Editing Saul Alinsky (section)

==Legacy==

===Industrial Areas Foundation===
{{Main|Industrial Areas Foundation}}

It has been suggested that "Alinsky is to community organizing as Freud is to analysis." Having written about it, "philosophized about it, and provided the first set of rules", he was the first to call attention to community organizing "as a distinct program, with a life and literature of its own, separate from any particular cause such as the union movement or Populism."<ref name="Slayton 1996" /> His biographer Sanford Horwitt credits Alinsky "more than anybody ... for demonstrating that community organizing could be a lifelong career."{{sfnp|Horwitt|1989|p=544}}

The Industrial Areas Foundation still claims to be "the nation's largest and longest-standing network of local faith and community-based organizations."<ref name="IAF-WhoWeAre" /> They report "victories" on, among other issues, housing and neighborhood revitalization, public transport and infrastructure, living-wage jobs and workforce development, support for local labor unions, criminal justice reform, and tackling the opioid crisis.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/interfaitheducationfund/pages/1603/attachments/original/1572004168/2018_IAF_Impact_Report_by_ISSUE.pdf?1572004168 |title=Impact Report 2018 |website=IAF |access-date=November 22, 2019}}</ref>

When Alinsky died, [[Edward T. Chambers]] became the IAF's executive director. Hundreds of professional community and labor organizers and thousands of community and labor leaders have been trained at its workshops.<ref name="dickmeister" /> [[Fred Ross (community organizer)|Fred Ross]], who worked for Alinsky, was the principal mentor for [[Cesar Chavez]] and [[Dolores Huerta]]. Other organizations following in the tradition of the [[Congregation-based Community Organizing]] pioneered by IAF include [[PICO National Network]], [[Gamaliel Foundation]], Brooklyn Ecumenical Cooperatives, founded by former IAF trainer Richard Harmon, and [[Direct Action and Research Training Center]] (DART).<ref name="dickmeister">{{Cite web |url=http://www.dickmeister.com/id73.html |title=Labor – And A Whole Lot More: A Trailblazing Organizer's Organizer |first=Dick |last=Meister |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041021124921/http://www.dickmeister.com/id73.html |archive-date=October 21, 2004}}</ref><ref>{{Cite episode |title=NPR Democrats and the Legacy of Activist Saul Alinsky |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10305695 |access-date=September 8, 2011 |series=All Things Considered |series-link=All Things Considered |author-link=Robert Siegel |first=Robert |last=Siegel |first2=Sanford |last2=Horwitt |station=[[NPR]] |date=May 21, 2007 |quote=Robert Siegel talks to author Sanford Horwitt, who wrote a biography of Saul Alinsky called ''Let Them Call Me 'Rebel'.'' The book traces Alinsky's early activism in Chicago's meatpacking neighborhood.}}</ref> Such had been their role in the IAF and its projects that on his ''Firing Line'' television program [[William F. Buckley Jr.|William F. Buckley]] introduced Alinsky as "the pet revolutionary of the church people of America".<ref name="MobilizingthePoor" />

===People's Action===
{{Main|People's Action}}

Chicago-based National People's Action (NPA), a federation of 29 community organizing groups in 18 U.S. states, consciously committed to Alinsky's bottom-up, door-to-door methodologies. It was co-founded in 1972 by [[Shel Trapp]] (1935–2010), who trained under Alinsky-trained organizer Tom Gaudet at the IAF.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-xpm-2010-10-25-ct-met-trapp-obit-1026-20101025-story.html |title=Shel Trapp, 1935–2010, community organizer, co-founder of National People's Action |first=Margaret |last=Ramirez |date=October 25, 2010 |newspaper=Chicago Tribune}}</ref> NPA's successful national campaign to pass the [[Community Reinvestment Act]] CRA (1977) challenged the assertion that Alinsky-style organizing is only local and confined to winnable single-issue campaigns. In 2016, it coalesced with two other community-organizing networks to create [[People's Action]] and the People's Action [training] Institute, dedicated to building "the power of poor and working people, in rural, suburban, and urban areas, to win change" not only "through issue campaigns" but also, in clearer distinction to the IAF, through elections.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://peoplesaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/PP2020_FullPlatform_v1.pdf |title=The People's Platform 2020 |website=[[People's Action]] |access-date=November 22, 2019}}</ref>

