Tag Archives: Life in the City

Plunging Into Detroit, 1966

30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Church, Citizenship, Events, Faith, Growing up, Gullibility, Innocence, People, Racial Prejudice, Travel

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In the late 1960’s the “urban plunge” was an experience recommended to those who had not lived in an urban area or who had lived in a privileged area and had no direct experience of how the “other half” lived. The Methodist Student Movement was sponsoring a conference in Detroit in the summer of 1966. I was president of the MSM chapter at Illinois Wesleyan University, a farm kid, and I decided to go to the conference and, unknown to my parents (I was 19 after all.), expand that experience with an urban plunge.

Central Methodist Church, located on Grand Circus Park, hosted the conference, and several local leaders—professors at Wayne State University, political leaders, corporate leaders, and the president of the United Auto Workers, Walter Reuther—spoke to us, addressing the urban issues of the day. Reuther was particularly impressive, laying out the challenges to the auto industry, fully integrating the workforce, and expanding the base of unions internationally; he predicted the eventual decline of domestic industry, the unions, and the urban centers in the face of global competition, since people were not preparing for it.

Outside of the conference some of us wandered around and lived on the streets of Detroit. Much of the housing in many neighborhoods sat empty and decrepit. The immense Ford Rouge Plant stood empty. Segregated housing was the rule, and public services for the older neighborhoods were often scarce. I always walked around with one or two other friends from the conference, and we slept on park benches or in abandoned houses, and went to soup kitchens and day labor hiring centers. I never had more than a few dollars on me and dressed like I didn’t have much, which, of course, I didn’t. It was one of the richest experiences of my life, meeting people on the street—the veterans who had lost their way, the guy with an armful of watches that he would sell me, the children who begged during the day and turned their money over to an adult at the end of the evening, alcoholics, drug addicts, musicians and street artists, philosophers, people of all kinds. Throughout the weeks there I perceived no threat, other than the rodents and dirt of the streets. People were friendly, curious about us (We were college students here for a few weeks of the summer just to learn what we could.), willing to talk about their own lives, frustrations, and hopes. I discovered that all of these people were a lot like me under the skin. I could learn from them, but I had little to teach. That was the summer before the Detroit riots of 1967, and I wondered how poor people managed to live in the city, knowing they had no other home to go to.

One day a female friend and I got cleaned up and dressed up and went to a new high-rise apartment building in the urban renewal area just north of the downtown. We pretended we were a newly married couple looking for an apartment. The apartments were plain, small, and uninviting, and we finally had to admit to the nice woman who showed us around that $1000 a month was above our means. I couldn’t see how or why anyone would afford such a rental. Obviously most of the people we were meeting could not. We ate that evening at a Greek restaurant, spending some of my money hard-earned from loading and unloading trucks for a couple of days. We sat and watched as people came and went, finding or leaving something hidden behind the refrigerator that sat just outside the kitchen, but not staying to eat a meal.

I searched for the church that Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr had served for 13 years that had ended forty years before—Bethel Evangelical Church, two miles west of the downtown on Grand Avenue. What would be left of the German working community he served? It had become an African-American working community, and the building continued to serve, renamed Mayflower Missionary Baptist Church. I didn’t imagine at the time that I would eventually serve old German Evangelical Churches that looked a lot like it.

It is still hard to say exactly how those days in Detroit changed me, but they did. I was humbler, needing much less, but also less confident in my own ability to find any kind of success on my own. Anything worth doing had to be done together.

Jan’s Last Day as an ISES Interviewer

29 Monday Aug 2016

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Chicago skyline 1970Jan prepared for her last day as an Employment Interviewer with the Illinois State Employment Service, with offices located on Chicago’s Sixty-third Street in the middle of the South Side. She had worked there for a year into April of 1970. Most mornings she got into her 1960 Ford Falcon, drove the mile to the office, and parked in the neighborhood north of Sixty-third, walking the last block or two, all in the gray of sunrise, then retracing her steps in the dusk after 5 o’clock. Though it was the middle of the “ghetto,” or considered so in those years, and gang violence and neighborhood deterioration was advanced, she rarely had any trouble in that neighborhood. In fact, she had several people watching out for her, as one of three Caucasians in an office of about forty workers, mostly African-Americans. Mr. Parham, in particular, took her under his wing, drew an occasional sketch of her in charcoal, when he had a little free time and she didn’t know he was watching, and in general adopted her as his kid.

