Board of Education desegregation decision in 1954. Ross began organizing and obtained the interest of Saul Alinsky, a well known organizer and head of the Industrial Areas Foundation. In September 1947, Alinsky hired Ross to organize Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles. He organized in Southern California for 6 years before moving on to San Jose, which was the largest Spanish center outside of Los Angeles. Ross worked on voter registration in Riverside County, in the town of Belltown, where there was a segregation problem in the public schools. The Mexican and African-American children were all attending one school and the Anglo children were picked up by a bus and taken to another school. There was a bond election to provide funding to fix the predominantly Anglo school, but there was to be no money spent on the other school. The mainly Hispanic area was the Casa Blanca barrio, but their city council representative was an orange grower that refused to visit the people and address their grievances because of previous worker strikes against him. Ross, alongside numerous NAACP workers, registered voters in this area and unified the Hispanic community to vote against the orange grower in the city council election. Belltown eventually integrated the schools and the bonds passed. After this experience, Ross began to believe in the success of his type of organization. From then on, Ross and the CSO established two broad-based programs wherever they went – voter registration and citizenship classes. It was during his organizing in Southern California that Ross developed the house-meeting technique that he would soon teach to Cesar Chavez; it would become the hallmark tactic of the UFW. Although many sources state Saul Alinsky trained Ross and Chavez, Ross claims it is not true. He says, "I'd been at it over a year before I met him." The house-meeting technique involved about a three-week period in which Ross would hold small house meetings to build up to one large organizing meeting to set up temporary officers. Then there would be more house-meetings for several more weeks to lead up to another larger meeting to set up a working CSO chapter. Fred Ross Sr. trained a myriad of successful organizers during his lifetime. The most renowned of these organizers are Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and his son, Fred Ross Jr. Ross recruited Cesar while he was in San Jose; at first when Ross Sr. visited Chavez at his home, he was doubtful of his intentions. However, he soon saw that Ross was a man whose life calling was to help people in need. Chavez believed in Ross's technique and after their first house meeting, he accepted Ross's offer to join the CSO.