Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family Page 13

  Unfortunately, many whites in Chicago had not seen the problems in the black community firsthand and they responded negatively to the pressure from King and his supporters. Angry crowds met every march, sit-in, and protest and as the summer heated up, the crowds got bigger and their taunts were accompanied by hurled bottles, rocks, and bricks. Mixed in with the crowds were young men who wore Nazistyle helmets and displayed swastikas; the insults shouted from the sidewalks included plenty of anti-Semitic rants along with racist insults. By midsummer my mother decided to join members of CORE and other groups that were going to march behind Dr. King on a three-mile route that took them through the South Side communities of Chicago Lawn and Gage Park, where real estate companies, rental agents, and landlords refused to do business with blacks.

  On a hot, sunny Thursday my mother gave us lunch, packed up some sandwiches, fruits, and drinks, and got us out the door by two o’clock. A fellow activist met us with a car and we drove from our North Side neighborhood south past the Loop and then through the all-white neighborhood of Bridgeport, where the mayor lived. By the time we reached Marquette Park in Chicago Lawn my mother had gone through her instructions—“Hold hands, stay close to me, never wander off by yourselves”—at least a dozen times. She had also told us that a lot of people who could not understand what we were doing might turn out to shout about it. Some of what these people might say would be hard to hear and they might even throw things to try to stop the march. If this happened we should listen to her instructions, and follow her lead.

  By the time we got to Marquette Park, hundreds of whites, most of them teenagers, were already there to heckle and threaten the marchers. They milled around on a small hillside overlooking the spot where we were supposed to muster and chanted slogans. “Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate!” they shouted. Then they sang a song to the tune of the Oscar Mayer hot dog jingle.

  I wish I were an Alabama trooper.

  That is what I’d really like to be.

  For if I were an Alabama trooper,

  I could hang a nigger legally.

  To accent this performance one of the singers swung a rope that had been tied into a huge noose.

  While police in the South were likely to harass and attack civil rights marchers, a sizable contingent of Chicago’s finest came to protect us. With blue riot helmets on their heads and batons in their hands they stood between the angry whites and the growing number of people arriving to participate in the march. Most of these people were black, but at least 10 percent were white. Included in this group were some Catholic priests and nuns and a good number of Jews.

  As the marching group grew to more than six hundred and the stepping-off time of four o’clock came and went, local men who had gotten off from work joined the teenage hecklers and the ranks of the hostile onlookers grew to more than two thousand, as the next day’s papers would report. Glass pop bottles, eggs, tomatoes, rocks, and the occasional cherry bomb flew over the police line to land near us and we began to hear shouts of “Cannibals! Savages!” and “Go home, niggers!” Hewing to the rules of nonviolence, none of the marchers responded in kind.

  When Dr. King finally arrived by car, about two dozen police formed a wall to protect him from a hail of projectiles. Despite their efforts a rock struck him in the head over his right ear. He stumbled but caught his balance and quickly reassured everyone that he was all right and ready to walk. Reporters surrounded him and asked questions that were later broadcast on TV:

  REPORTER: Did you get hit?

  KING: Yes, but I’ve been hit so many times I’m immune to it.

  REPORTER: How do you feel about this reception?

  KING: Well, this is a terrible thing. I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the South but can say that I have never seen even in Mississippi and Alabama or New Orleans a reception as hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago.

  REPORTER: Are you still going to march?

  KING: Oh definitely, we cannot stop the march. We’re going to go on in a few minutes.

  REPORTER: Do you feel you are in a closed society here in southwest Chicago?

  KING: Oh yes, it’s definitely a closed society, but we’re going to make it an open society. And we have to do it this way in order to bring the evil out into the open.

  Ari, Rahm, and I watched King’s arrival from a relatively safe distance as my mother kept us on the edge of the marching group. We had participated in other marches and demonstrations, but none of them had been met with this level of anger. In my mind flashed images I had seen on TV and in magazines of high-pressure fire hoses, attack dogs, and billy clubs used against civil rights marchers in the South. All three of us were nervous about what might happen here. But we could see that the police were on our side, and we knew that when we began walking we would be surrounded by friends and allies.

  Our group benefited from organization and experience. The mob that gathered to oppose us had no preset plan, but in the long wait for Dr. King’s arrival they did devise a mocking kind of strategy. Borrowing from the techniques CORE had used to disrupt traffic in the Loop, about fifty of them sat in the road in front of the marchers and refused to be moved. They didn’t last very long. Once the police began using their batons to rap on their knees and ankles, the sit-down boys immediately stood up.

  A phalanx of police officers led us out of the park and down Kedzie Avenue. Deep inside the ranks of the marchers, my mother held our hands and did her best to look and act unafraid. As we walked, people sang—“We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not Be Moved”—and at some moments the eggs and tomatoes that flew at us seemed to land in rhythm with our voices. In the lulls we heard people screaming “Nigger lovers!” at the police and some shouted out a call for one of the priests in the march to be hanged. “God, I hate niggers and nigger lovers!” yelled a woman who, by her gray hair, looked like she could be someone’s grandmother.

