Civil Rights Events
Chicago Freedom Movement
Climax, Conclusion
"In glaring contrast to the arrests and beatings inflicted on
Afro-Americans for the crime of opening fire hydrants for children to
play in, few of the violent whites guilty of assault, battery, and
arson are arrested at all, and fewer still are charged with serious
offenses. An AFSC leader notes the friendly relations between whites
in the mob and white cops. A federal official with the Community
Relations Service concludes that the marchers were given, "very
little protection." Al Raby states,
"It
is clear that the police were either unwilling or unable to disperse
the riotous mob that so brutally attacked Negroes and whites who had
come to the community to seek open housing in compliance with the
law. The failure ... is especially appalling [since] huge masses of
police and National Guardsmen were mobilized to put down the violence
of a few hundred Negroes on the West Side." — New York Times,
August 2, 1966.
But
the nationwide publicity generated by the violent attacks, and the
civic disruption caused by the marches, vigils, and picketing, pose
serious political problems for Mayor Daley. Working class whites
opposed to open housing are a vital part of his machine — but so
are Afro-American voters. If the police crack down on violent whites
to protect Black demonstrators he risks losing white votes; if his
cops fail to protect nonviolent protesters from racists he'll lose
Afro-Americans. And on the national stage, his prestige, power and
influence in Democratic Party politics may be threatened by
continued, unchecked racist violence. Daley meets with leaders of the
angry white communities, "Ignore the marchers and they'll go
away," he tells them. "[But] law and order is necessary,"
he also warns.
On
Monday, the neighborhood vigils and picketing continue while CFM
leaders plan new marches. Though shocked at the scale and fury of
white rage and violence, they are heartened to see that the number of
protesters — both Black and white — is growing rather than
dwindling out of fear. During the week, demonstrators are mostly
youth and the unemployed, but on weekends they are being joined by an
increasing number of people with jobs.
On
Tuesday and Wednesday, August 2nd and 3rd, several hundred march
against the Parker-Finney real estate agency in the Belmont-Cragin
district of the Northwest Side. Some 150 cops manage to hold back a
thousand hostile, jeering, whites who sing an impromptu ditty that
becomes popular among White Power advocates:
"Oh
I wish I were an Alabama trooper.
Oh,
how happy I would be.
If
I were an Alabama trooper,
I
could kill niggers legally."
When
racists in the crowd hurl objects at the marchers, the cops take a
more active stance than they had in Gage Park, though, again, only a
few of the violent whites are actually arrested. The stark contrast
in police reaction to white violence as opposed to Black civil unrest
is glaringly self-evident to anyone willing to look. But by and
large, the mass media chooses not to notice it.
On
Thursday evening, the 4th of August, there is another big mass
meeting at New Friendship church on the South Side. Late on Friday
afternoon, a large car caravan ferries 700 or so demonstrators to
Marquette Park where close to 1,000 cops wait to guard them on
another march to Kedzie and 63rd where courageous bands of protesters
are already picketing several real estate firms.
A
huge mob of 4,000-5,000 whites wait to confront the marchers with
eggs, stones, cherry bombs, and bricks. At first, it's mostly
teenagers and dedicated white-supremacists, but as the evening
advances, adults coming off work join them. The furious throng
gathers at the edge of the park, waving Confederate battle flags and
holding hand-lettered signs with slogans like, "The Only Way to
End Niggers is Exterminate." They chant, "We want Martin
Luther Coon" and, as usual, "Kill the niggers!"
Dr. King steps out of his car and a thrown rock hits him in the
head, dropping him to his knees. Aides help him to his feet and ask
if he's okay. "I think so," he replies (Freedom 7-9).
…
he remained dazed for several moments as the crowd chanted, “Kill
him, kill him.” Then he rose and marched on. Timuel Black was just
steps behind King when the rock struck him. As Black recounts, “I
said to myself, ‘If one of them bricks hit me, the nonviolence
movement is over.’ ”
King told reporters: “Oh,
I’ve been hit so many times I’m immune to it.” Later, he added,
“I have to do this—to expose myself—to bring this hate into the
open” (Bernstein
27).
The
tight-packed marchers press up Kedzie behind a wedge of club-swinging
police clearing a path through the mob. Stalwarts from the Black
gangs try to nonviolently protect the protesters from rocks and
bricks. Cherry-bomb explosions sound like gunfire. People flinch, but
they keep marching (Freedom 9)!
