Chicago Freedom Movement
Inroads
For all of the hoopla
surrounding King’s arrival, the campaign started slowly. King spent
his first weeks touring the city and meeting with local activists,
city officials, and ghetto residents (Bernstein
1).
Working with
Rev. Clay Evans of the Chicago Baptist Ministers Conference and Al
Pitcher a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, SCLC staff
member and divinity student Jesse Jackson begins organizing a chapter
of SCLC's Operation
Breadbasket. This is a program that
uses church-led consumer boycotts to combat job discrimination and
open up employment opportunities for nonwhites — an
effort that finds favor among Afro-American clergymen who are
reluctant to participate in militant protests or directly confront
the Daley machine around a hot-button issue like segregated housing.
King addresses
a meeting of more than 200 Black ministers who form committees to
investigate, and if necessary target, racist hiring practices in the
food industry, particularly soda-pop, milk, bread, and soup companies
all of which sell well in the ghetto. By late spring they are having
some success — 75 Afro-Americans hired by two milk
companies and 44 at a third, for one example. But the Daley machine
strikes back. Evans is erecting a new church. Suddenly, without
explanation, his city building permits are withdrawn — halting
construction for seven years (Steps 1).
SCLC leaders and organizers like Bevel, Andy Young, Big James
Orange, and Jimmy Collier begin working with the Vice Lords,
Blackstone Rangers, Cobras, and Roman Saints, urging them to stop
fighting each other, support the CFM, and participate in nonviolent
direct action.
At first they make scant progress. But they persist. Orange is
beaten by gang members, not once but several times. He maintains
nonviolence and he doesn't quit. Gradually he begins winning respect.
Eventually, Bevel reports great success, and Dr. King addresses a
"gang convention" at the Palmer House hotel. "From
that period on," Orange later recalled, "we worked with
these guys." Later on, some of the gang members guard Dr. King
from racist attack, while others act as marshals on the mass marches
into white neighborhoods that begin at the end of July.
…
But while some gang members do commit to tactical nonviolence as a
requirement for participating in SCLC-led protests, the large number
that Bevel hopes to recruit for his "freedom army" does not
materialize. Most remain unwilling to forego their enmity with rival
gangs, participate with whites in interracial actions, or accept
nonviolent discipline — even temporarily (Ghetto 2).
Late in February, five desperate residents of a tenement on South
Homan in the West Side ghetto ask Dr. King for help. They have no
heat or electricity. Trash and garbage are not being collected. The
landlord is doing nothing, and neither are city officials. There are
20 children living in the four occupied flats (the other two are
empty). On a frigid winter day, Dr. King leads some 200 marchers to
their dilapidated apartment house. King declares they are "seizing"
the building and placing it in "supralegal trusteeship" so
they can repair it. The Movement will collect the roughly $400/month
rent on behalf of the tenants and use the money to make the place
habitable. "The moral question is far more important than
the legal one," he tells reporters who challenge him on
the legality of bypassing the building owner.
Three of the unemployed tenants are to be hired for janitorial and
general labor. They will be paid $2/hour (equal to $14.50 in 2014),
which Dr. King considers a "fair minimum wage" (the actual
federal minimum wage in 1966 is $1.25/hour, equal to $9.13 in 2014).
Dressed in work clothes, King, his wife Coretta, Al Raby, and other
activists begin cleaning out the furnace and shoveling up mounds of
uncollected, frozen trash and garbage while efforts are made to get
the electricity and heating back in service.
Media, politicians, and pillars of the community roundly condemn
the seizure as "anarchy," "theft," and
"revolutionary." Andy Young counters that after seeing a
shivering infant wrapped only in newspapers they could not wait
months for lawsuits to meander through the courts. "We
wanted to do it illegally. We want to be put in
jail for furnishing heat and health requirements to people with
children in the winter."
