beyond quick fixes and create spaces where people can genuinely transform—not just their actions, but their understanding of themselves as agents of change.

One of the lingering questions I have is: could the success of Undivided, after its progressive victories, have also contributed to the rise of Trump in the U.S.? Does local organising create possibilities for national change and transformation? 

The success of organisations like Crossroads reminds us that people are hungry for something our current political structures fail to provide: authentic community, meaningful agency, and the opportunity to wrestle with difficult questions in a supportive environment. This is not to suggest that Crossroads is a perfect model—indeed, its contradictions complicate the progressive power it has helped build. Yet, as we strive to create movements capable of generating lasting change, Hahrie’s work offers practical guidance and deeper insights into the human dimensions of organising.

You can buy Hahrie’s book, Undivided, from Penguin Random House.