“Students for White Community Action” at Michigan State University, 1968. Personal history.

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. It was (I think) ahead of its time, and taught me important things. 

I can’t remember when SWCA emerged. Possibly it was just after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered in 1968.

I had radical friends, members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). One of them told me they were forming a new organization, Students for White Community Action, to deal with the fact that racism in America is fundamentally a WHITE problem. This was contrary to my assumptions. I thought that Black Americans were poor and uneducated, and needed (white) teachers and social workers to help them rise to “mainstream” social and economic status. My radical buddies enlightened me about the Black professional class, cultural values and (to some extent) the accomplishments of Black Americans.

I don’t know what happened to SWCA. Perhaps a few meetings were held? I was struggling to keep up in my chosen academic major (chemistry) and didn’t indulge in much outside of studying.

Why was my viewpoint on race so limited? I grew up in a defacto segregated suburb of Hartford, Connecticut. The “North End” of Hartford, home to its African American population, was perhaps five miles from my house, but it might as well have been on the far side of the moon. By the time I was a senior in high school, a tiny bit of communication had been established by teachers and church leaders. One friend of mine went to the North End weekly, to tutor. Eventually, we had one “cultural exchange” – choir concerts! We were bused into the North End and performed at a high school, which reciprocated. 

Michigan State University was almost as white as my hometown, but the winds of change were blowing at gale force. Possibly the Civil Rights movement in the South could have been ignored, but the “long hot summer” of 1967 culminated in the terrible 5-day Detroit Riot which left 43 dead, 1,189 injured, 7,200 arrested and 2,000 buildings destroyed (Wikipedia).This took place one hour’s drive from the campus I entered in September of 1967. MSU had been used as a staging area for the military assault on Detroit. The University was not, that season, a stable institution. No wonder I remember my college years as “turbulent”. 

More than 50 years have passed since then. I’m still learning…

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“Race in America” in my blog

Once in a while, I review my blog. The no-fee WordPress platform has worked well for me. I would like a more accessible indexing system, but I’m really not motivated to make changes.

Since early 2013, I’ve posted 475 entries, with a few interruptions for illness or travel. I keep an index of my own devising (using Excel). In that document, I’ve got a sub-list of posts related to the environment, numbering 29 but not recently updated.

Recently I started numbering blog entries in two categories – Covid19 and “Race in America”.

I decided to look back and see what I had written that pertains to race/white supremacy. I picked out 32 posts. Most are about books, and most pertain to African American experience. Some are about lectures, performances and personal experiences. Rather than dump the whole list here, I’ll write about a few that seem important, with more to follow.

I have the biggest emotional investment in the three entries I wrote about Lillie Belle Allen. Her story haunts me. “Say her name”, MLK Day (1) and MLK Day (2).

For the reader who wonders about my point of view, I recommend Women’s March and protest memories written in early 2017, and the two subsequent posts. It includes the story of a protest that “went bad”, and explains why it is hard for me to engage in street activism. I also reported on a wonderful, prophetic woman, Ms. Edith Savage-Jennings.

Perhaps most relevant to Black Lives Matter is the essay I wrote on jury duty in early 2015, My Days in Court. I was called (but not empaneled) to serve on a civil case involving police brutality in Atlantic City, NJ.

Here’s a really fine book that you may have missed, “Son of the Rough South” by Karl Flemming, published in 2005. Fleming grew up in the Depression South and became a journalist, covering the Civil Rights movement during its violent years.

And here’s something that lifted my heart! A number Facebook friends linked to You-Tube videos of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in honor of Juneteenth. I heard a wonderful LIVE rendition a few years ago. Central State University Chorus

So that’s a selection from my blog. Comments are always welcome!

Say her name: Lillie Belle Allen, murdered in York PA, July 21, 1969. Race in America #1

As we agonize over the murder of George Floyd, the names of victims of police brutality are being listed in the media. I want to honor the memory of a woman who may be overlooked, Lillie Belle Allen. She was not killed by police, but the Mayor and Chief of Police in the City of York, Pennsylvania, had created an atmosphere so racially tense and poisonous that driving down the wrong street led to her death.

I wrote about this previously, here and here. I learned this tragic history in 2018, many years after the fact. It shocked me to realize that I moved to York in 1973, lived there two years, and never heard of Lillie Belle Allen, Henry Schaad or the York race riots.

What led up to the York riots, which are described in Wikipedia? In 1962, the City had imposed a discriminatory policy of aggressive policing in black neighborhoods, including the use of dogs. I don’t know why. I speculate that the white residents of York couldn’t tolerate the changes that came upon them in the 1950s and 1960s. African Americans from the South moved to York for work in its many factories. Suburbanization “hollowed out” the downtown. Schools were integrated by busing. Resentment festered. Gangs coalesced.

I am grateful to the York Daily Record and journalist Kim Strong for their reporting.

Some York residents regarded the summer of 1969 as a “draw”. One death on each “side”. I can’t accept this. Lillie Belle Allen was an uninvolved by-stander, not even a resident of York. Henry Schaad chose employment as a police officer. I regard his death as a particularly grim and awful case of the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons. One analyst, writing 30 years after the fact, concluded he died because he was a police officer, not because he was white. (York’s police force was not 100% white in 1969.)

I’m saddened by the death of Lillie Belle Allen. If she hadn’t been shot, she might now be 78 years old. Who knows what those lost decades might have brought? To her family, I offer sincere condolences.