"THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT..."
An Analysis of the Alinsky Model
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts
degree under the Special Honors Program,
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Hillary D. Rodham
Political Science
2 May, 1969
[© 1969 Hillary D. Rodham]

"So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years--
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mass of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate--but there is no competition--
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

T.S. Eliot, "East Coker"

TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
Acknowledgements....................................... i
Chapter
I. SAUL DAVID ALINSKY: AN AMERICAN RADICAL . 1
II. THE ALINSKY METHOD OF ORGANIZING: THREE
CASE STUDIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
III. "A PRIZE PIECE OF POLITICALPORNOGRAPHY". . 44
IV. PERSPECTIVES ON ALINSKY AND HIS MODEL. . . 53
V. REALIZING LIFE AFTER BIRTH . . . . . . . . 68
Appendices............................................. 76
Bibliography........................................... 84

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Although I have no "loving wife" to thank for keeping
the children away while I wrote, I do have many friends and
teachers who have contributed to the process of thesis-writing.
And I thank them for their tireless help and encouragement. In
regard to the paper itself, there are three people who deserve
special appreciation: Mr. Alinsky for providing a topic, sharing
his time and offering me a job; Miss Alona E. Evans for her
thoughtful questioning and careful editing that clarified fuzzy
thinking and tortured prose; and Jan Krigbaum for her spirited
intellectual companionship and typewriter rescue work.
hdr

CHAPTER I
SAUL DAVID ALINSKY: AN AMERICAN RADICAL
With customary British understatement, The Economist referred
to Saul Alinsky as "that rare specimen, the successful radical."1 This
is one of the blander descriptions applied to Alinsky during a thirty-
year career in which epithets have been collected more regularly than
paychecks. The epithets are not surprising as most people who deal with
Alinsky need to categorize in order to handle him. It is far easier to
cope with a man if, depending on ideological perspective, he is classi-
fied as a "crackpot" than to grapple with the substantive issues he pre-
sents. For Saul Alinsky is more than a man who has created a particular
approach to community organizing, he is the articulate proponent of what
many consider to be a dangerous socio/political philosophy. An under-
standing of the "Alinsky-type method" (i.e. his organizing method) as
well as the philosophy on which it is based must start with an under-
standing of the man himself.
Alinsky was born in a Chicago slum to Russian Jewish immigrant
parents, and those early conditions of slum living and poverty in Chi-
cago established the context of his ideas and mode of action. He traces
his identification with the poor back to a home in the rear of a store
where his idea of luxury was using the bathroom without a customer bang-
ing on the door.2 Chicago itself has also greatly influenced him:
Where did I come from? Chicago. I can curse and hate the town
but let anyone else do it and they're in for a battle, There I've
had the happiest and the worst times of my life. Every street has
its personal joy and pain to me. On this street is the church of
a Catholic Bishop who was a big part of my life; further down is
another church where the pastor too has meant a lot to me; and a
couple miles away is a cemetery--well, skip it. Many Chicago streets
are pieces of my life and work. Things that happened here have
rocked a lot of boats in a lot of cities. Nowadays I fly all over
the country in the course of my work. But when those flaps go down
over the Chicago skyline, I knew I'm home.3
Although Alinsky calls Chicago his "city", the place really rep-
resents to him the American Dream--in all its nightmare and its glory.
He lived the Dream as he moved from the Chicago slums to California then
back to attend the University of Chicago. Alinsky credits his developing
an active imagination, which is essential for a good organizer, to his
majoring in archaeology. An imagination focusing on Inca artifacts, how-
ever, needs exposure to social problems before it can become useful in
community organizing. Exposure began for Alinsky when he and other stu-
dents collected food for the starving coal miners in southern Illinois
who were rebelling against John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers.
Lewis became a role model for Alinsky who learned about labor's organ-
izational tactics from watching and working with Lewis during the early
years of the CIO. Alinsky soon recognized that one of the hardest jobs
of the leader is an imaginative one as he struggles to develop a rationale
for spontaneous action:
For instance, when the first sit-down strikes took place in
Flint, no one really planned them. They were clearly a violation
of the law--trespassing, seizure of private property. Labor leaders
ran for cover, refused to comment. But Lewis issued a pontifical
statement, 'a man's right to a job transcends the right of private
property,' which sounded plausible.4
After graduating from the University of Chicago, Alinsky re-
ceived a fellowship in criminology with a first assignment to get a look
at crime from the inside of gangs. He attached himself to the Capone gang,
attaining a perspective from which he viewed the gang as a huge quasi-
public utility serving the people of Chicago. Alinsky's eclectic life
during the thirties, working with gangs, raising money for the Interna-
tional Brigade, publicizing the plight of the Southern share cropper,
fighting for public housing, reached a turning point in 1938 when he
was offered the job as head of probation and parole for the City of
Philadelphia. Security. Prestige. Money. Each of these inducements
alone has been enough to turn many a lean and hungry agitator into
a well-fed establishmentarian. Alinsky rejected the offer and its
triple threat for a career of organizing the poor to help themselves.
His first target zone was the Back of the Yards area in Chicago;
the immediate impetus was his intense hatred of fascism:
...I went into 'Back of the Yards' in Chicago. This was Upton
Sinclair's 'Jungle.' This was not the slum across the tracks.
This was the slum across the tracks from across the tracks. Also,
this was the heart, in Chicago, of all the native fascist move-
ments--the Coughlinites, the Silver Shirts, the Pelley movement...
I went in there to fight fascism. If you had asked me then what
my profession was, I would have told you I was a professional anti-
fascist.5
Alinsky's anti-fascism, built around anti-authoritarianism, anti-racial
superiority, anti-oppression, was the ideological justification for his
move into organizing and the first social basis on which he began con-
structing his theory of action.
Working in Chicago and other communities between 1938 and 1946
Alinsky refined his methods and expanded his theory. Then in 1946,
Alinsky's first book, Reveille for Radicals, was published. Since Alinsky
is firstly an activist and secondly a theoretician, more than one-half
the book is concerned with the tactics of building "People's Organizations."
There are chapter discussions of "Native Leadership," "Community Traditions
and Organizations," "Conflict Tactics," "Popular Education," and "Psych-
ological Observations on Mass Organizations." The book begins by asking
the question: What is a Radical? This is a basic question for Alinsky who
proudly refers to himself as a radical.

