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Saul AlinskyBy Joseph Cerniglia

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Early adversity 1909-1930“[Anti-Semitism] was so pervasive you didn’t really even think about it; you just accepted it as a fact of life.”

Russian Immigrant Orthodox Jewish

3Career shift

• Earned Ph.B (Archaeology) from University of Chicago 1930. “Archeologists were in about as much demand as horses and buggies.”

• Depression starts: 1929• University of Chicago Graduate School (Criminology) 1930-1932• State of Illinois – Criminology• Starts community organizing (1939) to “turn scattered, voiceless

discontent into a united protest.”

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Community Organizing

• Back of the Yards, Chicago; Kansas City; Detroit; Southern California (1939-1949)

• Reveille for Radicals (1946)• Civil Rights Movement (1950s)• Organizing the organizers (1960s)• Rules for Radicals (1971)

5Death

• Died in 1972• Just before his death he planned to organize the white

middle class into a national movement for progressive change directly to congress and “the boardrooms of mega-corporations.”

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Reveille for Radicals (1946)Born out of his time in and out of jail in Kansas City for Community Organizing:• Solidified his beliefs• Began his efforts to pass

along his methods

Rules for Radicals (1971)Divided society into three categories:• Haves (Upper class)• Have-nots (Lower class)• Have-a-little, Want mores

(Middle class)

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8Alinsky on Love

• If you think of people in derogatory terms, then you don’t like people.

• You make “ethnic” jokes behind the backs of your fellow Americans, you really don’t like people you tolerate them

• There are those few that really love people – all people. These are the “radicals.”

9Inspirational

Cesar ChavezHillary ClintonBarack ObamaDick Armey

10Power

• “This becomes a contest of power: those who have money versus those who have people. We have nothing but people.”

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Saul AlinskyBy Joseph Cerniglia