But the SCLC staff has failed to do its homework and the seizure
blows up into an embarrassment. … the owner is not a greedy real
estate corporation, but rather an ailing 81 year old invalid almost
as poor as his tenants. "I think King is right," he tells
reporters, and he offers to give the building to anyone willing to
assume the mortgage and make the necessary repairs.
In Birmingham, defenders of the racist status quo struck back at
challenges to their authority with police dogs and fire hoses, in
Selma they used billy clubs and tear gas. In Chicago, Mayor Daley and
his machine are more sophisticated, they use promises and bureaucracy
rather than police violence. Instead of arresting King for seizing
the tenement, Daley loudly announces a "crash program" to
inspect 15,000 West Side buildings for health and safety problems.
The ailing Homan St. owner is charged with 23 code violations.
Behind the scenes, the county welfare department withholds the
tenants' rent subsidies so there's no money going into Movement
hands. After three months, a court orders that control of the
property be returned to the owner. SCLC ends up spending $2000 (equal
to $14,500 in 2014) to repair the building, but only collects $200 in
rent (Steps 1-3).
The Chicago campaign is draining SCLC's financial resources.
…Harry Belafonte recruits Mahalia Jackson, Dick Gregory, Sidney
Poitier, and George Kirby to star in a "Freedom Festival"
on Saturday evening, March 12, at Chicago's International
Amphitheater on the South Side …. A sellout crowd of more than
12,000 attend the festival and thousands more are turned away for
lack of space. After expenses, more than $80,000 is raised for the
CFM (equal to $580,000 in 2014).
The festival is also an organizing tool. SCLC staff and CCCO
activists work the ghetto, selling tickets and using the opportunity
to meet, educate and learn from people in the community. Gathering
12,000 enthusiastic supporters in one place imparts a sense of
strength and hope inspired by Dr. King's address, in which he says:
The purpose of the slum is to confine those who have no power and
perpetuate their powerlessness. In the slum, the Negro is forced to
pay more for less, and the general economy of the slum is constantly
drained without being replenished. In short, the slum is an invisible
wall which restricts the mobility of persons because of the color of
their skin. The slum is little more than a domestic colony which
leaves its inhabitants dominated politically, exploited economically,
segregated and humiliated at every turn. ...
It is clear to me that we must organize this total community into
unities of political and social power. ... As long as injustice is
around, demonstrations will be necessary. So when it is appropriate,
we will encourage sit-ins, stand-ins, rent-strikes, boycotts, picket
lines, marches, civil disobedience, and any form of protest that are
nonviolently conceived and executed.
The day after the Freedom Festival, Mayor Daley again undercuts
the CFM. Without mentioning King or the movement, he boasts that his
inspection teams have visited more than 96,000 poor families, and he
claims that his administration has exterminated more than 1,600,000
rats and rodents in the ghetto. He goes on to promise eradication of
all slum conditions in Chicago by the end of the following year,
1967.
Meanwhile, his allies in the Afro-American community continue
working against the Freedom Movement. Rev. J.H. Jackson asserts that
civil disobedience as practiced by King and SCLC is, "not far
removed from open crime," and that Daley and school chief Willis
are true-hearted friends of Chicago Blacks. Dr. King responds by
observing that, "I don't think Dr. Jackson speaks for [even] 1%
of the Negroes in this country" (Freedom 1-2).
Led by local attorney Gil Cornfield, ghetto tenants, fed up with high
rents and atrocious living conditions, had begun the employment of a
legal strategy, subsequently supported by the CFM, designed to
pressure landlords to act responsibly.
In early 1966 tenants on the West Side had begun a rent strike.
“The strike,” Gil Cornfield remembers, “was over the poor
conditions and services among apartment dwellers in the community and
centered on a handful of absentee owners and their real estate
companies which controlled many, if not most, of the large apartment
buildings.” Residents held mass meetings where they aired their
grievances and developed their strategy. “The rent strike,”
Cornfield recalls, “was resulting in wholesale eviction proceedings
being brought by the affected real estate companies in the Circuit
Court of Cook County.”
