Flashback: The 4th Estate Covers Oldland Affair

The 4th ESTATE

Vol I No 25 Phone 423-9383 Halifax, N. S. March 26, 1970 10.¢ 20 Pages

HALIFAX READY FOR SAUL ALINSKY

Minorities
Seek Help

The highly successful Encounter on Urban Environment and the contro­versial Robert Oldland fia­sco are difficult acts to fol­low in usually calm Hali­fax.

But the Nova Scotia Hu­man Rights Commission and the Maritime School of Social Work may have a man to top them both.

Saul Alinsky, the most feared social activist in modern time, will be in Halifax March 26-27 to talk with black;Il1dian and white minority groups about how they can best organize themselves to promote change.

Recent developments in Halifax, such as the fail­ure of City Council to de­lay its hiring of Robert Old­land (See, Page 10), have black and labor leaders searching for a power base and methods which will make their presence felt.

OPEN TO PUBLIC

Alinsky will be the cen­tral figure in a two-day set of seminars in which var­ious social development groups will measure their efforts by Alinsky stan­dards. The sessions at St. Mary's University, will be open to the public.

The U. S. organizer of “people's movementsll has won international acclaim for his work with blacks, Indians and poor whites. (See Page 5).

The Encounter on Urban Environment, when 12 highly qualified urban af­fairs experts were brought to Halifax-Dartmoutl1 in late February, began a serious dialogue about the area's problems.

ALINSKY - Page 18

Looking back can sometimes be therapeutic, or have certain benefits attached to it, or is it as the saying goes, all water over the dam that will not be seen again? There’s a song that once had currency and it raised a very important question and it goes like this: if we had a chance to do it all again, tell me, would we?

Would the Robert Oldland affair today bring people to the streets as it did in 1970? Are people as engaged with their government today as they were in the past? Have we just grown so prosperous, or so cynical that values, such as, integrity no longer matter?

What are the lessons of this flashback? Get interactive, write. Given me your views and we’ll given them back here in these pages in a few weeks time and tell you what you said. This is the last posting on this blog and as of November 30, 2006 this blog will be discontinued.

As Always, best wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd