A Theology Of Organizing: From Alinsky to the Modern IAF

ch. 2, p.40-71

• 1975, San Antonio, Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS)
  
• fought for South-side and West-side neighborhoods
• wanted $100M of infrastructure improvements and services to Mexican Americans
• gained new drainage projects, sidewalks, parks, libraries
• Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals, his way to organize
• Alinsky saw churches as repositories of money & people to be mobilized
  
• religious traditions + power politics = a theology of organizing

Origins of the IAF

• Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BYNC) on Chicago's SW side in 1939
• Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
  
• Upton Sinclair, exposed filth/degradation in the meat-packing industry in The Jungle
• Catholic Bishop Sheil helped convince pastors to support CIO unions
• BYNC: union leaders, small merchants, local churches
• BYNC used sit-ins and boycotts
• BYNC won many concessions from City Hall
• Alinsky wanted to extend his work to other parts of the country
• organizers in Lackawanna, NY, Butte, Montana and Chelsea, New York
• Woodlawn Association (TWO): residents went from 86% white to 86% black
• Protestant churches supported Alinsky and he tried to organize the large black community
• TWO used picketing/boycotts to stop the exploitation of landlords
• does urban renewal mean forcing the marginalized out of cities?
• massive voter registration drives, won improvements in sanitation, public heath procedures, and police practices
• FIGHT (Freedom, Integration, God, Honor, Today) Reverent Florence, a dynamic black minister from the civil-rights South became its president
• KODAK pledged to hire blacks & give them job training but FIGHT had to get control of proxies to make them honor it
  
• needed allies among the middle class

Community organizations

• 1. indigenous leadership, citizen participation
• 2. financial independence
• 3. commitment to local issues while avoiding divisive issues
• 4. based on the self-interest of communities in a pragmatic & non-ideological manner
• 5. should remain independent from parties & not endorse candidates
• 6. citizen participation through their own independent structures
  

Alinsky

• wanted to empower the poor
• wanted independent political power as opposed to a machine
• political organizations should be based on existing social institutions of a community-unions, block clubs, small business
• populist organizer
• the organizations he built did not stay grassroots
• one movement he started opposed racial integration of neighborhoods 25 years later
• TWO> giving services to community > giving people in communities a voice
• TWO lost its participatory side

Chambers

• Alinsky died and Chambers was in charge
• supported long term contracts with organizations, Alinsky wanted short term contracts
• upgraded pay to attract professionals
• collective supervision vs. Alinsky's one man show
• believed religious ideas/traditions could mobilize resources whereas Alinsky mainly saw the resources and social institutions as useful in mobilizing

Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS)

• Ernesto Cortes, Jr. was trained by AIF
• wanted to help poor/working Mexican Americans
• broke the Anglo elite's monopoly on power in San Antonio
• organizations based on religious values & material interests
• Good Government League, dominated by whites, kept Latino representatives out
• Hispanic parts: unpaved roads, no sidewalks, poor schools, frequent floods
• 25 catholic churches supported COPS
• helped with labor strikes, school desegregation and federal antipoverty money
• Hispanic priests organized into PADRES: wanted the church to address poverty & discrimination
• recruited lay leaders, people from social clubs, PTAs
  
• a school was closed to direct $ into a new administration building, parents fought to have the $ channeled so neighborhood schools could have smaller class sizes
• met needs of particular neighborhoods
• had a rich social fabric to draw from. rich Hispanics could not leave
  
• small portion were foreign born so newcomers could stay with families and become established
• strong tie to godparents
• tactics: large scale protests at city council meetings, disruptive actions at symbols of economic power
  
• 1976, blocked the construction of a shopping mall above an aquifer
• voted for a charter change for the city council, then the city council was mostly Mexican with a black member
• Community Block Grant (CDBG) program in San Antonio, COPS got 1//2 of funds
  
• COPS registered & mobilized voters
• accountability nights for candidates
• city bonds, important source of funding for COPS projects
• COPS lost the 1978 bond election, learned it had to share bonds with development oriented interests and city officials who wanted to fund capital projects
• middle class voters resist the tax implications of large bond campaigns
• COPS needed inner city votes to pass bonds
• COPS got health-clinics, a community college, afforsable housing from HUD
• COPS opposed a Midwestern manufacturing plant because it wanted to pay workers low wages
• voters voted to build this dome because they wanted jobs & major league sports teams in the area
• issue: streets and drainage concerns
• early days: wanted streets and libraries built
• allowed other agencies to handle the administration of monies
• didn't accept money or jobs for its leaders, focused on organizing

Bringing Values and Interests Together, p. 57

• Cortes leaves San Antonio for E. Los Angeles
• starts the United Neighborhoods Organization (UNO)
  
• IAF usually left COPS leaders on their own after they left
• new way: IAF affiliates and organizers placed in a long-term relationship so affiliates would stick with the organization's principles. disaster: Back of the Yards Council opposed integration of neighborhoods
• Alinsky: politics is not about doing good/right. It is about self interest.
  
• religion: provides value commitments.
• "theology for housing"
• Alinsky, tough, secular brand of power politics
• "draw from faith to take action to build a community."(59)
• fight unjust social and economic institutions

Relational Organizing & Institution Building

• sometimes social networks are not present
• Chavez would use house meetings to organize farm workers in California
• needed to strengthen faith institutions, more than mobilizing them
  

Houston

• no zoning laws, poorly funded public services, weak public institutions
• huge, sprawling city
• traded votes for community services
• COPS, committed to Hispanics

The Metropolitan Organization (TMO)

• black Catholics + Hispanic Catholics + Anglo Protestants
• fought high electric bills
• improved public transportation
• combated drugs in school
• problems: not enough members, not enough finances, small leadership base
• 1970s/1980s: middle class left cities
• 1. identify new leaders, 2. build a consensus, 3. forge collective leadership
• "According to Catholic social thinking, people could only achieve their full dignity and humanity through relationships in community, relationships structured by Catholic institutions."(64)
• The Republican party tried to crush the IAF effort
• struggles: sprawling size of Houston, weak neighborhoods
• COPS excelled better in San Antonio

Building Broad-Based Organizations, p.65

• COPS: dense organization in Hispanic neighborhoods
• problem: COPS in S. and W. sides, most growth in N. side
• E. side was poor blacks
• created East Side Alliance (ESA), still concerned Hispanics would dominate the game
• IAF: difficult to expand in the north side-more affluent
• Metropolitan Congregational Alliance (MCA) was formed
• 1. develop new relationships, 2. bridge social capital

Conclusion:

• Alinsky: interest-grop model of politics, no-holds-barred power politics
• identify an issue, mobilize community resources, win!
• flaw: couldn't sustain broad participation over time
• versus identify concerns, find a basis for cooperative action
• IAF. faith traditions/relational strength of women lay leaders were taken more seriously
• too much faith/values> idealism
• too much interests/pragmatic politics > alliances with some unappealing groups
• problem: religious opposition to different roles of church
• Pacific Institute for Community Organizing (PICO): issue-based and neighborhood organizing on the west coast
• faith based approach: religious culture and political organizing
• instead of moving to the suburbs, be part of rebuilding a neighborhood