Riessman on Alinsky: Again
Schulman, Jay
Frank Riessman has been conducting a vendetta against Saul Alinsky for some time: first an article in Transaction and now one in DISSENT ("The Myth of Saul Alinsky," July—August 1967)....
...There is much that radicals can learn from Alinsky about the strategies of accumulating and exercising counter-power...
...The new dimension in the struggle between FIGHT and Kodak has not been jobs for the hardcore unemployed, important as that is, but FIGHT's right to represent the underclasses directly in negotiations with Rochester industry...
...Riessman's animus toward Alinsky notwithstanding, he does raise an important question when he asks whether old or new Leftists have anything to learn from Alinsky...
...Although Rochester Jobs Inc...
...Apparently, these radicals feel there is more to be learned from an able organizer who understands the use of power than there is from insider intellectuals like Riessman who remain tied to familiar categories, sounding credos, and who dab ble as organizers on the side...
...FIGHT had about $5,000 in its treasury after two full years of operation...
...If on the other hand "reach" means, have a considerable number of these people's lives or attitudes been affected by FIGHT, the answer is unqualifiedly yes...
...Of the potential riot-makers 17 per cent also saw FIGHT as a possible alternative to civil insurrection...
...Moreover, these criteria presumably could be applied to weigh the effectiveness of any form of community organization or social movement, not just the work of Alinsky...
...Whether these leaders and their successors will move on to another stage where alliances with radicals, regardless of color, are considered politically desirable, is another question...
...In this brief comment, I shall ask whether the FIGHT organization in Rochester, using Riessman's own criteria, is the failure Riessman asserts it (and Alinsky) to be...
...First, it shows that a conservative industrial and financial leadership can be pressured into participation in social innovation...
...FIGHT, whether Alinsky likes it or not, is and will be greatly influenced by the impetus that is being built up by the black power movement and by white reaction...
...The first result has been to demonstrate that it is possible to meld hitherto inarticulate elements of the new Negro middle classes into a black power type organization espousing the aspirations of the ghetto underclasses...
...The coming of the Urban League to Rochester was the direct result of the 1964 riot and the resulting call to Alinsky...
...If the past offers any lesson, it is that the more successful a protest group is in having its demands met, the more likely it is to moderate its demands and to develop vested interests in protecting its newly found status...
...But there are signs of such a possibility...
...Indeed, if anything, Riessman's broadside against Alinsky suggests why Alinsky seems relevant to members of the New Left...
...Thus a new middle-ground agency was added to the Rochester scene through which the city and employment groups have channeled funds and in which integration-minded Negro leaders have been able to find a leadership role...
...Yet every useful social invention brings with it liabilities...
...A serious racial disorder in Rochester might eliminate FIGHT from the scene...
...Indeed, it is possible that the flow of national and local events may lead to a radicalization of organizations like FIGHT before they level off into respectable defenders of the status quo...
...into existence...
...Finally, there is much that radicals can learn from Alinsky and his disciples of the fellowship that can be had from social conflict...
...If "reach" here means have large numbers of these people become directly involved in the activities of FIGHT, the answer is no...
...Will FIGHT be able to maintain its militant orientation as it becomes more intertwined with establishment agencies in seeking new programs in housing, education, and other areas of ghetto concern...
...That this has been possible with white organizers indicates, in my judgment, the emerging consciousness of the importance of mobilizing counter-power in black ghettos and is a tribute to the professionalism of Alinsky and Edward Chambers...
...Have the activists in FIGHT shown signs of radical politization...
...Will FIGHT survive the next several years, and if so can institutionalization be avoided...
...Have FIGHT's results been new and different to date...
...It is reasonable to expect that FIGHT will be able to raise at least another $5,000 this year...
...Riessman makes use of at least six criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of Alinsky as a community organizer...
...I would answer categorically yes...
...Second, it attests to the readiness of a black power oriented leadership to work with the establishment to meet the needs of poor Negroes...
...What has happened so far in my judgment is that a group of lower-middle-class Negroes whose political orientation was nil or tied to the initiative of white liberals has developed a political consciousness based upon color 764 and the plight of the ghetto underclasses...
