After WW2, Chicago neighborhoods on the South side started to be more diverse in terms of white ethnicity.
Families had lived for decades in neighborhoods with predominantly one or 2 ethnic groups. They started to move further south to newly built neighborhoods as African Americans began to buy houses in their area. This was known as “white flight”.
It was difficult to reestablish a neighborhood with any kind of ethnic purity, so over time the ethnic groups became more mixed.
In the early 60s, when you met a new kid, the first thing that was asked was your ethnicity. “What are you?”
Every kid knew his ethnicity.
Meaning, his white European ancestry.
If you met their parents, they would ask you the same question. Sometimes a derogatory nickname was given on the spot.
There were English, Irish, Scots, Italians, Germans, Russians, Poles, Greeks and many Eastern Europeans along with every conceivable mixture of the above.
After WW2 young people began to resist tradition and marry outside of their ethnic tribe. (Much to the horror of the parents and grandparents)
You would hear stories of fights breaking out at weddings because the 2 families were not happy with the “mixed” marriage of their offspring.
But the unifying theme was that we were all white.
The typical street gangs of young men protecting their turf began to change.
No more Italians fighting the Irish or the Poles fighting the Russians. White street gangs were now more focused on their neighborhood regardless of ethnic mix.
For a while white street gangs protected their turf against whites from other neighborhoods. (“This is our park, this is our McDonald’s, these are our girlfriends.”)
But as the black population continued to push deeper in to the south side the whites became more united.
In the summer of 1966 a white on white fight in our local McDonald’s hangout was broken up by the Chicago Police. One of the officers was a local high school grad. He began callings us idiots and telling us we were stupid for fighting each other.
“It’s the niggers that we need to get. We need to be fighting the niggers. They are going to take away our neighborhood”
One of the biggest flash points in the white/black conflict was the access and control of the south side Lake Michigan beaches. At times, whites from different neighborhoods fought each other over petty disagreements, but generally there was peaceful coexistence.
Over time young blacks would come to the beach in groups. (Testing the waters) Sometimes they would be attacked by the older white teenagers and young men. When it was peaceful because of police presence, all the whites would leave the water as soon as a black person entered. Several times there were full scale riots with whites and blacks fighting with chains and baseball bats.
Also in the summer of 1966 there was a white on black fight in McDonald’s started by one of the most aggressive of our neighborhood roughnecks. The blacks were outnumbered and beaten but returned later and shot 2 of my friends and I was pistol whipped.
This incident triggered more anxiety among our parents. The wheels were in motion for people to move to the south suburbs. There was no where else to go on the far south side of the city.
Some of my friends were moving away from black neighbors for the 3rd time.
The neighborhood young men from 15-20 years old were angry and not giving up without retribution. The pioneer black families in our area suffered from our racist behavior. Rocks were thrown through windows and at cars, tires were slashed.
In response blacks cornered solo whites and beat them. This whole ugly process continued in our neighborhood from 1966 until around 1971– a continual cycle of violence and revenge.
There was one other white neighborhood on the Southwest side that was trying to keep their boundaries intact, Marquette Park.
Whites there vowed to not sell to blacks. There was retribution from their white neighbors if they violated their vow.
MLK planned a march in Marquette Park in 1966 to protest housing segregation policies which attempted to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods.
We had high school friends with roots in Marquette Park. They tried to recruit our young men to come to the protest and attack the marchers. Given our anger, it was very tempting.
I had earlier that year been on a double date and traveling through a black part of the south side to pick up one of the young ladies in the Marquette Park neighborhood. We had blundered in to Blackstone Ranger territory. They were a notorious African American gang.
At a stop light, rocks were thrown through my car window by a group of young black men, spraying glass on my date’s face. I roared through the red light and fortunately there were no serious injuries. Our anger was stoked.
Fortunately my friends and I declined the invitation to riot against the blacks at the Marquette Park March, mostly from inconvenience rather than any moral considerations.