With Cornfield’s assistance, a strategy was developed to
challenge each eviction in court, contending that if a tenant’s
nonpayment of rent was in response to the landlord’s failure and
refusal to maintain the rental premises in accordance with the
requirements of the municipal code, this could be used as a defense
in an eviction case. In housing court, defense attorneys presented
photographs of the deplorable conditions, along with supporting
testimony about unheeded complaints to the landlord. This strategy
resulted in the finding that evictions were no longer pro forma, and
the attendant legal costs would be borne by the landlords. At each
eviction proceeding, the court was filled to overflowing with tenants
and members of the community. This legal strategy, coupled with the
ongoing rent strikes, prevented landlords from breaking the strikes
through evictions.
Beyond court petitions, the coalition of labor and the Chicago
Freedom Movement became the platform for conceptualizing the
development of a tenant union federation that would use collective
bargaining to change real estate management practices. Collective
bargaining would empower residents to demand decent, safe housing and
result in a fundamental change in the landlord-tenant relationship.
When massive rent strikes in properties held by the Condor and
Costalis real estate firm became too onerous, the firm agreed to
negotiate. Because of Cornfield’s labor background, the idea of a
collective bargaining agreement covering all tenants in Condor and
Costalis properties in East Garfield Park and parts of Lawndale was
conceived. The collective bargaining approach was intended to improve
housing conditions to conform to municipal codes and to strengthen
community organization and leadership within a democratic framework
(Cornfield 5-6).
Bernard Lafayette and Bill Moyer of the AFSC urge the coalition to
focus less on forcing slum-lords to improve and maintain their
properties and more on housing segregation as the key demand ….
With a local anti-discrimination law already on the books and
restrictive covenants unenforceble, achieving an open housing market
in the city is a matter of public opinion and political will rather
than forcing through new legislation or litigating in court. Perhaps
through nonviolent direct action they can generate enough social
pressure to make the city actually enforce its own law.
…
… in Bevel's view, addressing the psychology of ghetto
oppression is as important as the economic and political aspects.
Challenging and defying hate- filled white racists over residential
segregation provides a way for those at the bottom of society to,
"stand up and be a man, to declare that he was a human
being and would henceforth expect to be treated as one."
By May of 1966, SCLC and the Friends are talking about vigils,
picket lines and sit-ins at real estate offices — and
marches through adamantly resistant all-white neighborhoods. Some in
the CCCO coalition fear that such tactics will provoke a ferocious
"white-backlash" — and mob violence. Others are
impatient to confront residential racism head on (Focus 2).
In late May, King kicks off the action phase of the War on Slums
by calling for a mass rally at Soldier Field followed by a march to
City Hall. …
…
Shortly before the Soldier Field rally, CFM finally agrees on a
Program of the Chicago Freedom Movement which they issue to the
press. It's a 12-page document that broadly analyzes the problems
faced by Blacks in the urban ghetto, calls for a wide range of
systematic reforms and development programs, and lists an extensive
(and diffuse) set of "Immediate Action Demands" that cover
a variety of issues …
Included is this statement.
For our primary target we have chosen housing. As of July 10 we
shall cease to be accomplices to a housing system of discrimination,
segregation, and degradation. We shall begin to act as if Chicago
were an open city. We shall act on the basis that every [family] is
entitled to full access of buying or renting housing that is sound,
attractive, and reasonably priced.
On the day before the Soldier Field rally, Daley boasts to the
press that his administration has "moved to repair" 102,847
apartments in 9,226 dilapidated tenements and that housing fines have
doubled over those levied the previous year.
Movement activists try to point out that "moved to repair"
is not the same as actually made habitable, and that the level of
housing code enforcement was so abysmally low that doubling the fines
was little more than changing one drop in an empty bucket to two
drops in the same empty bucket. But local media is well trained to
accept at face value whatever pronouncements emanate from City Hall,
so the Mayor's claims convince many people that the slum problem is
being effectively addressed — and that therefore there is no need
for disruptive protests.
