“The Grassy Battleground”: Race, Religion, and Activism in Camden’s “Wide” Civil Rights Movement By Laurie Lahey B.A. in American Studies, May 2004, Rowan University B.A. in English, May 2004, Rowan University B.A. in History, May 2004, Rowan University M.A. in English, May 2005, Temple University A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 19, 2013 Dissertation directed by Joseph Kip Kosek Associate Professor of American Studies The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Laurie Lahey has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of March 26, 2013. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. “The Grassy Battleground”: Race, Religion, and Activism in Camden’s “Wide” Civil Rights Movement Laurie Lahey Dissertation Research Committee: Joseph Kip Kosek, Associate Professor of American Studies, Dissertation Director Thomas Guglielmo, Associate Professor of American Studies, Committee Member Melani McAlister, Associate Professor of American Studies and International Affairs, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2013 by Laurie Lahey All rights reserved iii Acknowledgements This project represents more than a chronicle of interracial activism during Camden’s civil rights movement; for me it also represents a decade-long journey both intellectual and personal. Dissertation-writing is not only a scholarly undertaking, but an act of perseverance. In the past ten years I have received more support and encouragement than I can do justice here. But, I will try. I would like to thank the incredibly knowledgeable and helpful librarians and archivists at: the Camden County Historical Society, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, the Gloucester County Historical Society, the Paul Robeson Library at Rutgers University, the Presbyterian Historical Society, and the Urban Archives at Temple University. These savvy professionals provided insight and guidance time and again. I would also like to thank the New Jersey Historical Commission for taking a chance on this project through a generous grant at a time when few states were funding humanities projects. I am also indebted to the many inspiring and generous people who stood where the flames burned hottest and shared their experiences with me: Don Griesmann, Carolyn Burton, Juan Gonzales, Sam Appel, Amos Johnson, Malik Chaka, Sharif Abdullah, and Gil Medina. Rowan University will always have a special place in my heart. When I began college in 2000, I had no idea how enmeshed the school would become with my academic career. I wrote my senior theses, my Master’s thesis, and much of my dissertation on the 4th floor of Campbell Library over the span of twelve years. The History Department in particular has been beyond incredible to me. As an undergraduate iv Bill Carrigan and Cory Blake provided me the encouragement to pursue a graduate degree and were always available with advice. I was thrilled to return in 2011 as the Phi Alpha Theta teaching fellow and grateful when they invited me to stay for another year as I finished the Ph.D. The George Washington University has been incredibly generous, allowing me the time and resources necessary to complete this project. My dissertation committee--Kip Kosek, Tom Guglielmo, and Melani McAlister--have given me invaluable feedback and encouragement. They have pushed me to think bigger and helped craft a framework to give additional meaning to a story I have come to love so much. My fellow graduate students in the American Studies Department ensured the process was also fun. In particular, Charity Fox, Joan Troyano, and Amber Wiley, otherwise known as “the Plastics,” kept me laughing the entire time. Thank you, ladies, for your friendship and inspiration. My family members have always cheered the loudest for me. The Grahams and the Mays, especially Dave Graham, who provided feedback on drafts of this project, have made school breaks the highlights of every year. We are always “making memories.” My grandfather Tom Lahey taught me to think critically by never letting me get away with a lazy observation. When he passed away in 2012, I discovered I had one hundred pages of correspondence from our ten years of emails, ten years of debates. I do not think he would agree with everything in this dissertation but I wish now, more than ever, that we could argue about it. My grandmother Rose Gebhard took me to the library next door to her house every day when I was growing up. When I ran out of children’s books to read, she encouraged me to read Shakespeare and took me seriously when I reported back. She also always let me get two toys at the toy store and never forgot to get my v favorite bagels at the grocery store. I’m pretty sure being well fed and well read as a child helps you get a Ph.D. My in-laws, Nancy and Steve Winings have been supportive in every way imaginable. From Nancy’s help selling all of our furniture in her garage to Steve sending glasses of wine down to my office in their shore home, where they also allowed my husband and I to live during the last year of writing, they have been there every step of they way since we became a family. I will never forget their love and support. Everyone should get to have parents like Mike and Bonnie Lahey. There is no way to ever thank them for their unwavering support. My father always carried my backpack and drove me everywhere, even to the airport for a job interview when I was thirty-years-old. He’s also the best guy to get a beer with. My mother made every single achievement, no matter how small, incredibly special. She was also the world’s best (and worst paid) secretary any time I needed anything, which was often. In short, they did everything you’re supposed to do and so much more. I hope one day I can repay their kindness. Finally, I thank my husband Brian Winings, who has lived with this project for more than five years. He never once judged the number of cheese sandwiches it took me to finish; he ensured I was the best-versed television and movie fan, despite having to work so much; he always cleaned up after dinner and never made me empty the dishwasher; he helped me study and prepare. He never complained, even once. I hope in the next hundred years I can match his love and generosity. vi Abstract of Dissertation “The Grassy Battleground,” Race, Religion, and Activism in Camden’s “Wide” Civil Rights Movement My dissertation, “The Grassy Battleground”: Race, Religion, and Activism in Camden’s “Wide” Civil Rights Movement, considers the shifting alliances of religious actors and lay people who comprised interracial coalitions in an American secondary city. This project uses the economic and social context of Camden, New Jersey-- the poorest city, in the richest, most racially segregated state in the nation-- to demonstrate how interracial alliances, consisting of black and white ministers, black and Puerto Rican militants, and other lay people, shifted from the 1930s and 1940s when they were organized around labor issues, to the 1960s and 1970s, when they were concerned primarily with social equality. Specifically, this project constructs a big-picture analysis of black militant Charles “Poppy” Sharp’s political ascendance to consider the shift from a strictly nonviolent movement devoid of the working-class and “poor,” to a radical, racially integrated movement. Sharp’s story complicates the discussion of the civil rights movement by demonstrating the role black and white churches, white suburbanites, and Puerto Ricans played in a movement dominated ostensibly by Black Power politics. While Sharp and his organization, the Black Peoples Unity Movement, were characterized by Black Power rhetoric and militancy, they worked closely with the mostly white Camden Metropolitan Ministry, the white, suburban Friends of the Black Peoples Unity Movement, and members of the Puerto Rican community. The alliances fostered by these groups reveal unique opportunities for interracial organizing in secondary cities that were not realized in other corners of the movement. This dissertation vii argues that despite the militant rhetoric that pervaded the movement in Camden, due to its economy and demographics, activists organized across race and despite ideology. viii Table of Contents Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................iv Abstract of Dissertation.....................................................................................................vii List of Figures..................................................................................................................... x Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: “In All Defiance”: Labor, Migration, and the Origins of Interracial Protest in Southern New Jersey........................................................................23 Chapter 2: “Nothing in Common Except the Same Problems”: Postwar Social Organization..............................................................................................67 Chapter 3: “Too Much Singing”: Christianity and the Limitations of Nonviolence in the Ghetto...............................................................................................117 Chapter