After Alinsky Community Organizing in Illinois The Woods Charitable Fund how one foundation came to support community organizing sponsored a series of 9 articles about community organizing in Illinois that were published between January 1988 and July 1989 in the monthly public affairs magazine Illinois Issues One of the 9 articles in the series Why organize Problems and promise in the inner city by Barack Obama appeared in the August September 1988 issue of Illinois Issues pp 40 42 Obama s article Why organize Problems and promise in the inner city did not mention Alinsky The 9 articles in the series were reprinted in a book edited by Illinois Issues associate editor Peg Knoepfle After Alinksy Community Organizing in Illinois published in June 1990 with a grant from the Woods Charitable Fund The book also included 30 pages of excerpts from a September 22 1989 roundtable discussion with 8 of the 9 authors of the reprinted articles and several other participants and 25 pages of excerpts from a July 15 1989 interview of Tom Gaudette by Peg Knoepfle Organizing in the 1990s Excerpts from a Roundtable Discussion pp 123 152 in Knoepfle Peg ed 1990 After Alinksy Community Organizing in Illinois Springfield Ill Sangamon State University ISBN 0 9620873 3 5p 124 On September 22 1989 the authors of the articles that make up most of this book got together in Chicago with representatives from Illinois Issues Woods Charitable Fund Inc and other guests for an afternoon discussion John Kretzmann trustee of the Wieboldt Foundation and director of the Urban Studies Program for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest served as moderator Authors taking part in the discussion were Barack Obama Why Organize Also participating were J Michael Lennon publisher of Illinois Issues Sokoni Karanja trustee of the Woods Charitable Fund Inc and executive director of Centers for New Horizons Anne Hallett director of the Wieboldt Foundation Louis Delgado assistant director of the special grants program at the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Other guests from Woods were Lucia Woods Lindley trustee and photographer and program directors Ken Rolling and Daryl Woods Also present was Peg Knoepfle associate editor of Illinois Issues Court reporter Wanda Monterrubio recorded the discussion pp 132 133 Obama Part of the main function of my article and the main function of this book and this conversation is to try to place organizing in a larger context to figure out what kind of animal it is I remember talking to Peter Martinez a Chicago organizer trained by Alinksy awhile back And he said something that I think to some extent I share a view with He said I care about organizing I don t care about community organizing And I think what he meant by that is that organizing has a long tradition in this country It didn t start with Alinksy It didn t stop with Alinksy What it has to do with is How do you include the excluded in this country And its history started with the founding fathers It goes on to the abolitionists It includes people who organize machine politics in Chicago people who organize the black church in the South How do you get people who are on the outside of the mainstream into the mainstream And also how do you get that mainstream to change through that process to get rich and examine itself and remake itself That s the important question And I think what Saul Alinksy came up with was one cut on that