Born January 30, 1909 Chicago, Illinois Died June 12, 1972 Carmel, California
Community organizer
Saul Alinsky was a self-described “professional radical.” (A radical is one who believes that extensive social reform is necessary to cure society’s ills.) To those around him, Alinsky was a multifaceted individual: a fighter for the underdog; a chainsmoking, streetwise Jewish intellectual; a confident and confrontational urban populist (advocate for the rights and interests of the common people); and a promoter of participatory democracy (a political system in which every citizen participates in decision-making). In city halls across the United States, where he led noisy protests against the lack of services for poor communities, Alinsky was considered persona non grata (Latin term meaning “person who is not welcome.”)
Alinsky spent over four decades helping underprivileged Americans fight poverty and injustice and work toward equality in education and working and living conditions. Alinsky began his activist career working with European immigrants in Chicago, Illinois. He eventually made his way across the United States, organizing Mexican Americans in California, African Americans back in his hometown of Chicago, and low-income people in Texas, New York, and Baltimore, Maryland. Alinsky’s style of organizing was adopted by activists in the civil rights and antiwar movements.
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