Freedom Road: divisive

"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, September 04, 2008

Best Comeback Evah!

As everyone now knows, in Governor Sarah Palin's cynical, hypocritical, sarcastic, holier-than-thou, deceitful and at times downright mean speech last night and the RNC, the radical conservative evangelical belittled Barack Obama's service as a community organizer. The comment was intensely elitist and condescending, not to mention that it sullied the work and reputations of thousands of good, decent, caring and compassionate people throughout our country, in small towns and big cities, who have been on the front lines in various struggles for equality, justice and dignity for poor people, women, people of color, workers, the elderly, the homeless, the hungry, etc. I'll probably write more on this later, but for now, I think this has got to be the absolutely BEST comeback that I have seen (it appeared as a comment at Andrew Sullivan's blog. Listen up Governor Palin:

“Jesus was a Community Organizer, and Pontias Pilate was a Governor."

Cut, paste and forward it to all of your friends. Make bumper stickers and t-shirts. The folks at the RNC, ALMOST ALL OF WHOM ARE WHITE, are really mean-spirited and divisive. It was ugly in there. Please reject this kind of politic. Tell your neighbors to do the same. Talk about it. EXPRESS YOURSELF. ACT. The last 7+ years have been terrible. 4-8 years of these folks will be completely unbearable! As Barack said last Thursday, "We, as a nation, are better than that."

UPDATE: This is why I dig Obama. Great comeback to the whole community organizer smear:

Pass it around...

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Quotes of the Day

Quote #1: Clinton just can't stop herself from playing the divisive race card...

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Yeah, the "pattern" that is emerging is Clinton playing the race card out of desperation. Gotta love the not-so-subtle rhetorical link between "working," "hard working" and "white Americans." You hear that dog whistle everyone???

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded to these comments, saying that in Indiana, Obama split working-class voters with Clinton and won a higher percentage of white voters than he did in Ohio last March. He said Obama will be the strongest nominee because he appeals "to Americans from every background and all walks of life. These statements from Sen. Clinton are not true and frankly disappointing."

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton's comment was a "poorly worded" variation on the way analysts have been "slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms."

However, he said her primary support doesn't prove she's more electable. Either Democrat will get "the vast majority" of the other's primary election votes in a general election, he said.

So, the Clinton camp's so-called "nuclear option" apparently includes more than trying to ram through the completely undemocratic primary tallies in MI and FL. Perhaps she won't go quietly into that good night after all. If she doesn't cut this crap out, I hope party leaders step in to end it soon...

Quote #2: And this one from Bill Moyers to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!:

"You know, Mrs. Clinton has a very serious issue to wrestle with in the next seventy-two hours. Is this race about the country, or is it about the Clintons? "

Well, I think we all know that from the Hillary side of things this race has always been about the Clintons over the country, but now, with the handwriting clearly on the wall, Hillary has the option of exiting with some grace and dignity, for which she will be handsomely rewarded with a leadership position in Congress, or as a selfish jerk, thereby jeopardizing her and her husband's political future. Ultimately, I think she'll do the right thing, but apparently Bill is counseling her to force the issue all the way to the convention in Denver... Of course, party leaders won't let that happen.

What we are seeing is a classic political moment: power is quickly moving from one place (the Clintons) to another (Obama). Thank you for your contributions Bill and Hillary. Now, step aside for the new guy. Do the right thing... if for no other reason, than for your own selfish legacy.

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