The book..“Hillbilly Nationalists”

    The book was written by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy.  It describes social movements in ‘60s Chicago, including what happened in the Uptown.. just out there.. next to the Edgewater..  The fascinating chronicle helps to "make sense" about many past event in Chicago or the US... It sheds the new lights on them.

    The author begins like this,
        "In July 1969 a dozen self-identified hillbillies showed up to a Black Panther Party conference with Confederate flag patches sewn to their ragged jean jackets.......The Young Patriots had come to Oakland, CA, for the United Front Against Fascism Conference. They arrived from Uptown, a Chicago neighborhood home to thousands of economically displaced Appalachians, mostly white, who had turned the area into a bastion of southern culture..".

   And Chicago’s Uptown turned ‘Hillbillies’ Heaven” in 1969,,  the community-based organizations which gathered there were…JOIN(Job or Income Now) in Chicago, Young Patriots Organization, Rising Up Angry et cetera.. Although...the southern whites named Young Patriots—who have made “unlikely” coalition with Black Panthers—were still, sometimes confused by the public with white supremacists.....because of its unique identity.. although they were “directly challenging white supremacy while struggling for the class interests of poor and working-class white people..et cetera..

” The author states,

 “The seeming contradiction of confederate flag waving revolutionaries in deep dialogue about Black Power and Third World Liberation is less extraordinary than the fact that anyone doubted poor and working-class whites’ participation in the first place 

    In that period, SDC (Students Democratic Committee) or SNCC (etc). were trying to form multi-racial Civil rights mvmt organization (in Freedom Ride in the South, etc...) these groups also.. gradually bumped against identity problems,..

  Besides... in case of Black Panthers and Young Patriots’ unlikely coalition, “the growing presence of white volunteers in Black-led organizations was started to take a toll.. " (Southern white racist gangs, or the police especially hated and killed the white activists who joined black movement...)

  But JOIN's Uptown headquarter  kept holding multiracial housing campaigns, and for example, supporting MLK’s housing march in Chicago in 1966..

 The book’s authors clearly define these “displaced poor whites” as the victims of the public policy:  “Urban renewal programs treated poor neighborhoods like chessboards, chopping up neighborhoods to build new housing residents could no longer afford and forcing them to move into other poor neighborhoods or out of the city entirely.” 

The authors also suggest some facts which were usually evaded even ..in the sociology class..or public museum's exhibitions.. and refer to the ex-Mayor Richard Daley senior as a complete villain.

 For example, referring to the Robert Taylor home’s high rise construction on the South Side in’60s (all the displaced, former slum residents at the site were forcefully pushed into the new high rise, which turned into a slum within several years.) at least  the former teachers mentioned the attached neighborhood development ( the construction of Dan Ryan freeway etc) ambiguously, (only talked about the mayor who aimed to segregate the blacks from his own Irish neighborhood.. But the book says,

 “[It was here that northern segregation persisted through an entrenched web of laws,  regulations, and the informal practices of Chicago real estate agents,] the Federal Housing Association, and neighborhood groups’ intent on curtailing Black homeownership. Restrictive zoning laws prevented public housing construction in any place other than existing ghettoes, while proposed highway construction decimated working-class neighborhoods including Italian and Greek ethnic enclaves ”

Yes,  Little Italy and Greek Town was razed, and thousands of people displaced...when Daley ordered to relocate UIC campus there from Navy Pier.   The authors also keep criticizing ex-ex-Mayor Delay,

   “In Chicago politicians channeled these funds into existing agencies leaving the bulk of decision-making in the hand of administrators and social workers, not community representatives. This came as no surprise to most Uptown residents. Chicago was ruled by the iron fist of six-term Mayor Richard J. Daley—whose intense political machine was efficient and everywhere. Democratizing city services wasn’t exactly his style. The elder Daley created a legacy of gerrymandered school districts, segregated housing, and separate and completely unequal access to public resources. Few Chicagoans missed the message about Daley’s tyranny.”

From the viewpoint of grass-roots activists, the authors say “the federal government was intensifying poverty by destroying thousands of homes through urban renewal programs, [and] Uptown residents had long known ‘The Great Society’ was a charade”.

This is a harsh criticisms  not usually found even in the “ordinary” sociology textbooks, or most of the media evade the reality.. It was because R. Daley Jr’s tenure had still continued until just recently.. While I have also seen R. Daley’s biography film, “Daley, the Last Boss”—it also described Al Capone-type Boss almost fair-and-balanced way.. stressing his almighty power as a charm..but euphemistic about his tyranny.. I even didn’t know such a thing: “the West Sides’ first Black alderman, Ben Lewis, was shot execution style after showing political independence from Daley on issues like housing policy, garbage collection and school segregation..”   

The book also mentions what happened behind the 1968 Democratic Convention Riot in Chicago.. It says "KFC’s commercial shooting crew," who happened to be there..shot the a lot of footage of police violence against civilians.and the film "American Revolution II" wasn't put on the screen for long because Chicago's theater assoc scared Daley and refused it..until Hugh Hefner's Playboy Theater audaciously showed it in 1969...

    The description of police’s violence against the hillbilly activists or Black Panthers was beyond  imagination, although Black Panther’s provocative guns-and-blazing...style.wasn’t mentioned so much.

    I remember there was a rally of "New Black Panther" 2 years ago, in Harlem NY,  I tried to find the  article at the library PC—but when some articles appeared, suddenly the screen was blocked by “FBI’s warning”.. which says "this computer is blocked... your IP address is put on our record" etc.. though ..I don’t know if that was a fake..

 

     The Black Panther movement also made coalition with Latino orgs, such as the Young Lord a Puerto Rican group..  although I have heard of their name  as the teen age gangs who committed violent crime in Humboldt Park's assembly hall...

(Today Latino communities area is struggling with teenage violence... they do have gang groups.. but their extended family tradition seems to have something to do with their new effort of forming neighborhood orgs .. church-related community movements for the mutual assistance.., youth gang rehabilitation etc. I actually saw the good tv program about welfare center in Pilsen..on channel 21 today!..

*"The Hillbilly Nationalist" - The historical handbook for the Occupy movement 
http://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Nationalists-Urban-Rebels-Black/dp/1935554662
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