118-564: Community organizing describes a wide variety of efforts to empower residents in a local area to participate in civic life or governmental affairs. Most efforts that claim this label operate in low-income or middle-income areas, and have adopted at least some of the tactics and organizing techniques pioneered by Saul Alinsky and his Industrial Areas Foundation . Other organizations in this tradition include PICO National Network , Gamaliel Foundation , and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART). They focus on building political power in
236-461: A Gamaliel Foundation FBCO organization in Chicago. Marshall Ganz , former lieutenant of César Chávez , adapted techniques from community organizing for Obama's 2008 presidential election. At the 2008 Republican National Convention , former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani questioned Obama's role as a community organizer, asking the crowd "What does a community organizer actually do?", and
354-407: A "community-building approach," which emphasizes raising consciousness to support the community's empowerment. Grassroots organizing is distinctive for its bottom-up approach to organizing. Grassroots organizers build community groups from scratch, developing new leadership where none existed and organizing the unorganized. This type of organizing uses a process where people collectively act in
472-559: A "nonparticipant observer", he claims to have hung out with Chicago's Al Capone mob (he explains that, as they "owned the city", they felt they had little to hide from a "college kid"). Among other things about the exercise of power, he says they taught him was "the terrific importance of personal relationships". Alinsky took a job in the Illinois, Division of the State Criminologist, working with juvenile delinquents and at
590-444: A Democratic Society ) tried their hand at community organizing. They were critical of what they conceived of as Alinsky's "dead-end local activism". But the dispiriting reality was that however much they might talk about "transforming the system," "building alternative institutions," and "revolutionary potential", their credibility on the doorstep rested on their ability to secure concessions from, and therefore to develop relations with,
708-510: A Detroit meeting to cite one concrete example of what he meant by Black Power, Carmichael had named the FIGHT project in Rochester. Carmichael, Alinsky suggested, should stop "going round yelling 'Black Power!'" and "really go down and organize." Alinsky had a sharper response to the more strident black nationalism of Maulana Karenga , mistakenly identified in news reports as a board member of
826-516: A broad-based community organization and committed, through a recruitment and training program, to black employment, in June 1967. A retired public affairs officer for Kodak later said, "Alinsky and the people who exploited the situation were looking for attention," and claimed Kodak had already undertaken or was developing a lot of the programs that community activists sought. "We were working on it." While in Rochester, Alinsky had been employed four-days
944-463: A centralized national agenda and exerts some centralized control over local organizations. Because ACORN USA was a 501(c)4 organization under the tax code, it was able to participate directly in election activities, but contributions to it were not tax-exempt. Grassroots organizing is vulnerable, being dependent on the support of more powerful people; its goals can be easily thwarted. Because grassroots organizing focuses on building relationships within
1062-564: A common "language" about organizing while seeking to expand the skills of organizers. Many of the most notable leaders in community organizing today emerged from the National Welfare Rights Organization . John Calkins of DART , Wade Rathke of ACORN , John Dodds of Philadelphia Unemployment Project and Mark Splain of the AFL–CIO , among others. There have been many other notable community organizers through
1180-547: A concern for the loss of "social capital" (of the organized opportunities for conviviality and deliberation that allow and encourage ordinary people to engage in democratic process), in his own statement of purpose for the IAF, Alinsky wrote: In our modern urban civilization, multitudes of our people have been condemned to urban anonymity—to living the kind of life where many of them neither know nor care for their neighbors. This course of urban anonymity...is one of eroding destruction to
1298-611: A mix of otherwise mutually hostile Catholic ethnics (Irish, Poles, Lithuanians, Mexicans, Croats . . .) as well as African Americans to demand, and win, concessions from local meatpackers (in January 1946 the BYNC threw its support behind the first major walkout of the United Packinghouse Workers ), landlords and city hall. This, and other efforts in the city's South Side to "turn scattered, voiceless discontent into
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#17327721826191416-404: A month at the federally-funded Community Action Training Center at Syracuse University . The 1964 Economic Opportunity Act , passed as a part of Lyndon B. Johnson ’s War on Poverty , committed the federal government to promoting the "maximum feasible participation" of targeted communities in the design and delivery of anti-poverty programs. This appeared to acknowledge what Alinsky insisted
1534-458: A national spokesman for the Black Power movement. In 1961, to show city hall that TWO was a force to be reckoned with, Alinsky combined "two elements—votes, which were the coin of the realm in Chicago politics, and fear of the black mass" by bussing 2,500 black resident citizens, down to city hall to register to vote. Through TWO, Woodlawn residents challenged the redevelopment plans of
1652-492: A relatively small number of organizers that generally are better paid and more professionalized than those in "door-knocking" groups like ACORN. FBCOs focus on the long-term development of a culture and common language of organizing and on the development of relational ties between members. They are more stable during fallow periods than grassroots groups because of the continuing existence of member churches. FBCOs are 501(c)3 organizations. Contributions to them are tax exempt. As
1770-1262: A result, while they can conduct campaigns over "issues" they cannot promote the election of specific individuals. The way in which faith based communities FBCOs organize has undergone a dramatic change with the introduction of digital technology. In ' ' authors Earl and Kimport (2011) provide valuable insights into this shift – namely how decreased costs associated with 'Taking Action on the Cheap' have opened up greater opportunities for involvement in religious initiatives or movements. Digital tools allow faith based groups to spread their message further, better coordinate collective actions across distances and mobilize supporters in unprecedented ways – greatly democratizing this kind of organizing effort. However, this transition to digital also poses complex challenges that must be addressed on topics such as community identity and collective action – as noted by Earl and Kimport themselves in their book ( [1] , 2011, p.95-97). Broad-based organizations intentionally recruit member institutions that are both secular and religious. Congregations, synagogues, temples and mosques are joined by public schools, non-profits, and labor and professional associations. Organizations of
