Freedom Road: DNC Native American Caucus Chair Endorses Obama

"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

Friday, February 08, 2008

DNC Native American Caucus Chair Endorses Obama

Earlier today, Frank LaMere, Nebraska superdelegate and chairman of the Democratic National Committee's Native American Caucus, endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President and released the following statement:

"We, as Native Americans, have always stood four square with the Democratic Party and they have always stood four square with us. We will continue to do so in 2008 as we elect a Democratic President to restore the national vision that has been blurred during the last eight years. I ask your help in this endeavor.

All in this country know that Native people continue to suffer disproportionate need. In light of the service and sacrifice of or young men and women during times of war it is hard to reconcile why this should be. We must continue to pray that things be better for the children, the elders, the sick and incarcerated, all of the dispossessed among us. We must pray for those who have no voice. More importantly, we must continue to hope. Our forebears have taught us that the survival of the generations to come is dependent on our willingness to hope and to change things for the better.

To this end, there is a man who talks of this audacity of hope and of the need for change. He is Barack Obama. He has engaged the Indian Nations with his message and we have listened. It is now time to act.

Hope has always been the basic tenet of the Democratic Party and not an obscure backdrop. Change should be looked at in terms of generations and not what we might be able to do to win the next election without affecting anyone's comfort level.

Hope and change require that we be audacious and Barack Obama knows this better than anyone. We must acknowledge this bold man among us and the good heart that he has for all of the people.

As Chairman of the Native Caucus of the Democratic National Committee and as a Winnebago Indian mindful of what I may leave for my children, my grandchildren, and all of the generations to come I am humbled but pleased to endorse Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States.

I beg your indulgence and respectuflly as that Native people from the four directions join with me in this work as we are all related. It will be good. Pi-nah-gi-gi. Thank you.

Frank LaMere

BONUS: The image to the right is Chief Standing Bear (1834?-1908). Standing Bear was a member of the Ponca Tribe in what we now call Nebraska. It was a suit by Standing Bear in 1879 that prompted the Supreme Court to rule, for the first time, that "an Indian is a person." Standing Bear is often called the father of American Indian citizenship. We are proud of this history in our region.

Freedom Road

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

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Friday, February 08, 2008

DNC Native American Caucus Chair Endorses Obama

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