The Democratic Promise Summary

In the film, “The Democratic Promise”, Alinsky believed in social justice. In order to obtain social justice, Alinsky believed it was up to the people to go for it. The movie states a statement by Alinsky, “Only thing you’ll get, is what you’re strong enough to get.” (The Democratic Promise) It was not the money the people didn’t have it was the people themselves who could make a difference, only if the band together. Alinsky went in to the slums of Chicago, where he organized “The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council”. The Council included, people from the churches, the union and over 100 organizations.
In order to legitimized the union, Alinsky started targeting large corporations with the demands of equal and fair labor laws. In order

to be taken serious, Alinsky applied pressure to the large corporations, Armour for example. Several days after their meeting a labor rally took place which eventually brought home a victory, Armor recognized BYNC as legitimate. This was the birth of the new model of democratic participation.
Alinsky, was soon called into a predominately black community, in Rochester, New York who was suffering economically from a lack of jobs.

In the beginning, the people were skeptical about a having a white man lead them, however, that soon changed. Alinsky created FIGHT. FIGHT made an agreement with Kodak, stating that they will provide 600 jobs to unemployed blacks. One of the men from Kodak confirmed with the agreement. However, later, Kodak re-nigged on the agreement. Alinsky did not allow them to get away with this. He came up with the idea to buy stock within Kodak and apply pressure at every shareholder meeting. This tactic forced Kodak back to the strategy table. Eventually, the people of FIGHT were

victorious.
Finally, Alinsky believed in “Revolution not Revelation”. He had a training institute where he taught top organizers how to organize and form organizations. He was a firm believer in people banning together. Most importantly, he believed that the poor and middle class needed to band together and take what they deserve from the “Haves”.
Recently, two organizations took the words of Alinsky and applied it to their own organizations.

The “East Brooklyn Congregations” was an organization who was fighting for housing projects to be built in the surrounding neighborhood. Alberta Williams (women of the church) and Irving Domenech (man in the neighborhood) and others from the community band together. Similar to Alinskys’ tactics, democracy starts with the people. People conversing about issues in their neighborhoods is the beginning to a successful plan. In the EBC a few people from the community came together and talked about the issues in the community and came up with a solution, “Nehemiah Plan” which was a plan to build affordable homes in their community. Again, similar to Alinsky, the organization applied pressure to the mayor by putting him on the spot. This tactic was to see if they can get him to say or agree with something he wouldn’t normally say or agree to. EBC threatened to stage a rally if the mayor didn’t attend their rally. The mayor showed up and it was confirmed that the Nehemiah project would

happen.
Another project was the Alliance School in Texas. This program helps transform low performing schools into to high performing schools. With the funding from the state the organization would be able to reach out to more schools and continue these transformations. The Alliance School Organization took a group of people to the state capital where they were determined to speak with the States legislature representative. Again, like Alinsky, the organization applied pressure to the State Legislature into coming to an upcoming rally and advocating for the funding of the program. The rally was a success, the organization received the funding they needed, but that didn’t stop them. Right after the rally, the people in the organization reflected on the event and what they could always improve on.
I do believe these tactics are useful today because in order for change people need to come together and apply pressure to anything they believe is unfair and needs to be changed. For example, many people like students, faculty, residents, etc. do not want the stadium to be built. If we follow Alinskys’ tactics by all banning together an establishing a organization for ourselves and begin to apply pressure, we could have a chance to be heard. Democracy starts with the people.