Alinsky, Saul (1909–1972)

Saul Alinsky was known as a great social activist, organizer, and iconoclast. He perfected the practice of grassroots organizing. On his death, he was referred to by one newspaper columnist as someone who had antagonized more people than anyone else in America. But his influence remains strong, and his legacy of activism remains as the gritty road toward confrontation, conflict, compromise, and change that characterized his life and his work.

Saul Alinsky was born to Russian, orthodox Jewish parents on Chicago's Maxwell Street, an area of high density of Jewish immigrants, where his father, Benjamin, was a tailor. The family later moved to a more middle-class section where young Saul grew up. Despite the youth of his mother (she was 17 when he was born), Sarah Alinsky was the driving force behind her son. She had the reputation among those who knew her as a troublemaker. Her son would learn her style well.

Alinsky did reasonably well in school, despite having sustained a hip injury playing football with friends; the injury left him immobilized for a year. During his recuperation, he began to read extensively, a habit he carried throughout his life. In the fall of 1926, Saul Alinsky entered the University of Chicago. He did not fare well academically, ending up on probation at the end of his first year. Also, he had a reputation of being a loner. His biographer, Sanford Horwitt, indicates that Alinsky did not lack social skills; he was just not an organization person.

Saul Alinsky did not take a liking to academic life until he enrolled in the University of Chicago's sociology department, considered by many to be one of the finest in the nation. The Chicago sociological faculty had developed the perspective that crime, disease, and urban blight were caused by social disorganization and not heredity. The slum itself was the cause of a breakdown in the social order. Alinsky began to do fieldwork in the city's life, first studying dance halls where he learned the role of participant-observer. Later, in graduate work, he would begin a study of crime and [Page 67]juvenile delinquency. He tried law school, but lasted only two quarters. He pursued a Ph.D. but lacked some of the core courses. Alinsky preferred to learn his lessons on the street. He developed friendships with some of Chicago's more notorious crime figures, such as Frank Nitti. He also began working on Chicago's West Side with street gangs through the Institute for Juvenile Research. Alinsky worked with the Sholto Street gang for more than 10 years. He won their friendship and respect, and he convinced them to write accounts of their gang's exploits. Alinsky also did research and work at Illinois' famous Joliet Prison for 3 years.

Alinsky was assigned through the Chicago sociology department's research to work in the infamous Back of the Yards, the huge urban slum that included the stockyards and the sights and smells of animal death and decay that dominated this area of the city. It was also during this time that the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was involved in organizing the meatpacking industry under the leadership of the charismatic John L. Lewis. Lewis's main man in the Back of the Yards was Herb March. March and Alinsky formed a friendship. Alinsky impressed March with his nondoctrinaire approach to organizing. Alinsky avoided labels and overtly political extremes because, pragmatically, he believed it hampered good organizing work and the art of compromise.

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