2
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
mLine 69:
Line 69: − + − The [[CPUSA]] newspaper, the ''[[Daily Worker]]'' named Alinsky as one of the sponsors of a dinner for Pearl Hart, a notorious [[communist front]]er, arranged by the [[Midwest Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born]]. Alinsky was identified in the ''Daily Worker'' as chairman of the Public Housing Association of Chicago Illinois. The [[American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born]], with which the Midwest Committee was affiliated, was cited by the President [[Harry S. Truman]]'s Attorney General [[Thomas Clark]] as [[subversive]] and [[Communist]]. It was also cited by the Special [[Committee on Un-American Activities]] as one of the oldest auxiliaries of the [[Communist Party of the United States]].<ref>[http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/Scope_of_Soviet_Activity.pdf Reports of the Commission on Subversive Activities of the Territory of Hawaii], p. 12 pdf.</ref>+ − + − + + + + + + + +
minor grammatical changes with additional footnotes and references
Alinsky's hard-knock, do-anything techniques rubbed many leaders the wrong way, and in 1967 he found himself without a contract. Alinsky would influence many activists in organizing, such as [[Wade Rathke]], Michael Gecan, Greg Galuzzo,<ref name=Kincaid /> Edward T. Chambers, and Ernesto Cortes, many of whom went on to become leaders in Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. The [[Black Panther]] movement in the 1960s made it hard for Alinsky to organize the black populace; they had a difficult time dealing with white leadership. He finally settled with organizing middle-class white Americans to protest against the deterioration of the suburban markets.
Alinsky's hard-knock, do-anything techniques rubbed many leaders the wrong way, and in 1967 he found himself without a contract. Alinsky would influence many activists in organizing, such as [[Wade Rathke]], Michael Gecan, Greg Galuzzo,<ref name=Kincaid /> Edward T. Chambers, and Ernesto Cortes, many of whom went on to become leaders in Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. The [[Black Panther]] movement in the 1960s made it hard for Alinsky to organize the black populace; they had a difficult time dealing with white leadership. He finally settled with organizing middle-class white Americans to protest against the deterioration of the suburban markets.
==Association with subversive organizations==
==CONTROVERSY==
Alinsky was included as one of the sponsors of a dinner for Pearl Hart, founder of the National Lawyers Guild, by the Daily Worker. The dinner was arranged by the Midwest Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born. The American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born was cited by the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations largely due to pressure from the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) as subversive and communist.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General's_List_of_Subversive_Organizations</ref> However, the anti-communist activities of these organizations during the cold war were eventually discredited and found to be unconstitutional and antithetic to American principles of democracy and freedom. In fact, by 1959 these committees and policies were denounced by President Truman as the "most un-American thing in the country today."<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee</ref>
Speaking in an interview with Playboy Magazine, Alinsky explained the following:
Justice Black dissenting in American Committee v. SACB, 380 U.S. 503 (1965) states that the Subversive Activities Control Act said:
<blockquote> PLAYBOY: What was your own relationship with the Communist Party?
<blockquote> is a bill of attainder; that it imposes cruel, unusual and savage punishments for thought, speech, writing, petition and assembly; and that it stigmatizes people for their beliefs, associations and views about politics, law, and government. The Act has borrowed the worst features of old laws intended to put shackles on the minds and bodies of men, to make them confess to crime, to make them miserable while in this country, and to make it a crime even to attempt to get out of it.** It is difficult to find laws more thought-stifling than this one, even in countries considered the most benighted... hold the law to be what I think it is -- a wholesale denial of what I believe to be the constitutional heritage of every freedom-loving American.
Speaking in an interview with Playboy Magazine, Alinsky explained his opionion of the Communist Party:
<blockquote> PLAYBOY: Have you ever considered becoming a Communist Party member?
AINKSKY: Not at any time. I've never joined any organization—not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as "that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right." If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.
PLAYBOY: What was your own relationship with the Communist Party?
ALINSKY: I knew plenty of Communists in those days, and I worked with them on a number of projects. Back in the Thirties, the Communists did a hell of a lot of good work; they were in the vanguard of the labor movement and they played an important role in aiding blacks and Okies and Southern sharecroppers. Anybody who tells you he was active in progressive causes in those days and never worked with the Reds is a goddamn liar. Their platform stood for all the right things, and unlike many liberals, they were willing to put their bodies on the line. Without the Communists, for example, I doubt the C.I.O. could have won all the battles it did. I was also sympathetic to Russia in those days, not because I admired Stalin or the Soviet system but because it seemed to be the only country willing to stand up to Hitler. I was in charge of a big part of fund raising for the International Brigade and in that capacity I worked in close alliance with the Communist Party.
ALINSKY: I knew plenty of Communists in those days, and I worked with them on a number of projects. Back in the Thirties, the Communists did a hell of a lot of good work; they were in the vanguard of the labor movement and they played an important role in aiding blacks and Okies and Southern sharecroppers. Anybody who tells you he was active in progressive causes in those days and never worked with the Reds is a goddamn liar. Their platform stood for all the right things, and unlike many liberals, they were willing to put their bodies on the line. Without the Communists, for example, I doubt the C.I.O. could have won all the battles it did. I was also sympathetic to Russia in those days, not because I admired Stalin or the Soviet system but because it seemed to be the only country willing to stand up to Hitler. I was in charge of a big part of fund raising for the International Brigade and in that capacity I worked in close alliance with the Communist Party.