How were we so biased and hateful toward African Americans? First of all, we were indoctrinated in to a biased and hateful view of blacks by every adult in our lives.
We were told: “They are lazy, would steal everything that wasn’t nailed down, had multiple out of wedlock children with multiple partners and then left them so that the kids had to be on welfare, all they were good for were sports and singing and dancing, they weren’t smart enough to have jobs with responsibilities, they would rather buy a Cadillac on a loan and live in a slum tenement than save money for the future.”
On and on with an unlimited amount of racist slurs. The N word was commonly used without shame or social stigma. There was no counter dialogue at all. So, this is what we “knew” to be true about black people.
The first African American I ever spoke to was in high school.
I had a superficial friendship with a few but there was never any thought of inviting them to my house or to our park to play sports or even enter our neighborhood for any reason. That would be considered treason and you would be called a “nigger lover” which was the worst of offenses.
Racial tension continued to rise in America, especially in the big cities. The biggest complaint was police brutality and shooting and framing black crime suspects. Police and witnesses lied in courts and all white juries gladly convicted any black man that was offered up.
In the south, blacks and whites that worked on voting rights issues were murdered by the local rednecks.
Riots in the big northern cities were increasing in 1967 and 1968, reflecting the anger of young black men. Of course, we white people, (crackers), didn’t get it. We had no knowledge or education about African American history after slavery.
Entering the Marine Corps in late 1967, George and I were trained alongside a lot of angry black men. Black men served disproportionately in the military during the Viet Nam War and were more likely to be wounded or killed in combat. Many black marines that we knew had been in court for some offense and offered the choice of jail or enlistment.
Pvt. Jackson was a particularly troublesome black man in our boot camp platoon. He would intimidate and bully the weaker whites when the drill instructor was not around but then complain about racist treatment by whites. Our drill instructor wanted to teach us a lesson about team cohesion and put Pvt Jackson in charge of a brutal and intense workout program every evening after our exhausting normal daily activities. We hated him so much and many of us vowed to kill him in Vietnam under cover of combat.
While home on leave, after combat infantry training, in April of 1968, MLK was assassinated in Memphis. Riots by blacks erupted in many cities including Chicago.
A curfew was imposed in Chicago. Mayor Daley ordered police to shoot to maim any looter and shoot to kill any one with a firebomb. George and I and my friends were confined to the indoors at dusk. Our lack of understanding of the Black Experience made us even more angry. Getting drunk in the daytime seemed to be the only solution.
Another example of personal racial conflict happened on Okinawa, our layover base on the way to Vietnam Nam. George and I went with our friends to the enlisted men’s club to drown our fears in weak beer. It was a very sad sight. Hundreds of marines headed for their first tour or returning after R&R were drowning their sorrows. Men were puking and falling down and arguing and shoving. It looked like the men’s room in hell.
I asked this big black marine what time it was because he was the only one I saw with a watch, ( which I assumed he stole from a drunken white guy). He became enraged that I had the balls to talk to him. He wanted to fight me and I could see that he could destroy me with one punch. Before I could beg him to leave me alone the Military Police came in to the club and whistled everyone quiet. They started calling out the names of the units that immediately had to pack up and be ready to ship out in one hour. Fortunately, our unit was called and we eagerly left before my new friend could pulverize me.
And that’s how George and I landed in Da Nang, half drunk, half hungover and half asleep several hours later.
“No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger”
The same insanity happened in the enlisted men’s clubs in Vietnam. Blacks and whites would get in to fights. Sometimes weapons were pulled and some shootings occurred. It got so bad on our base that we had to keep our weapons secured near our huts. Normally we would carry them loaded everywhere in case of sudden enemy attacks. This was a stupid and dangerous policy, but I guess it would be worse to have Americans killing Americans. Strangely, when we were all in the “field” things were more cohesive. Everyone knew that they needed to rely on the guy next to him, white or black.
