Getting New Jersey's Urban Residents Organized is in Everyone's Interests

In a blog published earlier this month, I introduced an important but little-appreciated topic that is at the core of what is ailing our troubled inner cities, that being, a lack of empowered community organizations. As crime and poverty continue to stifle New Jersey's urban areas, it must be noted that if we expect the residents of places like Camden, Newark and Paterson to help themselves, they have to have a place to meet. Literally, there are little if any places to gather, talk about issues, prioritize, network and plan, plan, plan. So often we hear from the residents of the Garden State's wealthier suburbs and rural areas (such as Sussex County) that the first step in solving the problems of our inner cities is getting the people who live there to work together. Or more cynically, we'll read posted snippets like "We've been throwing money at these places for years and things just keep getting worse," and even "if more of this crime continues we'll have to call in the National Guard."

Community self-help and activism are not derived some set of magical powers. It takes specific kind of infrastructure, a unique skill-set, lot of work, and a multitude of relationships to get the ball rolling. People need to not only have the abilities to organize and run gatherings, they need a physical location to hold events.

Martin Luther King Jr. at a local civil rights
meeting in the early 1960's 

Suburban and rural communities don't really have this problem. Small and medium-sized informal gatherings, especially those involving both political parties and major civic organizations, take place at community-oriented venues and even Starbucks or some other local coffeehouse. For larger, more formal gatherings, organizations will approach a local hotel, like the Marriott or Hilton, and rent out a meeting room for a day or two. Conveniently situated in these hotels, organizations will typically utilize their kitchens to provide catering and refreshments. Since almost everyone has a car, transportation and free parking aren't a concern. Sure, this costs money, but everyone chips in, or if the organization has deeper pockets, it pays the hotels directly.

These modern-day meeting facilities are specifically designed for their designated functions. They're all equipped with wireless Internet so everyone's smart device is instantly enabled. Power Point presentations and films can be seen on provided overhead projectors. And, of course, we can't forget tables, chairs and lecterns. Additionally, most also have amplifying equipment built-in, enabling anyone to be heard at even the largest gatherings. It's all very convenient.

Political Scientists and historians actually have a name for the culture that's produced by such gatherings: Civil Society. Perhaps the term rings a bell. Civil Society is made up of all of the clubs, organizations and citizen gatherings that aren't part of any formal governmental structure, yet comprise of one of the essential components of any healthy democratic society. Americans used to be famous for it; in the early 1800's, the famous French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville couldn't help but notice it in every region of the young United States he visited. He devoted entire portions of his masterpiece Democracy in America on the subject.  

In these clubs and organizations - and not really in school - people acquire the essential skills of democratic citizenship. People learn how to act like free, responsible individuals - responsible not only for themselves but their communities as well. These skills aren't so much stressed in any of our public schools these days, which have been more or less hijacked by reformy organizations bent on preparing students to succeed on standardized tests.

These essential skills are the stuff that keeps us free. How to recruit members of an organization. How to elect and sustain leadership. How to create an agenda and run a meeting. How to delegate tasks by committee. How to network within and outside of the organization. How to compromise and draft bylaws and resolutions. How to take collective action in the form of a bake sale, a direct-mail campaign, a demonstration, a write-in, etc.  

Okay, so let's return to our inner cities. If people are the "software" for democracy, meeting places are part of the "hardware." But there isn't any "hardware" to be seen, not any more. So what kinds of things can be done to help the residents of our inner cities help themselves? What "classic" and 21st Century solutions are there?

First, our urban residents need to get online. The Internet is the ultimate network for networking. We need to get people emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking and Blogging. Here the State can make a real difference by funding low or no cost municipal WiFi, or wireless Internet. By creating wireless clouds in our urban areas, we'll increase interactivity, reduce crime and bind neighborhoods together. People cannot organize and solve their own community problems if they're not communicating. Municipal WiFi used to be an exorbitantly expensive proposition, but no more. With bandwidth and equipment prices now at historic lows (and heading lower - thanks "Made in China"!), it's entirely possible to "unwire" places like Newark, Trenton, Camden and Paterson. It all doesn't have to be done at once, and there are many ways to fund it without much public expenditure. Put Internet routers on telephone poles, billboards, traffic lights, etc. Get the place humming.

