Freedom Road: June 2007

"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns against employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schools, the membership of public officials in discriminatory organizations, welfare cuts, and police brutality.

The Milwaukee movement culminated in the dramatic—and sometimes violent—1967 open housing campaign. A white Catholic priest, James Groppi, led the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos in a militant struggle that lasted for 200 consecutive nights and provoked the ire of thousands of white residents. After working-class mobs attacked demonstrators, some called Milwaukee “the Selma of the North.” Others believed the housing campaign represented the last stand for a nonviolent, interracial, church-based movement.

Patrick Jones tells a powerful and dramatic story that is important for its insights into civil rights history: the debate over nonviolence and armed self-defense, the meaning of Black Power, the relationship between local and national movements, and the dynamic between southern and northern activism. Jones offers a valuable contribution to movement history in the urban North that also adds a vital piece to the national story.

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Blurbs:

Think you know the full story of the civil rights era? Patrick Jones's masterful study of the movement in Milwaukee will make you think again. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The Selma of the North provides a devastating rebuttal of many of the conventional narratives of the civil rights movement. Here a vibrant nonviolent movement in the de-industrializing Midwest grows into a Black Power movement led by urban youth and a white Catholic priest who use confrontational direct action to lay bare the fissures of racial inequality in the 'liberal' North.
--Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, editor of Freedom North and Groundwork

A well-researched, well-written, and important history. Based on a rich array of sources, this book enhances our understanding of civil rights activism in the postwar urban North and establishes a useful foundation for the comparison of similar developments elsewhere in the country.
--Joe William Trotter, Jr., Carnegie Mellon University, author of Black Milwaukee

This book fills a serious gap in the literature of the civil rights revolution, joining studies on other cities in laying the groundwork on race and civil rights in the postwar urban North. Jones tells a good story, capturing events that might otherwise be lost to history.
--Arnold R. Hirsch, University of New Orleans, author of Making the Second Ghetto

The Selma of the North is an insightful and invigorating addition to the growing literature on black freedom struggles outside of the South. Jones's important and informative account writes Milwaukee back into the narrative of the civil rights-Black Power era and in the process expands our understanding of postwar America.
--Peniel E. Joseph, Brandeis University, author of Waiting Till the Midnight Hour

The Selma of the North is a riveting new story of the civil rights movement in America, a tale on par with Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery in its power and importance. Jones's magisterial research and magnetic prose illuminate the untold story of the battle for the urban north in the 1960s, a battle that shows how race has always been the Achilles heel of white progressives. This story transcends easy dichotomies of black and white, North and South, radical and reformist. How did a group called 'the Commandos' define nonviolence? How did a white Catholic priest become a 'Black Power' leader? If this is not a saga for the age of Obama, I don't know what is.
--Timothy B. Tyson, Duke University, author of Radio Free Dixie and Blood Done Sign My Name

Saturday, June 23, 2007

We Shall Overcome

I like sixties ephemera of all kinds. This is a photo of an original button from the mid-sixties civil rights movement. Given the current sad state of affairs in the United States under Bush and around the world, I thought this one was particularly appropriate as I launch my blog. Despite all the darkness, corruption, greed, inequality and war, it is important to remember that change IS possible, a better way of being is available to us... "We Shall Overcome"... IF we learn the lessons of history: change will not come from institutions of power, they are followers, not leaders, when it comes to social justice. They must be compelled to act. Change will not come from saints or deliverers. If we wait to be delivered to the Promised Land by some saintly figure, we'll be waiting a long time. History is clear on this point, particularly in the 20th century. The most meaningful change throughout history has most often come when ordinary citizens get together, share their experiences and struggles, and decide to act together to force change. When enough citizens stand up courageously and speak truth to power, institutions and leaders respond. Social movements are the key to real change. Citizen action is crucial to achieving a more democratic order. Frederick Douglass famously wrote, "If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." So, those of us who want a different way of being need to roll up our sleeves and get to work...

Similarly, it is important for us to understand the system we live under, to name the enemy, so to speak, but we can't just bitch about how bad things are. It is equally important for us to offer a prophetic and visionary alternative to this dehumanizing system that values profit over people, division over unity, war over peace, destruction over creativity, control over freedom, tyranny over democracy. If we only critique the system, but offer no solutions, no vision of a better way, we run the risk of disillusioning people and turning them off to the possibility of change. The flip side of idealism is cynicism and cynicism is paralyzing. I hope this blog will name names, but also offer solutions. This is the challenge of our era...

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"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

We Shall Overcome