Wade Rathke
| Wade Rathke | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 5, 1948 |
| Residence | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Alma mater | Williams College |
| Occupation | Organizer |
| Known for | Founder of ACORN |
| Partner(s) | Beth Butler |
| Website | WadeRathke.com |
Wade Rathke (born August 5, 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. He was ACORN's chief organizer from its founding in 1970 until June 2, 2008, and continues to organize for the international arm. 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 three of his books.
Rathke and his partner, Beth Butler, live in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Wade Rathke was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he attended local schools and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School. He attended Williams College, a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from 1966 to 1968. 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).
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."
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