A Chicago socialist of the early 1900’s, son of Russian immigrants, he literally “wrote the book” on community organizing. Rules for Radicals defined guidelines for bringing “revolutionary change.” Alinski sought to organize the “Have-Nots on how to take power,” so to change "the world from what it is to what they believe it should be.”
Alinsky’s strategy was to use the system so that the mass of people “must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.” The revolution would then come when the lowest 40% class eventually cease to be passive.
Alinsky influenced the entire Chicago social political scene, and touched all of the areas Obams worked in as an organizer, lawyer and legislator.
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