1888-436: A sense of interconnectedness and trust among community members which is important in the community organizing process. The shift to community building was also caused by external forces, rather than just feminist organizer's motivations. During 1980s, the rising neoliberal agenda caused many community organizers to shift to the community-building approach. Some feminists argue that feminist community organizing can disregard
2006-434: A starting point for a general practice model, a model that defines community organizing as its own field of practice. However, this model depends on existing practice models adapted by the different types of community organizing. For example, FBCOs and many grassroots organizing models use the "social action approach" built on the work of Saul Alinsky from the 1930s into the 1970s. By contrast, feminist organizing follows
2124-464: A sufficient indictment: The Radical believes that all peoples should have a high standard of food, housing, and health … The Radical places human rights far above property rights. He is for universal, free public education and recognizes this as fundamental to the democratic way of life … The Radical believes completely in real equality of opportunity for all peoples regardless of race, color, or creed. He insists on full employment for economic security but
2242-676: A united protest" earned an accolade from Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson : Alinsky's aims "most faithfully reflect our ideals of brotherhood, tolerance, charity and dignity of the individual." In founding the BYNC, Alinsky and Meegan sought to break a pattern of outside direction established by their predecessors in poor urban areas, most notably the settlement houses. The BYNC would be based on local democracy: "organizers would facilitate, but local people had to lead and participate." Residents had to "control their own destiny" and in doing so not only gain new resources but new confidence as well. "Some of Saul's real genius," according to one observer,
2360-508: A variety ways. There are different approaches to community organizing. These include: Because of its focus on "local" issues and relationships between members, individual groups generally prioritize relatively local community interests by focusing on local issues. There has been an attempt to build a general community organizing practice model that ties the different types of community organizing together despite their differences. Scholars Shane R. Brady and Mary Katherine O'Connor construct
2478-421: Is community organizing with a feminist motivation. The goals of feminist organizing include: increasing women's employment opportunities; improving women's physical and mental well-being; and, raising consciousness. Organizers prioritize raising consciousness for women to understand how their personal struggles are interconnected with societal inequalities. While women have participated in grassroots organizing,
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#17327721826192596-614: Is deeply interested in social planning but just as deeply suspicious of and antagonistic to any idea of plans which work from the top down. Democracy to him is working from the bottom up". With Thomas Jefferson , the Radical believes that the people are "the most honest and safe", if not always the wisest, "depository of the public interest." On the issue of whether communists should be banned from unions and other social organizations, Alinsky argued that: [The question is] whether there can be developed an American Progressive Movement in which
2714-595: Is generally drawn from the mainline denominations. ACORN tended to stress the importance of constant action in order to maintain the commitment of a less rooted group of participants. ACORN and other neighborhood-based groups like the Organization for a Better Austin had a reputation of being more forceful than faith-based (FBCO) groups, in part because they needed to continually act to keep their non-institutionalized members engaged, and there are indications that their local groups were more staff (organizer) directed than
2832-415: Is just as insistent that man's work should not only provide economic security but also be such as to satisfy the creative desires within all men. Alinsky would not apologize for working with communists at a time when, in his opinion, they were doing "a hell of a lot of good work in the vanguard of the labor movement and ... in aiding blacks and Okies and Southern sharecroppers ." He also said, "Anyone who
2950-564: Is largely low- or middle- income, so they are generally unable to support themselves through dues. In search of resources, some organizing groups have accepted funding for direct service activities in the past. As noted below, this has frequently led these groups to drop their conflictual organizing activities, in part because these threatened funding for their "service" arms. Recent studies have shown, however, that funding for community organizing can produce large returns on investment ($ 512 in community benefits to $ 1 of Needmor funding, according to
3068-637: Is only one aspect of the activity of organizing groups. To the extent that groups' actions generate a sense in the larger community that they have "power," they are often able to engage with and influence powerful groups through dialogue, backed up by a history of successful protest-based campaigns. Similar to the way unions gain recognition as the representatives of workers for a particular business, community organizing groups can gain recognition as key representatives of particular communities. In this way, representatives of community organizing groups are often able to bring key government officials or corporate leaders to
3186-468: Is specifically popular among marginalized communities of color. "Door-knocking" grassroots organizations like ACORN organize poor and working-class members recruiting members one by one in the community. Because they go door-to-door , they are able to reach beyond established organizations and the "churched" to bring together a wide range of less privileged people. FBCOs have tended to organize more middle-class people, because their institutional membership
3304-416: Is the opposite of the social action (Alinsky) approach (where the focus is on challenging social and political inequalities that impact the community). The community-building approach depends on the participation and collaboration of both community organizers and community members. This eliminates the power difference between an organizer and participants. Therefore, the community-building approach supports
