Saul Alinsky - that's him, my favorite rebel! An agitator, a community organizer, a power to the people kind of guy. He shaped, changed, and brought life to communities that were in need of resurrection. He helped organize people, to organize themselves, that in turn brought about schools, hospitals, roads, worker training centers, quality housing and jobs back into their neighborhoods.you name it, he did it. In the 1960's he created an organizing institute called the Industrial Areas Foundation or IAF - a school for organizers. I myself went through 10 day training with the IAF, and it still serves as the most influential and relevant training I've ever experienced. Five times now, I've read Alinsky's book - Rules for Radicals, it is my irreverent bible. His influence on me is great. But I'm not alone. I found out this last week, that Hillary Rodham Clinton did her senior thesis at Wellesly college on Saul Alinsky - titled: "There is only the fight. . ." an analysis of the Alinsky model. She was captivated by his "charm" but ultimately rejected grassroots community organizing as outdated. And when she was at the White House with husband Bill her thesis was suppressed by the White House for fear of being associated too closely with Alinsky ideas.
So Hilary blotted him out, said Alinsky was irrelevant for our time. And as much as I believe Hillary deserves our consideration as a candidate for president in the year to come, on this matter, on this matter, I think she is dead wrong.
And here's why I think this rebel is relevant today.
Saul Alinsky inspired in people the ability to confront the establishment with their collective power in ways that were straightforward, clear, and different than anyone had used before.
When he first starting working/organizing in Chicago's slums, one of the biggest problems residents had to tackle, was the outbreak of rats in the neighborhood, an obvious menace to health and safety.
The community group he had organized tried to get a meeting with city hall to talk about the problem, nobody of significance would meet with them. They tried writing, nobody wrote back. They tried calling, nobody called back. They tried, again and again and again. In short they were ignored, and thus they had no power. So what did Alinsky and this community group do? They gathered up rats from the neighborhood, and brought them down to city hall. Hundreds and hundreds of rats. Just dropped off these scummy rodents with the question - now that they are in your neighborhood, how well do you like them?
(In my minds eye, I can just see the mayor's aide walking out to the front steps, looking out at all the rats and saying out loud; "Oh my - ahh Mr. Dailey - now we've got a problem!")
He was a brilliant tactician in that he brought the problem to those with power, those with the ability to make a difference whether they wanted to ignore the problem or not. He made people be seen, he helped them have power, he brought power to an otherwise powerless situation.
This week I called up one of the IAF organizers who trained me - Arnie Graff - and asked him to tell me his favorite - Alinskyish - story.
Arnie was the lead organizer for an African American organization made up of 20 churches and day care centers, in Baltimore, MD. Their primary concern in the early 1980's, was that they were not able to get a loan from the banks they had invested their money in. They made up 69% of the banks client base but were receiving less than 1% of the banks loans. They were being redlined. When they went to the bank to discuss their concern, they were shuffled between a Public Relations person and a Vice President who all insisted they were not redlining the community. So they kept having meetings, bringing in throngs of people with good credit who qualified for a loan, but because it seems they were black, were turned down. The bank insisted it wasn't happening. They continued to ask for a meeting with the president, but couldn't make it through the VP and the PR, being shuffled between the two. So they thought about what might be an option since their concerns weren't moving forward.
Arnie and his folks knew that every other Friday, workers would come to the bank during their lunch break, deposit their paycheck and buy a bus token to go home, all within an hours time. So they gathered on a Friday, about 200 people, to go to one of the banks where they were being shut out. Each person had a dollar on them, and got into line right at noon. When they got to the teller, they asked for 100 pennies. When they got their pennies, they would carefully count them out, 86-87, 88, 89 often drop them, have to put them back up on the counter, and start counting all over, 1, 2, 3, 4. . . There were long lines of people stacked behind others 30 deep in separate lines. The bank security was a little freaked as they had not gone to their local bank, but downtown to the big bank where the president was. And this was a lot of black people in one place, which as Arnie said, the security for the bank panicked and called the police telling them they had a disturbance at the bank and they needed to come right away and arrest people. Of which they did, and showed up with 12 cops, two dogs, and 3 paddy wagons.
