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Cesar Alinsky : Models Of Liberation Sociology

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Popular sayings are part of our folklore and wisdom. One of those popular sayings is “if you want to know yourself you need to know your history.” By knowing our history, we can appreciate what our ancestors have made for our freedom, besides by knowing our history we are able to develop theories and those theories could be used to improve our society. In chapters 5-9 the authors give us an account of the history of sociology activists, sociologists participatory actions and theories developed by sociologists.
The authors present on this chapter five the sociologists which are models of liberation sociology. One of the main activists is Alinsky. According with the text, Alinsky founded the industrial areas foundation IAF and with this organization helped to improve the lives of working class people by promoting the increase of their salaries (136). It is important to highlight that those sociologists such as Alinsky who practiced liberation sociology were mainly from Chicago or received training from Chicago’s organizations. One example would be Cesar Chavez a farmworker’ movement leader (139). By following Alinsky‘s example many organizations were created around united states. Organizations such as C.C.H.D. who fought against poverty and justice for immigrants (138). The authors offered a definition of the term radical, meanwhile today’s society could see or interpret the world with negative connotations activist radicals “fought for the right of men to govern

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