Organizing the South Bronx (Suny Series the New Inequalities) [Paperback]

Jim Rooney (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For urban social-change activists, the strategies and movements inspired by the late Saul Alinsky are the stuff of legend. Alinsky, who died in 1972, taught professional organizers to serve as catalysts, enabling local residents in poor communities to form and control their own movements. Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) has been around for decades. But because the IAF's activities have received little publicity, just how Alinsky-style movements work is not well known. Now Rooney, a Rye, N.Y., high school teacher, has given us a valuable study of South Bronx Churches (SBC), an IAF project begun in one of the nation's most blighted urban communities in the late 1980s. This is a thorough and insightful book, combining astute historical research with firsthand reporting of SBC's activities. Rooney describes how suburbanization, government neglect and unwise policy transformed the South Bronx from a model community for upwardly mobile immigrants into a slum. He combines that tale with the story of Alinksy and the IAF, bringing them together at the turn of this decade, as people in a Church-based organization set out to reform their community and how it's governed. Along the way, the author gives nuts-and-bolts organizing lessons, making this a useful tool for students and others interested in social change and community empowerment.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (December 31, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791422100
• ISBN-13: 978-0791422106
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,698,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Organizing the South Bronx, by Jim Rooney, May 5, 2001

By 

Kenneth Govas (Chicago,, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organizing the South Bronx (SUNY Series on the New Inequalities) (Hardcover)

I recall reding this book about 4 years ago. My recollection is that Rooney did a good job of explaining how he came to study education in the Bronx and discovered Industrial Area Foundation organizing in the South Bronx around the issues of better public education and affordable housing in particular. I thought he did a good job of gaining valuable access to the organization, its leaders and organizers. His interviews and insights were very interesting. I must admit being of a fan of this kind of Faith-based organizing myself having seen it be effective in Chicago as it has been in Rooney's description of the Bronx. Faith-based plus other institutions can democratically improve neighborhoods and revitalize citizen democracy in all types of neighborhoods from the Bronx to Westchester County.

2.0 out of 5 stars Rooney adores SBC, but he doesn't analyze its work., July 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Organizing the South Bronx (SUNY Series on the New Inequalities) (Hardcover)

I was disappointed in this book, but I think many people might still find it well worth reading. Rooney tells the story of South Bronx Churches, an Industrial Areas Foundation affiliate, which came to organize in the Bronx, with the primary purpose of building affordable, single-family homes on some of the Bronx's famous open land.

Unfortunately, Rooney doesn't critically examine anything the SBC people say to him. He presents their opinion, and their own descriptions of their strategies and their results, as fact. It would be more interesting if he were able to evaluate what the group accomplished in comparison to other groups, or in comparison to the goals they set for themselves.

But if one recognizes this fault, one can read much of the history of this significant Bronx organization in these pages.

And I have to say this -- either the author or the publisher should have used a spell-checker on this book.