===Citizens UK and ''L'Institut Alinsky'', France===
In 1989, following trainee experience with the IAF in Chicago, in England Neil Jameson established the Citizens Organising Foundation. Now [[Citizens UK]], it supports communities in several cities, and since 2001 has been associated with the high-profile campaign for a [[living wage]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Jameson|first=Neil|date=2010-03-24|title=People can play their part in the governance of the nation|url=http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/mar/24/communities-policy|access-date=2021-03-17|website=the Guardian|language=en}}</ref> 

Drawing inspiration from both Citizens UK and the IAF, in 2012 Alinsky's community-organizing methods were tried in France leading to the creation in [[Grenoble]] of the ''[[Alliance Citoyenne]]'' (Citizens Alliance).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Community organizing : pourquoi il faut oublier Saul Alinsky - Organisez-vous !|date=February 26, 2019 |url=https://organisez-vous.org/saul-alinsky-community-organizing/|access-date=2021-03-21|language=fr-FR}}</ref> Similar initiatives followed in [[Rennes]] in 2014, in [[Aubervilliers]], in [[Seine-Saint-Denis|Seine St Denis]] in 2016 and in the [[Lyon]] metropolitan area in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web|last=à 13h37|first=Par Quentin Laurent Le 22 novembre 2017|date=2017-11-22|title=La France insoumise à l'assaut des quartiers populaires|url=https://www.leparisien.fr/politique/la-france-insoumise-a-l-assaut-des-quartiers-populaires-22-11-2017-7407300.php|access-date=2021-03-17|website=leparisien.fr|language=fr-FR}}</ref>

In October 2017, the leaders of the ''[[Alliance Citoyenne]]'' and the researchers Julien Talpin and Hélène Balazard founded the Alinsky Institute,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Qui sommes-nous ?|url=https://alinsky.fr/qui-sommes-nous/|access-date=2021-03-17|website=Institut Alinsky|language=fr-FR}}</ref> a think tank and training organization to develop and promote methods of citizen empowerment in blue-collar and immigrant suburbs (''[[Banlieue|banlieues]]'') which, with the decline in the traditional parties of the left, have had little political voice.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Talpin|first=Julien|date=2017-06-22|title=What's the matter with the banlieues? Exploring the importation of the American community organizing tradition by French social movements|url=https://metropolitics.org/What-s-the-matter-with-the-banlieues-Exploring-the-importation-of-the-American.html|journal=Metropolitics|language=en}}</ref> 

An assessment of Institute's work suggested that a critical problem for "Alinskyism" is the activists’ "need for recognition": "when they practice community organizing, the dozens of hours they devote to political struggle are in fact erased in favor of the inhabitants trained in mobilization".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Saint-André |first=Elsa de La Roche |title=LFI, Nupes : qu'est-ce que l'institut Alinsky, qui forme des militants à «aller chercher les colères»? |url=https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/lfinupes-quest-ce-que-linstitut-alinsky-qui-forme-des-militants-a-aller-chercher-les-coleres-20220729_RSCH5QMRUVCODKLJLAH7MWTU3Q/ |access-date=2022-08-22 |website=Libération |language=fr}}</ref> More controversially, because of the alleged political partisanship, critics observe that the Alinsky Institute has trained leading activists in ''[[La France Insoumise|La France insoumise]]''.<ref name=":1" />

In Germany in 1993, two of Alinsky's students and co-workers, Don Elmer (Center for Community Change, San Francisco) and Ed Shurna (Interfaith Organizing Project and [[Gamaliel Foundation]], Chicago) initiated the first training courses in "Community Organizing" (CO), supported by several local projects.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Wegweiser Bürgergesellschaft: Zur Geschichte des Community Organizing in Deutschland|url=https://www.buergergesellschaft.de/praxishilfen/community-organizing/wer-macht-es-hier/zur-geschichte-des-community-organizing-in-deutschland/|access-date=2021-03-21|website=www.buergergesellschaft.de}}</ref> Assisted by the [[Catholic University of Applied Social Sciences]], the first community organization (''Bürgerplattform'') based on Alinsky's principles was established in a [[Berlin]] neighborhood in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Renner|first=Gesela|date=2015|title=Vielfalt in der Bürgerbeteiligung: Das Beispiel "Community Organizing"|url=https://gutvertreten.boell.de/2015/10/19/vielfalt-der-buergerbeteiligung-das-beispiel-community-organizing|access-date=2021-03-21|website=Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung - Gutvertreten|language=de}}</ref>

