MULLING CHANGE WITH A YOUNG OBAMA IN SPRING GREEN
For the past 29 years, [John] McKnight has split his time between Chicago -- where he is a retired professor of communications studies at Northwestern University -- and a house he owns in rural Spring Green. McKnight was a co-founder of the Gamaliel Foundation in Chicago in 1969. A national training program for community organizers, the foundation initially fought to protect African-American homeowners on Chicago's west side from discrimination by banks and lenders.
It was named after a mentor of the apostle Paul from Christian scripture, which was also a point of reference for the legendary Saul Alinsky, who began community organizing in Chicago in 1938 with the Back of the Yards Community Council in the city's stockyards. McKnight remains a board member of Gamaliel, which now has about 50 affiliates in many states. Obama, the 44th president of the United States, was director of a Gamaliel affiliate called the Developing Communities Project on Chicago's south side from June 1985 to May 1988. It was during those years that Obama came to Spring Green.
