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 By the 1950s, Alinsky had developed a clearly defined organizing philosophy and had won a reputation as champion of the disenfranchised. He began to organize in predominantly black communities, and in 1959, co-founded The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), which brought the struggle for civil rights to Chicago's South Side and challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful political machine through a radical voter registration drive. In 1965, Alinsky was invited to Rochester, NY to help the black community successfully take on Eastman Kodak over the issue of racial hiring.  By the late 1960s, Alinsky had become a folk hero to America's young campus radicals. In 1969, he set up a training institute for organizers and wrote Rules for Radicals, in which he urged America's youth to become realistic, not rhetorical radicals. In 1970, Time Magazine hailed Alinsky as "a prophet of power to the people," contending that Alinsky's ideas had forever changed the way American democracy worked. By the early '70s, Alinsky concluded that America's poor would have to ally themselves with the middle class, whom he was afraid would move to the right. Unfortunately, he never got to organize the middle class. On June 12, 1972 Alinsky died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 63 years old. More... |
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