by Thomas Healy
willing to get his hands dirty: Goudsouzian, Down to the Crossroads, 102.
He walked nearly … “everyone under the march’s banner”: Goudsouzian, Down to the Crossroads, 102, 103; Renata Adler, After the Tall Timber (New York: New York Review Books, 2015), 88–89.
allies responding with “Black Power”: Goudsouzian, Down to the Crossroads, 143; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 482–84.
Events soon pushed … “something shifted inside Floyd McKissick”: Goudsouzian, Down to the Crossroads, 198–202; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 485–87.
“get us some black power”: Adler, After the Tall Timber, 88–89.
“That man thinks you don’t bleed”: Goudsouzian, Down to the Crossroads, 203–6.
most vocal advocates: Tom Adam Davies, Mainstreaming Black Power (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 137.
declared the civil rights movement “dead”: United Press International, “Kennedy Clashes with CORE Chief,” New York Times, December 9, 1966, 1; “The Civil Rights Movement Is Dead,” undated manuscript, Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, Reel 5.
nonviolence had “outlived its usefulness”: Meier and Rudwick, CORE, 414; Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 519; Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2009), 340.
“when black men realized their full worth”: Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion, 94–95.
“louder than SNCC”: Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, 145.
“new Killers of the Dream”: Meier and Rudwick, CORE, 417.
3: “LOOK OUT, WHITEY!”
“two little bitty words”: Floyd McKissick, interview by Edwin Newman, Meet the Press, August 21, 1966, transcript available in NBC online archives, https://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=48789.
the mobilization of Black consumers: “McKissick Asserts ‘Shock’ Is Necessary to Gain Negro Goal,” New York Times, October 2, 1966, 69; Woodard, “Floyd McKissick,” 32–33; Mixon, Soul City, 7.
“the fear of not having enough to eat”: McKissick, Three-Fifths of a Man, 42.
indispensable to white companies: Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (New York: Doubleday, 1901), 60–61, 85–88, 107; Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, 299–306.
“spend a dollar in an opera house”: Washington, Up from Slavery, 218–25.
shop exclusively at Black businesses: Manning Marable, W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (London: Routledge, 2016), 134–35; Manning Marable, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), 129.
race massacre in 1921: Alfred L. Brophy, Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921, Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Tim Madigan, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001).
banning discrimination in all war contracts: Rhonda Jones, “A. Philip Randolph, Early Pioneer: The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, National Negro Congress, and the March on Washington Movement,” in The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power, ed. Michael Ezra (New York: Routledge, 2013), 9–21.
“starvation wages or no wages at all”: Michael Ezra, “Introduction: The Economic Dimensions of the Black Freedom Struggle,” in The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power, ed. Michael Ezra (New York: Routledge, 2013), 2.
leverage that economics gave them … “buy black” campaigns: Ezra, “Introduction,” 1; J. Michael Butler, “Economic Civil Rights Activism in Pensacola, Florida,” in The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power, ed. Michael Ezra (New York: Routledge, 2013), 95–99; Meier and Rudwick, CORE, 170–71.
the bread to buy a burger?: Ned Cline, “Soul City Founder Is Mixing His Politics,” Greensboro Daily News, August 24, 1972; McKissick interview with Robert Wright, 22.
for Black families it was $5,400: US Bureau of the Census and US Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Social and Economic Status of Negroes in the United States, 1969 (Report P23-29), February 1970, vii, 22, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1970/demographics/p23-029.pdf.
double that of whites: Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, 545.
“families are crowded into rat-infested slums”: Floyd McKissick, “A Nation Within a Nation,” New York Amsterdam News, June 1, 1968, 15.
still attended segregated schools: Gary Orfield, “Public School Desegregation in the United States: 1968–1980,” Joint Center for Political Studies, Washington, DC 1983, 4.
From the perspective … strike by Black sanitation workers: Laurent, King and the Other America; Goudsouzian, Down to the Crossroads, 256–58; Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 683–722; Timothy J. Minchin, From Rights to Economics: The Ongoing Struggle for Black Equality in the U.S. South (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007), 11.