When the police got there they ask the security guy what was going on. He said, "These people are making a disturbance, you need to arrest them!" The cop said "Well, what are they doing?" at which point he walks over to where Arnie is and the lead community organizers and says, "What are you folks doing?" - "Well we're making change." Arnie said at that moment, in those days the cops had a walky-talky on their shoulder, and they get a call from their sergeant, of which every one could hear, "What's going on?" was barked into the radio from police headquarters. "Well there are about 200 people here making change." Said the officer. To which the sergent yells" What the f_ _ _ are you doing , you can't arrest people for making change, you have to get out of there, what the hell is going on?" The officer replies, " I don't know what is going on they're making change." Meanwhile the security guy is being asked, have you gotten rid of the black people yet, where are the police, and he's telling them they can't arrest them. So the security guy asks the head cop to go upstairs to talk with the president. He does and he comes back and the security guy asks "What happened?" The police man said "We were asked to arrest them, but I can't arrest people for making change and they aren't disturbing anyone. Look they're all standing quietly in line." "Well, how about moving them along?" says the security guy. So the cop goes over to the people at the tellers and says: "You've dropped the pennies numerous times now, could you just move on. To which Arnie and his folks do, they move over to the accounts desk to open an account, as you could at that time open an account with a dollar. So now they have a new group of lines being formed. To which the cops leave, as there is nothing left for them to do. The security guy by this point is beside himself, and asks them what would make them leave. They say a meeting with the president, we've been moved from the VP to PR guys, with nobody with any authority. Security officers tell them the bank closes in 2 hours, and then you'll have to leave. "We know," Arnie and his gang say, "we'll be back next week, until we get to meet with the president." Security guy goes back upstairs; 10 minutes later, says the presidents secretary will see you. When upstairs, the president is there yelling, angry and fuming. So Arnie's group laid out the statistics of the bank, that they were lending less than 1% of their money to 70% of their customers, not statistically possible unless you had a policy not to lend to us. We have an idea of how to fix it, but you have to make an appointment with us, which the president did.
Their idea was that they would offer a dollar for dollar loan for every person invested already in the bank. They weren't asking for a lower interest rate, or lower credit rating, but if you had good credit and you applied for a loan, you would get one, up to the amount already invested in the bank. Of which it turns out with these 20 churches and day care centers which made up the organization, had 15 million dollars invested in the banks in Balimore, which at the time was a lot of money, considering in the early 80's these folks made less than 20,000 a year or so. In the end, other banks signed on to the agreement, giving eventually 782 loans out - worth 15 million dollars worth of lending.
I don't know about you, but I would say this type of organizing is still relevant today.
Alinsky's model shook things up. He used humor and fun to get people out of the old model of picketing, sit-ins, etc. In the 1970's if you will recall, Kodak was in its heyday. Rochester was also one of the first places of urban unrest, partly due to poverty, and employment opportunities. It was after the riots in Rochester, that a group of black clergy went to Chicago to visit Alinsky to solicit his help here. Alinsky met with these clergy, who were as expected, good church people. They were used to solid church activism, marches, protests, typical church going activities. Yet, this is what he proposed their first action should be. The Rochester Symphony was where people went to be seen in the 70's and as would be expected, the families of big business would be there every Saturday night. Alinsky proposed that they buy 100 seats for the symphony for members of the black clergy's congregations and then have a big bean dinner before the performance. The idea would be that they would have a sit in that created a disturbance, with odor, rather than voices.
Now let me just say, that the big fart in - as it became known nation wide - never happened, but it got people's attention and became legendary in its telling. An urban myth of community organizing. People have speculated what the conversation might have been post incident - how Kodak wives went back to their manager husbands and said, "You need to take care of this situation, I won't have my symphony night ruined by such a disturbance. Do whatever they want. Enough is enough." Just the very idea of such a radical sit-in, was so funny in its intent to the black clergy, that they immediately entrusted this white Jewish guy to take on their organizing cause. And why is that - because Alinsky knew how to bring levity to serious issues, and understood the importance of having fun. He knew that part of reverence must have a counterbalance of irreverence.
Now in revisiting these stories this week, I'm reminded of two things. And these are the things I want to lift up in gratitude to Saul Alinsky for teaching me and teaching us.
Power Matters! Power in its simplistic form is the ability to act, whether physical, mental or moral. We so often agree as religious liberals with Lord Acton's quote: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," but this is a mis-quote - Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Alinsky would say to this that the corruption of power is not in power but in ourselves. Power as he saw it "is the very essence the life blood, the dynamo to life." He was fond of saying the primary issue "is that if people feel they don't have the power to change a bad situation, then they don't think about the situation any more. " And that throughout history power is derived from 2 main sources, money and people. "Lacking money, the have not's must build power from their own flesh and blood." When you go to an IAF organizing training - these big organizers are in your face, drilling this into your head. They are intimidating, and scary, and I can't tell you that I wasn't scared out of my pants that week. But they got into my head, the only way you can change things is with collective power. Stop being afraid of power, tap into it. Because change comes from power and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together.
