Saul Alinsky

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Lore & Background

Saul Alinsky was born in 1909 in Chicago to Lithuanian Jewish emigrant parents from what was then Vilna in the Russian Empire. His father started out as a tailor, then ran a delicatessen and a cleaning shop. Both parents were strict and observant Orthodox. Alinsky described himself as devout until age 12, when he began to fear his parents would force him to become a rabbi. He recalled that antisemitism was 'so pervasive ... you just accepted it as a fact of life.' After retaliating against some Polish boys, a rabbi told him: 'where there are no men, be thou a man.' Alinsky considered himself an agnostic but would 'always say Jewish' when asked about his religion. In 1926, Alinsky entered the University of Chicago, studying under Ernest Burgess and Robert E. Park. The Great Depression ended his interest in archaeology; a chance graduate fellowship moved him to criminology. For two years, as a 'nonparticipant observer,' he claimed to have hung out with Chicago's Al Capone mob, learning 'the terrific importance of personal relationships.' He took a job in the Illinois Division of the State Criminologist, working with juvenile delinquents and at Joliet Correctional Center, but found it dispiriting: if he dwelt on causes of crime like poor housing or unemployment, he was labeled a 'red.'

In 1938, Alinsky gave up his last employment to devote himself full-time as a political activist. He raised funds for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and for southern sharecroppers, organized for the Newspaper Guild, fought evictions, and agitated for public housing. He worked alongside the CIO and its president John L. Lewis. In 1940, with support from Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and publisher Marshall Field, Alinsky founded the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a national community organizing network. The IAF partnered with religious congregations and civic organizations to build 'broad-based organizations' that could train local leadership and promote trust across community divides.

Reader's Guide

Saul Alinsky's significance lies in his development of community organizing as a method for poor communities to press demands. In 1938, with Joseph Meegan, he set up the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BYNC) in Chicago, rallying a mix of Catholic ethnics and African Americans to win concessions from local meatpackers, landlords, and city hall. In January 1946, the BYNC supported the first major walkout of the United Packinghouse Workers. Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson praised Alinsky's aims as reflecting 'our ideals of brotherhood, tolerance, charity and dignity of the individual.' Alinsky believed organizers would facilitate, but local people had to lead and participate. Through the IAF, Alinsky spent the next 10 years repeating his organizational work 'from Kansas City and Detroit to the farm-worker barrios of Southern California.' His 1971 book *Rules for Radicals* became widely cited. Beginning in the 1990s, his reputation was revived by commentators on the political right as a source of tactical inspiration for the Republican Tea Party movement. He was later associated indirectly with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as the alleged source of a radical Democratic political agenda. On the political left, he was criticized for an aversion to broad ideological goals, yet also identified as an inspiration for the Occupy movement and campaigns for climate action.

Did You Know?

• Alinsky's father started out as a tailor, then ran a delicatessen and a cleaning shop.
• Alinsky claimed to have hung out with Chicago's Al Capone mob as a 'nonparticipant observer' for two years.
• Alinsky raised funds for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and for southern sharecroppers.
• The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council threw its support behind the first major walkout of the United Packinghouse Workers in January 1946.
• Alinsky considered himself an agnostic but would 'always say Jewish' when asked about his religion.