Sunday, July 10, dawns oppressively hot and muggy, with
temperatures in the high 90s. Soldier Field is the only available
large venue, but it has no shade and the crowd swelters through songs
and speeches. Organizers had hoped for 100,000 participants but the
turnout falls clearly short of that goal. As is typical of large
protests in the 1960s, number estimates by the police, media, and
activists vary widely — the cops say 23,000, media estimates
30-35,000, and SCLC claims 60,000.
After the rally, King leads marchers out of Soldier Field for an
almost three-mile trek to City Hall. Long hikes are not a normal part
of urban life, and for many the distance and oppressive heat is too
much and they fall out of line well short of the goal. But 5,000 or
so manage to make the distance and reach Daley's seat of power. It's
Sunday, and the building is closed. In a gesture of contempt that
speaks louder than words, neither the Mayor nor any of his
functionaries or bureaucrats deign to meet the thousands of
constituents who have come to petition for redress of grievances. In
an act reminiscent of his namesake Martin Luther, Dr. King tapes
Demands of the Chicago Freedom Movement to the locked doors.
By previous arrangement, on the following day CFM leaders meet
with Mayor Daley and his top aides. The meeting does not go well.
King calls for real action and change, not just empty promises. Daley
argues that all cities have slums and he lauds his own "massive"
anti-slum efforts which he asks King to join. King restates the
necessity of ending housing segregation by making Chicago an "open
city," a point the Mayor does not respond to. Al Raby of CCCO
goes through the demands, detailing them point by point until he gets
to, "Creation of a citizens review board for grievances against
police brutality and false arrests or stops and seizures," which
evokes angry resistance from officials and umbrage on the part of
Daley at the lack of trust in local government shown by Afro-American
leaders.
The Mayor refuses to specifically address any of the Movement's
itemized demands. King asks him to endorse the Civil Rights Act of
1966 then being debated in Congress — a bill supported by
Democratic Party leader President Lyndon Johnson which includes
open-housing provisions — Daley evades the question and refuses to
do so.
The meeting ends in acrimony and Raby tells Daley, "I want
you to know we're going to begin direct action immediately!"
Each side speaks separately to the press. The New York Times reports:
"Mr. Daley was scarlet faced, as his words tumbled over each
other in indignation as he declared that Chicago already had
'massive' anti-slum and civil rights programs." And in the same
article: "Dr. King said, 'We're demanding these things, not
requesting them,' in the face of 'seething desperation' among Chicago
Negroes that was inviting social disaster."
"We cannot wait," Dr. King tells the press. "Young
people are not going to wait" (Marching 1-3).
Works
cited:
Bernstein, David.
“The Longest March.” Politics & City Life. July 25,
2016. Web.
https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2016/Martin-Luther-King-Chicago-Freedom-Movement/
Cornfield,
Gil, Heaps, Melody, and Hill, Norman. “The Chicago Freedom
Movement’s Quest for Economic Justice.” The Chicago Reporter.
January 15, 2018. Web.
https://www.chicagoreporter.com/the-chicago-freedom-movements-quest-for-economic-justice/
“A
Focus on Housing.” Chicago Freedom Movement & the War
against Slums. Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December).
Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#1966chi_watts
“Freedom
Festival.” Chicago Freedom Movement & the War against
Slums. Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December). Web.
https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#1966chi_watts
“Ghetto
Youth Gangs.” Chicago Freedom Movement & the War against
Slums. Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December). Web.
https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#1966chi_watts
“Marching
to City Hall.” .” Chicago Freedom Movement & the War
against Slums. Civil Rights Movement History 1966 (July-December).
Web. https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim66b.htm#1966chi_watts
“Steps
& Missteps.” 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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