But no Black leader … “black capitalism”: McKissick interview with Robert Wright, 11–13; McKissick, Three-Fifths of a Man.
He preferred “black entrepreneurialism”: “McKissick Says Blacks Should Control Harlem,” New York Amsterdam News, July 5, 1969, 10.
whatever the label … leading proponent of Black capitalism: Joshua D. Farrington, “‘Build, Baby, Build’: Conservative Black Nationalists, Free Enterprise, and the Nixon Administration,” in The Right Side of the Sixties: Reexamining Conservatism’s Decade of Transformation, edited by Laura Jane Gifford and Daniel K. Williams (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 63–64; “Black Capitalism—What Is It?” U.S. News & World Report, September 30, 1968, 64; George Rood, “Franchising Called New Answer for Negro,” New York Times, July 5, 1968, 36.
Meanwhile, Black businesses … operated by a Black man: Ibram H. Rogers, “Acquiring ‘A Piece of the Action’: The Rise and Fall of the Black Capitalism Movement,” in The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power, edited by Michael Ezra (New York: Routledge, 2013), 176; Robert E. Weems, Business in Black and White: American Presidents and Black Entrepreneurs in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 79–89; Frazier, Harambee City, 191; Stephanie Dyer, “Progress Plaza: Leon Sullivan, Zion Investment Associates, and Black Power in a Philadelphia Shopping Center,” in The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power, edited by Michael Ezra (New York: Routledge, 2013), 137–53; Leon H. Sullivan, Build, Brother, Build: From Poverty to Economic Power (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1969), 170–75.
key to solving the urban crisis: Weems, Business in Black and White, 122; Rogers, “Acquiring ‘A Piece of the Action,’” 174.
“virtue of attainability”: Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “CORE’s Reply to Poor People’s March Offers Hope for Peaceful Solution,” Washington Post, May 8, 1968, A17.
“that often misapplied term”: Weems, Business in Black and White, 115; Davies, Mainstreaming Black Power, 83–84.
accused Nixon of cribbing from CORE’s press releases: “Nixon Using CORE Material Charged,” Chicago Daily Defender, July 2, 1968, 6; “Black Power and Private Enterprise,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 1968, 16.
The meeting took place … large margins in both houses: Weems, Business in Black and White, 116; Farrington, “Build, Baby, Build,” 65–66.
not all Black leaders were on board: Davies, Mainstreaming Black Power, 85–86.
“a cruel hoax”: Andrew Brimmer, “The Trouble with Black Capitalism,” Nation’s Business, May 1969, 78; Weems, Business in Black and White, 147–50.
called Black capitalism “simple nonsense”: Roy Wilkins, untitled contribution to “Symposium on Black Capitalism,” Bankers Magazine, Spring 1969, 13.
“the transfer of the oppressive apparatus”: Robert Allen as quoted in Weems, Business in Black and White, 152.
acknowledged the
historical racism of capitalism: McKissick, Three-Fifths of a Man, 28; McKissick interview with Robert Wright, 12–13.
But he believed … “Black People can gain power”: Floyd McKissick, “Black Capitalism,” New York Amsterdam News, December 21, 1968, 7.
all commercial real estate on 125th Street: Rogers, “Acquiring ‘A Piece of the Action,’” 174.
retaliation by white banks and businessmen: “Memorandum from FM to North Carolina Leadership Conference on Economic Development,” CORE Archives Addendum, Reel 6, undated; “What Is CORE Doing Now,” undated memo, Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, Reel 5; Rhee, “Visions, Illusions, and Perceptions,” 6–8, 32.
“new environment fit for men”: “Presentation by FM to Executive Reorganization Subcommittee of the Government Operations Committee,” Papers of the Congress of Racial Equality, Reel 5, December 8, 1966, 10.
“to be owned and controlled by Black People”: “A Black Manifesto,” CORE Archives Addendum, Reel 5, July 31, 1967.
“a black community from the ground up”: Val Adams, “Black Community Planned by CORE,” New York Times, September 6, 1967, 38.
leave of absence to study the matter: Rhee, “Visions, Illusions, and Perceptions,” 13.