From the New York Times
“Incidents of racial tension were uncommon in the early years of the war, but following King’s assassination they became a weekly if not daily occurrence. Tensions tended to be noticeably higher on rear-line military bases. On Aug. 29, 1968, hundreds of black prisoners overwhelmed prison guards at Long Binh Jail, captured the stockade commander and set the mess hall and administration building on fire.
The riot at the Long Binh Jail is the most publicized of thousands of racial incidents reported in South Vietnam between 1968 and 1971. On Nov. 23, 1968, The Philadelphia Tribune wrote of large-scale battles between black and white soldiers in service clubs in Da Nangand Long Binh. In late 1968, the journalist Zalin Grant reported that “racial incidents occurred at the nearby China Beach recreation area and in Danang clubs and dining halls” on an almost daily basis. He concluded that the “biggest threat is race riots, not the Vietcong.
Another, more important threat came from officers using marine combat troops as pawns to gain some glory. Their was a spoken agreement among the troops that when necessary, these vain and careless men were the ones that needed to be killed.
“Fragging” Wikipedia
Soldiers have killed colleagues, especially superior officers, since the beginning of armed conflict, with many documented instances throughout history. However, the practice of fragging seems to have been relatively uncommon in American armies until the Vietnam War. The prevalence of fragging was partially based on the ready availability of fragmentation hand grenades. Grenades were untraceable to an owner and did not leave any ballistic evidence. Most fragging incidents were in the Army and Marine Corps.
The first known incidents of fragging in South Vietnam took place in 1966, but events in 1968 appear to have catalyzed an increase in fragging. After the Tet Offensive in January and February 1968, the Vietnam War became increasingly unpopular in the United States and among American soldiers in Vietnam, many of them conscripts. Secondly, racial tensions between white and African-American soldiers and marines increased after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968. With soldiers reluctant to risk their lives in what was perceived as a lost war, fragging was seen by some enlisted men “as the most effective way to discourage their superiors from showing enthusiasm for combat.”
I never got the opportunity to kill Pvt. Jackson. I don’t know what I would have done if I had an opening. Stress and fear and hatred can make you crazy.
The last hope for ending the war and easing racial tensions lay in the presidential candidacy of Robert Kennedy. He promised to end the war and work toward racial justice and healing. He had the support of many African Americans. But in America, something like this is too good to be true.
We learned off his assassination the next day while on a combat mission. Except for the southern whites and hard corps marines we were all devastated, white and black. Most of us vowed not to be aggressive in our combat missions. “Don’t take chances”, “don’t try to be a hero”. “Just try to stay alive until your time is up”.
Many men started faking illness and psychological problems. Marines were often denied evacuation out of the field even when they had legitimate problems. Fragging conspiracies increased.
I was wounded 2 weeks after RFK was assassinated. (Not self inflicted). After several days in hospitals in Viet Nam and Japan I was sent to a Military Hospital in the far North Chicago suburbs.
The racial situation was bad in the hospital wards that housed the wounded. Segregation and isolation continued. I was very anxious to finish my treatment and possibly get discharged from the Marine Corps.
That was not meant to be and when treatment for my wound was completed I was returned to Camp Pendleton in Southern California in the fall of 1968. The men that were living in the same barracks as me were on stateside duty because of wounds or illness that prevented them from going back to overseas service. All were Viet Nam combat veterans and were generally angry, edgy with short fuses, and were abusing drugs and/or alcohol. There were fights in the barracks and clubs and the black men stayed up all night playing their music and talking about revolution and killing “whitey”. I avoided contact with my peers as much as possible. I didn’t want to take sides and get in fights. We whites were outnumbered and living in constant fear. I still wasn’t ready for any racial healing except to save my ass from getting killed.
