Welcome to this Black Kos-hosted reading group of Thomas Sugrue's
Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North.
Of course, you don't have to be a member of Black Kos to join this discussion; it's open for anybody and the more, the merrier! Come and join us on The Porch every Monday night at 7:30-ish for the next 4 or so weeks.
Tonight, we will be covering Chapter 9, titled "Fires of Frustration and Discord," which covers "The Negro Revolt of 1963." The opening pages Chapter 9 directly addresses an observation noted in my reply to gharlane's comment in the Vermont NAACP diary from yesterday.
That even some establishment black leaders were caught off-guard by the mood of the urban north in 1963 can, in part, be attributed, to the very real distance that leaders like Roy Wilkins and George Schuyler had from conditions "on the ground" in black neighborhoods. One important takeaway here might be to remember that no one leader or one "chosen" group of people "speaks" for everyone in the group.
I especially liked the comment of Philadelphia lawyer Cecil Moore that Sugrue cites on page 293.
"I run a grass-roots group, not a cocktail party, tea sipping, fashion-show attending group of exhibitionists."
That sounds quite familiar to my LGBT-attuned ears.
It was also interesting to learn that JFK was responding to recent evens in the North as well as in the South when he made his famous June 11, 1963 civil rights speech.
Because it seems more appropriate that this particular chapter has a wealth of pertinent (and lengthy) secondary materials, I'll close my thoughts and let some great, great men take over for now but I am sure we have lots to dicuss in the comments.
The Great March on Detroit. June 23, 1963
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King: Audio of Speech at The Great March On Detroit delivered June 23, 1963...the "original" or "first draft" of his "I Have a Dream" speech. The Wikipedia page on the
Detroit Walk of Freedom compares the texts of both speeches side-by-side
Malcolm X- Audio of Message to the GrassRoots- Speech delivered November 10, 1963 in Detroit, Michigan.
Text of "Message to the Grassroots"
- This speech is primarily remembered because of Malcolm X's "house Negro"/"field Negro" distinction:
There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes – they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, “We got a good house here,” the house Negro would say, “Yeah, we got a good house here.” Whenever the master said “we,” he said “we.” That’s how you can tell a house Negro...On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negro — those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call ’em “chitt’lin’” nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That’s what you were — a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters.
The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro — remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die. If someone come [sic] to the field Negro and said, “Let’s separate, let’s run,” he didn’t say “Where we going?” He’d say, “Any place is better than here.” You’ve got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro.
More interesting, though, in light of recent discussions here at GOS is Malcolm X "breaking it down" about the meaning of "revolution."
First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I’m inclined to believe that many of our people are using this word “revolution” loosely, without taking careful consideration [of] what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind...You haven’t got a revolution that doesn’t involve bloodshed. And you’re afraid to bleed. I said, you’re afraid to bleed....And the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you think he’ll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don’t know what a revolution is. If you did, you wouldn’t use that word...A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way.