Freedom Road: ad campaign

"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

Monday, August 13, 2007

The Strange Politics of Race in Germany

The following images are part of an ad campaign by UNICEF in Germany. The campaign purports to raise awareness about educational inequality in African nations, but strangely has opted to use white German children posing in blackface as uneducated African children to convey that message. According to the ad agency that created the campaign, the poster "shows four german kids who appeal for solidarity with their contemporaries in Afrika." The text that goes along with each image is translated beneath the ad:

"in africa, many kids would be glad to worry about school"

"some teachers suck. no teachers sucks even more."

"I'm waiting for my last day in school, the children in africa still for their first one."

"in africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all"

Not surprisingly, the ads have generated quite a bit of heat as they zoom around the world on the internet.

Malena Amusa has written at Alternet.org, "Besides claiming that every single person in 'Africa' isn't educated, and doing so in an extremely patronising way, it is also disturbing that this organisation thinks blackfacing kids with mud (!) equals 'relating to african children'. Also, the kids' statements ignore the existence of millions of african academics and regular people and one again reduces a whole continent to a village of muddy uneducated uncivilized people who need to be educated (probably by any random westerner). This a really sad regression. Bottom lines of this campaign are: Black = mud = African = uneducated. White = educated. We feel this campaign might do just as much harm as it does any good. You don't collect money for helping people by humiliating and trivializing them first."

In response, one reader wrote, "The ads seem to be trying to evoke in the viewer a sense of 'what if these were our children.'" Another posted, "Cultural context and imagery are handled slightly different in Germany. Sublime and slightly overboard. Why not using imagery like that for a pressing issue? Don`t apply US PCism." A different reader charged that those criticizing the campaign were merely "looking for the racist element in everything." And one final person asked, "This is clearly an attempt to help some poor kids. Why make a BIG DEAL out of it?"

Check it out the full Alternet piece at this link (be sure to scroll through the comments):
German Ad Campaign Uses White Children in Blackface to Portray "Uneducated Africans"

So, what is this all about? Is it just another example of racism, white supremacy and neo-colonialism? Or, is it American PC run amok, American cultural police imposing their values and perspectives on the rest of the world? Or, is it well-intentions gone awry? Or, is it some knowing use of historically loaded imagery to make a statement, or get attention? Or, is it something else altogether...?

For what it is worth, when I saw this story, I was reminded of a story from 2005, about a German city (Augsburg) that had decided to have an African cultural celebration inside their local zoo! The exhibit included real human beings along side the exotic animals. Anti-racist organizations throughout the country and around the world reacted. Here is the story:
BBC: "Row over German zoo's Africa show"

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

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Monday, August 13, 2007

The Strange Politics of Race in Germany