Few know it today, but Chicago was the birthplace of a powerful grassroots social movement that changed political activism in this country. "Community Organizing" was pioneered in Chicago's old stockyards neighborhood by the soberly realistic, unabashedly radical Saul Alinsky.
Alinsky's hard-nosed politics were shaped by the rough and tumble world of late 1930's Chicago. Back then, the city, still in the grips of the Great Depression, was controlled by the Kelly-Nash political machine and by Frank Nitti - heir to Al Capone's Mafia empire. In 1938, with a freshly minted graduate degree in criminology from University of Chicago, Alinsky went to work for sociologist Clifford Shaw at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He was assigned to research the causes of juvenile delinquency in Chicago's tough "Back-of-the-Yards" neighborhood. In order to study gang behavior from the inside, Alinsky ingratiated himself with Al Capone's crowd, and came to realize that criminal behavior was a symptom of poverty and powerlessness.
The Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood, setting of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, was an immense slum in the shadows of Chicago's giant Union Stockyards, one of the largest factory complexes ever created. Its inhabitants were poor; they had no rights and no job security. In the course of one year, wages were cut three times. As Alinsky watched and decided that he could no longer stand by as a silent observer. He believed that widespread poverty left America open to the influence of demagogues and that the only antidote was active, widespread participation in the political process. Alinsky envisioned an "organization of organizations," comprised of all sectors of the community - youth committees, small businesses, labor unions and, most influential of all, the Catholic Church.
He consulted with Herb March, a union leader organizing stockyard workers for the CIO - the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He teamed up with Joe Meegan, a powerful organizer with strong links to the Catholic Church, through whom he was able to convince a powerful Bishop Bernard Sheil to join the fight against unfair labor practices. Alinsky also recruited leaders of previously hostile ethnic groups: Serbs and Croatians, Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Lithuanians - always appealing to their mutual self-interests. Finally, on July 14, 1939, Alinsky and Meegan convened the first Back-of-the-Yards Council meeting, chaired by Bishop Sheil. The event was revolutionary in American history because it was the first time an entire community was organized. The union, the community and the Church became one and the same. More...
Alinsky led the Back-of-the-Yards Council in a series of successful pickets, strikes and boycotts, and in the process, won a mentor in CIO President John L. Lewis. In 1940, institutionalizing the concepts he had learned from Lewis, Alinsky formed the Industrial Areas Foundation - the IAF - an umbrella organization out of which new campaigns would be run. His book, Reveille for Radicals (1946), a manifesto which called upon America's poor to reclaim American democracy, became a bestseller.
By the 1950s, Alinsky had developed a clearly defined organizing philosophy and had won a reputation as champion of the disenfranchised. He began to organize in predominantly black communities, and in 1959, co-founded The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), which brought the struggle for civil rights to Chicago's South Side and challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful political machine through a radical voter registration drive. In 1965, Alinsky was invited to Rochester, NY to help the black community successfully take on Eastman Kodak over the issue of racial hiring.
By the late 1960s, Alinsky had become a folk hero to America's young campus radicals. In 1969, he set up a training institute for organizers and wrote Rules for Radicals, in which he urged America's youth to become realistic, not rhetorical radicals. In 1970, Time Magazine hailed Alinsky as "a prophet of power to the people," contending that Alinsky's ideas had forever changed the way American democracy worked. By the early '70s, Alinsky concluded that America's poor would have to ally themselves with the middle class, whom he was afraid would move to the right. Unfortunately, he never got to organize the middle class. On June 12, 1972 Alinsky died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 63 years old.
A passionate believer that social justice could be achieved through American democracy, Saul Alinsky methodically showed the "have-nots" how to organize their communities, target the power brokers and politically out-maneuver them. The lessons he taught people about the nature of power, imparted dignity to the poor and helped create a backyard revolution in cities across America. His work influenced the struggle for civil rights and the farm workers movement, as well as the very nature of political protest. He was a mentor to several generations of organizers like Ed Chambers, Fred Ross and Cesar Chavez. Alinsky's still thriving Industrial Areas Foundation became the training ground for organizers who formed some of the most important social change and community groups in the country.
Alinsky's hard-nosed politics were shaped by the rough and tumble world of late 1930's Chicago. Back then, the city, still in the grips of the Great Depression, was controlled by the Kelly-Nash political machine and by Frank Nitti - heir to Al Capone's Mafia empire. In 1938, with a freshly minted graduate degree in criminology from University of Chicago, Alinsky went to work for sociologist Clifford Shaw at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He was assigned to research the causes of juvenile delinquency in Chicago's tough "Back-of-the-Yards" neighborhood. In order to study gang behavior from the inside, Alinsky ingratiated himself with Al Capone's crowd, and came to realize that criminal behavior was a symptom of poverty and powerlessness.
The Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood, setting of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, was an immense slum in the shadows of Chicago's giant Union Stockyards, one of the largest factory complexes ever created. Its inhabitants were poor; they had no rights and no job security. In the course of one year, wages were cut three times. As Alinsky watched and decided that he could no longer stand by as a silent observer. He believed that widespread poverty left America open to the influence of demagogues and that the only antidote was active, widespread participation in the political process. Alinsky envisioned an "organization of organizations," comprised of all sectors of the community - youth committees, small businesses, labor unions and, most influential of all, the Catholic Church.
He consulted with Herb March, a union leader organizing stockyard workers for the CIO - the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He teamed up with Joe Meegan, a powerful organizer with strong links to the Catholic Church, through whom he was able to convince a powerful Bishop Bernard Sheil to join the fight against unfair labor practices. Alinsky also recruited leaders of previously hostile ethnic groups: Serbs and Croatians, Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Lithuanians - always appealing to their mutual self-interests. Finally, on July 14, 1939, Alinsky and Meegan convened the first Back-of-the-Yards Council meeting, chaired by Bishop Sheil. The event was revolutionary in American history because it was the first time an entire community was organized. The union, the community and the Church became one and the same. More...
Alinsky led the Back-of-the-Yards Council in a series of successful pickets, strikes and boycotts, and in the process, won a mentor in CIO President John L. Lewis. In 1940, institutionalizing the concepts he had learned from Lewis, Alinsky formed the Industrial Areas Foundation - the IAF - an umbrella organization out of which new campaigns would be run. His book, Reveille for Radicals (1946), a manifesto which called upon America's poor to reclaim American democracy, became a bestseller.
By the 1950s, Alinsky had developed a clearly defined organizing philosophy and had won a reputation as champion of the disenfranchised. He began to organize in predominantly black communities, and in 1959, co-founded The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), which brought the struggle for civil rights to Chicago's South Side and challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful political machine through a radical voter registration drive. In 1965, Alinsky was invited to Rochester, NY to help the black community successfully take on Eastman Kodak over the issue of racial hiring.
By the late 1960s, Alinsky had become a folk hero to America's young campus radicals. In 1969, he set up a training institute for organizers and wrote Rules for Radicals, in which he urged America's youth to become realistic, not rhetorical radicals. In 1970, Time Magazine hailed Alinsky as "a prophet of power to the people," contending that Alinsky's ideas had forever changed the way American democracy worked. By the early '70s, Alinsky concluded that America's poor would have to ally themselves with the middle class, whom he was afraid would move to the right. Unfortunately, he never got to organize the middle class. On June 12, 1972 Alinsky died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 63 years old.
A passionate believer that social justice could be achieved through American democracy, Saul Alinsky methodically showed the "have-nots" how to organize their communities, target the power brokers and politically out-maneuver them. The lessons he taught people about the nature of power, imparted dignity to the poor and helped create a backyard revolution in cities across America. His work influenced the struggle for civil rights and the farm workers movement, as well as the very nature of political protest. He was a mentor to several generations of organizers like Ed Chambers, Fred Ross and Cesar Chavez. Alinsky's still thriving Industrial Areas Foundation became the training ground for organizers who formed some of the most important social change and community groups in the country.
ALINSKY'S PERSONA
Alinsky was a larger-than-life figure, possessed of an extraordinary ego, boundless energy and an ability to captivate, entertain and outrage his listeners. As biographer Sanford Horwitt says, he had the gift "...of making everyone he came in contact with feel that the encounter with him had been a special, central one." At one time Saul Alinsky was a name known to millions: he cast a fearsome shadow across the land when invited by concerned liberals and ministers to "clean up the town" - organizing the disenfranchised to fight back against racism, poverty and isolation.
ALINSKY'S ROOTS
ALINSKY'S ROOTS
Born in 1909, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Alinsky had a passion for justice which originated from his experience growing up in Chicago's Jewish ghetto where he witnessed suffering during the Depression. It was his mother who influenced him most. Alinsky's son, David, once said, "...at the core of what motivated him was his mother, Sarah Rice...She taught him that...individuals [must] be responsible for other individuals and that you can't just walk away when you see something that's not right."
P.S. Bolds added ..............Blogman.