query: Saul Alinsky and Jane Addams

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed:  thanks to Peter, Jacob/Sarah, Cheryl, Victoria, Martin, and Larry 
(who also addresses the confrontation vs. consensus issue generally) for 
responses to Emily/Walter's query.  Also, for those of you who don't 
know, Wendy Plotkin began this list in 1995.  The original focus was the 
*history* of community organizing, but it was so popular among those of 
us craving discussion on contemporary community organizing issues that 
the focus quickly shifted.  So this discussion goes back to COMM-ORG's 
roots, as well as community organizing's roots.]

From: "Peter Dreier" <dreier at oxy.edu>


Colleagues,
 
Although they both lived in Chicago and did work in the city's slums, I 
don't know if there was a direct connection between Jane Addams and Saul 
Alinsky. Addams died in 1935, when Alinsky was 26.  Alinsky's major 
organizing effort, the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council, was 
founded in 1939.  Alinsky must have surely been aware of Hull House, 
however. I am cc-ing Victoria Brown (an historian at Grinnell College 
who has written a biography of Addams) and Sandy Horwitt (Alinsky's 
biographer), who might be able to provide some insight about whether 
Alinksy was influenced by Addams or her Hull House legacy.
 
It is unfair, however, to say, as Randy does in his editor's note, that 
"It is clear that Alinsky focused
on conflict and Addams focused on consensus."  Addams was a radical, a 
socialist, a feminist, and a pacifist. In her work, and in the work of 
the others at Hull House, she challenged the powerful business and 
political forces of her time. Hull House also hosted many union meetings 
and Addams was a strong advocate of union organizing, labor law reform, 
workplace health and safety laws, and tenement reforms, which meant 
battling major businesses and landlords and the politicians who were in 
their pockets.  She was a founder of the NAACP, the ACLU, the National 
Women's Suffrage Assn, the Women's Peace Party, and other progressive 
organizations that engaged in political battle.   Somehow -- perhaps 
because she was an upper-class woman -- she's been viewed as a kind of 
saintly do-gooder, a creature of noblesse-oblige, the "founding mother" 
of social work, rather than the radical that she was.  Indeed, Addams 
deserves as much credit as Alinsky as being a "founder" of community 
organizing.
 
A few years ago, Sol Stern wrote an article attacking ACORN in the 
right-wing magazine, City Journal, in which he compared ACORN 
unfavorably with Addams, whom he mistakenly characterized as a liberal 
do-gooder as opposed to his characterization of ACORN as left-wing and 
radical. In a 2003 article in Shelterforce, John Atlas and I challenged 
Stern's analysis (http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/129/ACORN.html 
<http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/129/ACORN.html> ). We wrote the following:

Oddly, Stern seeks to discredit ACORN by comparing its work unfavorably 
to the efforts of  Jane Addams and the settlement house movement at the 
turn of the 20th century. Addams, an upper-class college educated woman, 
started the nation's first settlement, Hull House, in Chicago in 1889 
and the idea soon spread among reformers in cities across the country. 
According to Stern, "Hull House and its many successors emphasized 
self-empowerment: the poor, they thought, could take control of their 
lives and communities through education, hard work and personal 
responsibility."

In fact, ACORN is doing exactly the kind of work that Addams and her 
colleagues at Hull House would be doing if they were alive today. Like 
ACORN, Addams supported organized labor and lobbied for legislation that 
was considered radical in its day. She fought slumlords and corrupt 
politicians. She fought to outlaw child labor and for women's suffrage. 
Like ACORN she mobilized community residents to support pocket parks, 
playgrounds, garbage collection, police and fire protection and closed 
sewers. Like ACORN, she was not only committed to empowering 
individuals, but to strengthening the fabric of the neighborhood as well.

Indeed, in her day, many people considered Addams - a socialist, 
feminist, pacifist and union supporter - a dangerous radical. Had he 
been writing a century ago, Stern would have lambasted Addams and other 
Progressive reformers for promoting socialism.

ACORN's policy agenda is in the populist and New Deal tradition of 
saving unfettered capitalism from excessive greed by pushing for 
tenement housing reforms, workplace safety laws, the minimum wage, aid 
to mothers and children, Social Security, the right of workers to 
organize and bargain collectively for better wages and working 
conditions, subsidies to house the poor, and policies that encourage 
banks to make mortgage loans to boost homeownership.

