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The Chicago Freedom Movement 40 Years Later: a Symposium

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The Chicago Freedom Movement 40 Years Later: a Symposium Poverty & Race PRRAC POVERTY & RACE RESEARCH ACTION COUNCIL May/June 2006 Volume 15: Number 3 The Chicago Freedom Movement 40 Years Later: A Symposium Assessing the Chicago Freedom Movement by James Ralph The Chicago Freedom Movement membered today. While there are tion and the fifth edition of Out of was the most ambitious civil rights museums devoted to the famous civil Many. In each of these textbooks, mobilization ever launched in the rights campaigns in Montgomery, Bir- Martin Luther Kings and SCLCs North. The product of an alliance of mingham and Selma, Alabama, there earlier Birmingham and Selma cam- the Southern Christian Leadership is no museum commemorating the paigns are discussed. Even James Conference (SCLC) and the Coordi- Chicago Freedom Movement. In fact, Pattersons prizewinning history of nating Council of Community Orga- the city of Chicago lacks even historic America from 1945 to 1974, Grand nizations (CCCOa coalition of Chi- markers acknowledging the important Expectations, is silent on the Chicago cago civil rights groups), the Chicago sites of the Chicago movement. In movement. Freedom Movement lasted from 1965 Atlanta, the National Park Service A critical question, then, is how can to 1967. It built upon the hard work maintains the childhood home of Mar- this discrepancy in the public memory of the CCCO in contesting racial in- tin Luther King. In Memphis, the of the Chicago Freedom Movement equality in Chicago, especially in its Lorraine Motel, where King was as- and Kings and SCLCs other cam- public schools. And it attracted na- sassinated in 1968, is the centerpiece paigns be explained. tional attention in the summer of 1966 of an impressive civil rights museum. (Please turn to page 2) when it launched a series of marches In Chicago, by contrast, the North to expose persistent housing discrimi- Lawndale apartment building where nation in metropolitan Chicago. On King lived for a time in order to be one open-housing march, Martin close to African Americans confined Luther King, Jr. was struck on the to Chicagos West Side ghetto was CONTENTS: head by a rock. Frankly, he said, torn down many years ago and now is Chicago Freedom I have never seen as much hatred and a vacant lot. Movement................. 1 hostility on the part of so many The custodians of that deemed im- Human/Civil Rights people. portant in American historythe text- for Immigrants.......... 3 books and the surveyssecond this lack Katrina Blueprint of public acknowledgment of the Chi- for Ending Poverty .... 5 Faintly Remembered cago Freedom Movement. The fifth Today edition of Americas History does not PRRAC Update ........... 6 mention it. Nor does the most recent Witt Internships .......... 9 What is striking, on the occasion edition of American Journey. The New PRRAC Grants .. 18 of its 40th anniversary, is how faintly same is true for the second edition of Resources ................. 18 the Chicago Freedom Movement is re- American Destiny: Narrative of a Na- Poverty & Race Research Action Council 1015 15th Street NW Suite 400 Washington, DC 20005 202/906-8023 FAX: 202/842-2885 E-mail: [email protected] www.prrac.org Recycled Paper (RALPH: Continued from page 1) This bleak reading of the Chicago Branch has recently noted in his new Freedom Movement shaped the per- book, At Canaans Edge, its weak- The explanation stems in part from spective of the first major biography nesses disappeared in a rippling tide the popular judgment that the Chicago of King, written by David Levering that dissolved formal segregation by Freedom Movement was a defeat, es- Lewis in 1970. The Chicago debacle comprehensive national law. Though pecially compared to the Birmingham was how Lewis categorized its out- the Chicago Freedom Movement was and Selma initiatives. The verdict of come. Many later scholars arrived at part of the constellation of forces that failure circled the Chicago movement the same conclusion. In America in Our led to the passage of a federal fair hous- even before it came to an end. Dissat- Time, published in 1976, Godfrey ing law in 1968, housing discrimina- isfied activists helped to fuel such a Hodgson stated that Martin Luther tion, residential segregation and inner- reading when in the wake of the Sum- King went to Chicago and was routed city slums have not disappeared the mit Agreementa pact reached in late . Nearly a decade later, Alonzo way that segregated lunch counters and August 1966 between Martin Luther Hamby, in Liberalism and its Chal- blatantly racist voting registrars have. King, Al Raby (convenor of the lengers, concluded that the Chicago Even a recent outpouring of schol- CCCO) and other civil rights leaders, Freedom Movement undeniably was arship focusing on the Civil Rights and Mayor Richard J. Daley and civic, more failure than success. In the Movement in the North is unlikely to business and religious elites