The Self-Proclaimed Radical Organizer Whose Name Is Now a Weapon

On June 12, 1972, Saul David Alinsky, American writer and community organizer, died at the age of 63. An excerpt from the article:

"As the 1960s went on, Alinsky's tactics delivered mixed results, and some localities which had invited were disappointed. In 1971 he published Rules For Radicals, his third and final book. In it, he provides advice for political action and organizing. The book is written in his distinctively irreverent voice, and is filled with entertaining stories that illustrate the lessons he learned over decades of organizing in various communities.

On June 12, 1972, Alinsky died of a heart attack at his home in Carmel, California. Obituaries noted his long career as an organizer.

Emergence as a Political Weapon
After Alinsky's death, some organizations he worked with continued. And Rules For Radicals became something of a textbook for those interested in community organizing. Alinsky himself, however, generally faded from memory, especially when compared to other figures Americans recalled from the socially turbulent 1960s.

The relative obscurity of Alinsky abruptly ended when Hillary Clinton entered electoral politics. When her opponents discovered that she had written her thesis on Alinsky, they became eager to link her to the long-dead self-professed radical.

It was true that Clinton, as a college student, had corresponded with Alinsky, and had written a thesis about his work (which purportedly disagreed with his tactics). At one point, a young Hillary Clinton was even invited to work for Alinsky. But she tended to believe that his tactics were too outside the system, and she chose to attend law school rather than join one of his organizations.

The weaponizing of Alinsky's reputation accelerated when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008. His few years as a community organizer in Chicago seemed to mirror Alinsky's career. Obama and Alinsky never had any contact, of course, as Alinsky died when Obama was not yet in his teens. And the organizations Obama worked for were not those founded by Alinsky.

In the 2012 campaign, the name of Alinsky surfaced again as an attack against President Obama as he ran for reelection.

And in 2016, at the Republican National Convention, Dr. Ben Carson invoked Alinsky in a peculiar accusation against Hillary Clinton. Carson claimed that Rules For Radicals had been dedicated to "Lucifer," which was not accurate. (The book was dedicated to Alinsky's wife, Irene; Lucifer was mentioned in passing in a series of epigraphs pointing out historic traditions of protest.)

The emergence of Alinsky's reputation as essentially a smear tactic to use against political opponents has only given him great prominence, of course. HIs two instructional books, Reveille for Radicals and Rules For Radicals remain in print in paperback editions. Given his irreverent sense of humor, he would probably consider the attacks upon his name from the radical right to be a great compliment. And his legacy as someone who sought to shake up the system seems secure."