Peter Dreier

****************************

From: Jacob and Sarah Lesniewski <jshm at uchicago.edu>


I can think of at leat two things that make the objections to
Jane Addams and Saul Alinsky being fellow travelers
ridiculous. First, it is practially a truism in the social
welfare literature and in social work that Jane Addams and
the settlement house movement she helped birth were about
reform, supported labor organizing and were against the
Charity Organization Societies that saw poverty as individual
moral failings that required the intervention of friendly
visitors.  Addams was also quite skeptical of the move to
casework in social work and more or less consistently
advocated for social work to focus on embryonic kinds of
community interventions: "organizing," development, planning,
and policy reform.

Second, the objection that Addams was a Quaker (whether
that's true or not) and so therefore would avoid
confrontation is ridiculous.  The peace church tradition (of
which I am a member) and especially the Quaker version, is
far from non-confrontational.  It's non-violent, but Quakers
have been in the vanguard of a number of rather
confrontational non-violent movements in the US.

Hope that's helpful.

*************************

From: "Cheryl Honey, Community Weaver" <wecare at familynetwork.org>


In a paper "Three Alinkys?" posted by Peter Szynka on COMM-ORG in 2002 
comes the following reference to Jane Addams: 
http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers2002/szynkaa.htm

I quote:
This chapter was the model for Alinsky's evaluation of his own 
Back-of-the-Yards Project. This Evaluation was published in the famous 
American Journal of Sociology and tried to show that Community 
Organizing could be planned and conducted on a scientific base5. He also 
distinguishes his Community Organizing practice from the approach of the 
settlement houses, which followed the model of Jane Addams' Hull House. 
Further, he distinguished between self-organized neighborhood 
institutions and outside-organized services, which he accused of being 
some kind of welfare colonialism. From Park and Burgess he took over the 
concept of social forces and the distinction between scientific and 
"good-will" approaches. Participant observation, open interview 
techniques, and "nosing around" remained essential in his approach.

That's all I have time to find right now.

I saw Jean Houston last night and she's suggesting ways CO occurs when 
conditions foster self-organizing...leaders emerge. Saul was good at 
mobilizing around one issue...and taught others how to do the same. When 
they "won" the battle...the impetus for organizing was over. He was a 
powerhouse.

What Jane did was was replicatable and sustainable. It seems that's one 
connection between Saul and Jane...was Saul replicated her model of the 
Hull House.

Blessings always,

Cheryl Honey, C.P.P.
Family Support Network, Int'l
(206) 240-2241
www.familynetwork.org
www.communityweaving.org

"The more resourceful we are among ourselves, the more valuable a 
resource we become to our families, our communities and our world."

***************************

From:  "Brown, Victoria" <BROWNV at Grinnell.EDU>


Thanks to Peter Dreier for inviting me into this conversation re: Jane 
Addams and Saul Alinsky.   As an Addams scholar, I claim no expertise on 
Alinsky (beyond that of sympathetic citizen), but in good Jane Addams 
form, let me try to negotiate a compromise between Peter's stance and 
Randy's.  My work has persuaded me that the key thing about Addams was 
her identity as a mediator, a negotiator, a non-confrontational liason 
between the working and the ruling classes.  Her mode and her 
philosophy, as a pacifist, was conciliation.   That is why she did not 
identify as a socialist; she regarded that as a non-negotiating stance, 
a confrontational stance that set up winners and losers in a class war 
(I don't claim to agree with Addams; I claim only an effort to 
understand her).  This characterization does not, however, render 
invalid Peter's claims about Addams as a radical who spoke truth to 
power.  She most definitely challenged unregulated capitalism, she most 
definitely supported labor unions and legislation that would reign in 
the power of capitalists and redistribute power to workers.  Indeed, she 
believed that a regulated capitalist system in which employers respected 
labor's rights would be a harmonious system, one that avoided the 
confrontations - i.e. strikes -- that she so disliked.

Peter is right that there were folks in her day who regarded Addams as a 
dangerous radical, even as a socialist.   That doesn't make her a 
socialist (we are all acutely aware this week of how easy it is to call 
someone a socialist if you want to discredit that person's efforts at 
ameliorating the worst excesses of capitalism); nor does it make her a 
dangerous radical.  She was neither as fiery as her contemporary critics 
and modern admirers would like NOR was she out to save the world one 
person at a time, as Sol Stern falsely argued.  Stern's argument is the 
most erroneous one quoted here.

Addams was a true community organizer in that she sought to work with 
her neighbors in ways that built trust and cohesion and then sought to 
use that trust and cohesion as her legitimacy for representing neighbors 
in legislative lobbying efforts.  Sure she was for hard work and 
personal responsibility; who isn't?  But she was all about the power and 
importance of the collective.  She did not believe that individuals in 
industrial capitalism could ever ensure, on their own, a standard of 
living suitable for democratic living; she always believed that the 
government, at every level, had to be responsive to citizens' needs for 
community services, regulations, and protection of organizing rights.