3422-571: The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a national community organizing network. The mandate was to partner with religious congregations and civic organizations to build "broad-based organizations" that could train up local leadership and promote trust across community divides. For Alinsky there was also a broader mission. In what sixty years later, with publication of Robert Putnam 's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community , would have been understood as
3540-484: The Industrial Areas Foundation are explicitly broad-based and dues-based. Dues-based membership allows IAF organizations to maintain their independence; organizations are politically non-partisan and do not pursue or accept government funding. Broad-based organizations aim to teach institutional leaders how to build relationships of trust across racial, faith, economic and geographic lines through individual, face-to-face meetings. Other goals include internally strengthening
3658-732: The International Brigade (organized by the Communist International ) in the Spanish Civil War and for southern sharecroppers , organizing for the Newspaper Guild and other fledgling unions, fighting evictions, and agitating for public housing. He also began to work alongside the CIO ( Congress of Industrial Organizations ) and its president John L. Lewis . (In an "un-authorized biography" of
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3776-578: The Joliet Correctional Center . He recalls it as a dispiriting experience: if he dwelt on the contributing causes of crime, such as poor housing, racial discrimination , or unemployment, he was labelled a " red ." In 1938, Alinsky gave up his last employment at the Institute for Juvenile Research , University of Illinois at Chicago , to devote himself full-time as a political activist. In his free time he had been raising funds for
3894-741: The 1960s, Alinsky focused through the IAF on the training of community organizers. The IAF assisted Black community organizing groups in Kansas City and Buffalo, and the Community Service Organization of Mexican Americans in California, training, among others, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta . In July 1964, a race riot broke out in Rochester, New York , which Alinsky said was owned "lock stock and barrel" by Eastman Kodak , whose only contribution to race relations
4012-492: The 1980s, as organizing groups rooted themselves in one of the few remaining broad-based community institutions. This shift also led to an increased focus on relationships among religion, faith, and social struggle. A collection of training and support organizations for national coalitions of mostly locally governed and mostly FBCO community organizing groups were founded in the Alinsky tradition. The Industrial Areas Foundation
4130-507: The Communists are forced to follow along or get out on the basis of the issues--a movement so healthy, so filled with the vitality of real American Radicalism, that the Communists will wear their teeth down to their jaws trying to bore from within. I know that the latter can be done But in the meantime, Alinsky believed that "certain fascist mentalities" posed a far greater threat to the country than "the damn nuisance of Communism". In
4248-567: The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF.org) in Pennsylvania, beginning in 2002. Community groups are organized to influence municipal governments to enact local ordinances. These ordinances challenge preemptive state and federal laws that forbid local governments from prohibiting corporate activities deemed harmful by community residents. The ordinances are drafted specifically to assert
4366-449: The IAF could not be "a holding for People's Organizations", Alinsky thought that one solution would be for community-councils, under their native leadership, to constitute their own inter-city fund-raising and mutual-assistance network. In the early 1950s, Alinsky was talking about "a million-dollar budget to carry us over a three-year plan of organization through the country." The usual corporate and foundation funders proved decidedly cold to
4484-648: The Needmor Fund Study, $ 157 to 1 in New Mexico and $ 89 to 1 in North Carolina according to National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy studies) through legislation and agreements with corporations, among other sources, not including non-fiscal accomplishments. Understanding what community organizing is can be aided by understanding what it is not from the perspective of community organizers. Robert Fisher and Peter Romanofsky have grouped
4602-563: The New Left seemed to place community organizing at the heart of their vision. The SDS insisted that students "look outwards" beyond the campus "to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice." "The bridge to political power" would be "built through genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between a new left of young people and an awakening community of allies." To stimulate "this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across
4720-537: The Republican Tea Party movement and subsequently, by virtue of indirect associations with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama , as the alleged source of a radical Democratic political agenda. While criticized on the political left for an aversion to broad ideological goals, Alinsky has also been identified as an inspiration for the Occupy movement and campaigns for climate action. Saul Alinsky
4838-764: The US as well as in South Africa, England, Germany, and other nations. Local FBCO organizations are often linked through organizing networks such as the Industrial Areas Foundation , Gamaliel Foundation , PICO National Network , and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART). In the United States starting in 2001, the Bush administration launched a department to promote community organizing that included faith-based organizing as well other community groups. FBCOs tend to have mostly middle-class participants because
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4956-469: The University of Chicago. Alinsky claimed the organization was the first community group not only to plan its own urban renewal but, even more important, to control the letting of contracts to building contractors. Alinsky found it "touching to see how competing contractors suddenly discovered the principles of brotherhood and racial equality." Similar "conversions" were secured from employers elsewhere in
5074-510: The age of 12, the point at which he began to fear his parents would force him to become a rabbi . Although he had "not personally" encountered "much antisemitism as a child", Alinsky recalled that "it was so pervasive ... you just accepted it as a fact of life." Called up for retaliating against some Polish boys, Alinsky acknowledged one rabbinical lesson that "sank home." "It's the American way . . . Old Testament . . . They beat us up, so we beat
5192-666: The belief that if he could trial his approach in these neighborhoods, he could do so successfully anywhere, Alinsky looked to the back of the Chicago Stockyards (the area made infamous by Upton Sinclair 's 1905 novel The Jungle ). There with Joseph Meegan, a park supervisor, Alinsky set up the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BYNC). Working with the archdiocese, the Council succeeded in rallying
