Saul Alinsky (1909–72,) fully Saul David Alinsky, was an American community activist and political theorist. He stimulated the creation of numerous activist citizens and community groups.
Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Chicago, Illinois, Alinsky trained in archaeology and criminology. He worked as a criminologist in Illinois for eight years. In 1938, he undertook his first community organizing campaign in a working-class area of Chicago; the result was the Back of the Yards Council, which became a prototype for a generation of community organizations.
In 1940, Alinsky founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and trained cadres of organizers in his techniques. Following wartime service in several federal agencies, Alinsky and his IAF team carried their methods to communities throughout the country; the Community Service Organization in California provided early training for Cesar Chavez, who found the United Farm Workers of America. Alinsky’s Woodlawn Organization was one of the first successful efforts in the country to organize black inner-city residents.
Alinsky wrote the first of his three books, Reveille for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer (1946,) while serving a term in jail. His other books were Rules for Radicals (1971) and a biography of John L. Lewis (1949.)
American journalist Nicholas von Hoffman wrote Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinsky (2010.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Saul Alinsky
Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Power
Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara… are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Quotations
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Change
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Corruption
As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Illusion
The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Individuality
A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
—Saul Alinsky
Topics: Community
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