The veteran political consultant Don Rose, who was King’s press
secretary during his time in Chicago, remembers the terror he felt
crossing Ashland Avenue, which marked Englewood’s color line at the
time. It went from complete peace and quiet on one side, he says, to
thousands of screaming, jeering, and taunting whites on the other. A
mob had gathered on a grassy knoll nearby, he says, waving
Confederate flags and yelling “Niggers go home!” and “We want
Martin Luther Coon.” An extra large police force—under Daley’s
orders—escorted King and the marchers through the park as rocks,
bottles, eggs, and firecrackers rained down on them.
Andrew Young describes a
moment from that day that stands out in his memory: “I remember
this young woman running up in front of the march and getting in Dr.
King’s face and calling him all sorts of vile names, just spewing
out venom. He said, ‘You know, you’re much too beautiful to be so
mean.’ And it stunned her. She turned around and walked away. And
when we came back through that neighborhood on the way to the cars,
she came back out of the crowd again and said, ‘Dr. King, I’m
sorry, I don’t want to be mean. Please forgive me’” (Bernstein
24-25).
Again,
white demonstrators and clergy in vestments are particular targets of
hate. Rabbi Marx is struck by a thrown brick but marches on. One
furious white woman shrieks at Afro-American cleric George Clements,
"You dirty nigger priest!" Blood flows down the faces of
those trying to protect King as the column finally reaches 63rd where
the picket groups have been surrounded by racists chanting, "White
Power!"
The
march column absorbs the pickets, and after a brief rally returns to
Marquette Park with the cops holding off the pursuing mob. This time,
no one left cars behind. Instead, a fleet of transit buses and city
vehicles wait to evacuate them back to Friendship church. Whites
attack the buses, smashing windows, pouring sugar into gas tanks, and
setting vehicles on fire. Father Clements is dragged from a city car
and beaten. Once the protesters are gone, the mob turns its fury on
the cops. Screams one middle-aged white man in a business suit, "You
nigger-loving sons of bitches. I'll never vote for Mayor Daley
again!" The police defend themselves with clubs and shots fired
in the air.
Dr.
King tells the press, "I had expected some hostility, but not of
this enormity. I have never in my life seen such hate. Not in
Mississippi or Alabama. This is a terrible thing."
But
more disheartening than the racist violence is the reaction by news
media, political leaders, and the general public. "Bloody
Sunday" in Selma a year earlier had sparked a national outcry
against both violent police repression of peaceful protest and the
South's systematic denial of Black voting rights. Similarly, back in
'63, dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham had helped form a national
consensus that Jim Crow segregation had to go. But while there is
wide-spread revulsion at the crude, hysteric, vicious, racism exposed
by the open housing marches, there is little evidence of any surge in
support for addressing northern economic injustices, or enacting
open-housing legislation. Most press pundits and editorials condemn
both the violent white- supremacists and the protests. A few, like
the right-wing Chicago Tribune, clearly side with the
white-supremacists. It accuses the protesters of wanting whites to,
"give up your homes and get out so that we can take over"
(Freedom 10-11).
Pressure on Daley continues to mount. Afro-Americans — elected
officials, precinct captains, clergy, and ghetto voters — are
demanding that the Mayor do something about white-racist violence,
slums, and segregated housing. White working class voters and their
ward bosses are furious at the police for using clubs and arrests to
protect the civil rights marchers. Though Daley is not up for
reelection in 1966, Democratic Senator Paul Douglas is. Douglas
supports the open-housing provisions in the draft Civil Rights Act of
1966, and polls show him steadily losing white support — an ill
omen for the future. (In November, Douglas is defeated by Republican
Charles Percy.)
But
while Daley is feeling the heat, so too is the CFM. The massive white
violence has thrown CCCO into disarray. Shocked, dismayed, and
fearing worse to come, some coalition leaders urge caution and a
shift to less provocative tactics. Others are enraged, demanding even
more forceful challenges to white racism. Tensions and arguments
flare. …
With
King, Raby, and others out of town at the SCLC convention,
disagreements and tensions over goals, strategies and tactics roil
the CFM. Then on Monday evening, August 8, Jesse Jackson declares to
a mass meeting at Warren Avenue Congregational Church that he's going
to lead marches into Bogun Park (Ashburn) and Cicero …
...
Jackson's
call creates consternation. For years, parents in the Bogun Park
neighborhood on the Southwest Side have been waging a furious battle
to keep their schools "white-only," and it's expected that
a civil rights march there will trigger violence as great — or
greater — than Gage Park.
Cicero
is worse. An all-white suburban city, it's infamous for its racist
violence. During the day, some 15,000 blue-collar and service
industry Blacks work in Cicero — but none are allowed to live
there. Cicero is an explicit "sundown town," a city that
requires nonwhites to be gone by sunset. Blacks spotted on the
streets after dark face arrest, or violence from white vigilantes.
...
Many
in CFM are furious at Jackson's impromptu call for a Cicero march
which had been discussed but never approved by either the Action or
Agenda Committees.
On
Thursday the 11th, support for mass marches into white areas
continues to erode within the CFM as some of the coalition's main
labor supporters join the archbishop's plea for the marches to end.
SCLC and the more militant CFM leaders reject these calls for protest
moratoriums and announce the Bogun march is on for the next day. …
...
On
Friday the 12th, 700 protesters surrounded by 800 police march into
Bogun. Rocks and bottles rain down on protesters, but the massive
police presence succeeds in holding back the huge crowd of hostile
whites and preventing mayhem.
The
Chicago Conference on Religion and Race, which has close ties to the
business community, announces that a summit meeting will be held on
Wednesday, August 17th. King and Raby know that now is not the time
to back off of direct action. On Sunday, August 14, the Movement
mounts its most ambitious action so far — three simultaneous mass
marches that stretch police resources to the breaking point. Raby
leads some 500 marchers back to Gage Park, Jesse Jackson takes 300
into Bogun, and Bevel leads 400 through the Northwest neighborhood of
Jefferson Park. As has now become the norm, the marchers — half
Black, half white — endure rocks, bottles, cherry bombs, racist
chants, and shrieking epithets of, "Nigger, nigger, nigger!"
...
At
mid-morning on Wednesday, August 17, the summit meeting convenes
around a long horseshoe table in St. James Episcopal Church. The CFM
delegation of 14 is headed by Dr. King and Al Raby. Mayor Daley, city
officials, prominent clergy, and representatives of industry, real
estate, and banking are present. Railroad president and Daley
supporter Ben Heineman presides. All of the 56 participants are men,
a pattern so commonplace that no one questions it — or even takes
notice.
…
Al
Raby presents nine demands distilled from those fixed to the doors of
City Hall on July 10th.
...
The
main opposition comes from the CREB [Chicago Real Estate Board]
.
They argue that they are legally required to represent their clients'
wishes. If a home-owner or landlord doesn't want to sell or rent to
nonwhites there is nothing the broker can do about it. They're not
responsible for racial discrimination, and it's not their role to
fight it.
...
The
discussion bogs down into statements, counter-positions, arguments,
and minutia adding up to no progress at all. By evening everyone is
exhausted.
...
Andy
Young proposes that a smaller working-committee be empowered to
develop concrete proposals "designed to provide an open city."
A group of 12 is appointed and instructed to report back in nine days
on August 26th.
Daley
tells reporters, "There does not seem to be a cessation of the
marches," and the media reports that the summit is a failure —
confirming King's analysis that the power-structure sees the protests
as the problem, not violent racism, discrimination, or the inherent
injustice of the ghetto economics (Summit Meeting 1-10).
On
Friday, CFM testing teams show up at more than 100 real estate
offices in white areas. Daley has one of his subservient municipal
judges issue injunctions barring more than one demonstration in
Chicago per day …
…
Meanwhile,
the summit subcommittee struggles towards a settlement acceptable to
both the CREB and the CFM. They finally produce a draft 10-point
agreement on Thursday, August 25th. …
…
Movement
activists criticize the proposal as falling far short of what they
originally demanded on July 10 and much less than what they asked for
ten days earlier on August 17.
…
On
Friday morning, CFM leaders caucus at the AFSC offices to go over the
proposal. They are deeply divided. Those who fear that continued
marches will lead to mob killings and greater racial polarization
favor accepting the deal as the best that can be achieved in the face
of massive white resistance. As they see it, the threat of the Cicero
march now appears to be their strongest leverage, but the Cicero
action is scheduled for the following day and once it's over, more
neighborhood protests are not likely to win further concessions.
…
The
summit negotiators then reconvene at the Palmer House hotel. City,
business, labor, and religious representatives express their
commitment to the proposed 10 points. The CREB waffles and
equivocates. They claim that real estate brokers would be forced out
of business if required to sell or rent to Blacks. Dr. King directly
confronts them, but they refuse to budge.
…
…
In essence then, neither the city nor the CREB are willing to go
any further than what is already in the 10-point draft. Their
position boils down to, "take it or leave it."
The
meeting is suspended while the Movement delegates caucus. Again they
debate whether or not to accept the proposal and again they are in
disagreement. But with the CFM splitting over continued direct
action, there's little chance they will be able to mount larger, more
powerful marches. Instead they risk numbers and political support
dwindling away to impotence in the face of increased opposition and
continued racist violence.