  The worst of it came when we reached Sixtieth Street, a point that was just ten blocks east from the Airport Homes, where my mother, then just a girl, had witnessed this kind of conflict for the first time. Here a group of men and women brought out an effigy of Dr. King, which they proceeded to stab and kick and rip to shreds. Small bands of men broke the windows on the cars that trailed the march and were driven by blacks. As police officers ran to protect these drivers, the sound of glass breaking and the voices of so many angry adults who literally screamed with rage because we dared to march against bigotry sent shivers through us.

  The march ended at a Baptist church, which we entered along with other marchers. Dr. King took to the pulpit.

  Decades later I cannot recall what Dr. King said in the church that night, but I do recall that I felt like I was bearing witness to something important. Those who were with him in private meetings after he preached would report that a fierce debate had broken out among the leaders of the movement, some of whom wanted to attend the next march “holstered up.” Reverend King listened and then pressed them with a question. “How do you put out a fire?” He then explained that fire won’t extinguish a fire, but water will, and nonviolence is the water that would put out the fire of hatred.

  While the leaders of the movement struggled over the best way to respond to what they had experienced, my mother found a driver whose car was available to take us home. It was dark and well past our bedtime when we finally got to our block. Ari, who could always fall asleep anywhere the instant he had burned all of his energy for the day, had to be carried inside the apartment. The next morning the newspapers would report that twenty-eight people, including three police officers, had been sent to hospitals for injuries suffered during the march. Of the hundreds of people apprehended while attacking the marchers, only forty were formally arrested and charged with crimes. The rest were let go.

  It would be hard to exaggerate the impact my brothers and I felt from our direct experience at the march and from learning of what happened after we left. Being part of a mass display of courage made
us believe that a great many people in the world are good and decent. We learned to draw strength from a group of like-minded souls and to stay cool under pressure and resolute in our convictions. Most important, we came away with the sense that even the biggest problem should be confronted and that we could be part of the solution. Today each of us has tried to be part of the solution to society’s biggest problems, whether it is me working on improving end-of-life care and health-care reform, Rahm trying to rebuild Chicago’s infrastructure and education system, or Ari’s efforts on the environment and speaking out on learning disabilities.

  After Gage Park, a great debate arose within the local civil rights movement. Many members of CORE wanted a more confrontational approach, to force Mayor Daley to do more than talk. They proposed a march through the all-white suburb of Cicero, where many people were outspoken in their opposition to the civil rights movement. My mother sided with King and decided not to go to Cicero. When the march took place the governor of Illinois sent two thousand National Guard troops and the city marshaled five hundred police officers to keep the peace.

  The Cicero march probably accelerated the flight to the suburbs by middle-class whites who saw in the chaos and anger—on both sides—a frightening future for the city. In our own circle of friends, the Glass family decided to move to the northern suburb of Glencoe. Bill Glass would say that he was looking for financial security, more living space, and better public schools for his sons, and all of this was true. But Carol Glass would forever recall that for her the decision was made when her son Jerry was mugged at knifepoint in a local park. As her friend packed and left, my mother felt sorry for her, certain that she herself would remain in the great city for the rest of her life and never stop trying to make it better for all of us.

  Eight

  CITY KIDS

  Skippy Shein had a fast five-speed bike with easy-rolling one-inch tires. He also owned a Schwinn Sting-Ray with a banana seat and high handlebars. My bike was a one-speed clunker that my mom had bought for five dollars from a man who lived a few blocks away and sold reconditioned bikes out of his darkened basement.

  On many Friday afternoons Skippy’s mom picked us up at Anshe Emet and took us to the Shein home, where I would spend the weekend. I loved getting the chance to explore the Sheins’ big house—reading Skippy’s entire collection of Tom Swift books, or playing with his pool table. I especially liked riding his bikes.

  The inevitable happened on a Saturday morning when we decided, against explicit parental edicts, to pedal from his house on Bellevue Place to my home on Winona, seven miles to the north. The route took us along the trails on Lake Michigan and then onto the trails that passed through the twelve hundred acres of Lincoln Park, near the zoo. Flat as the Midwest may be, at one point on the route we hit an incline and thought we could make better progress by hopping off our bikes and pushing. Suddenly a couple of high school guys jumped out of the bushes that lined the path and grabbed our bikes. One held a knife to my neck and demanded we empty our pockets.

  Then Skippy began to cry and begged them to not take the bikes. They preferred cash, so they told us that if we emptied our pockets we could keep our wheels. As usual, mine were empty, but Skippy had around fifteen dollars in bills and change, which he handed over. The muggers took off.

  We found two police officers in a patrol car and reported what had happened. One of the officers reached for his radio to broadcast an alert. Soon another patrol car rolled up. Inside sat a couple of young black men. The officers asked us if these were our muggers but we saw that they were at least four or five years older than the teenagers who had jumped us. As the minutes passed and the crime got cold, it became obvious that the muggers would get away.