Note: she was not a Quaker; she was not a "believing" Christian, though 
she did join a Presbyterian Church at home in Cedarville.  She was, as 
someone on the list said, more comfortable with Unitarianism.

Thanks for inviting me in.

Victoria Brown, Grinnell College

*******************************

From: "Martin C. Tangora" <tangora at uic.edu>


Jane Addams was not a Quaker.
Her father was raised in the Quaker tradition
but was not a member of the Friends.
See "Twenty years at Hull House."

She was a pacifist, opposed the U.S. entry
into World War I, and got the Nobel Peace Prize
(in 1931, at the age of 71 -- her dates are 1860-1935)
for her work with the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom.

Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) is often called a "radical"
but he was not a communist fellow-traveler --
he is usually described as a leader of
"the non-socialist left."  I leave it to others
to clarify whether he advocated the use of violence;
but he was certainly known as favoring "aggressive" tactics.

No idea whether they ever met.

*****************************

From:  Larry Yates <lamaryates at igc.org>


Responding to Emily Kimball's query (and going a bit afield):

One example of extreme confrontation on Jane Addams's part was her 
participation in the reviled and ridiculed Henry Ford Peace Ship effort, 
somewhat similar in its context to Jane Fonda going to Hanoi. Addams 
wrote of this effort (see 
http://media.pfeiffer.edu/lridener/DSS/Addams/pb2.html) that its 
supporters thought "the anti-war movement throughout its history had 
been too quietistic and much too grey and negative..." She expressed 
concerns about the effort, but supported it when others dropped away, 
because, she wrote, she had learned that "moral results are often 
obtained through the most unexpected agencies.." (She did not actually 
go on the ship, due to illness.)

The World War I era was quite likely the most hostile environment for 
anti-war activists in US history; a minor Presidential candidate (Debs) 
went to prison for opposing the war, and our own little Fuhrer, J. Edgar 
Hoover, learned his trade busting labor and peace activists. In 1919, 
left activists were hanged and shipped overseas without trial. So the 
fact that Addams was a peace activist at this time arguably puts her far 
to the left of Alinsky, and shows participation in a far greater 
challenge to authority than Alinsky ever participated in. (Effectiveness 
is a separate issue.)

Other connections can be made between Addams and the New Deal and the 
Catholic Workers, but it's clear she was no good grey social worker.

Why would it be important to anyone to separate Alinsky from Addams, two 
somewhat obscure figures in US history? It seems likely  to me this is 
part of a generalized assault on community organizing that is occurring 
now. Usually such attacks involve drawing a line between "good" and 
"bad" figures, both to divide and conquer, and to purport to demonstrate 
the attacks are really directed not against a movement or a group, but 
only against the extremist elements -- Martin vs. Malcolm, Martin vs. 
Sharpton, Martin vs. Public Enemy,  Friedan vs. genderqueers, antiwar 
liberals vs. anarchists, AFL vs. CIO, straight looking gays vs. drag 
queens, Addams vs. Alinsky....

Clearly the current attack on community organizing is related to Senator 
Obama's candidacy. But I believe this attack will go on beyond the 
election, no matter what the election's outcome. In fact it's surprising 
that it has taken so long for the right to target community organizing 
as such in the national media.

You can see a particularly bizarre example of this effort in a Fox News 
column that links Saul Alinsky (and thus Barack Obama)  to Satanism on 
the grounds that Alinsky's dedication to Rules for Radicals included 
Lucifer, "the very first radical."
The commentary on Fox News is at
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/23/jpinkerton_1023/
I have my own comments on this (and the demonization of ACORN) at my website
www.user.net//llyates

==

As far as the question of confrontation vs. a consensus approach, it's 
always been a bogus issue. Certainly a criticism of "confrontation 
tactics" is absurd from anyone who supports any war, the Boston Tea 
Party or any other aspect of the American Revolution, the Presidential 
campaigns of Adams and Jefferson, or the civil rights movement, all of 
which involved much more harsh confrontation than Alinsky's rather 
gentle practical joking. (Which is harsher, shutting down an entire 
downtown shopping area for weeks or months, like Dr. King, or releasing 
a few rats at City Hall?)

A key Alinsky contribution on confrontation by community groups was to 
re-affirm independence and rough-and-tumble grassroots politics in a 
period when McCarthyism was still powerful in the US and fear of any 
grassroots action's consequences was chillingly powerful. His tactics 
were far from new, but they were shocking in that period, and still 
often are in what is basically a very conformist and timid nation.