CORE was in no position … describing its membership: Meier and Rudwick, CORE, 418–23; Frazier, Harambee City, 153–59.
“the direction that CORE is going”: Earl Caldwell, “CORE Eliminates ‘Multiracial’ in Describing Its Membership,” New York Times, July 6, 1967, 1.
in support of boycotting the Olympics: Frank Litsky, “Negro Olympic Boycott Group Demands Brundage Resign,” New York Times, December 15, 1967, 69; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 589.
“over the institutions in their own communities”: Floyd McKissick, “Black Self-Determination,” New York Amsterdam News, February 17, 1968, 4.
establishment of a separate school board: Floyd McKissick, “Harlem’s Own School Board,” New York Amsterdam News, March 30, 1968, 15.
And on April 4 … 3M stock to CORE’s Cleveland chapter: Jerry M. Flint, “CORE Bids Business Set Up Plants for Negroes,” New York Times, April 5, 1968, 22; Wilfred Ussery interview with the author, January 4, 2017.
“tolerate this killing of their males”: “McKissick Says Nonviolence Has Become Dead Philosophy,” New York Times, April 5, 1968, 26; “Did He Give Life in Vain,” Chicago Daily Defender, April 8, 1968, 26.
“should be torn to bits by black people”: Clay Risen, A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), 56.
refused to attend a meeting of civil rights leaders: Jean M. White, “McKissick Refused to Meet LBJ,” Washington Post, April 11, 1968, A7; Risen, Nation on Fire, 90–91.
“Now that the drum major is gone”: Claude Sitton, “After King, the Search Is On for a New ‘Drum Major,’” New York Times, April 14, 1968, E2.
last two pieces of Great Society legislation: Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005), 388–421; Wendell E. Pritchett, Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 311–24.
the fractured civil rights community: Earl Caldwell, “Wilkins, in Talk to CORE, Seeks to Close Negro Rift,” New York Times, July 6, 1968, 1.
“people who beg on moral grounds”: “Young Calls for ‘Open Society,’” New York Amsterdam News, July 13, 1968, 1; Jean M. White, “Militancy Voiced by Urban League,” Washington Post, July 7, 1968, A1.
“white people happy if I leave”: Robert Horan, “CORE to Analyze Political Parties,” Columbus Evening Dispatch, July 5, 1968, 1.
the convention went downhill … electing a national director: Earl Caldwell, “CORE Dissenters Quit Convention,” New York Times, July 8, 1968, 1; “Internal Strife, Power Struggle Plague CORE Convention’s End,” Columbus Dispatch, July 8, 1968, 6B; “2 Rebel CORE Chapters Here Form a New Group,” New York Times, July 9, 1968, 23.
Two months later … separation as its goal: Frazier, Harambee City, 208–9.
“a Black Nationalist Organization”: Meier and Rudwick, CORE, 424; Jean M. White, “CORE Turns the Corner to Black Nationalism,” Washington Post, July 8, 1968, A1.
4: DREAMS INTO REALITY
or run for a seat in Congress: “Candidates for Powell’s House Seat Still Lacking,” Chicago Daily Defender, March 11, 1968, 19.
he started his own business: Clayton Willis, “McKissick Moves in New Direction,” New York Amsterdam News, October 5, 1968, 1.
With a fifty-thousand-dollar loan … “all its trimmings”: “Floyd B. McKissick Announces a New Program for Economic Development,” Press Release, October 3, 1968, McKissick Papers, folder 5135.
bathrooms frequently out of service: Letter from William Rutherford to William Harrington, April 29, 1969, McKissick Papers, folder 5524.
carry out McKissick’s expansive vision: Gordon Carey interview with the author, April 23, 2015; email from Gordon Carey to author, November 14, 2017.
held court in a corner booth: Thomas A. Johnson, “Frank’s: Harlem Place to See and Be Seen,” New York Times, December 18, 1968, 65.
three administrative assistants … “Dreams into Reality”: Ball-Groom, Salad Pickers, 10, 61–71.