His answer is prefaced by pages of Fourth-of-July rhetoric about
Americans: "They are a people creating a new bridge of mankind in between
the past of narrow nationalistic chauvinism and the horizon of a new man-
kind--a people of the world."6 Although the book was written right after
World War II, which deeply affected Alinsky, his belief in American de-
mocracy has deep historical roots--at least, as he interprets history:
The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and
Tories. The American People ever since have been Revolutionaries
and Tories...regardless of the labels of the past and present...
The clash of Radicals, Conservatives, and Liberals which makes
up America's political history opens the door to the most funda-
mental question of What is America? How do the people of America
feel? There were and are a number of Americans--few, to be sure--
filled with deep feelings for people. They know that people are the
stuff that makes up the dream of democracy. These few were and are
the American Radicals and the only way we can understand the Amer-
ican Radical is to understand what we mean by this feeling for and
with the people.7
What Alinsky means by this "feeling for and with the people" is
simply how much one person really cares about people unlike himself. He
illustrates the feeling by a series of examples in which he poses questions
such as: So you are a white, native-born Protestant. Do you like people?
He then proceeds to demonstrate how, in spite of protestations, the Protes-
tant (or the Irish Catholic or the Jew or the Negro or the Mexican) only
pays lip service to the idea of equality. This technique of confrontation
in Alinsky's writing effectively involves most of his readers who will
recognize in themselves at least one of the characteristics he denounces.
Having confronted his readers with their hypocrisy, Alinsky defines the
American Radical as "...that unique person who actually believes what he
says...to whom the common good is the greatest value...who gen-
uinely and completely believes in mankind...."8

Alinsky outlines American history focusing on men he would call
"radical," confronting his readers again with the "unique" way Americans
have synthesized the alien roots of radicalism, Marxism, Utopian soc-
ialism, syndicalism, the French Revolution, with their own conditions
and experiences:
Where are the American Radicals? They were with Patrick Henry
in the Virginia Hall of Burgesses; they were with Sam Adams in Boston;
they were with that peer of all American Radicals, Tom Paine, from
the distribution of Common Sense through those dark days of the
American Revolution...
The American Radicals were in the colonies grimly forcing the
addition of the Bill of Rights to our Constitution. They stood at
the side of Tom Jefferson in the first big battle between the Tories
of Hamilton and the American people. They founded and fought in the
LocoFocos. They were in the first union strike in America and they
fought for the distribution of the western lands to the masses of
people instead of the few...They were in the shadows of the under-
ground railroad and they openly rode in the sunlight with John Brown
to Harpers Ferry...They were with Horace Mann fighting for the ex-
tension of educational opportunities...They built the American Labor
movement...
Many of their deeds are not and never will be recorded in America's
history. They were among the grimy men in the dust bowl, they sweated
with the share croppers. They were at the side of the Okies facing
the California vigilantes. They stood and stand before the fury of
lynching mobs. They were and are on the picket lines gazing unflinch-
ingly at the threatening, flushed, angry faces of the police.
American Radicals are to be found wherever and whenever America
moves closer to the fulfillment of its democratic dream. Whenever
America's hearts are breaking, these American Radicals were and are.
America was begun by its Radicals. The hope and future of America
lies with its Radicals.9
Words such as these coupled with his compelling personality enabled Alinsky
to hold a sidewalk seminar during the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in
Chicago. He socratically gathered around him a group of young demonstrators
on the corner of Michigan and Bilbo on Monday night telling them that they
were another generation of American Radicals.10
Alinsky attempts to encompass all those worthy of his description
"radical" into an ideological Weltanschauung:

What does the Radical want? He wants a world in which the worth
of the individual is recognized...a world based on the morality of
mankind...The Radical believes that all peoples should have a high
standard of food, housing, and health...The Radical places human
rights far above property rights. He is for universal, free public
education and recognizes this as fundamental to the democratic way
of life...Democracy to him is working from the bottom up...The Radical
believes completely in real equality of opportunity for all peoples
regardless of race, color, or creed.11
Much of what Alinsky professes does not sound "radical." His are the words
used in our schools and churches, by our parents and their friends, by our
peers. The difference is that Alinsky really believes in them and recog-
nizes the necessity of changing the present structures of our lives in
order to realize them.
There are many inconsistencies in Alinsky's thought which he himself
recognizes and dismisses. He believes that life is inconsistent and that
one needs flexibility in dealing with its many facets. His writings reflect
the flavor of inconsistency which permeates his approach to organizing. They
also suggest Alinsky's place in the American Radical tradition. In order
to discuss his place, it is necessary to circumvent his definition of "rad-
ical" based on inner psychological strength and commitment, and to consider
more conventional uses of the term.
Although there is great disagreement among writers about the def-
inition of "radical" and among radicals themselves over the scope of the
word's meaning, there is sufficient agreement to permit a general definition.
A radical is one who advocates sweeping changes in the existing laws and
methods of government. These proposed changes are aimed at the roots of
political problems which in Marxian terms are the attitudes and the behaviors
of men. Radicals are not interested in ameliorating the symptoms of decay
but in drastically altering the causes of societal conditions. Radicalism
"emphasizes reason rather than reverence, although Radicals have often been
the most emotional and least reasonable of men."12

One of the strongest strains in modern radicalism is the eighteenth
century Enlightenment's faith in human reason and the possible perfecti-
bility of man. This faith in the continuing improvement of man was and is
dominated by values derived from the French and American Revolutions and
profoundly influenced by the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revol-
ution shifted the emphasis of radicalism to an urban orientation. Alinsky
holds to the basic radical tenets of equality and to the urban orientation,
but he does not advocate immediate change. He is too much in the world-
right now to allow himself the luxury of symbolic suicide. He realizes that
radical goals have to be achieved often by non-radical, even "anti-radical"
means. For Alinsky, the non-radical means involve the traditional quest
for power to change existing situations. To further understand Alinsky's
radicalism one must examine his attitude toward the use of power.
The key word for an Alinsky-type organizing effort is "power."
As he says: "No individual or organization can negotiate without power
to compel negotiations."13 The question is how one acquires power, and
Alinsky's answer is through organization: "To attempt to operate on good
will rather than on a power basis would be to attempt something which
the world has never yet experienced--remember to make even good will
effective it must be mobilized into a power unit."14
On of the problems with advocating mobilization for power is the
popular distrust of amassing power. Americans, as John Kenneth Galbraith
points out in American Capitalism, are caught in a paradox regarding their
view toward power because it "obviously presents awkward problems for a
community which abhors its existence, disavows its possession, but values
its existence."15 Alinsky recognizes this paradox and cautions against
allowing our tongues to trap our minds:
We have become involved in bypaths of confusion or semantics...
The word 'power' has through time acquired overtones of sinister