On this last day, she dressed in a powder blue maternity dress, suitable to her condition at eight and a half months. Shortly after arrival she learned that there had been an oversight in her original hiring process. Not all the paperwork had been completed, and one requirement had not been met. She had not been finger-printed. Who knew that all workers in the state employment service had to be fingerprinted as part of their background check or possible future criminal behavior or possible identification if someone happened to bomb the office? Before they could officially release her, they had to correct that mistake. They sent her to the precinct police station several blocks away.

Taking her seat in a waiting room, surrounded by several police officers and some suspicious-looking characters, she took her place among the people waiting to be processed. There was a quiet wave of discussion passing through the room about what she was “in for.” Pregnant, lily-white and noticeably paler than usual, in powder blue, what had she done to require being arrested and held by the police? The officers had quite a lot of fun at her expense as they went through the finger-printing routine. They weren’t the only ones wondering why she had to be there.

It seemed a fitting end to a frustrating year, trying to help people find work in a nearly impossible environment.

If you happen to see her picture at any local post office, you can be assured that she is still wanted.

 

Gender and Job-Seeking

23 Thursday Jun 2016

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Chicago skyline 1970

In 1970, while Jan, my wife, was serving as an interviewer for the Illinois State Employment Service in Woodlawn on Chicago’s south side, a couple of transvestite job-seekers came into her office. They were obviously enjoying the day, with make-up applied and dressed more extravagantly than anyone in the office. Jan prepared their forms, leaving the male or female box for the next referral counselor to fill in. She regretted that the next available counselor was Mr. Z, who tended to be abrupt and careless, instead of Mr. P, who saw the best in everyone. It wasn’t long before the two clients emerged from Mr. Z’s office, acting as though they had never been so insulted in their whole lives. Jan and I again had something new to think about at supper that evening.

When did we cease to play the game of dress-up, playing with the discarded dresses, purses, and high heels that my grandmother provided to her 30 plus grandchildren? Probably around the age of five or six; after that it became either a cause of ridicule or a rare source of fun, although one of my cousins made a career out of it, serving in the costuming and entertainment industry. Why did people make such an issue of the clothes that people wore or the gender roles that they identified with?

Some of our high school, college, and seminary friends had wrestled with sexual identity issues personally, finding little acceptance when they “came out” to others, but they remained our friends, and we found them just as faithful, and socially and morally appropriate as we were.

We studied sexual identity issues in bible classes in seminary, finding that a close reading of scripture gave no support for the kinds of discrimination and cultural exclusion that had dominated our society. The very words that were sometimes translated “homosexual” did not refer to the same behaviors that they did in our contemporary society, and the censure of transgender behaviors was, at best, part of a rigid culture long gone.

In 1982 we happened upon the movie Victor, Victoria, while we were taking a rare three-day trip without the children. A charming commentary upon gender identity, sexual orientation, culture, and poverty, the movie represented issues that were always present but often suppressed. Birdcage came in 1996, and Connie and Carla in 2004; otherwise our transvestite cultural contacts have tended to be rare. Along with other media, these movies made their points effectively with good humor.

In 1983 I was a delegate at the United Church of Christ 14th General Synod, meeting at Ames, Iowa. I gladly voted in favor of the “’Resolution Calling on United Church of Christ Congregations to Declare Themselves Open and Affirming.’ This resolution encouraged a policy on nondiscrimination in employment, volunteer service and membership policies with regard to sexual orientation; encouraged the congregations of the United Church of Christ to adopt a nondiscrimination policy and a Covenant of Openness and Affirmation of persons of lesbian, gay and bisexual orientation within the community of faith.” It felt like a small step in the right direction.

In 2003, I was a synod delegate assigned to the study committee on transgender issues at the Minneapolis Synod. Along with a group of dozens of UCC members who represented different forms of transgender identity, we elected belatedly to add “transgender” to the list of people for whom “open and affirming” should apply. The joy expressed in that room when the vote was almost unanimous contrasted with the stories of risk and rejection that many had shared.

Again in 2005, I was a delegate voting in favor when the “Equal Marriage Rights for All” resolution passed the 25th General Synod of the UCC in Atlanta, Georgia. We knew that a statement by seven hundred was just a little step, when so many people in our country had expressed outrage against it.

In my life these have been small and relatively easy matters, but they are still a part of some substantial and significant changes for people’s acceptance of themselves and others.

