Displeased at the prospect of King and others from the SCLC coming to his city, Daley made known that outside agitators were not welcome and declared there were no slums in Chicago. Drawing a line in the sand, he refused to meet with King. Reminiscent of southerners like Alabama’s Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, George Wallace, and Georgia’s Lester Maddox, Daley exposed to the nation that there were southern counterparts in northern cities.
Chicago was set for a long hot summer. In the summer of 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement staged numerous demonstrations in all-white neighborhoods protesting housing discrimination, a custom usually achieved by redlining (a form of mortgage discrimination directed against blacks or other minorities) and block busting (a means for real estate agents and speculators to trigger the turnover of white-owned property to African Americans; often characterized as “panic peddling,” such practices frequently accompanied the expansion of black areas of residence and the entry of blacks into neighborhoods previously denied to them). Although the demonstrators were nonviolent, the communities were just the opposite. As the marches continued and gained momentum, riots erupted on Chicago’s West Side in July. The viciousness and magnitude of the violence that met the marchers was unsurpassed by any previous attacks anywhere. On August 5, as marchers protested in an all-white community, black demonstrators were met with malevolence. Antagonists hurled a barrage of rocks, bottles, and other implements, causing bodily harm to the demonstrators. Although King was struck in the head with a rock, he kept marching.
Later, King told reporters that he had never seen such racial hatred, not even in such Klan strongholds as Mississippi. The violent response of local whites and the resolve of civil rights activists to carry on the movement for opening housing to all people captured the attention of the national press and caused Chicago’s city hall to rethink its position. By late August, Daley backed down and was eager to find a way to end the demonstrations. He agreed to meet with movement leaders. After negotiating with King, various housing boards, and others, a 10-point agreement was signed that called for various measures to strengthen the enforcement of existing laws and regulations as they related to housing. However, the agreement did not satisfy everyone, and in early September activists marched on Cicero, Illinois, the town where a fierce race riot had previously occurred in 1951.
King told reporters that he had never seen such racial hatred, not even in such Klan strongholds as Mississippi.
Following the agreement, some members of the SCLC remained to help in housing programs and voter registration, and Jackson continued Operation Breadbasket. However, city officials failed to make good on their promises of the summit agreement. By 1967 the Chicago Freedom Movement ended as the Black Power Movement swept through Chicago, questioning interracial activism and non-violent direct action.
Linda T. Wynn
Danville, Virginia, Movement (1963)
The mill town of Danville, Virginia, saw the early efforts of an anti-segregation campaign that began with the opening of the public library to blacks. In 1960 a court order forced the facility to desegregate; instead, library leaders closed the building for several months. When it reopened as an integrated library, all seats had been removed and users were charged a fee for a library card. This campaign to desegregate led to the founding of the Danville Christian Progressive Association (DCPA), later an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Local black leaders were displeased with the way the NAACP handled race matters: they were considered too slow to act because they did not want to disturb the status quo. By 1963, the DCPA’s key aim was to bring about equal access to jobs in private enterprises and municipal jobs such as firemen, policemen, clerks, and meter readers. The aim, too, was to integrate lunch counters.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Danville in 1963 to address local blacks was followed by demonstrations from the black community. Worse than “Bull” Connor’s order of fire hose attacks on protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, was Danville Mayor Julian Stinson’s order to use dogs, fire hoses, and nightsticks on protesters who marched to oppose segregation in downtown public facilities. City officials deputized garbage collectors and used them to guard the police station complex. “We will hose down the demonstrators and fill every available stockade,” Mayor Stinson declared. Local police also broke down church doors and arrested protest leaders and organizers. Some 65 protesters were injured. As a result of the brutality that blacks endured, June 10, 1963, became known as “Bloody Monday.”
Danville officials remembered an 1831 statute that led to insurrectionist Nat Turner’s hanging and its use to hang abolitionist John Brown in 1859. With this in mind, the municipal judge who heard the 1963 cases did so with a gun strapped to his waist. An attorney who tried to argue the protesters’ case was arrested. Until then, the majority of the black community was afraid to join the protest. After Bloody Monday, however, the black community became solidified in its resolve.
Jessie Carney Smith
Detroit, Michigan, Race Riot (1943)
The black population in the city of Detroit increased greatly between 1910 and 1930, attracted to the industrial center by the need for automotive and other labor workers. World War II also drew blacks and others to Detroit from the South, as well as from other parts of the country and Canada, when automobile and other industrial plants began developing military vehicles and other equipment in support of the war effort. The influx into this urban setting created tension with whites who were also working in these industries, however. As early as August 1942 the potential for racial violence had been documented in local and national publications, as blacks experienced discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations. On June 20, 1943, a fight between blacks and whites took place on Belle Isle, where there was a segregated public beach and recreation area, and escalated into a riot. Local police were unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the outbreak, but order was eventually restored with the help of military police. Twenty-nine African Americans and nine whites died, nearly 700 were injured, and close to 2,000 were arrested. One positive result was the formation of the nation’s first interracial committee with authority to address discrimination issues.
Fletcher F. Moon
Detroit, Michigan, Race Riot (1967)
The summer of 1967 was marked by disturbances in several urban areas that suffered from poverty, racial discrimination, and other negative factors in the midst of increasing population density, as well as political turbulence connected with civil rights struggles and American involvement in the Vietnam War. In Detroit a single incident on July 23 triggered the outbreak of violence and destruction. After the police raided an “after-hours club” on 12th Street where illegal drinking was taking place, they arrested and handcuffed club patrons as a crowd of blacks gathered on the scene. Outnumbered police officers could not control the crowd, which began breaking into white-owned stores, looting merchandise, and destroying property by setting fires and other means. As the riot continued over the next two days, even black-owned businesses were not spared from the violence. The National Guard restored order in the city on July 25, but by that time 43 African Americans had lost their lives, nearly 1,200 were injured, and well over 7,000 people had been arrested. The event became a symbol of urban problems and despair, with lasting negative implications for the city. Accelerated “white flight” to the suburbs and beyond caused additional economic problems for the inner city, and African Americans, who were soon to become the majority population, were left to address these and other issues largely by themselves.
Fletcher F. Moon
The event became a symbol of urban problems