By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The executive director of what was formerly the nation’s first ACORN chapter said he was saddened by the news today that the national ACORN organization is folding.
The community activist organization was founded in Arkansas in 1970 as Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now and expanded into the national Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The national group said today it is shutting down in the face of declining revenues and a scandal that tarnished its image.
Several state chapters broke ties with the national organization this year, including Arkansas ACORN, now known as Arkansas Community Organizations, or ACO.
“I think it’s sad,” said Neal Sealy, executive director of ACO. “We hate to see this happen. I certainly had hoped that a remnant of ACORN would survive to keep fighting in the courts, because ACORN is being vindicated.”
In September, hidden-camera videos surfaced showing what was initially described as a man and woman posing as a pimp and a prostitute and receiving tax tips from ACORN workers in several states, not including Arkansas. Some reports said the man was dressed in a flashy pimp’s outfit.
After portions of the videos appeared on television, Congress took away ACORN’s federal funding and many private donors stopped giving.
Sealy said the true nature of the videos is beginning to come to light, though not in time to save ACORN.
“It was not a pimp and prostitute; it was a prostitute and her boyfriend who were coming to get advice on how to escape a pimp, and that changes the whole dynamic,” Sealy said. “The proper response should have been to call the police or to give them a list of agencies that could help them — that doesn’t change that — but there was nobody appearing in our offices in that outrageous outfit.”
The man behind the videos, James O’Keefe, has since been arrested for allegedly trying to tamper with phones in the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. ACORN workers have also been cleared in several criminal investigations.
“It’s all coming out, (but) I think that the damage was done,” Sealy said.
Sealy said ACO hopes to carry on the community-organizing work formerly done by the ACORN chapter, but in new and innovative ways.
“I think that there is a need for organizing in low-to-middle-income neighborhoods and that there will be great support for that,” he said.
