On March 15, 2010, Fox News reported that ACORN branches were desperately trying to re-brand in an effort to restore federal grant money and other sources of revenue after a extremely controversial video was discovered showing ACORN workers giving tax tips to conservatives dressed as a pimp and a prostitute on how to secure a brothel, exploit fictional child sex victims and evade taxes. Within days of the videos' release, Congress had taken back its funding, private investors held back their funding, and the offices plummeted into financial free fall. With a ruined reputation, ACORN is being removed from doors in New York and California, business cards are being re-printed with different names, but a new brand is not going to change things behind-the-scenes when the majority of the staff remains the same.
ACORN used to be something magnificent. Originally starting off as the National Welfare Rights Organization, the group fought against not only poverty but racism as well.One of the founders of the group, George Alvin Wiley, was a black chemist from New Jersey who had earned his Ph.D at Cornell in 1957. His original group, Congress of Racial Equality, promoted integrated schools and equal opportunities regardless of race for housing and employment. After unsuccessfully trying to become the national director of CORE, he eventually formed another group, P/RAC, Poverty/Rights Action Center under the influence of two Columbia University School of Social Work professors. In June 1966, he set up several demonstrations that led to the creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization. An influential man, Wiley organized local struggles for civil rights and transformed them into a national movement to draw attention to the struggles of poverty and racism.
Wiley then sent Wade Rathke to Little Rock, Arkansas to creatively find a way to build a network of friends and allies to help the NWRO. Despite having to mitigate a deeply divided and fundamentally conservative state run by the political elite. In 1970, Rathke campaigned along with to help low-income families get their basic needs met. Inspired by a clause in Arkansas welfare, this drive help create and keep alive a movement that would later sweep coast to coast. This soon became known as the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).
The group that Wade Rathke originally was a part of, Students for a Democratic Society, had a sister group, The Weatherman, also referred to as the Weather Underground. These left-wing radicals were responsible for 25 bombings and would claim many more in the years to come before their eventual capture by the FBI. The goal of this group was to violently overthrow the United States government as a way to protest the draft, among other things.
Their history is not without it's fair share of scandals and embarrassment. Mr. Rathke wound up resigning as chief organizer when it was brought to light that his brother, Dale, embezzled almost 1 million dollars. In 2008, ACORN members submitted voter registration forms under names such as "Mickey Mouse" and the Dallas Cowboys starting line-up. Despite the honorable intentions under which the organization was founded, years on mismanagement and misguided actions of some employees have wrecked the public's impression of ACORN. Wade Rathke even came under fire for questionable management, and the group quickly worked out a deal to sever all ties that Wade Rathke has with the group.
ACORN's chief executive, Bertha Lewis, was unapologetic when addressing the eye-opening video footage. While she said that the member's behavior was unacceptable, Ms. Lewis was quick to complain about "modern day Acorn McCarthyism". In spite of the fact that the Nevada Secretary of State found policy manuals for the creation of a quota system, which is explicitly illegal and morally reprehensible. It was not, as members would have you believe, just a few rogue members but widespread and well-known throughout the organization.
At this point, it is unclear whether ACORN could ever recover from the negative limelight that's been shining on it the past couple of years. Blame games, a lack of electoral integrity, and mismanagement have spoiled the initial virtue and candor of the group. A name change, along with intense re-organization and a transition to new, better management may save the group, but it will not immediately receive federal funding again. It will take time, an improved level of public trust, and tangible changes before people will turn more than a skeptical eye towards the organization. Without the necessary changes, a rose really is just a rose by any other name.
Sources:
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/wiley-george-alvin-1931-1973
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/acorn-chief-denounces-air-of-mccarthyism/?scp=2&sq=Wade%20Rathke&st=cse
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/16/acorn-getting-adult-supervision/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/us/16acorn.html?_r=1
http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/acorn-update/
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