Saul Alinsky (January 30, 1909-June 12, 1972) was born in Chicago to delicatessen and cleaning business owner Benjamin Alinsky and his second wife, Sarah Tannenbaum, who were Orthodox Jews. He studied sociology and criminology at the University of Chicago, later working with juvenile delinquents and with convicts at the Joliet State Penitentiary.
Alinsky raised money for the Communist-organized International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and for southern sharecroppers. He organized unions including the Newspaper Guild. He collaborated with John L. Lewis, the president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He encouraged the workers who demanded and won concessions from the local meatpackers. Later he founded the Industrial Areas Foundation, a national community organizing network, that allied with religious congregations and civic organizations. He helped start The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), which was recognized by many as the voice of the Black community under Arthur M. Brazier, its first spokesman and eventual president.
Under Alinsky’s leadership, TWO bused 2,500 Black residents of Chicago to register to vote at City Hall and exercised influence over which builders would receive contacts in their neighborhood. He believed demonstrations should be novel and considered sit-ins to be passé. He once threatened to ship a thousand rats to City Hall, which he described as a form of integration. He had long lines of supporters exchanging their pennies for dollars at banks, and threatened to have a “piss in” at Chicago O’Hare Airport. He employed similar tactics in other cities, notably in Rochester, N.Y., to promote hiring of more African-Americans by Kodak.
Alinsky’s first wife, Helene Simon, drowned while trying to save two children. Their own children were Kathryn and Lee David. His second wife, Jean Graham, had to be hospitalized for a long term with multiple sclerosis and mental health problems. He died of a heart attack at age 63 a year after marrying his third wife, Irene McInnis. Hillary Clinton wrote a thesis about Alinksy when she was a college student. Barack Obama’s pre-presidential work as director of Chicago’s Developing Communities Project was influenced by Alinsky’s approach to organizing.
Tomorrow: January 31: Nathan Straus
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SDJW condensation of a Wikipedia article