to bring a early 1990s, in his survey of the Civil boost the reputation of the Chicago halt to the open-housing marches and Rights Movement, Freedom Bound, Freedom Movement. New books like to take concrete steps to end the racial Robert Weisbrot argued that In many Matthew Countrymans Up South: divide in the regionthey decided to Civil Rights and Black Power in Phila- stage a march in Cicero, long known The Chicago Freedom delphia and Martha Biondis To Stand for its hostility toward blacks. and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights As Robert Lucas, who led the march Movement was the in Postwar New York City point to a in Cicero in September 1966, has most ambitious civil growing recognition of the importance stated, King went up against Richard rights mobilization ever and complexity of the fight for racial J. Daley, and he lost. Over the de- launched in the North. equality in the North. So rich is Jeanne cades, this assessment has been the Theoharis and Komozi Woodards dominant one in Chicago. Surveying Freedom North, a new collection of the state of the citys West Side 20 years respects, the Chicago freedom move- essays about Northern activism, that after the Chicago Freedom Movement, ment had emerged as a debacle to ri- the conventional view of the Civil one African-American resident con- val the Albany [GA] movement. Rights Movement as confined to the cluded, Nothing really happened. The assessment of the Chicago South in the 1950s and 1960s is des- And recently, Leon Despres, a sup- Freedom Movement as a defeat is not tined for revision. But the place of the porter of civil rights who opposed the the only reason for its diminished place Chicago Freedom Movement in this Daley administration during the 1960s, in the countrys public memory. That new scholarship is ambiguous. Putting has said that results of the Chicago cam- the Chicago movement was more fo- a spotlight on the Chicago campaign paign were not much of a victory for cused on changing local conditions than deflects attention from the wide array Martin Luther King, Jr. were the Birmingham campaign and of local movements in the North and especially the Selma campaign also suggests that Northern protest relied accounts for its modest national stand- on the influence of Martin Luther King Poverty and Race (ISSN 1075-3591) ing. During their initiatives in the and Southern-based civil rights orga- is published six times a year by the nizations. Poverty & Race Research Action Coun- South, King and SCLC were much cil, 1015 15th Street NW, Suite 400, more attentive to the national response Washington, DC 20005, 202/906- (and corrective federal legislation) than 8023, fax: 202/842-2885, E-mail: they were in Chicago. The Chicago An Alternative Reading [email protected]. Chester Hartman, campaign, they hoped, would inspire Editor. Subscriptions are $25/year, similar nonviolent movements in other The prevailing wisdom, then, is that $45/two years. Foreign postage extra. Northern cities. the Chicago Freedom Movement was Articles, article suggestions, letters and not one of the most noteworthy or sig- general comments are welcome, as are The Summit Agreement, which notices of publications, conferences, marked the end of the most active nificant episodes of recent history. job openings, etc. for our Resources phase of the Chicago Freedom Move- Yet looking back after 40 years, there Section. Articles generally may be re- ment, was in fact the strongest local is a strong case for an alternative read- printed, providing PRRAC gives ad- agreement King and SCLC had ever ing. vance permission. negotiated in any of their city projects. First, there is the overwhelming © Copyright 2006 by the Poverty The settlement that ended the Birming- evidence that the Chicago project & Race Research Action Council. All whose motto was End Slumswas rights reserved. ham campaign was fuzzier than the Summit Agreement. But, as Taylor (Please turn to page 7) 2 Poverty & Race Vol. 15, No. 3 May/June 2006 The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, headed by PRRAC Board member Catherine Tactaquin, convened a series of discussions among members and partners around the current immigration proposals before Congress; the following Statement is the product of those meetings. Organizations and Individuals are requested to endorse the Statement (available in Spanish as well on their website, www.nnirr.org. Endorsement/inquires to [email protected]. National Statement to Support Human and Civil Rights for All Immigrants and to Oppose Compromise Immigration Reform Proposals April 2006 “Fair and Just out in the legislative process. These This year is the 20th anniversary of Immigration trade-offs and deals are based on elec- the 1986 legalization and employer Reform for All tion-year campaigning and demands by sanctions law, and the 10th anniver- business lobbyists, rather than on the sary of the restrictive Illegal Immigra- best interests and voices of immigrant We stand together as immigrant, tion Reform and Immigrant Respon- communities.
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