corrupt evil, unhealthy immoral Machiavellianism, and a general
phantasmagoria of the nether regions.16
For Alinsky, power is the "very essence of life, the dynamic of life" and
is found in "...active citizen participation pulsing upward providing a
unified strength for a common purpose of organization...either changing
circumstances or opposing change."17
Alinsky argues that those who wish to change circumstances must
develop a mass-based organization and be prepared for conflict. He is a
neo-Hobbesian who objects to the consensual mystique surrounding political
processes; for him, conflict is the route to power. Those possessing power
want to retain it and often to extend the bounds of it. Those desiring a
change in the power balance generally lack the established criteria of money
or status and so must mobilize numbers. Mobilized groups representing op-
posed interests will naturally be in conflict which Alinsky considers a
healthful and necessary aspect of a community organizing activity. He is
supported in his prognosis by conflict analysts such as Lewis Coser who
points out in The Functions of Social Conflict that:
Conflict with other groups contributes to the establishment and
reaffirmation of the group and maintains its boundaries against the
surrounding social world.18
In order to achieve a world without bounds it appears essential for many
groups to solidify their identities both in relation to their own membership
and to their external environment. This has been the rationale of nation-
alist groups historically and among American blacks presently.
The organizer plays a significant role in precipitating and directing
a community's conflict pattern. As Alinsky views this role, the organizer
is
...dedicated to changing the character of life of a particular community
[and] has an initial function of serving as an abrasive agent to rub
raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hos-

tilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions...
to provide a channel into which they can pour their frustration of the
past; to create a mechanism which can drain off underlying guilt for
having accepted the previous situation for so long a time.
When those who represent the status quo label you [i.e. the com-
munity organizer] as an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for
that is, in one word, your function--to agitate to the point of
conflict.19
An approach advocating conflict has produced strong reactions. Some
of his critics compare Alinsky's tactics with those of various hate groups
such as lynch mobs which also "rub raw the resentments of the people."20
Alinsky answers such criticism by reminding his critics that the difference
between a "liberal" and a "radical" is that the liberal refuses to fight
for the goals he professes. During his first organizing venture in Back of
the Yards he ran into opposition from many liberals who, although agreeing
with his goals, repudiated his tactics. They wore according to Alinsky
"like the folks during the American Revolution who said 'America should be
free but not through bloodshed.'"21 When the residents of Back of the Yards
battled the huge meat-packing concerns, they were fighting for their jobs and for
their lives. Unfortunately, the war-like rhetoric can obscure the con-
structiveness of the conflict Alinsky orchestrates.
In addition to aiding in formation of identity, conflict between
groups plays a creative social role by providing a process through which
diverse interests are adjusted. To induce conflict is a risk because there
is no guarantee that it will remain controllable. Alinsky recognizes the
risk he takes but believes it is worth the gamble if the conflict process
results in the restructuring of relationships so as to permit the enjoyment
of greater freedom among men meeting as equals. Only through social equality
can men determine the structure of their own social arrangements.
The concept of social equality is a part of Alinsky’s social morality
that assumes all individuals and nations act first to preserve their own

interests and then rationalize any action as idealistic. He thinks it
is only through accepting ourselves as we "really" are that we can begin
to practice "real" morality:
There are two roads to everything--a low road and a high one. The
high road is the easiest. You just talk principles and be angelic re-
garding things you don't practice. The low road is the harder. It is
the task of making one's self-interest behavior moral behavior. We
have behaved morally in the world in the past few years because we want
the people of the world on our side. When you get a good moral position,
look behind it to see what is self-interest.22
The cynicism of this viewpoint was mitigated somewhat by my discussing the
question of morality with Alinsky who conceded that idealism can parallel
self-interest. But he believes that the man who intends to act in the world-
as-it-is must not be misled by illusions of the world-as-we-would-like-it-to-
be.23 Alinsky claims a position of moral relativism, but his moral context
is stabilized by a belief in the eventual manifestation of the goodness of
man. He believes that if men were allowed to live free from fear and want they
would live in peace. He also believes that only men with a sense of their own
worth and a respect for the commonality of humanity will be able to create
this new world.
Therefore, the main driving force behind his push for organization
is the effect that belonging to a group working for a common purpose has
had on the men he has organized. Frustration is transformed into confidence
when men recognize their capability for contribution. The sense of dignity
is particularly crucial in organizational activity among the poor whom
Alinsky warns to beware of programs which attack only their economic poverty.
Welfare programs since the New Deal have neither redeveloped poverty
areas nor even catalyzed the poor into helping themselves. A cycle of de-
pendency has been created which ensnares its victims into resignation and
apathy. To dramatize his warning to the poor, Alinsky proposed sending Negroes
dressed in African tribal costumes to greet VISTA volunteers arriving in

Chicago. This action would have dramatized what he refers to as the "col-
onialism" and the "Peace Corps mentality" of the poverty program.24
Alinsky is interested in people helping themselves without the
ineffective interference from welfarephiles. Charles Silberman in his
book, Crisis in Black and White describes Alinsky's motivation in terms
of his faith in People:
The essential difference between Alinsky and his enemies is that
Alinsky really believes in democracy; he really believes that the help-
less, the poor, the badly-educated can solve their own problems if
given the chance and the means; he really believes that the poor and
uneducated, no less that the rich and educated, have the right to decide
how their lives should be run and what services should be offered to
them instead of being ministered to like children.25
This faith in democracy and in the people's ability to "make it" is pecul-
iarly American and many might doubt its radicalness. Yet, Alinsky's belief and
devotion is radical; democracy is still a radical idea in a world where
we often confuse images with realities, words with actions. Alinsky's belief
in self-interested democracy unifies his views on the use of the power/conflict
model in organizing and the position of morality and welfare in the phil-
osophy underlying his methodology.

