Segregation-Protest March In A Chicago Suburb

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31145, 23 August 1966, Page 20

Segregation-Protest March In A Chicago Suburb

(By

I. L. N. MACBETH,

Assistant Editor oj "The Press” who is making a study tour tn the United States)

CHICAGO, August 22. Yesterday’s “freedom march” in suburban Chic* ago was a tame affair, as civil rights demonstrations go. There was no gunplay, and there were only 17 arrests. Chicago heaved a sigh of relief when the march passed off (almost) without incident, thanks to massive police protection. The march was organised by civil rights groups as a protest against segregation in the Bogan area of south-west Chicago. Close to Chicago Lawn, where a similar demonstration last week provoked serious riots, the Bogan area is one of Chicago’s newer residential districts. Negroes have been unable to buy property in the district, or to desegregate the William J. Bogan High School. The march a route of more than two miles along Pulaski road, in which are situated the offices of several realtors (real estate agents) and the Bogan High School. Previously announced to start at 3 p.m., the march did not begin till 5 p.m. This ensured —accidentally or otherwise—the maximum disruption to peak traffic flows. An Assortment The marchers were Negro and white, male and female, old and young, professional and bohemian, lay and clerical, shabby and respectable: an assortment of Americans with nothing in common, apparently, but their faith in a common cause. They walked slowly, three abreast, along Pulaski road. They were orderly and quiet, except when they stopped outside the realtors’ offices, and by the high school—to pray and chant. Many of the marchers were “veterans” of earlier marchers, as “campaign ribbons” in their hatbands showed. The 700 marchers formed a procession more than 200 yards long. Most of the onlookers were local residents who stood on their front lawns or at street corners and stared in hostile silence at the invaders, though some jeered and abused the marchers. The potential troublemakers were gangs of youths who roamed the march route, obviously spoiling for a fight. Confederate Flags A volley of stones was thrown at the marchers, shouted insults followed them the whole way, and several noisy counter-demon-strations were staged; and the ringleaders were nearly all male, aged 16 to 22. Some waved Confederate flags as they chanted “white power” and “we hate niggers.” As one obstructive youth was hustled into a van by two policemen his friends parroted “police brutality,” but made no attempt to intervene. But the troublemakers were always outnumbered by the troubleshooters. The police escort flanked the

marchers a policeman to every three or four rows, one on each side of the column. Every policeman on duty carried the bolstered revolvers and baton which are standard equipment for police forces throughout the United States; Police In Force A phalanx of police paved the way and another posse brought up the rear. Other men had been posted along the route, and there they stayed until the march was over. Side streets and parallel streets were manned by policemen on foot and in vehicles. Still more policemen patrolled Pulaski road in vans, cars and on motorcycles. A helicoter hovered over the route carrying police observers. Associated Press said today there were “some 600 policemen there,” the “Chicago Tribune” (“The World’s Greatest Newspaper”) put the number at 800; and the “Chicago Daily News” claimed there were 1000 police and 100 detectives on the scene. My own estimate is nearer 2000. Bright-painted metal helmets identified many of the journalists by their newspapers, or radio and television stations. At the slightest indication of an “incident,” dozens of press and TV cameras appeared on the scene. Resented The local residents I talked to, and overheard, during my four-hour visit to Bogan, resented the demonstration. “What do they think they will achieve by this?” was a common reaction. “They don’t come from these parts—why do they want to stir up trouble here?” Three pre-high school boys were distributing

anti-integration literature, and shouting “white power" at motorists passing the high school. One of them told me he was to start at the school next semester. A young journalist I talked to turned out to be a freelance reporter for one of the Harvard University student papers. A sociologist he is studying racial tensions in Chicago. The Bogan residents, he said, were typically secondgeneration Americans of Central European descent mainly Poles. They had only recently raised themselves to middleclass status and were still so insecure as to resent strongly the intrusion of Negro residents into their suburb, and the admission of Negro students to the same schools as their children. Intolerance The demonstration would undoubtedly have provoked violence and bloodshed without police protection on the scale of a military operation. This made a mockery of the repeated announcements from a police car; “The Chicago Police Department are very proud of the behaviour of the residents of this area.” The determination of the civil rights workers to gain real equality for the Negro was clearly apparent; so was the intolerance of many of the onlookers. The police are capable of preventing violence whenever they get sufficient warning. Like firemen standing by an underground fire, they can douse any flames that appear above the surface. The fire continues to smoulder, and perhaps to spread, underground. Most Americans want the surface flames doused: not too many venture underground to remove the tinder in the path of the fire.