So yes, Power matters. Things do not get changed because we have a noble cause, or because we are right, or because we make sense or have a logical argument or because we are principaled or moral. Change happens because we have principals and power together. Logic and power, sense and power.
At the beginning of last summer, you know that we were working with the hotel workers to bring about change. To help facilitate a fair process to organize, and decide for themselves whether or not they wanted a union at the hotel. I told you that I'm on the leadership crew - with 3 other African American pastors - I'm the token white chick - with about 20 other churches that are part of CLUE - Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. Our goal was 3,000 signatures to present to the General Management of the hotel to ask for a fair process. You folks, you folks here, who said you wanted to be a part of this work, gathered about 750 of those signatures, and in July we presented those signatures to the manager of the hotel. Was he mad when I went in with my collegues to the hotel to give him the signatures, you bet! He was physically shaking, and lashed out at us. My friend, Marlow - the pastor at AME Baber church grabbed my arm, at one point in his presence. And we walked out together, surprised that the GM had taken them. 50 of you were at that rally from the church, and you may or may not have noticed, that the workers were looking out the window at the 300 plus of us gathered saying through song, and chant and bodies that we would stand in solidarity with them as they went about trying to form a union so they could have a living wage job. And that event my friends, was the energizer they needed. They needed to know the community was behind them. I've been told that it created a spark among them, new energy, a renewal to their cause, and that they know they would be supported at least externally for their actions and standing up to ongoing intimidation, and threats from management. It was because of your signatures and your presence, that change happened. It was because of our power, our growing power, that a fire was lit.
Now don't get me wrong, and don't freak out. I'm gonna' just lay it on the line. Scott and I want this church to be powerful! We want it to be caring and interesting, and a place of centering, and a wellspring for your life, which it is doing - through pastoral care, and 70 small groups focusing on filling you up, but our dream along side that, is that we will be a powerful church. Because it is the only way, the only way that we can make a difference in the world. When we gather with other religious groups, as a congregation of 1000 members/friends, with other congregations, of not just size but race, and denomination, and other organizations of meaning, to build coalitions of change, we can be a force to reckon with, because it isn't just one voice, or one denomination or one race or one class, calling for change, it is truly a community. Even on our own, as a church community, we have more ability for change, the more people who join with us at this church, in love, spirit and numbers to "be the change we wish to seek in the world." It matters because it means that we've taken our values and attached them to power, which means movement, and the ability to make a difference on the things that we care deeply about.
The second thing Alinsky reminds us of, is that this work when done collectively can be spiritually energizing , not spiritually draining. I know, we are all stressed, that we feel drained. And as Scott will talk about next week, it is good that there are many places to have our wells filled here. But I think it is a sad thing to think of social justice work as only depleting your well. What Saul teaches us, is that we can count on this work to fill us up.
When you are at the rally for the hotel workers, you can't help but being moved by people from all backgrounds - economic, race, class, religious - coming together through song, and action to usher in change. You can't help but be on a bit of a high.
When you volunteer with RAIHN and eat lunch with people who have so little, welcoming them into our home, you can't help but be charged with the spirit of life and love. There is a deep wellspring of love you are tapping into that radiates out from you. And you are full, not on dinner, but on life.
When you ride your bike to church instead of taking your car, even though a part of you feels exhausted and rushed, another part of you feels full of life with extra blood pumping through your veins because you are proud and jazzed about living and acting out your values and connection to the earth. When we really think about it, we feel "dead and drained" when we give up and let ourselves feel "nothing can be done." - it is then we loose the ability to truly stay connected to the rest of the world, to others. But to be engaged in doing something about it, is when we feel not only hope but like we are participating in life, full of and connected to life!
Indeed, when we let this work fills us, we become the spirit of life, we are enlivened, awake, spiritually whole. In short, this work, can fill you up if you let it, in ways that nothing else taps into the life blood of the world's needs and hopes and dreams. Which is the biggest thing we need to learn about rebels, is that the call to be a rebel isn't a drain, or an ongoing challenge, it's a gift. The call to be a rebel is a gift. May we lift up that voice, and that wisdom each day, with a hearty call and impassioned prayer! Amen.
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