==="Alinskyism"===
Among political activists on the left, Alinsky’s legacy continues to be disputed. Cautions against looking to Alinsky for "a road map" to "rebuild power in the age of Trump" repeat the charge of the New Left: "'Alinskyism' — apolitical 'single-issue' campaigns that focus on 'winnable demands' run by a well-oiled, staff-heavy organization—shut the door to more democratic and transformational forms of working-class mobilization."<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/saul-alinsky-alinskyism-organizing-methods-cesar-chavez-ufw |title=The Problem With Saul Alinsky |first=Aaron |last=Petcoff |date=May 10, 2017 |magazine=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |access-date=January 21, 2020}}</ref> At the same time, Alinsky has been rediscovered and defended as an inspiration for the [[Occupy movement]] in 2011-12, and the mobilization for climate action.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/building-organization-through-movements-a-defense-of-alinsky |title=Building Organization Through Movements: A Defense of Alinsky |first=Mike |last=Miller |date=May 23, 2014 |magazine=Dissent |access-date=January 21, 2020}}</ref> Activists for [[Extinction Rebellion]] (XR), founded in Britain, cite ''Rules for Radicals'' as a source of inspiration as to "how we mobilise to cope with emergency", and "strike a balance between disruption and creativity".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/oct/books-that-inspired-extinction-rebellion-protesters/ |title=The books that inspired the Extinction Rebellion protesters |first=Donna |last=Mackay |date=October 22, 2019 |website=[[Penguin Random House]] |access-date=January 21, 2020}}</ref> XR co-founder, [[Roger Hallam (activist)|Roger Hallam]], has been clear that the strategy of public disruption is "heavily influenced" by Alinsky: "The essential element here is disruption. Without disruption, no one is going to give you their eyeballs".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/19/extinction-rebellion-and-attenborough-put-climate-in-spotlight |title=Extinction Rebellion and Attenborough put climate in spotlight |first=Caroline |last=Davies |date=April 19, 2019 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=January 21, 2020}}</ref> 

The Israeli journalist and pro-[[Israeli settlement|Settler]] activist [[David Bedein]] viewed Alinsky as a major influence on his own form of occupation politics.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bedein |first1=David |title=Alinksy's ideas can help Israel, too |url=https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/alinksys-ideas-can-help-israel-too |access-date=20 February 2021 |work=The Jerusalem Post |date=25 June 2012}}</ref>

===Appropriation by the Tea Party movement===
In the 2000s, ''Rules for Radicals'' did develop as a primer for middle-class mobilization, but it was of a kind and in a direction—the return to "vanished verities"—that Alinsky had feared. As did [[William F. Buckley Jr.|William F. Buckley]] in the 1960s, a new generation of libertarian, right-wing populist, and conservative activists seemed willing to admire Alinsky's disruptive organizing talents while rejecting his social-justice politics. ''Rules for Radicals'', and adaptations of the book, began circulating among [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] [[Tea Party movement|Tea Party]] activists. According to spokesman Adam Brandon, the conservative non-profit organization [[FreedomWorks]] distributed a short adaptation of Alinsky's work, ''Rules for Patriots'', through its entire network. Former Republican House Majority Leader [[Dick Armey]] is also reported to have given copies of Alinsky's book to leaders of the [[Tea Party movement]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Williamson |first1=Elizabeth |date=January 23, 2012 |title=Two Ways to Play the 'Alinsky' Card |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204624204577177272926154002 |access-date=January 26, 2011}}</ref> In ''Rules for Conservative Radicals'' (2009) Michael Patrick Leahy, an early Tea Party leader, offered "sixteen rules for conservative radicals based on lessons from Saul Alinsky, the Tea Party Movement, and the Apostle Paul".<ref>{{cite book |last=Leahy |first=Michael Patrick |title=Rules for Conservative Radicals: Lessons from Saul Alinsky, the Tea Party Movement, and the [[Paul the Apostle|Apostle Paul]] in the Age of Collaborative Technologies |date=2009 |publisher=C-Rad Press |isbn=978-0-97949-744-5 |location=Nashville, Tennessee}}</ref>