  Later that day our family conversation about this incident included what we all knew about race and poverty and how two black teenagers might think it would be a good idea to go to Lincoln Park, find some white kids on fancy bikes, and rob them. Nothing excused the specific crime perpetrated by those particular young men. But it was easy to understand why they might be angry and resentful enough to mug a couple of boys who looked like they had it good. The police response was also instructive. How would it feel, I wondered, to be plucked off the street and treated like a suspect based solely on your skin color and a police officer’s assumptions?

  We understood we belonged to a minority that had suffered in the past and was still subject to discrimination and exclusion. However, change was coming fast. Jews were quickly becoming accepted into the white majority and our parents taught us that nothing that really mattered was beyond our reach and we had little to fear as we moved through the world. We were safe in this assumption except, ironically enough, when Rahm was “black.”

  While I had inherited my father’s complexion—so fair that I easily burned before developing a tan—Rahm and Ari had my mother’s skin coloring. Both of them needed just a few days in the sun to turn the color of café au lait. By the end of the summer the two of them were almost chestnut brown. With curly black hair and a broad, flat nose, Rahm could easily pass for an African American.

  We got most of our ultraviolet rays at Foster Avenue Beach, which became our regular summer hangout. In yet another demonstration of her confidence (today it might be called child neglect), our mother would send us off alone to spend entire summer days playing in the lake and on the sand. I led the troop down Winona, through the Foster Avenue underpass that let us safely cross Lake Shore Drive, and then into the park, where the beach stretched northward for a quarter mile or so.

  In this time before cellphones, our mother did not need to hear from us every half hour to be reassured that we were okay. As the hours passed, she somehow assumed we were fine, and for the most part, her confidence in us and the city was well-placed. Less crowded than most city beaches, the strand at Foster Avenue was patrolled by lifeguards who kept watch as we built complex sand castles, dove into waves, and engaged in brotherly fights. Exceptions arose when some stranger decided to call Rahm and Ari “niggers” and demand that we get off the beach.

  Although legally open to anyone, in the 1960s Foster Beach was segregated by custom and practice. Certain people—mostly white males between the ages of ten and fifteen—made it their business to enforce the unwritten whites-only rule. When they called my brothers niggers and tried to bully us off the beach, we—naturally—refused to move. Instead one of us would answer with some defiance—“You can’t make me leave.” The other two would stand to support him. The argument would quickly escalate to threats and sometimes punches.

  Usually these confrontations ended quickly because we presented a united front and we would create enough commotion to attract the attention of the lifeguards and others. When shouting wouldn’t work and we had to fight, we remembered the stories the Big Bangah told us about union organizing. In every case we would return to the beach the next day because the beach was at the heart of our summer routine and we wanted to make sure these bullies knew they could not scare us away.

  As a parent reflecting on these days at the beach, I am flabbergasted by my mother’s behavior. I certainly would never have let my daughters spend the whole day at the beach unaccompanied, especially when they were under ten. But there must be something unspoken that passes from generation to generation, because my children have ended up spending a lot of time in Africa and Israel, and they would frequently go to dangerous places, such as displaced persons’ camps near battle zones. They would never tell me beforehand, even though I could do nothing about their trips. They would only call me after they returned safely.

  Similar incidents happened to Rahm, Ari, and me on sidewalks, and in playgrounds and alleyways. On a few occasions passing remarks led to fights. It may seem paradoxical that boys raised by a pacifist in a house where plastic squirt guns were banned were so willing to throw punches. But we felt no inner conflict. We were not pacifists. When we were at the beach or walking the streets, we were city kids, not civil rights activists. If we want
ed to move freely and safely around our neighborhood, we had to prove we could not be pushed around. The cuts, bruises, and torn clothes that came in the bargain were a small price to pay for the feelings of confidence and pride that come with standing up for yourself. I don’t remember our parents ever scolding us for these fights, nor did they call the police or search for the parents of the kids who gave us a hard time. Instead they appreciated the way that city life, which naturally included a bit of scrapping with bullies, helped us to become more assertive and independent.

  Our strength was reinforced by the bond of brotherhood that grew every time we confronted bullies as a team. In the heat of the battle we always knew we had each other. At night, when we settled into the room we three shared, we sorted through the day’s events. Exhausted from his hyperactivity, Ari would say a few words but then fall asleep holding on to a favorite blanket that he kept well into grade school. Rahm and I might play catch with the stuffed elephant that was my version of a teddy bear. As the elephant flew across the room Rahm might say something like “Weren’t you afraid those guys were going to kill us?” Tossing it back, I would confess my fears but also repeat what our parents had taught us. “You can’t run away. If you do, then you’ll be more scared the next time.”

  During these conversations and the endless hours we spent playing games, we resolved our insecurities and tested the limits of competitiveness. Cheating at Monopoly? That’s normal, so everyone had to keep a close eye on the banker. Arm-twisting during a wrestling match? It’s okay until the other guy starts to cry. Sitting on someone’s chest and tickling him? Well, what else are brothers for? Moment by moment, through contests, conflicts, and confessions, we figured out the limits of behavior and forged an unbreakable alliance. As the eldest, I learned to go easy on my brothers in order to avoid causing serious injuries. As the youngest, Ari pushed things far beyond the point where Rahm and I would have stopped, and exploited his cuteness, appealing grin, and charm to get away with it.