Mobilizing along self-interest

Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky organized communities for instance in the slums of Chicago between the 1930s and the 1970s. He worked with teenage gangs, low-income immigrant groups from Europe, excluded African-American communities and racist whites. He was passionate about organizing groups cheated by people in power. He enjoyed seeing how they gain back their human dignity, start to organize themselves, and realize they can have influence on the "big" political and business interests.

For most people, the functioning of a democratic state can be pretty complicated and incomprehensible. Decisions follow decisions, each having a huge impact on our lives, but many people can put up with the assumption that they are not in the position to influence how things work. Or their everyday struggle to make ends meet supersedes any other efforts. Legislators often seem to be distant, they listen only to those who are close to the fire. Due to the uneven distribution of power, communities with less capacity to advocate for themselves can easily become marginalized, which makes them subject to fraud, exploitation or oppression. One of the main tasks of a democratic state therefore would be to create space in the decision-making process for those social groups who need more effort to articulate their demands. In most cases, however, this happens only after putting pressure on the legislators.

But why would those who struggle for survival or assume they have no influence on how things work start to organize themselves? Alinsky says because it is their self-interest. So he traced those concrete, immediate and winnable issues which embittered the lives of most members of the neighborhood. And he wanted to track down those locals who can be allies in building a neighborhood organization. Because if the members of the community realize that together they have the power to influence the decisions on their lives, they will feel less marginalized.

For this Alinsky and his organizers needed to know the neighborhood like the palm of their hand. They started with data analysis: before the field work, they wanted to draw a preliminary profile of the neighborhood. They combed through census data, reports by local planning commissions, and public statistics, then they made an inventory of all the public institutions, associations, sport clubs, social agencies and  local businesses, etc. They carried out research on the history of the neighborhood and its people. They mapped power relations and the network of relationships. They started organizing only then. Obviously, by that point, they had several hypotheses of what the most crucial issues could be for the neighborhood, but they put these in brackets. They wanted to hear from the members what makes them angry. Alinsky's organizers built on people's self-interest.

After the research, they divided the neighborhood into smaller units and started canvassing. They conducted hundreds of interviews, with residents, shopkeepers, leaders of local civil society organizations, church leaders, or people active in other fields of public life. They took thorough notes on the behavior and social habits of the people. They visited new contacts other people mentioned. They used qualitative and quantitative research methods used in sociology and anthropology such as participatory observation, unstructured, semi-structured and in-depth interviews, statistical analyses, etc. At the end of the day they recorded voice reports on their conclusions. They wanted to draw a profile of the fears, sorrows, hopes and skills of people living in the neighborhood.

Area canvassing usually takes one or two months of intensive work. Within this period the community organizers get in touch with the whole neighborhood. Canvassing can happen through many different ways. Organizers can contact those who seemed interesting during the research phase, and they will suggest new contacts to talk to (this is the snowball method applied in sociology and anthropology). Organizers may have acquaintances from earlier and start tracing those networks. New opportunities can also come the their way through sheer coincidence.

Many organizations apply the more direct door knocking. Student volunteers or community organizers visit the members of the neighborhood in their homes, they knock on each and every door to try to identify the crucial issues for the community and make them open to cooperation. Building relations can be very tiring and may hold out little hope in the beginning. But there are communication techniques which make dismantling the walls easier. (For example: "What made you angry recently? "I don't know, leave me alone." "Your neighbor, Mary said that trash is not picked up. Is this a problem for you? What do you think should be done?)

Building trust is a process which starts from zero. Therefore in the beginning, rejection and suspicion are part of canvassing. One of Alinsky's most quoted story is how he infiltrated into one of Al Capone's mobs in Chicago. (At this point yet he worked as a young criminologist, not as a community organizer.) Through long weeks he hung around the headquarters of the mobsters, the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, and he was always dismissed by them. Then one night at the neighboring table, one of the professional assassins of Capone, Big Ed said: "Hey, you guys, did I ever tell you about the time I picked up that redhead in Detroit ?" The others moaned in chorus. "Oh, no... Do we have to hear that one again?" Big Ed got disappointed when Alinsky poked him and said: "Mr. Stash. I’d love to hear that story." The gangster's face lit up. "You would, kid? Here, pull up a chair."

Through these initial contacts and talks we can draw a profile of the concerns, skills and visions of the people living in the neighborhood. And through these methods, we can form more personal relations with those who seem reliable and pursue group interests. Through longer, personal conversations we can identify the concrete, immediate and winnable issues, in which many people have a self-interest and which can help mobilize the neighborhood. And we can identify those people who can lead on issues and become leaders. And we can determine the forces and resources which keep a community together, and which we can build on to organize the first neighborhood assembly.

(Source: Sanford D. Horwitt: Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky - His Life and Legacy. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1989; Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky - a candid conversation with the feisty radical organizer. Vol. 19. no. 3. - March, 1972; Saul D Alinsky: Rules for Radicals - A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. Random House, New York, 1971)

Read it in Hungarian.