CHAPTER I FOOTNOTES:
1 "Plato on the Barricades," The Economist, May 13-19, 1967, p. 14.
2 "The Professional Radical," Harper's, June, 1965, p. 38.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., p. 40.
5 Ibid., p. 45.
6 Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 1946), p. 4.
7 Ibid., p. 14.
8 Ibid., p. 22.
9 Ibid.
10 Saul D. Alinsky, private interview in Boston, Massachusetts, October, 1968.
11 Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, p. 23.
12 John W. Derry, The Radical Tradition (London: MacMillan, 1967), p. vii.
13 Dan Dodson, "The Church, POWER, and Saul Alinsky," Religion in Life,
(Spring, 1967), p. 11.
14 Ibid.
15 John Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1962), p. 26.
16 Dodson, p. 12.
17 Ibid.
18 Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: The Free Press,
1956), p.8.
19 Dodson.
20 Charles E. Silberman, Crisis in Black and White (New York: Random House,
1964), p. 331.
21 Alinsky interview, Boston.
22 Dodson.
23 Saul D. Alinsky, private interview in Wellesley, Massachusetts, January 1969
24 Patrick Anderson, "Making Trouble is Alinsky's Business," The New York
Times Magazine (October 9, 1966), p. 29.
25 Silberman, p. 333.

CHAPTER II
THE ALINSKY METHOD OF ORGANIZING: THREE CASE STUDIES
The Alinsky method of community organizing has two distinct
elements. One, the "Alinsky-type protest" is "an explosive mixture of
rigid discipline, brilliant showmanship, and a street fighter's instinct
for ruthlessly exploiting his enemy's weakness."1 The second, modeled
after trade union organization methods, involves the hard work of rec-
ognizing interests, seeking out indigenous leaders, and building an
organization whose power is viewed as legitimate by the larger com-
munity. It is difficult to discuss these two components separately be-
cause they are woven into the organizational pattern according to sit-
uational necessity. Some organizational situations need the polarizing
effect of "rubbing raw the sores of discontent" while others with well-
defined resentments need leaders.
Another distinctive feature of the Alinsky method as mentioned
in the previous chapter is the use of military language. As Silberman
points out, such language is appropriate for groups engaged in "war-like"
struggles for
...the only way to build on army is by winning a few victories.
But how do you gain a victory before you have an army? The only
method ever devised is guerrilla warfare: to avoid a fixed battle
where the forces are arrayed and where the new army's weakness
would become visible, and to concentrate instead on hit-and-run
tactics designed to gain small but measurable victories. Hence the
emphasis on such dramatic actions as parades and rent strikes whose
main objective is to create a sense of solidarity and community.2
Although Alinsky's goal of community solidarity and his war on power-
lessness has been co-opted into the rubric of the federal welfare pro-
grams, there is a continuing mistrust of his tactics. As has been sug-
gested, there is no set pattern for each of his organizational efforts.
There are, however, tactical guidelines which can be applied in order to
fulfill the following criteria of an Alinsky organization:
(a) It is rooted in the local tradition, the local indigenous leader-
ship, the local organizations and agencies, and, in short, the
local people.
(b) Its energy or driving force is generated by the self-interest
of the local residents for the welfare of their children and
themselves.
(c) Its program for action develops hand in hand with the organ-
ization of the community council. The program is in actual fact
that series of common agreements which results in the develop-
ment of the local organization.
(d) It is a program arising out of the local people carrying with it
the direct participation of practically all the organizations
in a particular area. It involves a substantial degree of indi-
vidual citizen participation; a constant day to day flow of vol-
unteer activities and the daily functioning of numerous local com-
mittees charged with specific short-term functions.
(e) It constantly emphasizes the functional relationship between prob-
lems and therefore its program is as broad as the social horizon
of the community. It avoids, at all costs, circumscribed and seg-
mental programs which in turn attract the support of only a seg-
ment of the local population.
(f) It recognizes that a democratic society is one which responds to
popular pressures, and therefore realistically operates on the
basis of pressure. For the same reason it does not shy away from
involvement in matters of controversy.
(g) It concentrates on the utilization of indigenous individuals,
who, if not leaders at the beginning, can be developed into leaders.
(h) It gives priority to the significance of self-interest. The organ-
ization itself proceeds on the idea of channeling the many diverse
forces of self-interest within the community into a common dir-
ection for the common good and at the same time respects the
autonomy of individuals and organizations.
(i) It becomes completely self-financed at the end of approximately
three years. This not only testifies to its representative character
in that the local residents support their own organization finan-
cially, but insures to the local council the acid test of inde-
pendence: 'the ability to pay one's way.'3
Discussing Alinsky's tactics apart from his actions is like discussing
current theories of international relations without mentioning Vietnam.
We will consider three of the organizations which Alinsky helped build.
The first of the three is the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council
which is the prototype community organization dating back to the late 1930's.
Alinsky's involvement with the Council led to the establishment of the
Industrial Areas Foundation which subsequently coordinated other organizing
activities. One of the most important of these was The Woodlawn Organization,
a black community group in Chicago. Alinsky frequently encounters blacks who
view Alinsky's efforts as just one more example of white man's power politics
game. He tells such critics that, "Sunglasses, Swahili, and soul food won't
win power for blacks."4 Thirdly, we will look at the organizational prob-
lems involved in the Rochester black community's confrontation with the
Kodak Company.

