Freedom Road: March 2009

"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.

Buy it here!

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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

Monday, March 23, 2009

FILM FESTIVAL: "Real to Reel: Documenting Empowerment, Equality, Inclusion" (The Ross Theater, Lincoln, NE, April 16-20, 2009 - FREE/open to public)

The African and African American Studies Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is sponsoring our second "Blacks In Film Festival" in mid-April. This time around we are focusing on documentary films and asking some broad questions...

• How has documentary film been used to tell meaningful stories about black people in Africa and the United States? What is the process of putting these stories together on film? What makes a compelling documentary film?

• What kinds of (intellectual, cultural, social, etc.) spaces do these films open up for audiences to consider race relations and black experience in new or meaningful ways?

• Can documentary film play a role in political struggle? Can documentary film be a "weapon of the oppressed," an agent of change? If so, how? If not, why not?

• And does the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject matter in documentary films matter? Explain.

Here is the poster for the film festival (click image to enlarge)

Here are the films we are screening at The Ross FREE and open to the public...

- "What We Want, What We Believe... the Black Panthers" (on the Black Panther Party)

- "Mo & Me" (filmmakers exploration of his father's - Mo Amin - life)

- "God Grew Tired of Us" (on Sudan's "Lost Boys")

- "Wattstax" (the 1973 "Black Woodstock" concert in Los Angeles, featuring Staxx Records musicians and Richard Pryor interludes)

- "When We Were Kings" (on famed "Rumble in the Jungle" between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire)

- "Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony" (on role of music in South African freedom movement)

- "Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes" (on sexism and homophobia in hip hop)

- "Hip Hop Colony" (on hip hop in Africa)

For full film festival information (including brief bios of our two keynote filmmakers, a detailed schedule of all events, and synopses of each film) click here.

Please spread the word...

Sunday, March 08, 2009

The Battle for Whiteclay

If you do not know about the tragic and exploitative situation in Whiteclay, Nebraska, I hope you will take a few minutes and read the following article:

• Paul Hammel, "Drink, and despair, around every corner in Whiteclay" (Omaha World Herald, 3/7/09)

You should also check out Mark Vasina's excellent and moving new documentary, "The Battle for Whiteclay."

Here's what Frank LaMere of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska and Chair of the Native Caucus on the Democratic National Committee had to say about the film:

"Chronicles a painful odyssey that should give pause to the caring, the oblivious, and those who don't give a damn."

Here are a few things you might do:

• Check it out. Educate yourself about the issue.
• Write your state senator about Whiteclay.
• Hold a neighborhood showing of "The Battle for Whiteclay" in your living room. Or, have your church, school, or other social organization show the film and discuss it.
• Spread the word to other caring people in your world...

Here are some more action suggestions.

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