===Linked to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama===
Once it appeared that links could be drawn between Alinsky and two major Democratic-Party presidential hopefuls, Senator [[Hillary Clinton]] and Senator, later President, [[Barack Obama]], conservatives were interested less in appropriating from the organizing tactician, than in profiling Alinsky as a far-left radical. Alinsky, it was discovered, had been the subject of then [[Hillary Clinton|Hillary Rodham's]] senior college thesis.<ref name="dedman" /> Clinton had not been uncritical. Alinsky believed that community leaders who generate pressure on the system from the outside could produce more effective change than the lofty lever-pullers on the inside. But Clinton argued that suburbanization and a federal consolidation of power meant change needed to be achieved at levels that Alinsky's model was not designed to target. Nonetheless, her conclusion allowed that Alinsky "has been feared – just as [[Eugene Debs]] or [[Walt Whitman]] or Martin Luther King has been feared, because each embraced the most radical of political faiths — democracy."<ref>Rodham (1969), p.74.</ref>

For three years, from June 1985 to May 1988, Obama was the director of the [[Developing Communities Project]] (DCP), a church-based community organization on Chicago's far [[South Side (Chicago)|South Side]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Secter |first1=Bob |last2=McCormick |first2=John |date=March 30, 2007 |title=Portrait of a pragmatist |page=1 |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703300121mar30-archive,0,2491692,full.story |url-status=dead |access-date=February 14, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091214172131/http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703300121mar30-archive%2C0%2C2491692%2Cfull.story |archive-date=December 14, 2009 |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="lizza">{{cite magazine |last=Lizza |first=Ryan |date=March 19, 2007 |title=The Agitator; Barack Obama's unlikely political education |url=http://www.tnr.com/article/the-agitator-barack-obamas-unlikely-political-education |magazine=[[The New Republic]] |access-date=July 16, 2008}}</ref> Alinsky biographer Sanford Horwitt, saw the influence of Alinsky's teaching not only on Obama's work in Chicago but also on his successful 2008 presidential run.<ref>{{Cite episode |title=Saul Alinsky, The Man Who Inspired Obama |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100057050 |access-date=January 21, 2020 |series=Day to Day |series-link=Day to Day |author-link1=Alex Cohen |first1=Alex |last1=Cohen |first2=Sanford |last2=Horwitt |station=[[NPR]] |date=January 30, 2009 |quote=About his book ''Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky His Life and Legacy''}}</ref> Yet Obama too commented on having seen "the limits of what can be achieved" at the community level. He also expressed the view that "Alinsky understated the degree to which people's hopes and dreams and their ideals and their values were just as important in organizing as people's self-interest." Sen. [[Dick Durbin]] (D-Ill.), a friend of Obama's, saw another difference. "If you read Alinsky's teachings, there are times he's confrontational. I have not seen that in Barack. He's always looking for ways to connect."<ref>{{cite news |last=Slevin |first=Peter |date=March 25, 2007 |title=For Clinton and Obama, a Common Ideological Touchstone |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401152_pf.html |access-date=January 21, 2020}}</ref>

In his 1996 biography of her, ''[[The Seduction of Hillary Rodham]]'', [[David Brock]] dubbed Hillary Clinton "Alinsky's daughter."<ref>{{cite book |last=Brock |first=David |url=https://archive.org/details/seductionofhilla00davi |title=The Seduction of Hillary Rodham |date=1998 |publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]] |isbn=978-0-68483-770-3 |location=New York |author-link=David Brock |url-access=registration}}</ref> [[Barbara Olson]] began each chapter of her 1999 book on Clinton, ''Hell to Pay'', with a quote from Alinsky, and argued that his strategic theories directly influenced her behavior during her husband's presidency.<ref>{{cite book |last=Olson |first=Barbara |url=https://archive.org/details/helltopayunfoldi00olso |title=Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton |date=1999 |publisher=[[Regnery Publishing]] |isbn=978-0-89526-274-5 |location=Washington, DC |author-link=Barbara Olson |url-access=registration}}</ref> In 1993, Clinton asked [[Wellesley College]] to seal her thesis on Alinsky for the duration of her husband's presidency.<ref>{{cite web |last=Dedman |first=Bill |date=March 2, 2007 |title=How the Clintons wrapped up Hillary's thesis |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17388394 |access-date=January 21, 2020 |website=NBC News}}</ref>