5310-604: The belief that power rests in the community and community empowerment is the process of building that power. Scholars Catherine P. Bradshaw et al. states that feminist organizers believe power is not quantifiable, and that power is created, rather than distributed. The hierarchical relationship between organizer and participant is broken down also by facilitating decision-making among community members rather than just by community leaders. To build relationships among community members, feminist organizers encourage sharing personal experiences. Feminist organizers believe that this forms
5428-487: The capabilities limitation. Though feminist organizers' intentions are to recognize women's diversity through unity, some are concerned that the vision of unity eclipses a diverse reality. There are studies that speculate that these limitations are caused by feminism's emergence from a Eurocentric perspective. Historically, European American feminists delegitimize the racial difference of women. In addition, European American feminists delegitimize women who do not follow
5546-552: The central concept the SDS's Port Huron Statement , meant something fundamentally different . . . to what 'citizen participation' meant to Alinsky." Within community organizations Alinsky "put a premium on strong leadership, structure and centralized decision-making." When SDS volunteers set up shop in the "Hillbilly Harlem" of uptown Chicago, they crossed town to meet with Alinsky in Woodlawn. They charged Alinsky with being "stuck in
5664-428: The characteristics of feminism distinguish feminist organizing from other forms of grassroots organizing. Feminists want to break down racial and gendered boundaries and promote unity among women. Feminist organizing focuses on building relationships within the community, seeing such relationships as a prerequisite for raising consciousness. This type of organizing is called the community-building approach, which
5782-556: The city needed was a powerful black community organization that could "bargain collectively" with other organized groups and agencies, private and public. With the groundwork prepared by his deputy Edward T. Chambers , Alinsky began mentoring The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), based in the Woodlawn community area on Chicago's South Side . Like other IAF organizations, TWO was a coalition of existing community entities, local block clubs, churches, and businesses. These groups paid dues, and
5900-401: The city with mass shop-ins at department stores, tying up bank lines with people exchanging pennies for bills and vice versa, and the threat of a "piss-in" at Chicago O'Hare International Airport . For Alinsky the "essence of successful tactics" was "originality." When Mayor Daley dragged his heels on building violations and health procedures, TWO threatened to unload a thousand live rats on
6018-454: The climate of fear, suspicion and innuendo". Rumors of communist associations and Red-baiting would follow him into the 1960s, and, once his name was associated with leading Democratic-Party presidential contenders, would follow his legacy into the new century. For some of his "anti-communist" critics, Alinsky's definition in Reveille for Radicals of what it is to be a "radical" may have been
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#17327721826196136-483: The community's right to make governing decisions on issues with harmful and direct local impact. The first rights-based municipal laws prohibited corporations from monopolizing horticulture (factory farming), and banned corporate waste dumping within municipal jurisdictions. More recent rights-based organizing, in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, Virginia and California has prohibited corporate mining, large-scale water withdrawals and chemical trespass. A similar attempt
6254-479: The community, scholars note that grassroots community organizing can be passive and depoliticizing. This approach to building community empowerment does not aim for a specific political or social goal. In other words, building relationships do not always directly confront institutions, though it might challenge an individual's views through one-on-one conversations with other individuals in the community. Feminist organizing, also known as women's community organizing,
6372-793: The congregations involved are generally mainline Protestant and Catholic (although "middle-class" can mean different things in white communities and communities of color, which can lead to class tensions within these organizations). Holiness, Pentecostal, and other related denominations (often "storefront") churches with mostly poor and working-class members tend not to join FBCOs because of their focus on "faith" over "works," among other issues. FBCOs have increasingly expanded outside impoverished areas into churches where middle-class professionals predominate in an effort to expand their power to contest inequality. Because of their "organization of organizations" approach, FBCOs can organize large numbers of members with
6490-546: The country," in 1963, the SDS launched (with $ 5000 from United Automobile Workers ) the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). SDS community organizers would help draw white neighborhoods into an "interracial movement of the poor". By the end of 1964, ERAP had ten inner-city projects engaging 125 student volunteers. In the summer of 1964, Ralph Helstein of the Packinghouse Workers , one of
6608-453: The day of sit-ins had ended" when the executive of a military contractor showed him blueprints for the new corporate headquarters. "'And here', the executive said, 'is our sit-in-hall. [You will have] plenty of comfortable chairs, two coffee machines and lots of magazines . . . '". "You are not going to get anywhere", Alinsky concluded, unless you are "constantly inventing new and better tactics" that move beyond your opponent's expectations. In
6726-664: The decades: Mark Andersen , Ella Baker , Heather Booth , César Chávez , Lois Gibbs , Mother Jones , Martin Luther King Jr. , Ralph Nader , Huey P. Newton , Barack Obama , and Paul Wellstone . More recently has come the emergence of youth organizing groups around the country. These groups use neo-Alinsky strategies while also usually providing social and sometimes material support to less-privileged youth. Most of these groups are created by and directed by youth or former youth organizers. Prior to his entry into politics, President Barack Obama worked as an organizer for
6844-512: The depression era, such as that of Dorothy Day . Most organizations had a national orientation because the economic problems the nation faced did not seem possible to change at the neighborhood levels. Saul Alinsky , based in Chicago , is credited with originating the term community organizer during this time period. Alinsky wrote Reveille for Radicals , published in 1946, and Rules for Radicals , published in 1971. With these books, Alinsky
