For the early history of the Sokagakkai in Japan please go to the website: sokagakkai.html and Sokagakkai For the history of Sokagakkai in the USA go to nsa.html
Sokagakkai began to become an international organization with the occupation of Japan when American GI's started interacting with poor Japanese Women with no real marriage prospects in Japan. Second President Toda had encouraged a massive "Shakubuku" campaign in Japan and that campaign reached out to the poor, the sickly, the lower class, and people whom other religions ignored. When Toda died there were already a few of these "war-brides" and some of their husbands had shown an interest in true Buddhism. In 1960 Daisaku Ikeda became President of the Sokagakkai in 1960 visited the United States, as he writes in his book "The New Human Revolution." He encouraged the members who were already living abroad to keep up their practice, become good citizens of their adopted countries, and to propagate Buddhism in those countries. They did just that. For more on this visit the page nsa.html. Propagation also occured in dozens of other countries such as Ghana, Brazil, Brittain, and much of Asia. Most of these efforts were loosely affiliated with the Sokagakkai, and all of them with Nichiren Shoshu.
President Ikeda had been leading major campaigns all over Japan. Others, either as his disciples or in imitation of his efforts, lead campaigns all over the world. One of these people was Masayasu Sadanaga, who came to this study to study Government and Politics and stayed to lead the Sokagakkai USA, then known as Nichiren Shoshu. (See nsa.html). Other leaders popped up in other countries, such as Richard Causton in Britain, Joseph Asomani in Ghana, Peter Kuhn in Germany, and other Japanese nationals who found themselves "leading the way" in various countries such as Malaysia or Indonesia. Such efforts had the best "flowering" when there was cooperation and mutual respect (itai Doshin) between the Japanese members and any "native" members. The members often exerted themselves to heroic extremes in their efforts to create "World-Wide Kosenrufu" in the spirit of "Rissho Ankoku." The SGI was so successful that the High Priests forbade any other Hokkeko groups and the priests themselves from leading propagation efforts -- until 1991.
I'm still trying to sort through my memory and the facts. But here is what I have on the history so far:
In 1975 the Sokagakkai founded The International Buddhist Federation. On the 17th of October 1980 this organization had it's first General meeting as the SGI -- Sokagakkai International. By then President Ikeda had been able to ride out the "stormy furor" that was created by rivals and the priests in the late seventies by siding with Nikken in his battles against the Shoshinkai. In 1985 SGI World got a charter and eventually organizations like NSA were renamed as constituents of this parent organization. Thus the current Gakkai organization in the USA is SGI-USA. This organization is supposed to be an equal partner with Sokagakkai Japan according to it's charter. However in fact the Gakkai outside of Japan is treated with a sort of paternalism.
The SG and SGI inherited a pyramid structure from those days with Nichiren Shoshu. In the early days, when there were few long term members, it was wise that the long term members also be "leaders" and be consulted by more junior members. However, as the organization is maturing it needs to consider different structures, different controls, and the danger that the day may come when the "leaders" have no faith and instead might actually try to take advantage of the members, behave in an authoritarian manner, or even seek to repress the membership and disregard their views. (See this link: sigissue.html. The notion that a capable few lead the way is still true, but the likelihood of finding that capable few in SGI Corporate diminishes with every year that passes.
When the "Split" occured with Nichiren Shoshu (See temple.html SGI international was uniquely positioned to continue without Nichiren Shoshu. This was because Ikeda was in complete charge, it controlled not only the local organizations, but the translation and communication apparatus, even that nominally belonging to Nichiren Shoshu. It took Nichiren Shoshu years to even talk of translating their own canon because the Gakkai owned the copyrights not only to the translated "Major Writings" but to the Gosho Zenshu itself. While SGI-USA could have continued with Nichiren Shoshu, and Mr. Williams had every reason to do so, Mr. Williams steered the organization to stay with the Gakkai -- at the expense of being fired from his job. Nichiren Shoshu only had one trump card, and that was it's doctrine of the face to face inheritance which the Gakkai had perfectly parroted and inculcated into members for years-- and their ownership of a few Temples. Because of that training, some members stayed with Nichiren Shoshu but most didn't.
On the other hand NST owned the Gohonzon, it's copyrights and the supreme Gohonzon that had been worshiped by the Gakkai, the "DaiGohonzon." Unfortunately these things could not be dispensed with For that reason NST is now preparing the "Shinpen". And the Gakkai is issuing it's own Gohonzon. Because of the degree to which the two organizations were welded together and the extreme tensions of welding together two disparate organization the split has been very acrimoneous and personal.
The SGI and SGI USA are involved in a lot of movements that aren't tied directly to Nichiren Buddhism. They support peace initiatives, movements against violence, and cultural activities. Some of these played a role in the split with the priests. For some strange reason they hated the playing of "Ode to Joy" at SGI events. They figured that singing this song was tantamount to praising the Judeo-Christian god or praising Christianity. That anyone would see it as "just a song" or better, see the Zuiho Bini distinctions between those things about these religions that are inimical to human happiness/emancipation (and thus slander the Dharma) and those things that are not. The Gakkai now plays that song frequently. I guess the idea was to teach the priests that respect is a two way street. So far it hasn't worked out that way. The Gakkai is even more despised since the "Split" than it was before the split, and now is loosing people outside of Japan to other Nichiren Sects and to becoming "Independents." The reasons are discussed at these sites: sgissue.html and IRGissues.html. It is difficult to get respect unless you give it, require it, and are willing to confront things (in a nice way) up front. By going along with the priests from 1978-1991 the SGI made a cause to not get respect when they finally did the "right thing" and admitted that they had "irreconcilable differences" with the priests.
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