Voting for a Compromise Nominee

07 Saturday May 2016

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Chicago skyline 1970

For the first election in which I was eligible to vote, 1968, I began the year as a supporter of Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy, the anti-Vietnam War candidate for President. Only a handful of political leaders took on the challenge to oppose the war. The opinion polls indicated that a majority of U.S. citizens still supported the war even though the reasons for it changed with the calendar. Some military analysts stated that the U.S. would have to prosecute the war for another thirty years before any resolution could be expected. Already we had used more armaments than we had during the entire Second World War, and the prospects of suffering in Southeast Asia and loss of life for everyone involved would surpass that war if the analysts were correct.

When Bobby Kennedy joined the campaign, I did not immediately move to support him, even though I knew that he had a better chance of mounting a successful campaign than McCarthy. His willingness to join the war opposition seemed late and calculated, depending on the courage of McCarthy and others to clear the way. Nonetheless I knew that I would vote for Kennedy when the time came. Sirhan Sirhan removed that possibility in the wake of the successful Kennedy campaign in California.

Next came the Chicago convention and the disastrous clashes between demonstrators and police that alienated people on all sides. The convention nominated a stalwart and hard-working liberal, Hubert Humphrey, who in ordinary times would have seemed an outstanding selection to win the office. Humphrey had been supportive in his role as President Lyndon Johnson’s Vice President, but as a candidate he tried to conciliate between those who supported and those who opposed the war, without specifying changes in the conduct of it. Republican candidate Richard Nixon promised that he had a plan for ending the war, but he was no more specific in describing his plan than Humphrey. Perhaps, given Nixon’s history, people could have foreseen that his plan for ending the war involved a major escalation in waging it, doubling the deaths and destruction, but a majority of voters chose Nixon and his secret plan.

Having my own views of the histories of Nixon and Humphrey, I opted reluctantly to support Humphrey. In this first election I also decided to work for him, canvassing the precinct including our apartment in Hyde Park on Chicago’s south side. I volunteered at precinct headquarters and was assigned to a Mr. White, a distinguished Jewish gentleman. While we worked together in his precinct, he invited me into his home, my wife and me to join him and his wife for a meal, and to worship with them at their Reform synagogue.

Mr. White had endured through many decades of Chicago politics and somehow remained idealistic. His work for Senator Paul Douglas and Alderman Leon Despres had given him sufficient hope to keep at it. Somehow he had managed to negotiate the tortuous route between the Chicago Democratic “machine,” the needs of people in his precinct, and his sense of the larger world beyond the city. He and his wife were the only bright spots in what proved to be a disappointing election.

The Church between the police and the hood

23 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Caring, Church, Faith, guns, Learning from mistakes

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We smelled smoke as soon as we entered the church. It was the fall of 1968, and the fourth Sunday that we went to worship at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, located in the middle of the south side community of Woodlawn, a few blocks from our apartment. The usher said that someone had firebombed the church office, and many of the records had been removed before the fire, so it was clearly an effort to cover the theft of the records; more than likely it was the Red Squad, a unit of the Chicago Police Department. Fortunately, the fire had been reported and firemen had arrived to put out the fire before a lot of damage occurred.

The Chicago Police had entered the church a few months before and confiscated the weapons that the church had collected from members of the area gang that had taken the name “BlackPStone Nation” as part of an agreement to trade weapons for jobs and opportunities. The “P” in their name supposedly meant “Peace,” but not everyone was persuaded of their intent. The church had objected to the way the police had acted, but not the idea of removing weapons, because that was their plan all along, and they hadn’t decided what how they were going to eliminate the weapons in their possession.

Whatever the church had tried in order to create peace in the neighborhood and that necessarily involved working with the neighborhood gangs, had come under suspicion by the police and some of the political leaders of the city, although other leaders had encouraged their efforts; the church and its pastor, John Fry, kept trying. If the gang leaders ever had good intentions, in cooperating with the jobs and opportunities programs, some of which were funded through the federal government, they eventually gave up when the church came under relentless criticism and was subjected to warrantless searches and fire-bombings.

So we worshipped, prayed for peace in the neighborhood and jobs for the young people, and listened to amazing and prophetic preaching from Pastor Fry. Fry published some books about the issues, notably, Fire and Blackstone, testified before a Congressional Committee, and lectured around the country on efforts to work with one’s neighborhood.

Months later Jan got a job as interviewer with the Illinois State Employment Service on 63rd Street, and she tried for a year to combat the hurdles of inadequate resources, job discrimination, and miles to go within the city environment for people to get to job interviews, much less to land a job that paid enough to keep making the trip. By that time, I was working on projects that took us to other churches within the city. Pastor Fry moved on. Efforts to establish peaceful work and education programs for the young adults of the South Side largely fell apart. Gang leaders and many of its members eventually landed in a cycle of prison, release, and more prison, until they either died or retired. Last time I checked, First Presbyterian was still there, smaller and older, trying to serve the neighborhood, gangs are still operating in the neighborhood, and politicians still are covering their….