6962-514: The development of campaigns. A central goal of organizing is the development of a robust, organized, local democracy bringing community members together across differences to fight together for the interests of the community. Community organizers attempt to influence government, corporations, and institutions, increase direct representation within decision-making bodies, and foster general social reform more generally. Where negotiations fail, these organizations quickly seek to inform others outside of
7080-720: The emergence of an ongoing process of white flight , the ability of middle-class white Americans to move out of majority Black areas, and the professionalization of community organizations into 501(c)3 nonprofits, among other issues, increasingly dissolved the tight ethnic and racial communities that had been so prevalent in urban areas during the first part of the century. As a result, community organizers began to move away from efforts to mobilize existing communities and towards efforts to create community, fostering relationships between community members. While community organizers like Alinsky had long worked with churches, these trends led to an increasing focus on congregational organizing during
7198-448: The farm-worker barrios of Southern California." Although Alinsky always had rationalizations, his biographer Sanford Horwitt records that "on rare occasions" Alinsky would concede that not all of his mentored projects were "unequivocal successes". There was uncertainty about "what was supposed to happen after the first two or three years, when the original organizer and/or fund-raiser left the community council on its own." Recognizing that
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#17327721826197316-477: The federal sponsor for community action, the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), should bypass city halls and either fund existing militant organisations such as FIGHT in Rochester (although these could never allow the federal government to be their core funder) or, in communities not already organized, seek out local leadership to initiate the process of building a resident organization. Amendments to OEO funding in
7434-410: The few labor leaders interested in the emergence of the New Left, arranged for Alinsky to meet SDS founders Tom Hayden and Todd Gitlin . To Helstein's dismay Alinsky dismissed Hayden and Gitlin's ideas and work as naive and doomed to failure. The would-be organizers were absurdly romantic in their view of the poor and of what could be achieved by consensus. Horwitt notes that "'Participatory democracy,'
7552-556: The foundations of democracy. For although we profess that we are citizens of a democracy, and although we may vote once every four years, millions of our people feel deep down in their heart of hearts that there is no place for them—that they do not 'count'. Through the IAF, Alinsky spent the next 10 years repeating his organizational work--"rubbing raw", as the New York Times saw it "the sores of discontent" and compelling action through agitation--"from Kansas City and Detroit to
7670-417: The general health of a specific interest group, rather than the community as a whole. In addition, community organizing seeks to broadly empower community members,through mobilizing efforts, with the end goal of "distributing" power and resources more equally between the community members and external political and social figures of power. When adapting the goal of community empowerment, organizers recognize
7788-753: The hands of an organization of local residents, and using that power to influence issues the organization defines as important. Congregation-based Community Organizing (CBCO) works through local synagogues , churches , and mosques as the primary institutional sponsors of this work. Common characteristics: Community organizing Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community building , community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for
7906-631: The hell out of them. That's what everybody does." The rabbi looked at him for a moment and said quietly, "You think you're a man because you do what everybody does. But I want to tell you something great: 'where there are no men, be thou a man'". Alinsky considered himself an agnostic , but when asked about his religion would "always say Jewish." In 1926, Alinsky entered the University of Chicago . He studied in America's first sociology department under Ernest Burgess and Robert E. Park . Overturning
8024-406: The history of "community organizing" (also known as "social agitation") in the United States into four rough periods: People sought to meet the pressures of rapid immigration and industrialization by organizing immigrant neighborhoods in urban centers. Since the emphasis of the reformers was mostly on building community through settlement houses and other service mechanisms, the dominant approach
8142-538: The horse manure [sociologists] were handing out about poverty and slums, playing down the suffering and deprivation, glossing over the misery and despair. I mean, Christ, I’d lived in a slum, I could see through all their complacent academic jargon to the realities." The Great Depression put an end to an interest in archaeology: after the stock-market crash "all the guys who funded the field trips were being scraped off Wall Street sidewalks." A chance graduate fellowship moved Alinsky on to criminology . For two years, as
8260-590: The idea. Successes could also be problematic. In Chicago, the Back of the Yards Council set itself against housing integration and offered no objection to a pattern of "urban renewal" with which Alinsky professed himself "fed-up": "the moving of low-income and, almost without exception, Negro groups and dumping them into other slums," in order to build houses for middle-income whites. There being "no substitute for organized power," Alinsky concluded in 1959 that what
8378-429: The impatience of a New Left generation of activists in the 1960s, Alinsky – in his widely cited Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer (1971) – defended the arts both of confrontation and of compromise involved in community organizing as keys to the struggle for social justice . Beginning in the 1990s, Alinsky's reputation was revived by commentators on the political right as a source of tactical inspiration for
8496-616: The interest of their communities and the common good. According to scholar Brian D. Christens, grassroots organizing focuses on building and maintaining interpersonal relationships between their community members. Building social relationships allow community members to build collaborative skills, deliberative skills to handle conflict, and strengthen civil engagement. Some networks of community organizations that employ this method and support local organizing groups include National People's Action and ACORN . Although efforts in grassroots organizing are significant in marginalized communities, it