...Has FIGHT begun to develop political links with black power organizations in other cities, constituting thereby one link in a national network...
...Frank Riessman's reply to this communication will appear in our next issue...
...it is an expression of forces that are crystallizing throughout both black and white America...
...Frank Riessman has been conducting a vendetta against Saul Alinsky for some time: first an article in Transaction and now one in DISSENT ("The Myth of Saul Alinsky," July—August 1967...
...However, since it is a paradox for whites to act as organizers of black power organizations, the emergence of black power consciousness in all probability will oblige Alinsky to cease direct action as a community organizer of Negroes and concentrate upon training Negroes as organizers...
...Nevertheless, if FIGHT is to continue at its current level of activity with a full-time staff, its officers will have to invent ways of raising funds from the ranks of middle-class Negroes and the underclasses as well...
...Several hundred persons have either obtained jobs through the direct or indirect actions of FIGHT...
...has yet to prove itself, its establishment is notable on at least two counts...
...The second result has been to secure recognition for a black power organization from dominant white industrial organizations like Eastman Kodak and Xerox at a time when white public opinion has become increasingly hostile...
...This political reality depends more, I think, upon the capacity of the black power movement to generate cohesive community organizations in major American cities than it does upon the readiness of FIGHT officials or the will of Alinsky...
...White racism is so pervasive and the problems of the urban ghettos so pernicious that militancy may be maintained over a period of years in spite of local successes...
...The influence of FIGHT was made dramatically clear in the early morn ing of Iast July 24 when Minister Florence was able to prevail upon several hundred youngsters, some of whom had begun to stone police cars, to return to their homes...
...These contacts have been sparse so far...
...On the other hand, FIGHT is not a community organization...
...Beyond the question of Riessman's evidence, there is the logic of his analysis, for his criticisms of Alinsky in DISSENT involve more than the miscellaneous facts of community organization in any one city...
...The continuing availability of federal funds for communityadministered programs will undoubtedly contribute to FIGHT's survival...
...As William Vaughn, chairman of the board of Eastman Kodak, put it, "FIGHT has to be given credit for bringing Rochester Jobs Inc...
...could lead to a deterioration in the services of the public employment agency...
...There is much cising counterpower—and much about the ethics of responsibility and the courage needed in the everyday pursuit of counter-power...
...White churchfunding runs out in March of 1968...
...Rising black solidarity should enable FIGHT to become self-sufficient financially within a year or two...
...A third result has been the formation of Rochester Jobs Incorporated, a new corporation fjnanGed entirely by industry, with a board of directors including representatives from FIGHT and other civil rights agencies, aimed at providing as many as 1,500 jobs, and job training for the unemployed and under-employed...
...Rochester Jobs Inc...
...It is highly unlikely that the churches will care to provide the major funding for a fourth year...
...These people have, in effect, disaffiliated in their public life from the mainstream of white society in order to provide leadership and direction to the black ghetto have-nots...
...is a dramatic example of a new mechanism for seeking a partnership between industrial firms and ghetto organizations...
...The answer depends less upon Alinsky's interest in ideology—for Alinsky is not an ideologue, although he has an ideology—and more upon Alinsky's practical insights into the uses of power in the accomplishment of social change...
...The Board of Urban Ministry's unflagging support of FIGHT could lead to a reorganization of the structure of the Council of Churches that might restrict the Council's role...
...Has FIGHT reached the most deprived members of the Rochester ghettos...
...Riessman's articles are objectionable because he represents them as scholarship although he has made no first-hand study of Alinsky-guided community organizations, has distorted journalistic accounts when to do so has suited his purposes, has selectively chosen available accounts to document his charges, and has offered hearsay as facts...
...Out of 271 Negro young adults interviewed in pool parlors, "dives," barber shops, and on stoops, 220 or 71.2 per cent were aware of FIGHT and 44 per cent of these youngsters were aware of someone who had been helped by FIGHT to make a job contract...
...Rochester Jobs Inc...
Vol. 14 • November 1967 • No. 6
