1890 - 1920. The heyday of neighborhood organizing before 1960. Liberals and progressives sought to meet the challenge of industrialization - the bigness of cities and their chaotic social disorganization - by organizing immigrant neighborhoods into "efficient, democratic, and, of course, enlightened units within the metropolis." Since the emphasis of the reformers was mostly on building community through settlement houses and other service mechanisms, the dominant approach was social work.

1920 - 1940. Community organization became a professional sub-discipline within the social work field. Little was written about decentralized neighborhood organizing efforts throughout the Great Depression. Most organizations had a national orientation because the economic problems the nation faced did not seem soluble at the neighborhood level.

1940 - 1960. A new interest in CO from the social work perspective. This development dovetailed with the emergence of the distinctive approach of Saul Alinsky. Federal involvement in reshaping cities and their neighborhoods through the post-World War II urban renewal programs abetted this unique alignment. (Note: more information on Alinsky is included over the next few pages.)

1960 - 1980. Neighborhood organizing became widespread beginning in the 1960s. Literature analyzing events at the grassroots during this period is extensive. Experience with federal anti-poverty programs and the upheavals in the cities produced a thoughtful response among activists and theorists in the early 1970s that has informed activities, organizations, strategies and movements through the end of the century, though many major changes in CO have occurred since 1980.²¹

The Roots of Modern CO. A discussion of CO's history and current practice must feature Saul Alinsky, the founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). His work from 1938 until his death in 1972 is unique and had a powerful, multi-dimensional influence on the CO field. It was Alinsky who drew the roots of CO together in the late 1930s - roots first planted in the American Revolution and later sprouting in the populist movement of the 1890s, the political radicalism of the 1920s and 1930s that focused on organizing tenant unions, unemployed councils and other organizations to protest the horrible conditions of the period, and industrial union organizing of the 1930s.²⁴

The Alinsky-inspired approach to CO catalyzed the creation of many organizations while he was still alive. He learned from his experiences in city after city, and spearheaded efforts to modify organizing methods and strategies for maximum effectiveness. Many current CO groups that trace their own history to Alinsky combine the best of Alinsky with fundamental modifications they have made to forge the approaches they now employ.

Many books, reports, critiques and films about Alinsky and his efforts are available. Alinsky himself wrote two books, Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals, that are immensely popular and in constant use as tools in training for community organizers and leaders and in some college-level courses, primarily in schools of social work. A selected bibliography of resource materials by and about Alinsky, and information on obtaining a recent documentary film about Alinsky and the work of IAF,²⁵ is on NFG's Web site, at www.nfg.org.

Most contemporary community organizing finds its beginnings in the work of the late Saul Alinsky. He organized the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BYNC) in Chicago in the late 1930s. Allied with the United Packinghouse Workers Union, BYNC was instrumental in helping tens of thousands of packinghouse workers to dramatically improve their standard of living and gain the dignity that comes with union recognition and collective bargaining. BYNC brought together under one organizational umbrella not only the union but most of the Roman Catholic parishes in the BYNC neighborhood and a myriad of other voluntary associations. The organization quickly developed sufficient power to be able to deal effectively with the Chicago 'machine' and win victories on numerous issues, including child welfare, public school improvement and neighborhood stabilization.

For Alinsky, the BYNC experience also led to recognition by the powerful Archdiocese of Chicago, John L. Lewis of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) and wealthy department store owner Marshall Field. Backing from them helped Alinsky to form the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), which was Alinsky's base of operations for the remainder of his life.

After World War II, Alinsky brought Fred Ross, Sr. onto his staff. Ross's work in California led to the formation of the Community Service Organization (CSO), largely Mexican American, and the identification and training as an organizer of Cesar Chavez, then a community leader. Unlike BYNC, which was an 'organization of organizations,' CSO took a 'direct membership' form, a precursor to the ACORN model initiated by Wade Rathke. Chavez, of course, founded the National Farmworkers Association and later was the principal leader of the United Farmworkers Union. Chavez involved Ross in his organizing, calling him 'my secret weapon.' It was Ross who trained many farmworkers and students - and trainers who could extend the training to others - for work on boycotts across the country. In the labor movement today, almost every union that is actively involved in organizing has staff who went through the farmworkers union experience. The same holds for numerous community organizing groups.

By the late 1950s, Alinsky broadened his base of institutional support from the Chicago Archdiocese to Catholic dioceses all over the country, and to many mainline Protestant denominations. The impact Alinsky's (and IAF's) work had on how a fair number of American churches increasingly supported urban reform efforts and fought racism and poverty beginning in that period is still in evidence in such grantmaking agencies as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

In 1959, the impact of the emerging civil rights movement in the South was beginning to be felt in northern ghettoes. With support from both Catholic and Protestant funding sources, Alinsky began work in the largely African American Woodlawn neighborhood in Chicago. The next year the student-led sit-ins began in the South. As the civil rights movement spread and gained momentum, it generated considerable interest in economic and racial justice issues in colleges, and in religious seminaries and denominations across the country, and created new sources of organizers and funding for community organizing. Alinsky capitalized on this to spread his brand of organizing to still more communities. Paralleling this development, urban unrest grew; poverty and racism became increasingly unacceptable in northern communities of color, Black and Hispanic, and this too obviously spurred community organizing's growth.²⁶

- Mike Miller, Organize Training Center