Saul D. Alinsky

[Diane Vera]

In a post on Urban-rural divide in the thread The Authoritarian Mindset, The Criminal Mind, and The Nature of Projection, there is a link to an article on The Urban-Rural Moral Divide on a website called Public Theology.

That website also has a section called Organize, which includes the following articles, among others:

* Stumbling onto the Religious Left
* Saul Alinsky and Power Politics

Some excerpts from the page on Saul D. Alinsky:

We live in an age where bluster reins supreme. From radio call in shows to blogs to email lists to sign-toting protests, we live in an age where there are more ways to express anger, outrage and frustration than ever.

Yet, this is also an era with perhaps the fewest serious efforts to challenge power than we’ve ever seen in American history.

...

In short, we have more ways to blow off steam, but apparently less desire/ability/will to create it. And that is a tragedy, considering the very real potential for action and results a man named Saul Alinsky pioneered just a generation ago.

Actually that's more like two generations ago. Alinsky did his work in the 1930's through the 1960's.

Anyhow, this page goes on to say:

Alinsky spent his life helping low-income communities organize themselves so as to strengthen their political power. His blueprint was straightforward: through the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) which he created, he deployed organizers to help neighborhoods organize themselves into community councils (he called them “People’s Organizations”) made up of the leading local religious, civic and grassroots groups. These councils then performed two tasks: 1) providing services that the community needed, such as job placement/training and housing help and 2) pressuring the elected political leadership to deliver for the community. Tactically speaking, the task of service providing was used to draw in grassroots interest and organizational funding in order to build a force that could engage in bare-knuckled politics.

...

... an even bigger question about whether Alinsky’s work will be considered a historical relic or a before-his-time prophecy of how to actually make change. That Alinsky’s name is relatively little-known among today’s progressive activist class suggests the former – and that is a troubling commentary on the new generation’s disregard of history, the older generation’s failure to teach history, a general disdain for the unglorious pursuit of local organizing – or some combination of all three.

That’s not really surprising: every single message in our political debate is designed to make ordinary people feel helpless. This is especially true of our culture’s incessant focus on a celebrity-ized national political scene to the exclusion of other arenas that are more easily influenced by ordinary people, that are often more relevant to people’s daily lives, and that Alinsky showed are the most powerful weapons in challenging power.

* The Democratic Promise -- Saul D. Alinski and his legacy
* Wikipedia article on Saul D. Alinksy
* Alinsky: More Important Now Than Ever
* 1972 Playboy interview with Saul D. Alinsky
* Excerpt from Rules for Radicals
* More excerpts from Rules for Radicals
* Latter Rain's page on Saul D. Alinksy

It seems to me that Alinsky's ideas could easily be applied by GLBT rights activists.

[andrewlittle]

Saul's work has been continued in a great many arenas - grassroots organizing and advocacy is alive and well, albeit quite local.

One of the foremost organizations that continue the work Saul did is IAF, http://www.industrialareasfoundation.org/, which has training programs and organizing resources for local community work.

One instance of this is AMOS in central Iowa. They have accomplished great things, but there are many others.

The scope can be increased to more regional or national levels with adaptation.