My duties at Camp Pendleton included a weekly assignment to the Camp Pendleton Brig, (jail). The Brig was full of marines convicted of being AWOL, (away without leave), desertion, murder, rape and drug crimes, along with some other minor offenses. The brig population was majority black. My job on those days was to be on a crew of marine guards who went to the Brig and picked up prisoners to go out and do road work and other labor on the base. We would take the least dangerous men. There were 3 of us guarding 8-10 men. There was a driver of the big truck, one guard riding shotgun and me in the back preventing any of the prisoners from jumping out and running. We were armed with 45 caliber pistols and specific orders on when you could or couldn’t shoot a prisoner. It was considered a treat for the prisoners to get out of this notorious prison for the day. In the 6 months that I had road gang duty, not one black man was given this privilege.
I witnessed abuse of prisoners. Men were forced to hold squat positions for long periods or stand at attention in the hot sun. I couldn’t understand how this was allowed and was told that these prisoners were troublemakers and needed to be broken. They already looked pretty broken to me. I met some decent people on my road crews who got in to trouble while drunk or in love or scared. They often had better character than the prison guards.
From The NY Times, 1971
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., Oct. 23 — The Marine Corps’s once notorious Camp Pendleton brig, where recurrent rioting, brutality and corruption led to a Congressional investigation two years ago, completed its transformation this week into a model military prison.
Nearly 350 prisoners—including deserters, thieves, dope pushers and two men awaiting trial for murder—were marched out of the drab cluster of tin roofed buildings that served for 28 years as the base’s lock‐up, and into a bright new, air Conditioned brig that cost $2.5 million.
I thought my time in the Marine Corps would never end. In the spring of 1969 I was looking at 7 more months of this insanity. But one day a bunch of us got the word that we were going to be discharged. There were too many wounded men who could not go back to Viet Nam and they needed fresh meat. So they decided that we were dead wood that needed pruning. I was discharged on May 1st 1969. I felt incredibly lucky. I flew home on May 1st and starting looking for work and planning on attending college. I was sad to see that the neighborhood was rapidly changing. My parents were preparing to sell the house and move to the suburbs. The back and forth of white and black violence against each other was increasing. I was nearly 20 years old and still didn’t know that I was a racist.
The main north/south street in our neighborhood was South Park Drive. Sometime in 1968 it was changed to Martin Luther King Drive. One of the acts of vandalism that our enlightened young men participated in was vandalizing the MLK street signs. I am ashamed to say that I partook in this hateful act. One guy would get on the shoulders of another and grab the sign and hang from it until it bent.
From DNA Chicago
Indeed, the origin of Chicago’s King Drive is a revealing chapter in the city’s racial history.
Beginning four blocks east of South Michigan Avenue, King Drive stretches south to 115th Street. The street runs through predominantly black South Side neighborhoods from Bronzeville to Roseland, spanning 14 miles.
“For many whites, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are lost,” Tilove wrote. “For many blacks, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are found.”
The first part of my reformation was attendance at a large university. Having history and political science classes that weren’t whitewashed and took a clear look at the suffering and injustice experienced by black people for hundreds of years was an eye opener. Our professors were openly critical of the American people, the US government, and its legal system. I had never heard such talk. It was surprising and refreshing. I realized that if I had undergone the kind of treatment that black people endured that I would easily participate in a riot, or a crime of violence. You can only push a person so far.
The university experience allowed me to understand the historical reality that is not taught in public schools. Meeting people of different races helped me to see the humanity in people that I had feared and disregarded.
My family moved to the south suburbs where everyone was white and no one had to see a black person in their neighborhood, and no white child had to sit next to a black child in school.
I eventually moved to the North Side of Chicago which was not so heavily segregated. Whites and blacks went about their business in a less hostile and tense atmosphere. Underneath the surface there was continued bias and apprehension.
Old friends, family members, and new acquaintances claim that they are not racist but it only takes a political conversation to reveal what they really think. It’s not over yet. I don’t think it ever will be.
thomasleecurran.com 