Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 - June 12, 1972) was an American community coordinator and journalist.
In the 1950s, he began turning his attention to improving circumstances of the African American ghettos, beginning with Chicago's and later traveling to other ghettos in California, Michigan, New York City, and a dozen other "problem spots".
Early life and family
Alinsky was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1909 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, the only surviving son of Benjamin Alinsky's marriage to his second wife, Sarah Tannenbaum Alinsky. Alinsky stated during an interview that his parents never became involved in the "new socialist movement."
Early jobs
After attending two years of graduate school he dropped out to accept work with the state of Illinois as a criminologist. On a part-time basis, he also began working as an coordinator with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.).
After a few years, by 1939, he became less active in the labor movement and became more active in general community organizing, starting with the slums of Chicago. His early efforts to "turn scattered, voiceless discontent into a united protest aroused the admiration of Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, who said Alinsky's aims 'most faithfully reflect our ideals of brotherhood, tolerance, charity and dignity of the individual.'
As a result of his efforts and success at helping slum communities, he spent the next 10 years repeating his organization work across the nation, "from Kansas City and Detroit to the barrios of Southern California." By 1950 he turned his attention to the African American ghettos of Chicago, where his actions would later earn him the hatred of Mayor Richard J. Daley, although Daley would later say that "Alinsky loves Chicago the same as I do." He traveled to California at the request of the San Francisco Bay Area Presbyterian Churches to help organize the black ghetto in Oakland. Hearing of his plans, "the panic-stricken Oakland City Council promptly introduced a resolution banning him from the city."
