Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy
ISBN:9780679734185 read summary

Reading the forward from the author accurately indicates that this book is more hagiography than biography. I had no confidence that this was an entirely accurate and comprehensive biography. Indeed, the author glosses over the less flattering aspects of Alinsky's life and character (of which there are a great many). Fans of Alinsky will, not surprisingly, find herein confirmations of this greatness. Those who are not fans of Alinsky can read between the lines and see the many repellent aspects of Alinsky. I doubt if this book will change many people's attitude about the man.

One of the more interesting revelations was the extent that Alinsky's success in Chicago was based on his cozy relationship to the Roman Catholic archdiocese which aided him with money and political support. On an unseemly note, Alinsky agitated vociferously for U.S. intervention against Germany in the run up to WWII. Yet Alinsky adroitly avoided military service via a deferment he got with the help of the RC church hierarchy.

However one may regard Alinsky there is no doubt that he was a modern master of political gamesmanship and manipulation. While he used these skills and techniques for his own ideological purpose they can be applied by anyone promoting whatever ideological perspective they may favor. There is no reason these techniques cannot serve the right as well as they have the left.

My grandmother, who would be over 100 years old today, was reared in the Back of the Yards area. While I never had any opportunities to ask her about her childhood, both she and her sisters grew up to live better lives, far from their origins. I have long admired Alinsky and his accomplishments. It is interesting that he still inspires such rage from the Right.

Oddly enough, ever since I ordered this book, I have received recommendations for several books written from the right-wing point of view!

Let Them Call Me Rebel is a well-researched, although uncritical, biography of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky. Author Sanford Horwitt clearly shares Alinsky's leftist worldview, yet provides valuable insight into the character and historical context of one of the champions of socialism in America today. Horwitt does a fine job describing the deplorable conditions that existed in Chicago's Back-of-The-Yards meatpacking district where Alinsky developed his ideas and achieved his first success as a community organizer.

I feel compelled to write my opinion as a person who works in communities and also a person who likes to know how to change our society for the better. Reading this book was an eye-opening and invigorating experience.

First, as a scientific piece of work, the biography is excellent. It is based on an enormous research, tens, maybe hundred of interviews, documents and historical evidence from the 1900s to 1970s. Every single claim in the book is backed by a reference to a document or interview. Sanford Horwitt also put great efforts to organize the variety of facts and events, which is extremely difficult, as Alinsky worked on several tracks in different places with different approaches. The personal and public life of Alinsky are also well combined in the book. In the end, the book follows a general chronological line, but the big chunks of Alinsky's experience are selected and collected quite well. The book is written with a visible positive attitude to Alinsky's cause. Nonetheless, it is very sincere, and does not omit the myriad weaknesses or failures of Alinsky. Especially for the professional reader (organizer, sociologist, psychologist, etc.), it is very informative about the details and real facts about working with people. So, in this sense, I recommend it to people interested in history, social sciences or the Humanity Sector.

Second, why read the book, for immediate practical reasons? Well, here's why. Alinsky is valuable as a rare example of a non-socialist left visionary and practitioner. (He is NOT a socialist, my dear Neo-McCarthyists). He is not a socialist in a very important sense. He embraced the competitive, every-man-for-himself democracy in USA, and he worked with underprivileged groups exploiting the strengths and weaknesses of US democracy "as it is". He wanted the weak to get power in order to turn the balance in the competitive democratic scene. Why he wanted that? He says: "I hate to see people get pushed around". No Marxism here. How is the power to get to the weak - through community organizing. This is it. What in USA is labeled as "socialist" is not the real socialist thing. Socialism means a strife for a better society, for fundamental change. Alinsky was not into ideology. He reveled in the power struggle in US democracy and took advantage of every single unfair leverage that the strong - the corporations, the Chicago Political Machine, the Government, the White Community - whoever - had. Alinsky is an alternative to the much more risky real socialist approach to reforms, which undermines traditional American values like individualism, competition, greed, aggressive fixing of the objects, etc.

Another important point I took from the book is the community approach experience. Alinsky was one of the pioneers of the true community development strategy, still written in the slogan of his Industrial Areas Foundation: "We, the people, will work out our own destiny". Rule Number One of Alinsky was: "Never do for the people what they can do for themselves". This was a tremendous progress from the charity, welfare approach to social disadvantage, which was prevalent back in the 40s, 50s, 60s (and perhaps still is). Alinsky's approach is the viable alternative to the doomed and money-wasting "war on poverty", which is to be waged by people whose salaries are for fighting it - forever, if possible. It is also an alternative to hypocritical, conscience-washing philanthropy of the superior-than-thou rich. And it is also an alternative to the liberal academia, who like to study the issues neutrally and for no practical effects. Alinsky was smart enough, empathic enough and industrious enough to actually go to the people, be with them, help them and get out to let them make their own destiny. His approach, during the city riots in the 60s, proved to be way more adequate than wars on poverty or charity.
And the last thing I want to mention from the book is the good profile of a social activist it provides. What character and what competence does it take to make a change with people? Alinsky was a good example. His traits and qualities are well-described in the book - his emotional, simple commitment; his realistic, cynical worldview; his flair for conflict and public awareness; his narcissism and self-righteousness; his wit and humour. It is a very full picture of a man, who used all his strengths and weaknesses for creating power - or - the ability to act, as he defined it.

For these three reasons - the American approach to democracy and power, the true empowering community approach and the competence profile of a social activist - I recommend this book. I am not a US citizen, but from what I see, Americans badly need democratic solutions right now. Check this book. "Let them call me rebel, and welcome; I feel no concern from it. For I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul" - Thomas Paine.

What more can be said...the progenitor of the ACORN "movement" and the foundational thought behind American socialism with a view toward equality between the workers and those who do not choose to work, (the elitist socialist class...more worthy and intelligent than their "equals"?). An optimist of human nature with a clear undertow of narcissism driving each penned phrase. A man and book misguided by a 1 degree heading error in the simplest of good intents, (the desire to help others), but without the wisdom to know the future disaster of his own errors due to the common leftist habit of ignoring the past. A book truly worthy of fire-starting fodder. Truth, enough said.