Driving Robert Mann

29 Saturday Aug 2015

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Chicago skyline 1970

Returning to Chicago in the fall of 1970, after a year-long internship in Danville, Illinois, I concentrated my attention on my studies, my fellowship (which involved organizing the church-related archives of the seminary), and the immediate neighborhood of the south side. State Representative Robert Mann shocked the democratic machine by declaring his political independence and refusing machine support. They promptly selected a black candidate from the largely black district, but one who promised to be more amenable to party direction. Mann’s record was irreproachable from a liberal reformer perspective, and I decided to spend some of my “free” time volunteering for this new Independent.

We had replaced our 1960 Ford Falcon with a brand new Plymouth Valiant during my internship. When Mann’s campaign team asked for volunteer drivers, who could also provide a car, I volunteered. By that time I knew the south side streets well. I cleared a week of evenings and signed up to drive Representative Mann.

On our first evening Mann noted that their wasn’t quite as much room in the back seat of a Valiant as there was in a Checker Marathon, a first taste of his droll sense of humor. We paid a visit to a meeting of the United Steelworkers on the far south side, and Mann let me listen to a private conversation with Edward `Sadlowski (“oil can Eddie”). Sadlowski eventually led the union to a more active advocacy role during the massive layoffs and transition to overseas manufacturing during the 1980’s and 90’s. Mann, himself an attorney, reminded me that ministers must learn how to keep confidences and I should do that here. I was impressed that they were talking about a future ten to twenty years ahead of events, and how unions should try to prepare for the transition that was coming as major corporations were making plans for replacing and avoiding union contracts.

Small group gatherings in churches, civic organizations, and homes filled the next few nights. Sometimes I had to double park on the street waiting for Mann to finish and move on to the next location. When I found a convenient close parking place, I got to observe Mann’s careful handling of the issues, including facing an opponent whose racial identity matched the majority of the district, but whose political positions did not necessarily match their interests.

On Thursday evening we were driving through a Woodlawn neighborhood, not more than a mile from my apartment when a loud bang and hit to the rear of the car alarmed us both. I just kept driving. When we reached a lighted area a few blocks away, we checked and found a bullet dent in the rear panel. That evening Mann thanked me for the week of transportation, but thought he might need a heavier vehicle in the future, maybe with some bullet-proof glass.

I didn’t drive for him again, but I did vote for him, and he did win the election. Eventually he yielded his position to another independent and African-American candidate.

The Different Dogs of Chicago Politics

22 Saturday Aug 2015

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Chicago skyline 1970Dick Simpson, a political science professor at University of Illinois Circle Campus in Chicago, called Chicago “the most corrupt city in the country, and Illinois the third most corrupt state” in a February 2012 report for the Chicago Journal. “The truth is that the governor’s mansion and the city council chambers have a far worse crime rate than the worst ghetto in Chicago.” http://chicagoist.com/2012/02/17/dick_simpson_study_says_chicago_is.php

I met Professor Simpson in January of 1969, when he was instrumental in organizing the Independent Precinct Organization, and I was a student at Chicago Theological Seminary. The seminary encouraged students to get involved in churches , community and political organizations, and to engage in cycles of action and reflection (theological and ethical) with other students. I had worked, successively but not successfully, with the Eugene McCarthy and the Hubert Humphrey campaigns in 1968. The Chicago democratic machine held no attraction for me, but independent community-based politics was a different matter. Many local churches were involved in our own 5th Ward and in the 43rd Ward on Chicago’s North side, and it was easy to volunteer.

The first campaign for the IPO backed Bill Singer for Chicago Alderman for the 43rd Ward against the democratic machine. Singer had been a protege of Senator Paul Douglas and a friend of 5th Ward Alderman Leon Despres. I admired both of them, so I signed up to help with the Singer campaign, door to door canvassing and poll watching. Against odds, Singer was successful. The most inspiration, however, came from Dick Simpson, and his encouragement of young people and community residents to take part in the political process, in spite of the cynicism and despair that had gripped most reform efforts during those years. When other organizations gave up (the University Christian Movement among them), and others went underground (Students for a Democratic Society), the IPO offered hope to those of us who were inclined to believe that change would eventually come if we just kept working, even if it was only on a small local scale. Where else would it begin?

