A Saturday in early August of 1966 promised to be a big day. One month earlier, on July 2nd, I turned 16, the magic age when an Illinois resident can legally drive an automobile and I promptly received my drivers license. On this late summer evening, I was going to take a girl on a date with a car, for the first time. My dad said I could "borrow" the family's navy blue 1964 Chevy Bel-Air for this occasion. I was so excited; this was going to be very, very special. I spent that whole day anticipating the evening, highly strung with nervous energy. I combed my hair several times. I considered and re-considered my evening attire. About three o'clock p.m. I decided to gas-up the car.
The car was parked directly in front of our house at 6532 South Francisco. As soon as I walked out of our front door I realized something strange was going on. The Bel-Air, and all of the other cars on our block were "hemmed in" by school busses which were "double-parked" along the whole length of Francisco Avenue. The school busses weren't the normal "school bus yellow" color they were "Chicago Police Department powder blue." Each bus had scores of policemen descending from within and forming up in marching order in front of the houses on my block. There seemed like thousands of police officers, in tight formation, lined up holding nightsticks in their hands and wearing powder blue riot helmets. When the formations were complete they catapulted into a "double-time" march south to Marquette Park.
I thought wow, something really big is happening. So, guess what I did… Like any good self-respecting, ambulance chasing teenager, I decided to followed them. As I was beginning my pursuit I heard a weird noise, thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap repeating rapidly. I turned around but I couldn't find the source until I realized that the sound was coming from above. I looked up and saw a helicopter hovering, surveying whatever was going on ahead of us. I had never seen a helicopter hovering above my home before. Yep, something really unusual was going on, probably taking place in the sweeping expanse of Marquette Park, located just 1 and ½ blocks south of where I lived. Whatever was going on must be really, really, unusual and something really, really big. I quickened my pace. I just had to get to Marquette Park.
I followed close behind the advancing police. As we neared the park I could see a thick crowd lined up along 67th Street. As I came closer the crowd seemed more like a belligerent mob whose rage was focused on a small band people just inside of the Park. The small band were demonstrators who were marching in a line and carrying neatly printed placards which said "Open Housing," or "End Segregation," or "End Slums." The demonstration was being led by a figure I recognized from television news segments, Martin Luther King Jr.
Some members of the jeering crowd were holding makeshift signs which read: "Niggers Beware," and "Go back to Africa." I watched as a tavern owner near 67the & California passed out empty beer bottles to crowd members who were hurling them at the demonstrators, causing some of them to fall as they struck. A solid line of policemen gripping batons kept the angry horde separated from the small band of protestors.
To my left, at the intersection of 67th and California a Chevy Corvair (a small car in 1966) was stopped at the traffic light. The driver and passenger were a black couple who were in their mid forties. As they waited for the traffic signal to turn green, the car was surrounded by the white mob. The thugs closest to the car began to rock it back and forth, threatening to overturn it. Suddenly, a teenage girl, about my age, jumped up on the hood and began screaming racial slurs while she kicked at the windshield. Her face was twisted with rage and fury. An expression of terror exuded from the faces of the two people in the car as they huddled together. The driver began to inch the vehicle forward causing the young girl to leap off of the hood. The Corvair moved slowly and persistently, causing the crowd to clear an exit. The car sped away.
A cry echoed through the mob declaring that automobiles which belonged to the demonstrators were parked inside of Marquette Park. A row of cars was quickly surrounded. Some of the cars were physically picked up and carried over to the Marquette Park lagoon where they were pushed into the water and became submerged. Some of the remaining cars were set on fire.
At 67th and Rockwell there was a group of white men wearing Nazi uniforms, brown shirts, black ties, black armbands with a red swastika, who called themselves the "American Nazi Party." The "leader" was screaming into a bull horn encouraging the white mob to rally behind them, and some of the crowd were responding.
The sight of the “American Nazis” made me turn and run for home. 1966 was a mere two decades after the end of World War II. I grew up watching war movies - the Nazis were always the “bad guys” and the Americans were the “good guys.” I couldn't fathom what these swastika bearing thugs were doing in “my neighborhood.” I couldn't understand how anyone would even tolerate their presence, much less be attracted to their cause.
When I returned home I was flooded with emotion. I was angry and afraid. So were my parents, and most other “good” families in the neighborhood. In the space of about an hour, everything I had been taught about my country, my neighborhood and my culture was shattered. As a pupil in St. Rita grade school, the Adrian Dominican sisters taught me that Jesus Christ preached the “Law of Love” - yet I did not witness “love” being expressed within the white Catholic enclave of Marquette Park. I grew up believing that I lived in the greatest country in the world - it didn't seem so great on the afternoon of August 5, 1966. I began to think that my country and my culture were deeply troubled. In my neighborhood, really bad people were rampaging in our park, while good people were deeply afraid. The good people kept their families shuttered in their houses watching television, and waiting for the storm to pass. I never did go out on a date that evening. That “rite of passage” would have to wait. My date's parents wanted her to stay home and out of the climate of unrest that existed in the neighborhood.
I couldn't sleep that night. As I lay awake in bed another lesson from the Dominican Sisters became vivid - the forces of evil are real, and that all it takes for them to prevail is for those who would act on behalf of “goodness” to do nothing. I knew that I had just witnessed evil first hand. That sleepless night I resolved that I would be dedicated to advancing the forces of good. Maybe I did experience a “rite of passage” after all.