However, almost every single human being would agree with the statement 
"there are times when confrontation is the only correct response to 
injustice." A minority would insist this confrontation must be 
nonviolent (most people are not pacifists). Everyone, of course, would 
have a different definition of injustice, and a different belief about 
when confrontation is appropriate, but almost no human beings actually 
believe confrontation is always wrong.

In fact, "confrontation" only has a negative connotation because it is 
associated with action by those who are expected to accept 
powerlessness, either in community or as individuals. When the powerful 
confront their "lessers," we hear words like discipline, firmness, and 
establishing lines of authority. I've stood in front of a judge on a 
criminal charge, and I felt pretty "confronted." I think putting 2 
million people in prison, most for activities that do little or no harm, 
and most of them young people of color, is pretty "confrontational," but 
no one calls it that. I think the NRA is far more confrontational than 
Gale Cincotta ever was.

Other groups in US society, especially big business, had never stopped 
being confrontational. In fact, we rarely see in any politics the 
behavior that is typical among large corporations, which attempt to 
extinguish each other or take over each as institutions, and which use 
espionage, secretly recruiting each other's cadres, and grossly 
deceptive propaganda as a matter of course. In fact, perhaps the most 
accurate understanding of the current behavior of the contemporary 
Dixiecrat Party (now using another name) is that it is using the tactics 
of the corporate world, instead of the much more polite ones of partisan 
and community politics.

After all, Alinsky also emphasized that organizing tactics must actually 
work to benefit you. That is usually a pretty strong brake on the level 
or intensity of confrontation, when you belong to a vulnerable group. 
Megabanks can try to destroy each other, and live to fight another day. 
Community people are generally limited to shaming or embarrassing their 
targets, and only do so when other methods have failed. People who are 
barely getting by, and historically have had little or no power, don't 
try to bring down the mayor through a dramatic theatrical confrontation 
every time they get annoyed with the trash pickups. Usually, if they do 
anything, they organize another %#@* meeting with the Department of 
Public Works.

Larry Yates


---- Original message ----

Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
> --------
> This is a COMM-ORG 'colist' message.
> All replies to this message come to COMM-ORG only.
> --------
>  
> [ed:  please feel welcomed to Emily/Walter's query.  A bit from me below.]
>
> From: <walter at noacentral.org>
>
>
> A NOA supporter asked me to post this on Comm-Org on her behalf. You can 
> reply here and you can also reach her at (Emily Kimball) 
> etkimball at aol.com -- her email included at her request.
>
> "I wrote a letter to our paper defending community organizers who have 
> been maligned in this political campaign.  Several people wrote 
> objecting to the tactics of Saul Alinsky.  I worked as a CO and he was 
> my bible.  I am looking to find if there was a connection between Saul 
> and Jane Addams.  I mentioned both in my letter and people wrote to say 
> Jane Addams was a Quaker and would never have used Saul's methods and I 
> shouldn't mention them in the same breath.  I am looking for history 
> here.  What was the relationship of Saul Alinsky and Jane Addams in the 
> work that they were doing.  I want to answer this letter but don't have 
> enough facts." Emily Kimball
>
> Posted by Walter Davis, Executive Director of the National Orgnaizers 
> Alliance
> www.noacentral.org             Jobs in Organizing: 
> www.organizersforamerica.org
>
> *******************
>
> [ed:  the most interesting paper I've found on the topic is at 
> http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SAAP/MSU/P04R.html, and it .  
> But aside from that, my own thoughts are that people perhaps make more 
> of the differences than they should.  It is clear that Alinsky focused 
> on conflict and Addams focused on consensus, but few Alinsky's ever did 
> anything even approaching violence.  And Addams was not shy about 
> supporting her community's members to raise their voices.  It may be as 
> much about gender than anything else.  It is not even clear that Addams 
> was a Quaker.  I would have to do a lot more research to be sure, but 
> from what I've gathered, she had a Quaker background, but belonged to a 
> Presbyterian church and attended a Unitarian church. Others?  I am also 
> concerned about how many people are objecting to the use of 
> confrontation and direct action these days, even when it is becoming 
> increasingly apparent that those who have benefited from the skewed 
> rules are not going to give up their unfair advantage without a really 
> dirty fight.  It may also be the result of the passage of time that 
> confrontation and conflict are so easily equated with violence and 
> antagonism. Or it may just be politics. I have personally always found 
> confrontation to be the most honest form of communication, even when it 
> is used on me.  :-)]
>
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