Edward Chambers, Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) National Director, died 10 years ago on April 26, 2015.  We stop to remember "Big Ed” Chambers, as Studs Terkel affectionately and respectfully called him, for his leadership to create the modern IAF after the death of IAF’s founder & Ed Chambers’ mentor Saul Alinsky.  

IAF organizers and leaders are inheritors of the IAF legacy Ed Chambers created along with other organizers and leaders of his and our generation—50+ IAF organizations across the US and abroad, 130 professional organizers and many thousands of trained leaders building and wielding power, doing politics, and winning proudly and strategically to make change on housing, immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, and more at the local level, state, and national levels.  We share these remembrances from 10 years ago to honor Ed Chambers—our teacher, agitator, and public friend.

Willam Chambers

Sam Freedman in New Yorker

Michael Gecan, IAF Co-Director Emeritus

Sister Christine Stephens, former IAF Co-Director