During its first few months … African-style food and entertainment: Floyd B. McKissick Enterprises brochure, McKissick Papers, folder 1043; Fergus, Liberalism, 199–200.
shopping mall in Mount Vernon: “A Proposal by Floyd B. McKissick Enterprises, Inc., for Development of a Shopping Center,” October 4, 1968, McKissick Papers, folder 6507.
profits to address community needs: Clayton Knowles, “Harlemites Buy Woolworth Shop,” New York Times, December 11, 1968, 32.
new line of hot sauce: Rhee, “Visions, Illusions, and Perceptions,” 35.
For many years … crime, illness, and delinquency: R. Allen Hays, The Federal Government and Urban Housing, 3rd ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), 87–138; Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York: Liveright, 2017), 24–37; Pritchett, Robert Clifton Weaver, 246–61; The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, directed by Chad Freidrichs (Columbia, MO: Unicorn Stencil Documentary Films, 2011).
“going berserk”: John C. Calhoun, “Population Density and Social Pathology,” Scientific American 206, February 1962, 139.
“Behavioral Sink”: Wolfe, Pump House Gang (New York: Bantam Books, 1969) 231.
the vast majority would live in cities: National Committee on Urban Growth Policy, The New City (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), 17.
rise in the global death rate: Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Buccaneer Books, 1968) 1.
Since becoming president … oversee the effort itself: “Chronological History of the New Communities Act of 1968,” Jack Underhill Papers, George Mason University, box 1, folder 1; John Landis, “Model Cities Program,” in The Encyclopedia of Housing, 2nd ed., edited by Andrew T. Carswell (Los Angeles: Sage, 2012), 458–61.
Seventy years earlier … cover rent and maintenance: Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902).
Howard’s proposal … over to local homeowners’ groups: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Vintage, 1961), 17–25; Eric Mumford, Designing the Modern City: Urbanism Since 1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 87–89, 130–36, 190–91; Rosemary Wakeman, Practicing Utopia: An Intellectual History of the New Town Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 30–43; Joseph L. Arnold, The New Deal in the Suburbs: A History of the Greenbelt Town Program, 1935–1954 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1971); Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1938).
The drive to build new cities … nine planned villages: Carlos C. Campbell, New Towns: Another Way to Live (Reston, VA: Res
ton Publishing, 1976), 19–26; Ann Forsyth, Reforming Suburbia: The Planned Communities of Irvine, Columbia, and The Woodlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 1–52, 107–60; Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 47–101.
Despite the success of Park Forest … “Little boxes”: Campbell, New Towns, 32–115, 223; Forsyth, Reforming Suburbia, 135–40; Robert B. Semple, “Johnson to Offer Financing Plan Protecting New Investors,” New York Times, February 25, 1968, 33.
To remedy this problem … water, sewerage, and electricity: “Chronological History of the New Communities Act of 1968,” Jack Underhill Papers; Landis, “Model Cities Program,” 458–61.
Johnson incorporated these proposals … “freshly planned and built”: Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress on Urban Problems: “The Crisis of the Cities.” Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239033.
Congress was less certain.… New Communities Act into law: “Chronological History of the New Communities Act of 1968,” Jack Underhill Papers; 114 Cong. Rec. 15121 (1968).
For Carey … to jail in a wheelchair: Gordon Carey interview with the author, August 21, 2015; email from Gordon Carey to author, May 28, 2017.
Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story: “Draft Objector Toted to Court by FBI Men,” Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1953, A1.
Against the advice … as assistant to the national director: Gordon Carey interview with the author, August 21, 2015; email from Gordon Carey to author, May 28, 2017.
“a younger, Blacker group”: Gordon Carey interview with the author, August 21, 2015.
“doesn’t mean the races can’t live together”: Gordon Carey interview with the author, April 23, 2015.
Over the next … “root causes of urban blight”: “A Proposal for Developing a New Town,” October 18, 1968, McKissick Papers, folder 6595.
The Kerner Commission … make a difference: Ervin Galantay, “Black New Towns: The Fourth Alternative,” Progressive Architecture 49, no. 8, August 1968, 126.