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PRAIRIE FIRES: URBAN REBELLIONS AS BLACK WORKING CLASS POLITICS IN THREE MIDWESTERN CITIES BY ASHLEY M. HOWARD DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Sundiata K. Cha-Jua, Chair Professor James R. Barrett Professor Cheryl Greenberg, Trinity College Associate Professor Clarence Lang, University of Kansas ii ABSTRACT This study investigates the social, economic and political upheavals caused by the urban rebellions of the 1960s. Using Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Omaha, Nebraska as case studies, this dissertation argues that the uprisings were historically informed acts of resistance, which demonstrated a Midwestern, gendered, and working-class character. Prairie Fires registers the significant impact the rebellions had not only in transforming the consciousness of African Americans but also in altering the relationship between Blacks, urban communities, and the State as well as highlighting class fractures within Black politics. This interpretative lens validates the black urban rebellions not only as legitimate responses to oppression, but part of an American tradition of working class insurrection. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank my parents, Hilary and Jeanne Howard. They have always encouraged me to seek knowledge and change the world, for that I am forever indebted. I also thank my sister Gianna, whose frequent phone calls about pop culture, social issues, and what she had for lunch, jolted me from the tedium I often became mired in. My partner Christopher, has contributed incredible insight and supported me in every possible way through this process. Special thanks to David Bates, Heidi Dodson, Kerry Pimblott, Stephanie Seawell, and Alonzo Ward. This cohort of excellent scholars, and even better friends, has provided invaluable feedback to this project. Thank you to my committee, your comments and insight profoundly influenced this work. I continue to be impressed and deeply humbled by their knowledge, rigorous scholarly work, and commitment to students, the academy, and the community. Finally, a special thanks is in order for my advisor Sundiata Cha-Jua. Words alone do not express my absolute gratitude for his encouragement, dedication, and patience throughout this process. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER ONE: ‘THEY’VE TAKEN AWAY MY BOOTS’…………………………… 36 CHAPTER TWO: ‘THIS CAN’T BE THE PARADE’………………………………….. 94 CHAPTER THREE: A ‘CREATIVE WAR’: THE URBAN REBELLIONS AS POLITICAL PROTEST…………………………………………………………………… 129 CHAPTER FOUR: BEYOND THE RABBLE, CLASS FACTORS IN UPRISING PARTICIPATION………………………………………………………………………… 173 CHAPTER FIVE: BEYOND THE RABBLE, GENDER FACTORS IN UPRISNG PARTICIPATION………………………………………………………………………… 221 CHAPTER SIX: THE CHANGING SAME: URBAN COMMUNITIES AND REBELLION AFTERMATH………….………………………………………………….. 254 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………. 307 BIBILIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………… 316 APPENDIX A: MAPS…………………………………………………………………….. 335 1 Introduction Between 1965 and 1968, 329 urban rebellions took place in 257 American cities, resulting in nearly 300 deaths, 60,000 arrests, and hundreds of millions of dollars in property loss. Tempting as it may be, scholars cannot allow the urban rebellions of the 1960s to remain solely a collection of statistics and vivid accounts of a response to inferior conditions in the black community. More than forty years after the National Guard marched from the ghettos, the rebellions still hold tremendous power in the collective memory of black Americans and the State. Scholars must register the significant impact the rebellions had not only in transforming the consciousness of African Americans and the strategic vision of black liberation movements but also in altering the relationship between blacks, urban communities, and the State, and how they highlighted class fractures within black politics. Prairie Fires argues that the urban rebellions of the 1960s were not merely spontaneous acts of violence and resentment but instead a form of gendered, working-class black community activism. At its core, this study asserts that by understanding the urban rebellions of the 1960s, scholars can better understand the broader analytical categories of gender, class, region, and protest within the Black Freedom Movement. Scholarship of the Black Urban Rebellions The literature on the urban rebellions can be separated into four different scholarly approaches: sociological and psychological studies, historical works that emphasize structural failure, historical works which argue that rebellions were protests, and finally, urban studies monographs. The first approach consisted of works published immediately following the revolts. Frequently penned by journalists and sociologists, this scholarship was featured in edited 2 collections that investigated the causes of the rebellions.1 Additionally scholars produced numerous studies which theorized the causes, benefits, and ideologies behind the uprisings. These researchers employed a variety of methodological approaches including participant interviews, socioeconomic correlations, and mailed questionnaires. These contemporary scholars, in addition to the rebels themselves, helped to assign meaning to these events for the general public. However important such field studies were, they are flawed for four main reasons. First, the majority of the researchers were white, thus the authenticity of the responses they received must be questioned in that many uprising participants were deeply suspicious of outsiders. Second, following the uprisings scholars flooded black urban America to conduct research. Historian Gerald Horne best articulated this super-saturation of researchers in his book on the 1965 Watts rebellion, Fire This Time. There he humorously quoted Los Angeles Times writer Art Seidenbaum who mentioned that he had a “mental image of a USC sociologist interviewing a man on the street who turns out to be a psychologist from UCLA.”2 It can be assumed therefore even if a researcher interviewed a person he or she thought actually resided in the area, this person may have been interviewed so many times before that they may have provided pat, pre-rehearsed answers. Third, these early studies were very narrow in focus, seeking to validate a singular hypothesis based on assumed characteristics of black rebellions such as diminished occupational opportunities, growing ideological militancy, or distrust of white merchants. These limited explanations provided a corroboration or rebuttal to what the scholar believed to be the cause of the urban rebellion, overlooking that these events were the 1 August Meier, Elliot Rudwick, and John Bracey Jr., eds. Black Protest in the Sixties: Article for the New York Times. (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, 1991). Gerald Leinwand, ed. Riots (New York: Washington Square Press, 1970). 2 Gerald Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s (New York: DaCapo Press, 1997), 39. 3 culmination of multiple grievances. Finally, and most importantly, though these scholars provided insight into the contemporary moment, they failed to speculate on the broader historical meanings of these uprisings. The second bibliographic context, some of the first historical works on the topic, examined the structural break-down and ultimate decline of cities. Represented by monographs by Thomas Sugrue and Sidney Fine, this scholarship directly challenged notions of black family breakdown and criminal deviance. They attributed the violence to structural failure, both economic and political. As Sugrue argued in The Origins of the Urban Crisis, “the results of housing desegregation, in combination with persistent workplace discrimination and deindustrialization, were explosive.” In Violence in the Model City, Fine, like Sugrue avoided stereotypes of black pathology, but neither scholar provided adequate discussion of the changes in black consciousness and intra-class struggles within the African American community.3 The third approach is best characterized by Gerald Horne’s and Cheryl Greenberg’s respective books, Fire this Time and Or Does it Explode? These historians centered their research on the Watts 1965 uprising and the Harlem 1935 and 1943 uprisings. Both Horne and Greenberg argued that institutional racism and repression of civil rights and labor organizations created a void for working-class activism. Greenberg elaborated, contending the conflagration was “essentially the raw expression of anger taught by political organizations whose collapse left a vacuum.” Although Cheryl Greenberg’s work, Does it Explode? uncovered women’s activism before and after the rebellion, her study does not focus on their roles during the rebellion. Similarly, Horne asserted that the Watts uprising in Los Angeles was a reaction “against the historic and stereotypical notion that blacks were the ‘female’ of the races: subordinated, 3 Thomas J. Sugure, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 258. Sidney Fine. Violence in the Model City: The Cavanaugh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Rebellion of 1967,(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989). 4 subordinate, dominated, timid.”4 Though he made a critical contribution to the scholarship by choosing