People Power

Saul Alinsky, according to Time Magazine in 1970, was a ""prophet of power to the people,"" someone who ""has possibly antagonized more people . . . than any other living American."" People Power introduces the major organizers who adopted and modified Alinsky's vision across the United States:

• Fred Ross, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the Community Service Organization and National Farm Workers Association
• Nicholas von Hoffman and the Woodlawn Organization
• Tom Gaudette and the Northwest Community Organization
• Ed Chambers, Richard Harmon, and the Industrial Areas Foundation
• Shel Trapp, Gale Cincotta, and National People's Action
• Heather Booth, Midwest Academy, and Citizen Action
• Wade Rathke and ACORN

Weaving classic texts with interviews and their own context-setting commentaries, the editors of People Power provide the first comprehensive history of Alinsky-based organizing in the tumultuous period from 1955 to 1980, when the key organizing groups in the United States took form. Many of these selections--previously available only on untranscribed audiotapes or in difficult-to-read mimeograph or Xerox formats--appear in print here for the first time.