Gordon Sherman. Now there’s a name out of the past. A sugar daddy to the Left in the 1960’s, early 70’s, along with Stewart Mott (GM heir), one of the Stern’s, old communist sympathizer Cyrus Eaton, CPUSA sympathizer Ed Lamb, the Field Foundation of the old Soviet spy Frederick Field, and the D.J. Bernstein Foundation.
Sherman was so left that he was ousted as the head of Midas Mufflers in an internal coup, and faded into obscurity.
However, he gave the Left a lot of money and did a lot of damage to the U.S.
I suspect he funded, in part, the old Socialist Scholars Conferences of the 60’s or similar affairs. Google his name and see what pops up.
Power to the People: Thirty-five Years of Community Organizing
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Methodical training of community organizers can be dated from 1969, when Midas Muffler founder Gordon Sherman gave Alinsky a sizable grant. As IAF executive director, Edward Chambers continued the program following Alinsky’s death in 1972, setting training at the heart of IAF’s expanded organizing activity, centered on broad-based organizations, built around religious congregations and parishes and often including civic associations and labor unions.
IAF’s most successful projects have been based in Texas, where Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) in San Antonio helped elect Henry Cisneros as the city’s first Hispanic mayor. As IAF state director, Ernesto Cortes, Jr. built a powerful network of six affiliates, collectively known as Texas Interfaith; he is now the IAF southwest regional organizer.
IAF’s East Brooklyn Congregations set up Nehemiah Homes to build 2,100 low-cost houses and became a model for federal housing assistance. Baltimore’s BUILD has tackled education, jobs, and housing. IAF presently has 57 affiliates in 21 states, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
The IAF model of organizing religious congregations into powerful local and regional networks has been taken up by three other groups — PICO, Gamaliel, and DART — most of whose leaders got their start with IAF.
*snip*
The Gamaliel Foundation, created in Chicago in 1968 to assist a low-income African-American community, was reoriented to focus on community organizing when Gregory Galluzzo was hired as executive director in 1986. Seeing its basic function as training and leadership development, Gamaliel’s goal is “to assist local community leaders to create, maintain and expand independent, grassroots, and powerful faith-based community organizations.” Gamaliel is also refocusing its efforts on wider metropolitan areas and assessing how to impact national policy on immigration reform. As of 2008 Gamaliel has 60 affiliates in 21 states, Britain, and five provinces of South Africa, and claims to represent over a million people.
DART, the Direct Action and Research Training Center, was founded in 1982, and has 20 affiliated organizations in six states. John Calkins is the executive director. DART is headquartered in Miami, Florida, and practices strictly congregation-based community organization. DART conducts five-day orientation trainings for community leaders and has a four-month training program for organizers.
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, began in 1970 as a spin-off from the National Welfare Rights Organization, founded by George Wiley, who enlisted civil rights workers and trained them in an Alinsky-influenced program at Syracuse University.
From a base in Arkansas, Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado developed a replicable model of forming membership organizations and developing leaders in low-income neighborhoods — relying substantially on young middle-class staff working for subsistence wages.
ACORN has established local housing corporations to rehabilitate homes, and has successfully pressured banks to provide mortgages and home improvement loans in low-income communities. ACORN has led “living wage” campaigns in many cities, and has forged alliances with labor unions. The Institute for Social Justice serves as ACORN’s training arm. ACORN claims some 350,000 member families in 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities.
More socialism history and currently
http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/wallsd/community-organizing.shtml
Mr. Mott, who listed himself as "philanthropist" in the Manhattan phone book, died at age 70 in June 2008.
His giving went toward causes like birth control, abortion rights, sex research, arms control, feminism, civil liberties, governmental reform, gay rights and research on extrasensory perception.
I think you must have had an entire generation of rich dumbshites who never had to work to earn their keep.