[Oe List ...] I'm remembering what happened when MLK died

[Lynda C]

Thanks, Herman, for sharing this bit of our history!    Mark, can you link this to our 5th City Files in the archives?    Lynda

From: OE <oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> on behalf of OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Reply-To: OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2018 at 1:38 PM
To: OE List <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Cc: Herman Greene <hfgreenenc at gmail.com>
Subject: [Oe List ...] I'm remembering what happened when MLK died

Here's a good current article<http://graphics.chicagotribune.com/riots-chicago-1968-mlk/> with pictures and sound in the Chicago Tribute.

This article has it right that North Lawndale and East Garfield Park (of which Fifty City, now recognized as a sub-neighborhood of E Garfield Park, is a part) were hardest hit. The Wikipedia article <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Chicago_riots> says Austin and Lawndale.


Here's a reflection on the riots.<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-martin-luther-king-riots-chicago-kass-20180403-story.html>

Here's an article<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-kingriots-story-story.html> from 1968.

My memory is that I first heard about the death of MLK in RFK's speech but I'm not sure.

The next day, as I remember it, I did my usual commute from the Westside to the University of Chicago on the el, an even more scary commute than usual.

That night all hell broke loose. Joy and I were baby sitting. It was a Friday evening and there was a course being given on black history with many black people from St. Louis. The room we were in was an upper floor with a view to the west. We could see fires being lit one after another getting closer and closer to us.



We remember the fires that were lit in our building and the hurried instructions for us to leave the building.  The people at the black history course perhaps wisely fled.


People in the Order assembled in the basement of the hospital next door.


Late at night we returned to the building and sat in an upper hallway with the lights out.


It was surreal.


The first story above rightly states that these neighborhoods were never rebuilt and are filled with empty lots. This is not to say there have not been many changes and positive developments as well.


I just looked up North Lawndale in Wikipedia. The average family income there today is $22,000.
In East Garfield Park it is $21,000.


Herman



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Herman F. Greene
2516 Winningham Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
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hfgreenenc at gmail.com<mailto:hfgreenenc at gmail.com>
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