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History of the
Movement: This type of
community organizing began in Chicago in 1938. Saul Alinsky created the
"Back of the Yards Community Council". The organization operated in the
shadow of Chicago’s stock yards. The community was beset with poverty,
political corruption, gangs, disease, deteriorating housing and
inadequate schools; but most of all it was beset with a sense of
powerlessness. The organization successfully engaged people to change
the conditions of the community. Its motto was, "We shall decide our own
destiny." And to a large extent and for some time, they did just that.
Many organizations were created utilizing the model of the Back of the
Yards Council. Unfortunately most of those organizations have dissolved,
become stagnant, parochial and marginalized; have evolved into social
service, advocacy, or economic development corporations; or have become
the fiefdoms of political hacks. The original mission of empowerment and
expansion of democracy has, all too frequently, been lost. To insure the
promise of community organizing, the Gamaliel Foundation was born.
History of the Gamaliel
Foundation: The Gamaliel Foundation was
originally established in 1968 to support the Contract Buyers League, an
African American organization fighting to protect homeowners on
Chicago’s Westside who had been discriminated against by banks and
saving and loan institutions. In l986, the Foundation was reorganized as
an organizing institute providing resources to community leaders in the
efforts to build and maintain powerful organizations in low income
communities. The Gamaliel Foundation has grown from three to more than
forty-five affiliates in seventeen states and in three provinces of
South Africa.
The Name:
The first Christians were a threat to the
establishment of Israel. The Sanhedrin met to decide the fate of the
leaders of the new religion. Some wanted to kill them. But the wise man
Gamaliel stood up and said "refrain from these men, for if this work be
of men, it will come to naught, but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow
it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." Acts 5: 38, 39.
We work in the hope and the confidence that this work is of God. In
Corinthians, Paul states, I am Paul, a disciple of Gamaliel. Saul
Alinsky made all of his organizers read the letters of Paul because he
regarded his namesake to be one of the greatest organizers of all time.
The Gamaliel Foundation mentors organizers.
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