In the Spirit of Alinsky

About the Book

Drawing on more than 40 years of experience as a community organizer, author Robert Gannett, the director of Chicago’s Institute for Community Empowerment, argues here that the field of community organizing is today at a crossroads, and makes the case that a robust infrastructure of organizing is critical to the viability of modern democracy. Now more than ever, he posits, the U.S. needs Saul Alinsky-style grassroots organizing -- the strong, activist form that can take citizens’ anger and frustration and channel it to produce meaningful social change – and yet never before has it been so misunderstood, and so elusive. Tracing the roots of the practice from Alinsky through the Trump era, Gannett uses case stories to offer a clear-eyed look at the successes and failures of the movement, the ways it has been challenged and coopted by political actors, and its complicated but increasingly integrated relationship with issues-driven movement organizing. The book identifies the core values of successful, sustainable organizing campaigns -- financial sustainability, political independence, and a commitment to process over purpose – and explains community organizing as a generational practice, in which successive waves of organizers teach the next, each building upon the experience of the past to create a better organizing model for the future.