8614-422: The international front in those days you had to stand with Communists". But Alinsky insists he "never joined the party" for reasons "partly philosophic": One of my articles of faith is what Justice Learned Hand called "that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you are right." I've never been sure I'm right but also I'm also sure nobody else has this thing called truth. I hate dogma. People who believed they owned
8732-542: The labor leader Alinsky wrote that he later mediated between Lewis and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House). Alinsky's idea was to apply the organizing skills he believed he had mastered "to the worst slums and ghettos, so that the most oppressed and exploited elements could take control of their own communities and their own destinies. Up until then, specific factories and industries had been organized for social change, but never whole communities." In
8850-419: The leader (local volunteer) directed. (However, the same can be said for many forms of organizing, including FBCOs.) The "door-knocking" approach is more time-intensive than the "organization of organizations" approach of FBCOs and requires more organizers who, partly as a result, can be lower paid with more turnover. Unlike the existing FBCO national "umbrella" and other grassroots organizations, ACORN maintains
8968-656: The lines of our O'Hare shit in." This included a "fart-in" at the Rochester Philharmonic , Kodak's "cultural jewel." It was a proposal Alinsky considered "absurd rather than juvenile. But isn't much of life kind of a theater of the absurd?" No tactic that might work was "frivolous." Following a disruption of its annual stockholders' convention in April 1967 assisted by Unitarians and others assigning FIGHT their proxy votes (Alinsky had called on them to "put your stock where your sermons are"), Kodak recognized FIGHT as
9086-555: The local power structures. Community organizing appeared to trap the radical activists in "a politics of adjustment". By the beginning of the 1970s most of the New Left groups had vacated their store-front offices. Nonetheless, the Civil Rights Movement , anti-war protest, ethnic mobilizations, women's liberation , and the struggle for gay rights all influenced, and were influenced by, ideas of neighborhood organizing. Experience with federal anti-poverty programs and
9204-447: The member institutions by developing the skills and capacities of their leaders and creating a vehicle for ordinary families to participate in the political process. The Industrial Areas Foundation sees itself as a "university of public life" teaching citizens the democratic process in the fullest sense. While community organizing groups often engage in protest actions designed to force powerful groups to respond to their demands, protest
9322-462: The mid-1960s, civil rights activists began to call for "Black Power"—for Stokely Carmichael a "call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations". Alinsky appeared not to be fazed. "I agree with the concept," he said in the fall of 1966. "We've always called it community power, and if the community is black, it's black power." But a year later he was relating, with evident satisfaction, that when he had asked Carmichael at
9440-420: The misuse of governing authority to benefit corporations. As such, the adoption of rights-based municipal ordinances is not a legal strategy, but an organizing strategy. Courts predictably deny the legal authority of municipalities to legislate in defiance of state and federal law. Corporations and government agencies that initiate legal actions to overturn these ordinances have been forced to argue in opposition to
9558-491: The national community organizing network was to partner with religious congregations and civic organizations to build "broad-based organizations" that could train up local leadership and promote trust across community divides. After Alinsky died in 1972, Edward T. Chambers became the IAF's executive director. Hundreds of professional community and labor organizers and thousands of community and labor leaders have been trained at its workshops. Fred Ross , who worked for Alinsky,
9676-487: The negotiation of an open-housing deal that was to prove toothless. (After King's assassination , Alinsky argued that Woodlawn was the one black area of Chicago that did not "explode into racial violence" because, while their lives were not "idyllic", with TWO people "finally" had a sense of "power and achievement"). At the end of the sixties Alinsky complained that student activists had been more interested in "revelation" than in "revolution," and that their campus politics
9794-595: The newly formed Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization . In an angry letter to the Foundation's executive director, Lucius Walker , Alinsky took exception to one of Karenga's "insights," that "blacks are a country and if you support America you are against my community." This Alinsky found "repugnant and nauseous." He and his associates would not only "plead guilty to supporting America" but would "gladly admit that we love our country." Horwitt notes that in 1968 "virtually no leftist dissenter – black or white –
9912-569: The organization of the issues being addressed and expose or pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting , sit-ins , petitioning, and electoral politics. Organizing groups often seek out issues they know will generate controversy and conflict. This allows them to draw in and educate participants, build commitment, and establish a reputation for advancing local justice. Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are democratic in governance, open and accessible to community members, and concerned with
10030-404: The organization was run by an elected board. The TWO moved quickly to establish itself as the "voice" of the black neighborhood, mobilizing, developing and bringing up new leadership. An example was Arthur M. Brazier , the first spokesperson and eventual president of the organization. Starting out as a mail carrier, Brazier became a preacher in a store front church, and then, through TWO, emerged as
10148-663: The past," and unwilling to confront white racism. To meet the challenge of growing black dissent following the August 1965 Watts riots , King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had sought a victory in the North with the Chicago Freedom Movement (CFM). JOIN later claimed that they pushed whites on the race question "at every opportunity" and "even mobilized members to support Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 's campaign to desegregate housing in Chicago in
10266-451: The powerless. Community organizing has as a core goal the generation of durable power for an organization representing the community , allowing it to influence key decision-makers on a range of issues over time. In the ideal, for example, this can get community-organizing groups a place at the table before important decisions are made. Community organizers work with and develop new local leaders , facilitating coalitions and assisting in