THE BACK OF THE YARDS NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL
Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, focused attention on the
stockyards in Chicago and the deplorable conditions of life in the area
surrounding the Yards. This area, Back of the Yards, was bigamously wedded
to the meat-packing industry and the Roman Catholic Church. The meat fac-
tories provided jobs and the Church ministered to the spiritual and social
needs of its parishioners. The waves of Polish, Slovak, and Irish immigrants
before World I, and Mexican immigration after, supplied both workers and
parishioners. The immigrants also successively lowered the wage scale and
fragmented the Church into bickering nationalistic divisions. The area's
depressed economy was accompanied by acute environmental problems such as
overcrowded housing, insufficient sanitation, unpaved streets, few rec-
reational facilities, high delinquency and crime rates, and inadequate
schools.5 Alinsky remembers the Back of the Yards as "the nadir of American
slums, worse than Harlem."6
Alinsky's experiences in the Back of the Yards formed the basis
for his approach to organizing, but they are difficult to trace. Most of
the information related to Alinsky's role in the formulation of the Neigh-
borhood Council comes from Alinsky. He gives a third person account in
Reveille for Radicals, and he is always ready to reminisce about that ex-
perience. Evelyn Zygmuntowicz's account of the formation of the Council,
which is considered "authoritative" by the present members of the Council,
does not mention Alinsky once by name except in the bibliography. When
questioned about the omission in the Zygmuntowicz thesis, Alinsky attrib-
uted it to his great success in building an organization which did not
need him.7 That Alinsky participated in the organizing, and that his par-
ticipation led to the development of his organizational strategy is unde-
batable. It is generally accepted among organizers, reporters, and aca-
demics that Alinsky was the moving force behind the struggle. An examination
of the available material about the Council's formation affirms that
assumption.
The organization of the Back of the Yards began at a meeting in the
local YWCA to plan a community recreational program. Before the meeting
in the Spring of 1939 the Back of the Yards had been the scene of various
community projects initiated by settlement houses, the Church, and unions.
The Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the CIO,
began organizing the employees of Swift, Armour, Wilson, and the other
meat houses with relatively little opposition. The lack of management op-
position might have been anticipated since by the late 1930's many of the
companies started moving out of the Chicago Yards. The success of the union
organizing encouraged others both in and out of the community. A non-res-
ident social worker initiated the meeting at the YWCA out of which came the
"Call to a Community Congress":
For fifty years we have waited for someone to offer a solution--
but nothing--has happened. Today we know that we ourselves must face
and solve these problems. We know what poor housing, unemployment,
and juvenile delinquency means; and we are sure that if a way is to
be found we can and must find it.
We have stopped waiting. We churchmen, businessmen, and union men
have formed the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council. This Council
is inviting representatives of all the organizations--church, business,
social, fraternal, and labor to participate in a conference...to thor-
oughly discuss the problems of joint action which can effectively
attack the evils of disease, bad housing, crime, and punishment.8
Alinsky who helped draft the Call continued using his straight-
forward, self-interest approach to convince the community that working to-
gether was the only hope for them. For example, he never approached a Catholic
priest in terms of Christian ethics but on the basis of self-interest such
as the welfare of this Church, even its physical property.9 Alinsky's roc-
ognition of the Catholic Church as an "integral and dynamic factor in the
experience and lives of the people" won him the support of the Senior Aux-
iliary Bishop of Chicago, the Most Reverend Bernard J. Shiel, D.D.10 His
support helped bring together the conflicting nationalistic Catholic
Churches. Then hostility between the Church and the unions lessened as
both recognized the necessity of cooperation. The primary question was,
however, "cooperation" for what? The By-Laws of the Council (adopted May,
1939) idealistically stated that
...this organization is founded for the purpose of uniting all organ-
izations within the community known as 'Back of the Yards' in order
to promote the welfare of all residents of that community regardless
of their race, color, or creed, so that they may all have the oppor-
tunity to find health, happiness and security through the democratic
way of life.11
Alinsky remembers the atmosphere in the neighborhood as
...a hell hole of hate...
When people talk about Back of the Yards today, some of them use
lines like 'rub resentments raw' to describe my organizing methods. Now
do you think when I went in there or when I go into a Negro community
today I have to tell then that they're discriminated against? Do you
think I go in there and get them angry? Don't you think they have re-
sentments to begin with, and how much rawer can rub them?...
What happens when we some in? We say 'Look, you don't have to
take this; there is something you can do about it. You can get jobs,
you can break the Segregation patterns. But you have to have power to
do it, and you'll only get it through. organization. Because power
just goes to two poles--to those who've got money, and those who've
got people. You haven't got money, so your own fellowmen are your
only source of power. Now the minute you can do something about it...
You're active. And all of a sudden you stand up.
That's what happened in Back Of the Yards.12
The process of "standing up" however, took time.
The Neighborhood Council's two immediate goals, to achieve economic
security and to improve the local environment, catapulted it into a power
struggle with the meat companies. Vigorous activity stalled during World War
II because there were few groups ready to follow John L. Lewis's lead and
interfere in any way with the war effort. During the War the Council did
solidify its support among all groups it constitutionally represented. Organ-
ized business, for example, had been catalogued among the members of the
Council but did not officially form The Back of the Yards Businessmen's
Association until 1945. Local residents were kept informed of each other's
resentments through a community newspaper, the Back of the Yards Journal.
The Journal still operates on a cooperative basis with the owner and a
special board of governors, representative of the Council, controlling the
weekly paper's policy.
The organization the Council and its early achievements in con-