As his candidacy gained strength, and once he had defeated Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination, attention shifted to Obama's ties to Alinsky.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sugrue |first=Thomas J. |date=2012 |title=Saul Alinsky: The activist who terrifies the right |url=https://www.salon.com/2012/02/07/saul_alinsky_the_activist_who_terrifies_the_right/ |access-date=2023-04-02 |website=Salon |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Matthews |first=Dylan |date=2014-10-06 |title=Who is Saul Alinsky, and why does the right hate him so much? |url=https://www.vox.com/2014/10/6/6829675/saul-alinsky-explain-obama-hillary-clinton-rodham-organizing |access-date=2023-04-02 |website=Vox |language=en}}</ref> [[Monica Crowley]], [[Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)|Bill O'Reilly]], and [[Rush Limbaugh]] repeatedly drew a connection, with the latter asking, "Has [Obama] ever had an original idea — by that, I mean something not found in The [[Communist Manifesto]]? Has he? Has he simply had an idea not found in Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals?"  In ''Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model'' (2009) [[David Horowitz]] argued "the roots" of his administration's "effort to subject America to a wholesale transformation" were to be found in the teachings of "the guru of Sixties radicals"—an Alinsky admonition to be "flexible and opportunistic and say anything to get power."<ref>{{cite book |last=Horowitz |first=David |title=Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model |date=2009 |publisher=[[David Horowitz Freedom Center]] |isbn=978-1-88644-268-9 |location=Sherman Oaks, California |author-link=David Horowitz}}</ref>

=== Donald Trump as the "Alinsky president" ===
In 2016, [[Glenn Beck]] produced a four-part radio series to expose Alinsky's "vision for a Godless, centrally controlled utopia."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Saul Alinsky: The Four-Part Series - Glenn Beck |url=https://www.glennbeck.com/2016/08/20/saul-alinsky-the-four-part-series/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=www.glennbeck.com |language=en}}</ref> Yet he proposed that, in tactical terms, it was not Obama but his nemesis, then presidential candidate [[Donald Trump]], who "is Saul Alinsky": "[Trump] will isolate you and polarize you and he will take you out”.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hensch |first=Mark |date=2015-12-01 |title=Glenn Beck on Trump: He is Saul Alinsky |url=https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261692-glenn-beck-on-trump-he-is-saul-alinsky/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20241121032241/https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261692-glenn-beck-on-trump-he-is-saul-alinsky/ |archive-date=2024-11-21 |access-date=2025-04-17 |work=The Hill |language=en-US}}</ref> The same argument has been advanced by ''[[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]]'' editor [[James Taranto]]: it is Trump, not Obama, who has proved to be the "Alinsky President". Both in his (2015-2016) campaign and, subsequently, in using the "bully pulpit of the presidency", Trump followed "a lot of Alinsky's rules".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Opinion Journal: The Alinsky Presidency |url=https://www.wsj.com/video/opinion-journal-the-alinsky-presidency/AD2F5258-D953-4CA7-B328-3FA3D6DD2A5E?mod=googlewsj |access-date=2025-05-05 |website=WSJ |language=en-US}}</ref> 

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 [[January 6 United States Capitol attack|assault the U.S. Capitol]] (and of the descent of [[Canada convoy protest|vaccine-mandate protesting truckers]] upon the Canadian capital, [[Ottawa]], in February 2022), ''[[Politico]]'' credited President Trump's "hard-ball ways" with schooling a new generation of right-wing activists in the delivery of "Alinskyesque shock blows to the system.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shafer |first=Jack |date=2022-02-08 |title=Opinion {{!}} How the Right Learned to Love Saul Alinsky |url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/08/right-saul-alinsky-canada-truckers-00006903 |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=POLITICO |language=en}}</ref>