Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy - Hardcover

Horwitt, Sanford D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394572432 ISBN 13: 9780394572437

Publisher: Knopf, 1989

Synopsis

In the course of his flamboyant career as an all-purpose activist, Saul Alinsky went from organizing working-class ethnics in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods to mapping out strategies for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. He enlisted allies-from Catholic clergymen to labor unionists and black activists-in battles waged against opponents from slumlords to the Eastman Kodak corporation. The range of Alinsky's activities, the intensity of his beliefs, and his exhilarating mixture of crudeness and calculation almost vibrate off the pages of this passionate and inspiring biography.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Folk hero to 1960s student activists, community organizer Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) believed that citizenship meant participation and a questioning attitude toward authority. Raised in a Chicago slum by Russian-Jewish parents, he started out as a criminologist working with imprisoned mobsters and teenage gangs. Organizing a neighborhood council in Chicago's stockyard transformed him into a social activist. In this solid biography, Horwitt, a political consultant to advocacy groups, limns two sides of Alinsky: the self-promoter and fundraiser with elitist connections, and the populist who was adept at rallying apathetic, demoralized people against racism, slum landlords, poverty and unresponsive institutions. Alinsky's personal tragedies--his first wife drowned, his second wife had multiple sclerosis--seemed to drive him harder in crusading for social justice. His sharp criticism of what he saw as shortcomings in the civil rights movement and the federal war on poverty make this book timely. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

This is an important account of a "complex and idiosyncratic" urban populist who insisted that power was the keystone of social change. Horwitt expands on the work done by P. David Finks in The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky ( LJ 7/84) to produce a comprehensive appraisal of Alinksy's "colorful confrontational tactics" as a community organizer and his influence on a "succeeding generation of social activists." Streetwise yet reflective, Alinsky was a true believer in the possibility of American democracy as a means of attaining social justice "for ordinary people." Horwitt has done an especially good job discussing Alinsky's youth and personal life. An insightful and well-written study, recommended for all academic and larger public libraries.
- John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Ut.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0394572432
• ISBN 13: 9780394572437
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 595