solidating power particularly impressed Bishop Sheil. After the first annual
Community Congress in 1940 he described it as "one of the most vivid demon-
strations of the democratic process that I have ever witnessed."13 Bishop-
Sheil enthusiastically introduced Alinsky to Marshall Field who suggested to
Alinsky that he carry his model and ideas of organizing to other areas of
the country by means of a tax-exempt foundation. When Alinsky was convinced
that Field did not just want him out of Chicago, he accepted the position
Executive Director of the Industrial Area Foundation (IAF) working with
a beginning capital of $15,000.14
The Council moved into action after the War by fully supporting
the Packinghouse Strike of 1946, providing the community with an opportunity
to mobilize financial, medical, and moral help for the strikers. Coordinated
through the Council, the Churches opened soup lines and child care centers;
businessmen supplied food; landlords ignored unpaid rents; physicians of-
fered free services.15 The community backing of the strike resulted both
in a good settlement for the workers and in a more powerful voice for the
Council.
The Illinois legislature heard that loud voice when the Council
voted in 1948 to lead a city-wide sales tax strike against the state ad-
ministration's proposed cut in ADC funds.16 The state House of Representatives
admitted to having been swayed by public pressure directed by the Council
and restored the funds.
As the Council's political sophistication increased, it moved beyond
the tactical level of demonstrating community solidarity, manipulating public
pressure, and threatening uncooperative residents with ostracism. In a 1949
confrontation with the city's Health and Building Commissioners over its
enforcement of the housing codes, the Council's Housing Committee compiled
enough statistics to embarrass the housing authorities and prepared to
release them to the newspapers. As a threat is often as effective as action,
houses were repaired.
The Council also took legal action against the Pennsylvania Railroad
on behalf of the residents whose health and property were damaged from en-
gine smoke, and against the meat factories whose stench fouled the air. The
Railroad was fined by the Municipal Court of Chicago and the packers were
forced to construct buildings to house their garbage.17
In addition to each of its varied activities, the Council assumed
an educational function by carefully explaining every project to the res-
idents. Occasionally the educative process was an end in itself as in the
case of the Council's efforts to introduce basic facts of nutrition to
the community. During the Spring of 1945 nutrition was discussed at union
meetings, in Sunday sermons, and at school assemblies. No resident could
move through his neighborhood without being reminded to drink his orange juice.18
More often the educational program was directed toward specific actions such
as the creation of a local credit union. Although financial experts ex-
plained the credit operation, the union was managed by Council members who
gained their expertise through action.19
The importance of popular participation in the Council's activities,
essential in any community action project, was summed up in the 1948
Annual Report of the Executive Secretary.
While the achievements of the Council are great in themselves,
underlying each individual achievement is the thread of the most im-
portant objective that we are working toward...the most important el-
ement in democracy. By that I mean participation. I mean the recog-
nition on the part of the people that democracy is a way of life which
can only be sustained through the part of the people. Only when the
people recognize that theirs is the decision, the right, and the duty
to shape their own life, only then will democracy expand and grow.
That is why the cardinal keynote of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood
Council is: 'We, the people will work out our own destiny.' It is for
this reason that I am asking you to keep in mind clearly that every
single achievement which I can report tonight has behind it a history
of participation, of fighting and of awakening of a burning passion
for justice and brotherhood of man by thousands of our people.20
For the last thirty years the hope expressed by the Council's motto
has often been realized as the carefully nurtured community power in Back
of the Yards affected the city, the state, and even the nation. However, much
of the community's influence is traceable not to its "burning passion" but
to its most illustrious resident, Mayor Richard J. Daley.
Mayor Daley's assumption of political power in the early 1950's
curiously parallels the Council's growth in power. Many of the Mayor's
staff are also residents and share the Mayor's loyalty to the neighbor-
hood. Whatever one may say about Daley, he has a genuine concern
for the "forgotten" (white?) man, and almost echoes Alinsky rhetoric when
speaking about the Council. As he said in 1966,
...If we had in every neighborhood, in every community, an organization
such as yours we would have a much better city...The efforts to solve
our problems must come from the leadership of the community which is
so excellently displayed in your great organization. The leadership
and the solution must come from a willingness of the people to par-
ticipate in solving their problems. No governmental body...will re-
solve these problems alone.
...What a great picture of the final essence of American government
this presents. The businessmen, the religious leaders, the teachers,
all sitting down together, all trying to find the answers, trying to
do something to help better their community.21
Such words from the Chicago political establishment are anathema to
Alinsky not only because of his habitual anti-establishment stance, but also
because of present conditions in Back of the Yards. The lower class white
workers in the area feel threatened by the accelerating pace of social
change. They fear the loss of their factory or clerical jobs to automation
and their homes to Negroes. The Council's ability to fulfill most of the
residential needs had locked the neighborhood so that few residents ever
leave. One criticism of the Alinsky method is that such strong community
organizations tend to "nail down" a neighborhood, retarding social and
political development.
The collective manifestation of such retardation is reactionary,
segregationist politics. Alinsky recognized such tendencies in the Autumn
of 1968 when he walked through the neighborhood seeing Wallace posters and
"White Power" slogans on fences and car bumpers.23 The Councils social
worker, Phyllis Ryan, attributes much of the frustration in the area to
the younger residents who often do not even know about the Council and its
universalist credo.24 Alinsky remembers that many young people from the
yards area formed a crypto-fascist cadre in the late 1930's. He fought
against and for them once and may do so again.

