Stephen Wade Rathke (born 1948) is a community and labor activist who founded the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 1970 and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 100 in 1980 (now United Labor Unions Local 100). He was ACORN's chief organizer from its founding in 1970 until June 2, 2008, and continues to be chief organizer of ACORN International and United Labor Unions Local 100. He is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Social Policy, a quarterly magazine for scholars and activists. The magazine's publishing arm has published four of his books. He is also a radio station manager of KABF He and his younger brother Dale were raised in Colorado and New Orleans, Louisiana, where they attended local schools and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School.
Rathke attended Williams College, a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from 1966 to 1971. While there, Wade organized draft resistance for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later organized welfare recipients in Springfield and Boston, Massachusetts for the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO).
ACORN
Founding
Rathke began his career as an organizer for the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in Springfield, Massachusetts. After working with the NWRO, he left for Little Rock, Arkansas to found a new organization designed to unite poor and working-class families around a common agenda. As founder and chief organizer of ACORN, Rathke first hired Gary Delgado, among many notable community and labor organizers over the years. They developed a replicable model of "forming membership organizations and developing leaders in low-income neighborhoods -- relying substantially on young middle-class staff working for subsistence wages."
This community organizing initiative in Arkansas eventually developed as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the largest organization of lower income and working families in the United States, with almost 500,000 dues-paying families spread across about one-hundred staffed offices in American cities. The Institute for Social Justice has been developed to serve as ACORN's training arm. According to the Times, Wade Rathke "said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a 'weapon' into the hands of enemies of Acorn, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to ACORN's often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers." A whistleblower revealed the embezzlement in 2008. On June 2, 2008, Dale Rathke was dismissed, and Wade resigned that same day as ACORN's chief organizer. He continues as chief organizer for ACORN International, Inc.
Radio
Since 2013, Rathke has returned to the 100,000-watt radio station KABF-FM 88.3 as its station manager.
Documentary
In 2017, the documentary film about Rathke titled The Organizer was released. It was directed by Nick Taylor and distributed by Grasshopper Film.
Publications
- Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families (2009)
- The Battle for the Ninth Ward: ACORN, Rebuilding New Orleans, and the Lessons of Disaster (2011)
- Edited Global Grassroots: Perspectives on International Organizing (2011)
- Nuts and Bolts: The ACORN Fundamentals of Organizing (2018)