who do not have these civil rights. To be afraid to be killed by the police because of the color of your skin, “hands up, don’t shoot” --is a stain on liberty and justice. To have to proclaim, “Black Lives Matter,” is a measure of where African Americans stand as citizens.
The civil rights movement was about more than the fair treatment of African Americans. MLK, Jr. and others knew they were about the radical change of American society. As Christians, they believed in the commandments of Jesus—to love God and love your neighbor. In the way they responded to their oppressors, they represented not only how they should be treated as human beings, but how all Americans, and people across the world should be treated. This message became clearer to many Americans. I believe this message lead to the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.--a horrifying way to preserve the status quo.
Many of the families we served were led by mothers and grandmothers who had moved from the south during the Great Migration2 . While living in the south, people had learned to avoid or negotiate with the people who might hurt them. After moving to northern industrial cities, they had to learn this all over again. The cities were places where there were so many more people who could hurt them. They found institutions had incorporated racism into their business. However, people found ways to cope with prejudice and racism and still live happy lives.
Many, if not most white people, feel very little guilt about slavery, nor do they want to take responsibility for the trauma it has caused nearly 45 million Americans. White people do not understand how poverty, Jim Crow, lynching, and “hands up, don’t shoot” have affected people who are their neighbors. This is how oppression continues. When one group of people does not learn or care about another group, who are treated as if their value is not the same, two societies develop. As long as the oppressor is able to maintain their comfort, they are satisfied. When threatened, things happen to put people back in their place.
SOCIAL MOBILITY
Social mobility is the concept of individuals making progress in society through education, economic opportunity and social experience. Throughout this story I will talk about how we believed individuals who understood how to cope with a society fraught with endemic racism would have a stronger presence in the communities in which they lived. This was the way we sought to build stronger communities. This is how we believed social mobility would become possible for those we served. Poverty limited not only opportunity, but its companion, experience.
We knew we had to help our neighbors learn what their grandparents knew about prejudice and racism. It was helping children learn in youth programs to sit up straight, wait for a turn, follow directions, get along with peers and respect teachers. If they did, they would have a better chance to learn in failing schools. To not be able to do these things meant teachers would stop teaching them and blame them for not learning. In our work readiness program, we had to help African American participants learn to get along with white people in a work setting. We had to talk about conforming to the expectations of work in a mostly white environment. Whether that was changing appearances to fit expectations or learning how to get along with white interviewers, bosses and co-workers, we wanted people to be prepared upon entering this predominantly white work world.
The opportunity to move from poverty to the working class, or from the working class to the middle class, has been in decline for decades. This economic mobility, which began in the 50’s, is in decline because wages have not kept pace with the cost of living. In the 1950’s and early 60’s, soldiers coming back from World War II and the Korean War could find factory jobs or those in manufacturing to support their family. With the help of unions, these jobs provided the income needed to move from the working class into the middle class. My wife Joyce’s family is an example of this. Her father worked in factories in Cleveland, Ohio, all of his life. Joyce and her six brothers and sisters experienced a middle-class upbringing.
The GI Bill gave soldiers the opportunity to go to college. My father was the first in his family of immigrants to attend college. After he graduated, he was able to attain a job in middle-management at a women’s clothing manufacturing company in Kansas City, Missouri. His job allowed him to provide an upper-middle class lifestyle for me and my brother and sister.
The closing of factories in the U. S., and the efforts to lessen the strength of unions, made economic mobility for new workers practically non-existent. With the downsizing of companies in the past two decades, middle-management jobs have all but been eliminated. Families are forced to survive with lesser income.
Social mobility has suffered the same setbacks. Some groups of people are socially unacceptable. They may be new immigrants who are trying to make their way into and through a new culture. Primarily, though, the group excluded from social mobility is African Americans. Our primary goal was to help our neighbors practice behaviors which would help them overcome some of the prejudice they faced.
When we discussed how white people felt about others washing their cars on the street in front of their homes, or groups of people hanging out on the stoops (stairs) in front of their houses, we were not trying to say white people were right. We were suggesting that making a choice to do these things would satisfy their neighbors and show them how the “better” person behaves. It is unfortunate and wrong that African Americans have to bear the burden of prejudice and racism.
Our work was not about telling African Americans they needed to be “like white people,” but discussing the reality of America. We let people know we did not agree with this reality, nor did we accept how people were treated. We wanted the people coming to MIDTOWN to know we believed in loving our neighbors and would do the best we could for anyone who came to us.
SOCIAL LIBERATION
I met thousands of African Americans over the nearly 40 years I worked in St. Louis. I would have to say there is something special about the people I met. They were more generous, patient, concerned about their neighbors, non-judgmental and willing to work with white people than I ever expected. Maybe the pain of slavery and its aftermath has made them a different kind of people. I know they are willing to forgive this American “original sin” and move forward as complete members of our society. I think there is much more African Americans can teach other Americans about life and living. What we as white people must do is repent the sin of slavery, seek forgivenessand repair our relationships with the descendants of slaves.
I learned this about African Americans through nearly forty years of relationship-building and nearly 20 years of community organizing and development. Although initially our goal had been to work with our African American neighbors to help increase opportunities for social mobility, our efforts changed to include working toward Social Liberation. Unlike social mobility which requires conformity, social liberation goes to the root of our divisions: class and race. This would mean our neighbors could work on the issues most directly causing the stagnation of social mobility.
The efforts to fight gentrification in two neighborhoods, where neighbors and staff stood together against the sponsors of redevelopment, helped the people we served find their voices and use them with great strength. Staff had the opportunity for solidarity with our neighbors. Small business development and the formation of two non-profit, community-based corporations, helped our neighbors become the controlling partners of efforts in their own neighborhoods.
NOTES
98% of the guests who visited MIDTOWN were members of African American families. In no way do I consider the experience of all African Americans to be the same. Nor do I believe African Americans and white people who live in poverty have the same experiences. I did find the experience of people who are poor limited by their income and opportunities. In this book I talk about and tell stories of the people I met and with whom I developed positive human relationships. Almost all of these relationships were with African American neighbors in mid-city St. Louis.
When I use “people”, “neighbors”
