What is ACORN?
ACORN was originally called the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group founded in Little Rock in 1970 by Wade Rathke, a former member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and a New Orleans union leader.
The group was an offshoot of the National Welfare Rights Organization, founded by George Wiley to launch a socialist revolution in New York City using welfare mothers on the front lines. Wiley was instrumental in doubling that city’s welfare rolls.
Later renamed the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization with major offices in New Orleans, New York and Washington, D.C. Its official website (ACORN.org) claims to have 400,000 registered community members and more than 1,200 chapters in 110 U.S. cities, but doesn’t include the number of paid workers.
According to Discoverthenetworks.org, ACORN also “owns two radio stations, a housing corporation, and a law office, and maintains affiliate relationships with a host of trade-union locals.
ACORN also runs schools where children are trained in class consciousness; a network of ‘boot camps’ for training street activists; and operations that extort contributions from banks and other businesses under threat of racial violence and trumped-up civil rights charges.”
The ACORN Housing Corporation, which was heavily involved in forcing banks to underwrite sub-prime mortgages, has offices in 34 cities. Its revenue in 2006 was $6.9 million. — Barbara Hollingsworth