Change came, and it didn’t. Dick Simpson ran for alderman and joined the City Council for several years. Other independent candidates for mayor succeeded after Mayor Richard J. Daley’s death, and positive results followed, but corruption has continued to dog Chicago and Illinois politics. I and many others can take inspiration from the dogged determination of people like Dick Simpson, who are still involved and working.

Alone in the Dark

09 Sunday Aug 2015

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Chicago Old Town

In 1969, working for the Independent Precinct Organization [IPO]in Chicago’s north side Lincoln Park neighborhood, we canvassed door to door to build support for community-based initiatives instead of the urban renewal plans of the democratic machine and Mayor Richard J. Daley’s administration. The city plan called for bulldozing entire blocks of housing, displacing hundreds of poor and elderly families of many races and ethnic backgrounds, and building apartment buildings and condominiums that would cater to wealthy, upper class, largely white people. The area needed rehabilitation and preservation, from our perspective, not destruction and replacement. In canvassing , we met many wonderful people of various backgrounds who would be forced to move, priced out of the neighborhood.

We organized meetings, rallies, and took part in city-sponsored meetings that were supposed to give the people a voice, but largely consisted of city spokesmen telling the residents what was going to happen, whether they liked it or not. The city’s only authentic German beer garden became a center of attention, when the city planners decided it had to go the way of every other building of historical, ethnic, or cultural significance in the urban renewal area. What would the new neighborhood look like? An uninspired collection of modern boxes of uniform size, shape, and costliness, with little attention to amenities that existed in the previous community, because Lincoln Park would be considered a residential extension of the downtown. “Little boxes…full of [just more expensive] ticky-tacky,” anyone?

One night I had to park three blocks from the meeting –place at the edge of an already bull-dozed three-block strip, where the citizens were confronting city planners. Parking was scarce because we had generated a lot of interest in the meeting. The people present were angry and eloquent, expressing their grief at the prospect of losing homes and businesses and facing an uncertain future with below-replacement value appraisals and no help in relocation. The IPO presented alternative plans and proposals that had the backing of much of the resident community. When the meeting ended we felt that we had done well in getting both citizen-involvement and the important media attention.

I walked out of the building after a brief feedback session with my co-volunteers, needing to get back to my apartment on the south side and ready for seminary coursework the next day. The street was empty and dark; many of the street lights were removed with the destruction. I didn’t see anyone around, until I had walked a block, but then I heard from a distance when a gang of Spanish Disciples had spotted me. I didn’t understand all that they were saying, but I knew from a few words and phrases that they had recognized a lone target for their resentments and rage when they saw me. It didn’t matter that I thought I was serving their interests in being there. Their street sophistication did not extend to political disputes between the city and local white liberals.

They were coming at a run, and I decided that I needed to be faster, and so I was. I unlocked my car, jumped in, and sped off just as they were arriving. I didn’t wait to see whether I could persuade them that I was a good guy just trying to help out.

I returned to that neighborhood, continued to canvass, participated in other meetings and demonstrations, but I made sure that I was not alone in the dark after that.

Bruce and Cathy Larson opened the door.

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

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Luna moth

Bruce and Cathy Larson opened their door… to their neighbors who were trying to maintain their homes in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in the face of a major urban renewal project that would wipe out many blocks of moderate income housing and replace them with high income condominiums. They volunteered to work for the Independent Precinct Organization’s efforts to stand with these neighbors and protect their homes and investments in their neighborhood.

Bruce and Cathy opened their door… to me as I went door-to-door canvassing for support for the IPO’s project and resistance to the city plans. They served me herbal tea each time I stopped to talk with them. They loved their multi-cultural neighborhood, interesting people, old houses, and Chicago’s only authentic beer garden. They found the city plans to be disappointing and discriminatory, destroying a a rich culture and replacing it with a moneyed elite.

Bruce and Cathy opened their door…  to the Lutheran congregation they served by choice at the same time that they opened their congregation to  commitments to service with their Latin and African American neighbors, young and old, their old union-organizer, artistic,  political dissident, and nonconformist folks of all stripes.

Many people came in and out of their doors. I was privileged to be among them for several months.

One night, after they put their two small children to bed,  they opened their door…  to someone they probably knew, or whom they believed they should know, as Jesus would have opened the door, or as Jesus came to them in the form of someone in need. That night Bruce and Cathy were stabbed to death in their living room.

As far as I know, their murders, back in 1969, remain unsolved. Holy Week seems a good time to remember such a fine couple in Christian ministry, who opened the door of my heart to the needs of people I had not met before,  and to the sacrifices that sometimes are required in the attempts to  serve.