Six months after the Selma to Montgomery marches and just weeks after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a group from Martin Luther King Jr.’s staff arrived in Chicago, eager to apply his nonviolent approach to social change in a northern city. Once there, King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined the locally based Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) to form the Chicago Freedom Movement. The open housing demonstrations they organized eventually resulted in a controversial agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley and other city leaders, the fallout of which has historically led some to conclude that the movement was largely ineffective.
In this important volume, an eminent team of scholars and activists offer an alternative assessment of the Chicago Freedom Movement’s impact on race relations and social justice, both in the city and across the nation. Building upon recent works, the contributors reexamine the movement and illuminate its lasting contributions in order to challenge conventional perceptions that have underestimated its impressive legacy.
Cuprins
Interpreting the Chicago Freedom Movement: The Past Fifty Years
Toward the Apex of Civil Rights Activism: Antecedents of the Chicago Freedom Movement, 1965-66
In Their Own Voices: The Story of the Movement in the Voices of its Participants
The Chicago Freedom Movement and the Federal Fair Housing Act
The Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities: Chicago and Fair Housing
The North Shore Summer Project: We’re Gonna Open Up the Whole North Shore
Low-Income Tenant Unions during the Chicago Freedom Movement: Innovation and Impact
The Movement for Fair Lending and the Chicago Freedom Movement
The Martin Luther King Legacy in North Lawndale: The Dr. King Legacy Apartments and Historic District
The Movement Didn’t Stop
Perspectives on the Legacy of Jesse Jackson, Sr.
Chicago Politics, the Chicago Freedom Movement, and the Nation
Roots of the Environmental Justice Movement: Community Mobilization to End Lead Poisoning
Youth and Nonviolence: Then and Now
Music and the Movement in Two Voices
Women in the Movement: Two Stories
Labor and the Chicago Freedom Movement
Nonviolence and the Chicago Freedom Movement
Movement Success: The Long View
The Movement is Now: A Message to Young People
A Note from the Next Generation: Reflections of the Eve of a Pilgrimage
Despre autor
James R. Ralph Jr. is Rehnquist Professor of American History and Culture at Middlebury College and author of Northern Protest: Martin Luther King, Jr., Chicago and the Civil Rights Movement.