Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy [Hardcover]

Sanford D. Horwitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 1989

In the course of his flamboyant career as an all-purpose activist, Saul Alinsky went from organizing working-class ethnics in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods to mapping out strategies for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. He enlisted allies-from Catholic clergymen to labor unionists and black activists-in battles waged against opponents from slumlords to the Eastman Kodak corporation. The range of Alinsky's activities, the intensity of his beliefs, and his exhilarating mixture of crudeness and calculation almost vibrate off the pages of this passionate and inspiring biography.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Folk hero to 1960s student activists, community organizer Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) believed that citizenship meant participation and a questioning attitude toward authority. Raised in a Chicago slum by Russian-Jewish parents, he started out as a criminologist working with imprisoned mobsters and teenage gangs. Organizing a neighborhood council in Chicago's stockyard transformed him into a social activist. In this solid biography, Horwitt, a political consultant to advocacy groups, limns two sides of Alinsky: the self-promoter and fundraiser with elitist connections, and the populist who was adept at rallying apathetic, demoralized people against racism, slum landlords, poverty and unresponsive institutions. Alinsky's personal tragedies--his first wife drowned, his second wife had multiple sclerosis--seemed to drive him harder in crusading for social justice. His sharp criticism of what he saw as shortcomings in the civil rights movement and the federal war on poverty make this book timely. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is an important account of a "complex and idiosyncratic" urban populist who insisted that power was the keystone of social change. Horwitt expands on the work done by P. David Finks in The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky ( LJ 7/84) to produce a comprehensive appraisal of Alinksy's "colorful confrontational tactics" as a community organizer and his influence on a "succeeding generation of social activists." Streetwise yet reflective, Alinsky was a true believer in the possibility of American democracy as a means of attaining social justice "for ordinary people." Horwitt has done an especially good job discussing Alinsky's youth and personal life. An insightful and well-written study, recommended for all academic and larger public libraries.
- John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Ut.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 595 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (November 12, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394572432
• ISBN-13: 978-0394572437
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let Them Call Me Rebel, September 29, 2008

By 

Ronald E. Stackler (Malibu, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy (Paperback)

This book is required reading for anyone who is interested in understanding what a "community organizer" is and what he does in Chicago. Barack Obama worked for organizations founded by Saul Alinsky and run by his proteges.
Obama never gives details of his community organizing, but this book tells what he would have been doing for his several years in the 1980's in Chicago: teaching people how to boycott, protest and threaten the economically and politically powerful in order to get what they want.
It is a unique training, to say the least, for a Presidential candidate.

29 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Be thou a man, April 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy (Paperback)

Saul Alinsky was a complex and colorful man of great integrity and a civic activist with world-wide influence. Dedicated to empowering the politically weak and unorganized, Alinsky is rightly credited as the founder of community self-help. In this highly readable account, we come to appreciate Alinsky's empathic genius and his flair for showmanship. He had an uncanny personal gift for discerning which acts of protest would get attention and results, as well as an ability to teach others some of the tricks of the trade. Of all the anecdotes in the book, perhaps the most memorable concerns the time that young Alinsky was hauled before his rabbi for socking a kid who had beat up his own best friend. Alinsky excuses his behavior as "eye for an eye", and part of the "American way". His rabbi's answer is memorable. "You think you're a man because you do what everyone else does. Now I want to tell you something the great Rabbi Hillel said: 'Where there are no men, be thou a man.' I want you to remember that." And Alinsky did.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More hagiography than biography, May 22, 2010

By 

Kenneth Robinson (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy (Paperback)

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.