THE WOODLAWN ORGANIZATION

The obstacles confronting Alinsky in Organizing the Back of the
Yards were mitigated by several factors. The Roman Catholic Church as well
as the meat industry provided a cohesiveness to the community which facil-
itated attempts at mobilization. Various social pressures accompanying
the Depression opened possibilities for entrance into the political struc-
ture to groups such as labor. The Depression itself produced widespread
questioning of the assumptions underlying existing social conditions which
legitimized popular efforts to change them. And the War years were good
ones for organizing simultaneously against fascism at home as well as
engendering community spirit. All in all, many of the problems associated
with community organizing in the 1960's were not cause for anxiety in
Back of the Yards. There was, for example, little questioning of the tra-
ditionally accepted meaning of "community" as "a group whose members occupy
a given territory within which the total round of life can be pursued."25
The rapidity of social change in modern America has not merely altered the
previous description but has rendered it inapplicable.
Its inapplicability, however, was not fully apparent as Alinsky con-
tinued his organizing efforts through the 1950's. Operating with terri-
torially defined assumptions, he applied his model to poor areas all over
the world. There is little information regarding the actual organizing sit-
uations between 1946 and 1960, and Alinsky is vague about them. One of the
most, significant of IAF's efforts during these years is the Community
Service Organization, a coalition of approximately thirty Mexican-American
communities in California.26 Alinsky often worked through the Catholic
Church, and at the urging of his friend Jacques Maritain even consulted with
the Vatican about development problems in southern Italy.27 A small group
of organizers including Caesar Chavez, of California grape strike fame,
and Nicholas von Hoffman, now an editor of the Washington Post, were trained
during the 1950's. Alinsky's base of operations, the IAF, remained in Chi-
cago, and his involvements there led eventually to organizing the Woodlawn
section of Chicago. The organization of Woodlawn typifies many of the prob-
lems of the 1960's just as Back of the Yards did in the 1930's. It also
illustrates changes in Alinsky's theory and technique which are crucial
to on understanding of his evolving socio/political philosophy.
Overcrowded, dilapidated housing, an increasing crime rate, high
unemployment, characterized Woodlawn in 1960 as "the sort of obsolescent,
decaying, crowded neighborhood which social workers and city planners
assume can never help itself."28 With its predominantly black population,
Woodlawn exemplified the disorganized anemic areas resulting from massive
Negro migration to northern cities. The deterioration of the community,
located in an oblong area south of the University of Chicago, began during
the Depression and accelerated after World War II, so that by 1960 the only
people benefiting from the area were absentee slum landlords. Many groups
especially ministers, tried to "stem the tide of slum culture" but with
very limited success.29
The neighborhood's problems were compounded by the threat of urban
renewal. The Chicago Defender, a Negro newspaper, in its series entitled
"The Battle of Woodlawn" characterized the threat as follows:
In the century since the Negro won freedom from slavery in America,
the battle for freedom has never ceased and a variety of racial organ-
izations his run the gauntlet of devious bans...to keep the Negro less
than a free and equal American...
But nothing has been more difficult to contend with than the newest
strategy of racial discrimination introduced in the past decade...
Called urban renewal, it has been difficult to fight because its
idea is basically good--tear down the slums and build new homes...
But the experience of a decade has demonstrated beyond doubt that
in many cases urban renewal has meant Negro removal...
And increasingly as urban renewal spread, the question in the com-
munity has been: how do you fight a bulldozer and crane?30
How, indeed, are bulldozers and cranes halted when they move with the en-
couragement of such powerful forces as a city administration and a univer-
sity behind them?
In the Spring of 1959 this question brought together a group of three
Protestant ministers and one Catholic priest determined to do whatever they
could to preserve the community. The action of these religious leaders was
indicative of their times. As Alinsky observed in 1965,
The biggest change I've seen in the twenty years or so that I've
been involved in social action is the role the churches are playing.
Back in the 1930's and 40's an organizer might expect to got some
help from the. CIO or from a few progressive AFL unions. There wasn't
a church in sight. But today they have really moved into the social
arena, the political arena. They have taken over the position organ-
ized labor had a generation ago. They are the big dominant force in
civil rights.31
Thus, Alinsky was hardly surprised when the clergymen approached him for
help. He turned away the original small group, telling them to return when
they had a more representative committee and sufficient financial resources
to support organizing activity.
The emphasis on financing is Alinsky's version of the "sink or swim"
doctrine. A community which can first organize to achieve financial index-
appendence has already begun to fight. The clergymen returned as members of
the Greater Woodlawn Pastor's Alliance with support from many secular groups
and with grants from the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the United Pres-
bettering Board of Missions and the Emil Schwartzhaupt Foundation. In addition
to these grants, the community itself had raised $27,000. Alinsky was per-
suaded to move into the miasma of black inequality, white racism, city
politics, university selfishness, and federal indifference.
But, just how does one organize a miasma? The organizing followed
the flexible pattern of first sending IAF field men into the neighborhood
to discover grievances, and to spot the elusive "indigenous" leaders, and
then bringing the leaders together to plan action involving the community
in a demonstration of power. Nicholas von Hoffman, the original field rep-
resentative, answers the question about beginning offhandedly: "I found myself
at the corner of Sixty-third and Kimbark and I looked around."32
Von Hoffman elaborated on his views during a conversation with the
author, but he found it difficult to verbalize the process whereby a
"leader" is recognized.33 He stressed the importance of listening to people
as one attempts to get the "feel" of an area, but, as with most successful
organizers, he finally relied on his impressions and intuitions, Von Hof-
fman remembers the primary problem in organizing Woodlawn was the lack of
community leadership among the black residents. That blacks themselves rec-
ognized the void was pointed out by a staff member of the original Temp-
orary Woodlawn Organization (TWO) in explaining the primary aim of TWO:
We're trying to say to Negroes across the city, once you wake up
and start fighting back for true representation and begin to criticize
and go after the next politicians who do not stand for what you want,
then other Negroes who have been intimidated and frightened will over-
come their fears.
Once a small group of Negroes really are emancipated--psychologically
and fundamentally emancipated--and begin to fight without fear for their
full constitutional rights you'll have more than the seeds of a gen-
eral social revolution. You'll have the beginning of one.34
Dedicated to "fighting back" the recruited leaders had to devise a strategy
during the Spring of 1960 for TWO's membership, which by then included approx-
imately sixty local businesses, fifty block clubs and thirty churches rep-
resenting at least forty thousand of Woodlawn's one-hundred thousand residents.
TWO's first project was a "Square Deal" campaign to implement a
new Code of Business Ethics covering credit practices, pricing, and
advertising. During the early canvassing of the neighborhood to dis-
cover grievances, von Hoffman and others had heard many complaints re-
garding the local merchants who overcharged an short weighted their
customers' purchases. this type of complaint was one of the more "visible"
resentments and could serve as a focus for an initial organizing attempt.
Most of the merchants patronized by the community were in the area and
could be directly affected through economic pressure. The Square Deal
campaign was publicized by a big parade through the Woodlawn shopping
district, and by public weighings of packages suspected of being falsely
marked.35 Cheating merchants agreed to comply with the Code, and their
capitulation impressed the residents with TWO's effectiveness.
What TWO really needed, according to the Alinsky prescription,
was an enemy in order to translate community interest into community action.
The University of Chicago unwittingly fulfilled that role with its an-
nouncement on July 19, 1960, that it intended to extend its campus south
into Woodlawn. There had been a history of hostility between the Univer-
sity and the community over the University's Negro removal tactics in other
south side areas, and over its general disdain for the problems of the black
slums. The University for its part, saw itself as one of the few first-
rate attributes of the entire city necessarily possessing a longer-range
vision than that held by a present-oriented populace. The University, with
