Freedom Road: Deceptive Tactics Continue in Anti-Affirmative Action Effort

"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

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Deceptive Tactics Continue in Anti-Affirmative Action Effort

The following entry is a reprint of an entry by Kyle Michaelis over at the New Nebraska Network blog...

This just in from a NNN reader in Columbus. It shouldn't come as any surprise that Nebraskans are seeing some very suspicious and outright deceptive tactics being used to gather enough signatures to place a constitutional amendment to end affirmative action on the November ballot:

Thought you might want to hear about petition gatherers tactics in the Columbus area.
I went to Wal-mart this morning (not my first choice of retailers but there isn't a whole lot to choose from here) and noticed a table set up outside one of the doors. The table had two small signs saying:

"SIGN UP TODAY"
"Are you concerned about jobs?"

Then it had some smaller print that I couldn't read as I rushed past the table knowing what this person was trying to pull on the customers. When I came out of the store, I heard the pitch:
"Are you concerned about jobs in Nebraska? Sign up today to eliminate gender and race as a factor in hiring decisions."

The scruffy, homeless looking, mid-twenty year old was only making this pitch to white, middle-aged men.

In this instance, the petition gatherers appear to have completely obscured the fact that this amendment would only affect hiring decisions by the state and by those contracting with the state. Of course, there's a very good chance they didn't understand that distinction for themselves. Such matters are of little concern when they're just trying to make a buck and some misleading language playing on Nebraskans' economic fears can help them to that effect.

I'd assume this "scruffy, homeless-looking" gentlemen was one of the out-of-state, paid petition-gatherers those orchestrating this effort were so excited about bringing to Nebraska after it was reported they'd failed with similar efforts in Oklahoma and Missouri. If this story is any indication, it seems they've also brought with them the same types of deception and fraud employed in those other states.

It's up to us to remain vigilant and strong if such tactics are to meet with a similar fate, failing in Nebraska as well.

Freedom Road

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

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Deceptive Tactics Continue in Anti-Affirmative Action Effort

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