10384-506: The president's legislative agenda and played an important role in building grassroots support for The Affordable Health Care Act. Saul Alinsky Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community activist and political theorist . His work through the Chicago -based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords, politicians, bankers and business leaders won him national recognition and notoriety. Responding to
10502-461: The propositions of a still ascendant eugenics movement, Burgess and Park argued that social disorganization , not heredity , was the cause of disease , crime , and other characteristics of slum life. As the passage of successive waves of immigrants through such districts had demonstrated, it is the slum area itself, and not the particular group living there, with which social pathologies were associated. Yet Alinsky claimed to be "astounded by all
10620-413: The racial and capability diversity among women. In the process of pushing for unity among women, feminist organizers are inclined to disregard the benefits of diversity. Economist Marilyn Power uses the term "homogenous category" to highlight the problem of masking racial diversity, while sociologist Akwugo Emejulu uses the concept of essentialism (reducing women to their gender stereotypes) to highlight
10738-542: The reaction against community organizing in the 2008 US presidential election by Republicans and conservatives both online and offline. Organizing groups often struggle to find resources. They rarely receive funding from government since their activities often seek to contest government policies. Foundations and others who usually fund service activities generally don't understand what organizing groups do or how they do it, or shy away from their contentious approaches. The constituency of progressive and centrist organizing groups
10856-459: The ridicule he would have heaped upon his persecutors. Herb March, the most prominent Communist Party member with the Packinghouse Workers in Chicago, said he would "place a little more emphasis ... on the Church influence", but also allowed that, as the government "undoubtedly must have had him under close surveillance", they cannot have had "anything" on him. Yet Alinsky was not "untouched by
10974-465: The rights of "human and natural communities," and include provisions that deny the legal concepts of "corporate personhood," and "corporate rights." Since 2006 they have been drafted to include the recognition of legally enforceable rights for "natural communities and ecosystems." Although this type of community organizing focuses on the adoption of local laws, the intent is to demonstrate the use of governing authority to protect community rights and expose
11092-625: The scope of gender norms. This negatively impacts women empowerment because it is the diversity that motivates women to mobilize. Faith-based community organizing (FBCO), also known as Congregation-based Community Organizing , is a methodology for developing power and relationships throughout a community of institutions: today mostly congregations, but these can also include unions, neighborhood associations, and other groups. Progressive and centrist FBCO organizations unite around basic values derived from common aspects of their faith instead of around strict dogmas. There are now at least 180 FBCOs in
11210-420: The steps of city hall: "sort of share-the-rats program, a form of integration": Any tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag itself. No matter how burning the injustice and how militant your supporters, people get turned off by repetitious and conventional tactics. Your opposition also learns what to expect and how to neutralize you unless you're constantly devising new strategies. Alinsky said that he "knew
11328-464: The summer of 1965 ruled out any such "creative federalism". These gave city halls the right to select the official Community Action Agency (CAA) for their community and reserved two-thirds of the CAA boards for business representative and elected officials. There was no prospect of a federal mandate favoring Alinsky's organizing model. The one-year OEO grant for the program at Syracuse that had hired Alinsky
11446-591: The summer of 1966". It is not clear that participation by Alinsky in the Chicago Freedom Movement was either offered or invited. Yet "Freedom Summer" in 1965 seemed to follow the Alinsky playbook: "The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy'. The hysterical instant reaction of the establishment [will] not only validate [the organizer's] credentials of competency but also ensure automatic popular invitation". The difficulty
11564-424: The table without engaging in "actions" because of their reputation. As Alinsky said, "the first rule of power tactics" is that "power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have." The development of durable "power" and influence is a key aim of community organizing. "Rights-based" community organizing, in which municipal governments are used to exercise community power, was first experimented with by
11682-450: The traditional gender norms influenced by white domestic middle class womanhood. Currently, feminist organizing focuses on addressing gender inequalities, which means only the problems of women who follow and are impacted by gender norms will be addressed. Feminist organizing becomes counterproductive for those who do follow gender norms. Psychologist Lorraine Gutierrez claims that feminist organizing disregards problems that are larger than
11800-626: The truth have been responsible for the most terrible things that have happened in our world, whether they were Communist purges or the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch hunts. In Reveille , Alinsky is "as contemptuous of 'top down' centralizing Soviet approaches to social planning as he is of laissez-faire economic policies". The Radical, he says, "will bitterly oppose complete Federal control of education. He will fight for individual rights and against centralized power …The Radical
11918-406: The uneven distribution of material and social resources within society as the root cause of the community's issues. The process of creating empowerment starts with admitting that power gaps and resource inequalities exist in society and affects an individual's personal life. Though community organizers share the goal of community empowerment, community organizing itself is defined and understood in
12036-413: The upheavals in the cities produced a thoughtful response among activists and theorists in the early 1970s that has informed activities, organizations, strategies and movements through the end of the century. Less dramatically, civic association and neighborhood block clubs were formed all across the country to foster community spirit and civic duty, as well as provide a social outlet. During these decades,
12154-443: Was "his sense of timing and understanding how others would perceive something. Saul knew that if I grab you by the shoulders and say do this, do that and the other, you're going to resent it. If you make the discovery yourself, you're going to strut because you made it". In 1940, with the support of Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and Chicago Sun-Times publisher and department-store owner Marshall Field , Alinsky founded