the support of the Mayor and business groups, was accustomed to having its
way and expected no more than a few protests in response to its announcement.
Before the creation of TWO there had been few protests. One of the
characteristics of what Silberman refers to as the "life style" of a slum
is its pervasive apathy.36 Those who live in our slums have learned that
they are on the bottom of the social scale but that they often have more
to lose from bucking the system than their middle class counterparts.
Personal experience with city politics in Chicago during the years 1960-
1964 demonstrated to me the arbitrary power which many politicians hold
over their constituents. Welfare checks can be withheld because of "Unaccept-
able behavior." The precinct captain carefully tours his neighborhood before
each election reminding everyone how to vote. How could an individual, even
if supported by friends, risk the loss of a patronage job for some abstract
principle when the tangible fact of a family's needs faced him?
Silberman summarizes the conditions afflicting Woodlawn and still
affecting our nation's slums:
Quite frequently, therefore, the apathy that characterizes
the slum represents what in many ways is a realistic response to a
hostile environment. But realistic or not, the adjustment that is
reached is one of surrender to the existing conditions and abdication
of any hope of change. The result is a community seething with inartic-
ulate resentments and dormant hostilities repressed for safety's sake,
but which break out every now and then in some explosion of deviant
or irrational behavior. The slum dwellers are incapable of acting, or
even joining, until these suppressed resentments and hostilities are
brought to the surface where they can be seen as problems--i.e. as a
condition you can do something about.37
TWO's initial articulation of resentments against the University
was not an instance of "rubbing raw the sores of discontent." Representing
the community, it merely asked the University for more detailed plans of its
land needs because more than fifteen-thousand people were involved in any
expansion. The University insensitively refused the request. TWO then de-
manded that the usually acquiescent city defer its approval of the Univer-
sity plans until city planners worked out a comprehensive prospectus on
Woodlawn's future. TWO accompanied its demand with the threat of demonstrators
lying in front of bulldozers and hundreds of demonstrators at a City Plan
Commission hearing.38 The demands, threats, and demonstration created ef-
fective countervailing political pressure resulting in the deferment of city
approval.
The University, probably with private assurances from the city
officials, still did not take TWO seriously and continued alienating the
Woodlawn residents. One example of their political ineptitude occurred in
the treatment accorded local businessmen. Businessmen are not usually
the ardent backers of community action since it is aimed at the status
quo that supports them, but after being insulted by spokesmen from the
University at an informational gathering called to explain the proposed
expansion, the Woodlawn Businessman's Association voted unanimously to join
TWO's fight.39 With their plans blocked and the forces of the community
arrayed against them, the University of Chicago launched a smear campaign
against Alinsky and the IAF.
The attack, outlined in Silberman and other articles, was a strange
one to launch in Chicago, as its primary thrust concerned the IAF is involve-
ment with the Catholic Church. In a city whose leadership is publicly
Roman Catholic, it makes little sense to fault a man for being "involved"
with the Church. It is true, as University publicity men pointed out to
the city newspapers, that Catholic groups had aided Alinsky's work since
1940, but never under the delusion that they were aiding a "hate" distrib-
utor, nor aiding a Catholic conspiracy to foil integration.40 Both of these
charges were echoes of ones that Alinsky had heard before and answered before.
He once again pointed to the record of the Archdiocese in the advocacy
of integration. Monsignor John J. Egan, director of the office of Urban
Affairs of the Catholic Bishop of Chicago, had challenged one of the Univer-
sity's former urban renewal plans thus incurring that institution's hos-
tility.41
Monsignor Egan vigorously defended Alinsky from the University
attack and summed up the attitudes of many religious leaders who have
supported Alinsky in the following response to a question about why he
had worked with the IAF:
We felt the Church had to involve herself in helping people develop
the tools which would enable them to come to grips with the serious
economic, social, and moral problems which were affecting their lives,
families, and communities.
We also knew that there was needed a tool which would enable them to
participate in a dignified way in the democratic process and which would
give them the training necessary for achieving in action the meaning of
the democratic way of life and of realizing their human and divine dig-
nity.
The Industrial Areas Foundation appeared to us to be the only organ-
ized force with the skill, experience, and integrity to supply these
tools and organize in neighborhoods which had such a desperate need for
them.42
Most reports about the development of TWO stress the ecumenical nature of
the undertaking. And Alinsky credits himself with being the second most im-
portant Jew in the history of Christianity.43
TWO's fight with the University had implications for subsequent
community action programs because it directly questioned the concept of bur-
eaucratically-controlled social planning. When the City Plan Commission came
up with its comprehensive program for the Woodlawn area in March of 1962
without having consulted the community, TWO independently hired a firm of
city planners to examine the Commission's plan. Jane Jacobs, nationally
recognized planning expert, was so impressed with TWO's efforts that she
agreed to become a special consultant.44 Mrs. Jacobs secured the help of
other planners to prepare proposals for the area that could be implemented
without moving the present population out. Before the days of "maximum
feasible participation" the residents of Woodlawn were asking to voice their
opinions to the sociologists and planners supposedly concerned with their
welfare. Still, however, their existence was ignored by the University, until
those men most sensitive to shifts in public participation, the politi-
cians, decided to act.
Mayor Daley's personal tête à tête method of dealing with political
crises deserves careful study. Groups war with one another for years until
brought together in his auspicious presence in some back room in the city
hall. After a few hours of undisclosed activity everyone emerges smiling.
In the Summer of 1963 Daley forced the Chancellor of the University to
meet with representatives from TWO and to agree on a compromise which would
create homes as others were demolished and afford TWO majority represen-
tation on the citizens planning committee.45 With the Mayor's help, TWO
had won an important battle, although in most of its other struggles TWO
and the Mayor were squared off against each other.
One example of such a struggle was TWO's sponsorship of a mass bus
ride to register voters at the city hall. On August 26, 1961, more than
two-thousand Woodlawn resident boarded buses for the ride downtown. They
had been warned by the local machine politicians not to arrive en masse,
but in the psychology of Chicago politics, a warning has the connotation
of meaning that somebody is worried. For the residents of Woodlawn the
realization that they could affect the city administration was a revelation
in line with what Alinsky regards the prime achievement of a concerted
popular effort. For Alinsky, as for many of the participants, the forty-
six buses were a manifestation of newly found dignity. Men with dignity
could attain some control over their lives as TWO continued to demon-
strate in its fight for non-segregated schooling, decent housing, and
sufficient police protection. Their tactics included picketing the School
Board and suburban homes of slum landlords; filing suit against the
Board of Education for their perpetuation of de facto segregation; publicly
dumping garbage in front of the sanitation commission's headquarters;
sitting-in at banks which handled slum landlords' business. In many cases
the abrasive tactics paid off with the cancellation of double shifts
in the schools, the increased hiring of Negroes by city businesses, growing
responsiveness from the machine politicians, and even some property repair.
TWO by 1964 was a pressure group within the city. Its title was
changed from the Temporary Woodlawn Organization to The Woodlawn Organiza-
tion. Its development had paralleled that segment of the civil rights
struggle which reached its climax in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. TWO stood
as a remarkable accomplishment and the Reverend Arthur Brzaier, then head
of TWO, summarized Alinsky's contribution: "Saul has done more to alert
black people on how to develop real Black Power than any man in the United
States."46 The Silberman book, Crisis in Black and White, admittedly pro-
Alinsky, is the definitive source both for understanding the development of
TWO and for setting it within the early 1960's context of our continuing
racial crisis. Silberman considers TWO's greatest contribution to be "its
most subtle: it gives Woodlawn residents the sense of dignity that makes
it possible for them to accept help."47 Unfortunately, the help was soon
coming into Woodlawn under the auspices of the War on Poverty in a project
th