Reluctantly,
Dr. King decides that it's better to take what they've won so far
rather than gamble it all on the uncertain premise that more marches
will result in a stronger agreement. Rejecting it now, with the CFM
weakened and divided, might well result in a worse offer down the
line — or no settlement at all.
The
document is signed and it's announced that Cicero and all other
open-housing marches are suspended, though the CFM does express its
intent to mount future protests around issues such as employment
discrimination and school segregation.
The
summit agreement is not popular. Whites picket the City Hall with
signs declaring, "Daley Sold Out Chicago" and "Summit
Another Munich." When Dr. King tries to present the settlement
to a mass meeting at Liberty Baptist Church he is drowned out by
hostile chants of "Black Power."
With
his usual grace, he invites one of the critics to address the crowd
from the podium. SNCC activist Monroe Sharp argues that Black folk
should solve their own problems without begging white mayors or
pleading with white neighbors. And he sharply criticizes King and
Raby for canceling the Cicero march, as does Chicago CORE leader
Robert Lucas. West Side Organization (WSO) leader Chester Robinson
states, "We feel the poor Negro has been sold out by this
agreement." And a federal Community Relations Service official
reports, "A general feeling [that the movement had] sold out."
CORE,
SNCC, and other militants from the Action Committee declare their
determination to defy white racism at its most virulent by refusing
to accept cancellation of the Cicero march. …
On
Sunday, September 4, some 250 marchers — 80% Black, 20% white —
cross under the Beltway Railroad on West 16th Street to enter Cicero
from Chicago. Closely guarded by 500 Cook County sheriffs and local
police and 2,000 Illinois National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets,
they are confronted by more than 3,000 jeering whites throwing rocks,
bottles, eggs, and cherry bombs which some protesters equipped with
baseball mitts try to intercept.
The
white supremacists chant "White Power!" The marchers chant
"Black Power!" Insults and epithets are hurled by both
sides. The march halts at Laramie Avenue and 25th Street, the site
where 17-year old Jerome Huey had been beaten to death four months
earlier by whites. A prayer vigil is held and then the marchers
retrace their route back to Chicago. As they are about to exit
Cicero, a large gang of whites suddenly charges them. They are driven
back by club-swinging cops and soldiers thrusting with bayonets.
After
the summit agreement is signed in August, many SCLC staff members are
reassigned to SCLC projects in the South or move on with their lives
by returning to school or their pulpits. But some stay behind to
continue working with tenant organizing, testing compliance with the
agreement, other end-slums programs, and voter registration. Dr. King
continues to live in his Chicago tenement until January of 1967 when
he relocates to write his last book, Where Do We Go from Here:
Chaos or Community?
Jesse Jackson continues organizing the Chicago
branch of Operation Breadbasket and makes Chicago his permanent home.
…
By
late fall, it's clear that the city of Chicago and the real estate
industry are not living up to their promises. Testing of real estate
offices reports continued discrimination against Blacks, yet not a
single broker faces any threat of license revocation. At only one of
CHA's 23 ghetto housing projects is there even a gesture at token
integration, and two new segregated projects are being built. In
March of 1967, Dr. King tells reporters, "It appears that for
all intents and purposes, the public agencies have [reneged] on the
agreement and have, in fact given credence to [those] who proclaim
the housing agreement a sham and a batch of false promises."
Absent
legislation or legal contracts, the only real methods for enforcing
the settlement are the threat of resumed marches and the sanction of
electoral retaliation against Daley. But by the spring of '67, CCCO
is rivened by disputes and recriminations. It's incapable of mounting
effective new open housing protests. Faced with insufficient support
for renewed marches, SCLC responds with a voter-registration campaign
built around the idea that, "slum dwellers can begin to break
the grip of machine politics." The drive fails. In April of
1967, Daley's machine triumphs at the polls. He is reelected Mayor
with 75% of the total vote — and 80% of the Black vote. As a
practical matter, the summit agreement is dead (Summit Agreement
1-9).
Dr.
King accepts as valid many of the complaints and criticisms. He later
tells supporters, "We should have done just what a labor union
does, we should have gone back to the members and voted on whether to
accept the [summit agreement]." And he expresses regret for not
having gone into Cicero. He too questions whether or not they should
have started with a smaller, less centrally controlled city than
Chicago, and whether in retrospect it would have been wiser to focus
on narrower, more practical immediate goals than ending slums.
"Promising to solve all their problems in one summer," was
a tactical mistake he later concludes. But he also understands that
the decisions of the day were forced by the imperatives of the times
— pressures that hindsight often fails to take into account
(Assessment 3).
Works
cited:
“Assessment.”
Chicago Freedom Movement & the War against
Slums. Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December). Web.
https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#1966chi_watts
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