12272-521: Was "the invention of color film". In the wake of the riots, the Rochester area churches, together with black civil rights leaders, invited Alinsky and the IAF to help the community organize. With the Reverend Franklin Florence , who had been close to Malcolm X , they established FIGHT (Freedom, Integration, God, Honor, Today). Concluding that picketing and boycotts would not work, FIGHT began to think of some "far-out tactics along
12390-580: Was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor", a phrase produced on bumper stickers and elsewhere. Pontius Pilate was the Roman Prefect who ordered the execution of Jesus. After Obama's election in 2008, the campaign organization " Obama for America ," became " Organizing for America ," and has been placed under the auspices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Organizing for America sought to advance
12508-423: Was answered with resounding applause. This was seconded by the vice presidential nominee, Alaska governor Sarah Palin , who stated that her experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska was "sort of like being a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." In response, some progressives, such as Congressman Steve Cohen ( D - TN ) and liberal pundit Donna Brazile , started saying that " Jesus
12626-409: Was born in 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, to Lithuanian Jewish emigrant parents from Vilnius , Russian Empire. He was the only surviving son of Benjamin Alinsky and his second wife, Sarah Tannenbaum Alinsky, from Vilnius (now Lithuania). His father started out as a tailor, then ran a delicatessen and a cleaning shop. Both parents were strict Orthodox . Alinsky describes himself as being devout until
12744-607: Was involved in the causes of the thirties and says he didn't know any communists is either a liar or an idiot". They were "all over the place, fighting for the New Deal the CIO and so forth". Alinsky said he was "sympathetic to Russia at that time [i.e. in the 1930s before the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ] because it was the one country that seemed to be taking a strong position against Hitler ... If you were anti-fascist on
12862-544: Was made by Denton, Texas to restrict fracking was initially successful, but then overturned and further legislation passed to prevent Texas communities from enacting similar bans. Community organizing is not solely the domain of progressive politics, as dozens of fundamentalist organizations are in operation, such as the Christian Coalition . However, the term "community organizing" generally refers to more progressive organizations, as evidenced, for example, by
12980-419: Was not renewed. When the program trainees began organizing residents against city agencies, the mayor withdrew cooperation. Alinsky never became a direct target of McCarthyism . He was never called before a congressional investigating committee nor had to endure a determined press campaign to identify and exclude him as a communist “ fellow traveler ”. Alinsky liked to think this because of his toughness and
13098-512: Was sceptical of Community Action Program (CAP) funding under the Act doing more than provide relief for the "welfare industry": "the use of poverty funds to absorb staff salaries and operating costs by changing the title of programs and putting a new poverty label here and there is an old device". If it was to achieve more than this, there had to be meaningful representation of the poor "through their own organised power". In practice this would mean that
13216-495: Was that Daley's experience was such that that city hall could not be drawn into a sufficiently damaging confrontation. The mayor responded to the brutal reception for Freedom marchers in the white neighborhoods of Gage Park and Marquette Park with a judicious expression of sympathy and support. King balked at a further escalation—a march through the red-lined suburb of Cicero, "the Selma of the North"—and he allowed Daley to draw him into
13334-433: Was the first person in America to codify key strategies and aims of community organizing. The following excerpts from Reveille for Radicals give a sense of Alinsky's organizing philosophy and of his style of public engagement: In 1940, with the support of Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and Chicago Sun-Times publisher Marshall Field , Alinsky founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). The mandate of
13452-596: Was the first, created by Alinsky himself in 1940. The other key organizations include ACORN , PICO National Network , Direct Action and Research Training Center , and the Gamaliel Foundation . The role of the organizer in these organizations was "professionalized" to some extent and resources were sought so that being an organizer could be more of a long-term career than a relatively brief, mostly unfunded interlude. The training provided by these national "umbrella" organizations helps local volunteer leaders learn
13570-477: Was the key to social and economic deprivation, "political poverty": Poverty means not only lacking money, but also lacking power. ... When ... poverty and the lack of power bar you from equal protection, equal equity in the courts, and equal participation in the economic and social life of your society, then you are poor. ... [An] anti-poverty program must recognise that its program has to do something about not only economic poverty but also political poverty Alinsky
13688-527: Was the principal mentor for Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta . Other organizations following in the tradition of the Congregation-based Community Organizing pioneered by IAF include PICO National Network , Gamaliel Foundation , Brooklyn Ecumenical Cooperatives, founded by former IAF trainer, Richard Harmon and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART). In the 1960s the New Left (beginning with Students for
13806-483: Was using this kind of patriotic rhetoric." By 1970, Alinsky had conceded publicly that "all whites should get out of the black ghettos. It's a stage we have to go through." At the beginning of the 1960s, in the first postwar generation of college youth, Alinsky appeared to win new allies. Disclaiming any "formulas" or "closed theories," Students for a Democratic Society called for a "new left ... committed to deliberativeness, honesty [and] reflection." More than this,
13924-659: Was what Fisher calls social work . During this period the Newsboys Strike of 1899 provided an early model of youth-led organizing . During this period, much of community organizing methodology was generated in Schools of Social Work, with a particular methodological focus grounded in the philosophy of John Dewey , which focused on experience, education, and other sociological concepts. This period saw much energy coming from those critical of capitalist doctrines as well. Studs Terkel documented community organizing in
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