Non-profit organization that recruits and trains activists to spearhead leftwing political issue campaigns
Favors expanded rights for illegal aliens in the U.S.
Founded in 1968, the Center for Community Change (CCC) is a non-profit organization that recruits and trains activists to spearhead leftist "political issue campaigns" and promotes increased funding for social welfare programs by bringing “attention to major national issues related to poverty.”
CCC bases its training programs on the techniques taught by the famed radical organizer Saul Alinsky. Following Alinsky's blueprint for establishing "grassroots" organizations to agitate for social change, CCC states that it has "nurtured thousands of local groups and leaders" across the United States.
Paul Booth (Heather Booth's husband), a founder and former National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society, and the onetime President of the Chicago-based Citizen Action, a group formed in 1969 by trainees from Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation
Former Rep. Ron Dellums (D-California), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee 1993-97. (A letter written by a Dellums staffer to Grenada’s Marxist dictator discovered by U.S. troops as they liberated the island stated besides that toppled Marxist, “The only other person that I know of that [Dellums] expresses such admiration for is Fidel [Castro].”)
The Executive Director of CCC is Deepak Bhargava, who previously worked in various capacities at ACORN. The Center's campaign organizer is Drew Astolfi, who also serves as the Director of Faith Action for Community Equity, a faith-based multicultural organization that seeks to "challenge" the "systems" -- most notably free-market capitalism - "that perpetuate poverty and injustice."
CCC identifies the following as some of its major concerns:
Immigration: CCC endorses the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which advocates amnesty for, unionization of, and increased voter participation by illegal immigrants "as a way to create political power.”
Generation Change: This is CCC's "new effort to recruit, train and support tomorrow's grassroots organizers and leaders."
Native American Project: This is "the heart of [CCC's] efforts to build grassroots leadership, organizational capacity, and a more unified voice among Native Americans for social and economic justice."
Assistance for the Neediest: "In the mid-1990s, policymakers in Washington set out to reform the nation's welfare program. … Today, more people are poor, and those who are poor have slipped deeper into poverty."
The Center for Community Change is a member of the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, which is led by Leslie Cagan, a longtime committed socialist who aligns her politics with those of Fidel Castro's Communist Cuba.
Deepak Bhargava has been CCC's Executive Director since 2002.
On December 1, 2007, CCC sponsored a forum exclusively for thousands of "community organizers" from across the United States. The keynote speaker was then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. While introducing Obama to the crowd, Deepak Bhargava characterized America as "a society that is still deeply structured by racism and sexism." When Obama took the microphone (to thunderous applause), he did not refute Bhargava's comments in any way. He was then asked, "If elected President of the United States, would you agree, in your first one-hundred days, to meet with a delegation of representatives from these various community organizations ...?" Obama replied:
"Yes, but let me even say, before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we're gonna be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We're gonna be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America."