What is agitation? – interview with Edward Shurna

Ed Shurna, on the right.
Source: jesssteele.wordpress.com 

Edward Shurna is the Executive Director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. He has been organizing for 40 years in different neighborhoods of Chicago. This the synopsis of the interview made in April 2012 during my 3-week internship with the organization.





How did you become an organizer?
Ed: Social injustice has always upset me. I attended a Jesuit college, I wanted to become a priest. I believed that this world could be a better place. There I met Tom Gaudette and I understood through his work that people living in poverty primarily need social change, not charity. Tom was a Catholic Christian activist himself. He organized in Austin, in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago. In Austin in the 1960s, numerous houses were demolished during the Urban Renewal, which disrupted the life of many. Racism was pervasive, and conflict erupted into occasional violent clashes. Gaudette perceived that the people living in the neighborhoods had not looked at each other as enemies. Through his organizing, the neighborhood identified the important community issues, and achieved that the elected officials started to take responsibility. As a result, the school system, for instance, improved a lot in the neighborhood.

Becoming an organizer must have been a challenging shift from the religious way of thinking.
Ed: A whole new world opened up for me. Earlier I thought that the poor needed consolation and help. Since then I have realized that for a social change, we need to alter the array of power relations. The oppressed groups need to be able to articulate their demands in the public arena, i.e. in the media or to the legislators.

Tom Gaudette worked with Saul Alinsky. Have you met Alinsky in person?
Ed: Yes. He gave us a lecture on community organizing. When he entered the room, he looked around and said, “I am just wasting my fucking time with you”. Alinsky was infamous about his arrogance. I knew that he had just been provoking us. In spite of this, this style did not inspire me. But I admired him for the way he organized. Alinsky had some very influential allies in the Catholic Church who stood ready to support the oppressed groups in the public arena, even in risk of their own position.

What meant the biggest challenge for you at the beginning of your career?
Ed: To understand that even the most reasonable arguments can rarely convince legislators. Coming from a Lithuanian immigrant family, I had been listening throughout my childhood that we had to respect the laws of the United States. I needed time to understand that laws are something that man made up and we have the right to change it. So I started to argue for social change. I was nice and patient. I thought sensible arguments would sooner or later make their way to decision-makers who would eventually come round to our point of view. But I had to realize that accountability and self-interest accelerate their determination. What can a decision-maker be made accountable for? What is their self-interest to change the status quo? Obviously, this tactic sooner or later necessitates confrontation with people in power. At first glance, this may sound odd to a believer, but Christianity and confrontation are in close connection without question.

How was it when you first did your outreach and tried to build relations with a community?
Ed: Tough. In the beginning most of the people do not understand why you are there. They may find you suspicious. Anyways, how come an outsider thinks he can add to the struggle? Building trust is a process which in most cases starts from zero. You must understand this, otherwise you will feel hurt because you will most probably experience rejection for some time. You should not take criticism or hostile attitude personal. And as time passing by, we are learning those communication techniques which can help break down the walls – and accelerate trust-building a little bit. There are opinion leaders, informal and formal leaders in each and every neighborhood, we need to have them as well accept us.

What is agitation?
Ed: As a young organizer, I started in a majority African-American neighborhood in Chicago. An investor, the owner of a football team, was planning to build up a stadium there right in the middle of the neighborhood – without asking the community. This would have disrupted the people’s life there. So a neighborhood council had been set up and it started to get ahold of the investor. Letters followed letters, but no answers came back. The community had no experience in confrontation with the power, organizing a demonstration was a new idea, for instance. I needed to provoke them to start using new tactics. I agitated them. “How many letters do you want to write until you come round and see that you need to try something else?”, I asked. But they needed to reach the point when they come to say: “If again there is no answer to our letter, then we’ll go to the investor in person.” The thought eventually matured. They figured out to send a delegation of five members to the investor. I knew it was crucial at this point to show that a lot of people stood behind the issue. But I chose not to tell them to organize a mass demonstration. Instead I asked, “Why only five members? Much more people are affected by the issue. Why can’t any one of them go who wants to?” Eventually, 25 people gathered in front of the investor's office. They prayed. The community was strongly religious, this action fit their attitude, they felt comfortable and the media liked it. But the investor still did not want to talk to us. The action made the group more confident as they experienced the power of cooperation. They started seeking more and more opportunities to make their demands and express their dissatisfaction in a democratic way. They generated power. A few months later, 700 people showed up in front of the investor's house to push him to enter into negotiations. Decisions were made by the group, and my task was to make sure that the group comes across several different opinion and new ideas so that they can make an informed decision. I also ensured that the group becomes familiar with such ideas I do not necessarily agree with.

Did you win?
Ed: Yes. The stadium was not built in our neighborhood. And the community understood that if they wanted to change something, they have to do more things than they did before and have to do it differently. This is the result of agitation. And the community organizer comes to learn to enjoy risky games and to see a problem as an opportunity for a change and a conflict as a new challenge.

Read it in Hungarian.