[Dialogue] MLK Weekend, April 6, 1968

Mon Apr 10 11:49:29 PDT 2017

Thank you for sharing this foundational EI/ICA story, Jo! We look  
forward to sharing it appropriately with our "Climate Action"  
Colleagues here in Denver.

Best to you and David and all of you, with love,

Jim (& OliveAnn) Slotta

On Apr 9, 2017, at 7:54 PM, Jo Nelson via Dialogue wrote:

> I posted this in my blog on the weekend, and it forwarded to my  
> Facebook page.  Someone requested that I also send it to the O:E  
> list, but I am no longer on it, so I chose to put it here.
>
>
> MLK Weekend, April 6, 1968
> 49 years ago, I participated in a history- and life-changing event  
> on the West Side of Chicago.
>
> I was 19 years old, in my second year at the University of Iowa, and  
> traveled with my campus Wesleyan Foundation group to take a course  
> called “Cultural Studies I” at the Ecumenical Institute on the West  
> Side of Chicago.
>
>  The day before the course was scheduled to begin, Martin Luther  
> King was assassinated.  From our small-town Iowa perspective,  
> though, we saw no reason not to go to Chicago for the course.
>
>
>  When we arrived in Chicago after a 5-hour drive on Friday, it was  
> clear that the assassination had catalyzed unrest, but it wasn’t  
> clear what was going to happen.  The others in the car decided to  
> turn around and go home, just in case.  My brother and his family  
> (David and Linda Zahrt, Jay and Heidi) were working at the  
> Institute, and they weren’t fleeing, so I decided to stay.
>
>
>  The first session on Friday evening began as scheduled in a lower  
> floor room with windows at ground level.   I remember sitting next  
> to what seemed to me to be an older man, Sheldon Hill, and thinking  
> “there is no generation gap”, because we seemed to be on the same  
> page of understanding.  As the session progressed, we heard shouting  
> out on the street and saw legs running by with gun barrels.
>
>
>  After the session ended, I went up to my dorm room and looked out.   
> I could see fires burning within a block or so on 3 sides of the  
> building, and on the fourth side was the Eisenhower Expressway  
> filled with cars getting out of the city.
>
>
>  I went to my brother’s apartment to talk with him and hang out with  
> family. I didn’t want to be alone, as it was pretty scary and I was  
> stranded. After a little while there was a knock on the door, and we  
> were told everyone was evacuating the building, as someone had  
> broken in and tried to start a fire in the building.
>
>
>  There was a long-unused tunnel between the Institute campus and a  
> hospital across the street.  Somehow the tunnel was opened and we  
> all went across to the hospital basement.  By this time almost every  
> participant had escaped via the expressway, so there were only a  
> couple of participants and Institute staff.  My brother and sister- 
> in-law asked me to watch their two small children, who were wild  
> with the energy around us.  At various points the National Guard  
> would come in to get coffee, and smoke would roll in with them.   
> Someone had a radio, and we heard that inner cities were burning all  
> over America.  It felt like Armegeddon.
>
>
>  At daybreak on Saturday, when the rioters were exhausted and it was  
> a bit quieter, we walked across the street back to the Institute.   
> The entire staff (maybe 40 people) gathered in Room A to decide what  
> to do.  The children were in a nearby room with a couple of  
> mothers.  There were only 3 of us who were not staff, one of whom  
> was the president of the Institute’s board.  I watched as the staff  
> talked through their profound commitment to help the community  
> develop, and the dangers that staying there would have.  In the end,  
> they decided by consensus to stay and risk their lives to support  
> the community, since they had made a commitment.  They also decided  
> to send out the children and the women who were pregnant to friends  
> and supporters in the suburbs for safety, since the children had not  
> made a conscious decision to risk their lives to stay.
>
>
>  As a non-staff family member who did not live there, I was also  
> sent out with the children to the home of a suburban colleague who  
> was mobilizing her entire network to find places for all the  
> “refugee” kids to stay.  I was then sent to a home in Lake Forest,  
> Illinois, which at the time was the richest town per capita in the  
> world, with two toddlers. David Prather was 1 and Dietrich  
> Laudermilk was 2 years old.  I had no idea of how to take care of  
> toddlers, and spent the night putting them back on the bed after  
> they had rolled off.
>
>
>  On Sunday morning I was able to get through to my brother and tell  
> him where his kids were, and where I was.  The one other stranded  
> participant was a student from Nebraska, and got in touch with me to  
> ride back with her.  By Sunday afternoon we were on the road home.
>
>
>  The next day I got up for my first class, but couldn’t make it  
> through.  I came back to the dorm, and slept for 24 hours straight.
>
>
>  During that event in Chicago, I witnessed a group of people  
> deciding by consensus to risk their lives to honour their commitment  
> to work with the community.  That is a rare experience.  I realized  
> that this group of people were no ordinary group.  Their care was  
> profound.  It’s a big part of the reason I started to work with the  
> Institute (which morphed into the Institute of Cultural Affairs) as  
> soon as I graduated from university, and why I am still with it all  
> these years later.
>
>
>  Some of the impact of that event was the catalyst that created  
> ICA’s mode of radical participation in development:  it became very  
> obvious that communities didn’t thrive from nice white educated do- 
> gooders trying to help, but that they change deeply from local  
> people and local leadership working collaboratively.  Outsiders have  
> a role in the partnership, but the lead comes from the community.   
> The facilitative approach as an equal partner is the only way to  
> make a difference.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Jo Nelson, CPF, CTF  <jnelson at ica-associates.ca>
> Certified Professional Facilitator and ICA Certified ToP™ Facilitator
> ICA Associates, Inc.
> 401 Richmond Street West, Suite #405, Toronto, Canada. M5V 3A8
>
> Ph. 1 416-691-2316, x2230  Toll-free 1 877-691-1422  Fax 1  
> 416-691-2491
> Website http://ica-associates.ca
> Cellphone 647 233 6910
> Skype “jofacilitator”
>
> <IAF-CPF-Logo-email.jpeg>
>
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> Services   #OSS00536903
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> Pre-qualified Vendor, Alberta Education Resource List
>
> “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change  
> something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
> Richard Buckminster Fuller”
>
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