To promote networking and organizational skills, call in the experts. The State could join hands with Non-governmental organizations and service agencies like AmeriCorps and our state colleges to provide classes at local high schools or community centers (do we even have community centers anymore?) on basic managerial skills.

And what about places to meet? Here, the Legislature can help. Pass laws requiring communities to open neighborhood schools after hours so that urban clubs and organizations have a places to gather. Some funding will have to be provided for security and operations, but remember - this entire plan is to make our cities safer by getting urban residents to work together. It would be, more or less, an anti-crime effort. Any financial investment made by the state would have the potential to more than pay for itself if residents can organize and network.

With everything I am proposing, I will admit, there's are no guarantees. But if our urban centers continue to deteriorate, the costs of policing and aiding them will continue to skyrocket. Before we call in the National Guard, before another round of riots on par with 1967 occurs, promoting urban civic organization and activism is certainly worth a try.

Think about it. As I always say, am I on to something here, or is this all just pie in the sky? Should we help our urban residents help themselves? Isn't it time to brush the cynicism aside, and try something different? I look forward to your comments.

How Can Jersey's Urban Citizens Organize if They Have No Place to Meet?

As the online articles of summertime shootings in New Jersey's neglected, jobless and isolated inner cities begin to ramp up, so do the ignorant, hostile comments that adjoin them. To many Internet readers, these forums are either wholly ignored or regarded as more or less useless - being the sum total of random ranters with too much time on their hands. But even from a non-scientific point of view, they do matter, because in some form, they represent documented, and occasionally comprehensive reactions and discussions from concerned Garden State citizens of all kinds.

One kind of comment, however, seems to be more common than all the others. For within the collections of comments that state things like "a tragedy for a girl who had her whole life ahead of her," and "minorities continue to ruin places where we used to leave the doors unlocked," there is one that is worth genuine analysis. It varies, but usually states something like "This violence will continue until the people of Newark/Camden/Trenton/Paterson etc. no longer tolerate it."

It's an interesting assumption, because not only have I come across it often on sites like NJ.com and NorthJersey.com but I've heard it countless times in other places. Apparently, according to a sizable minority of those willing to publish their opinions on the issue, crime in New Jersey's cities is a result of a lack of civic awareness, pride, activity or organization on the part of our urban dwellers - or all of those things combined.  

It's interesting. Though most posters do not identify where they're writing from, I think it's safe to assume that many, if not all of them, do not live in these depressing cities, rife with crime and poverty. These posters have little idea of the places they're talking about. That's too bad, because you no longer have to physically go to Trenton, Newark, Camden or anywhere in New Jersey to get a feel for its topography. You can simply visit Google Maps and take a virtual walk around the streets, and witness the extent of the devastation firsthand. And if one has even more time on their hands, I believe they can even use Google Maps to view a series of photos of the same places over time, to see how a specific neighborhood, lot, etc. has changed.

The problems of New Jersey's urban centers are complex, of course, and go backdecades. But as a former Newark Central Ward teacher and resident, I have to be honest here: if you're going to accuse Newark or Camden's people of a lack of civic spirit or capability to organize, you need to look at the physical geography of such places. In short, what kinds of conditions and structures are present that could enable people to organize and, say, challenge poverty, crime and corruption in such cities?

It's a good question, because it matters. America's Revolutionaries had their taverns, where they passionately debated and organized against British rule. Abolitionists and later Civil Rights leaders had their Churches, which functioned as vital incubators of organization and leadership. Newark's former Jewish community had huge, active community centers, especially along what was once High Street (Now MLK Blvd.)  

All of these institutions - and that's what they were - required time, energy, funding and organization - and space. And now, for the most part, they're gone. Swept away in a tide of history and drowned out by poverty. Aside from their homes and places of employment, most of our state's urban residents lack a "Third Place," where they can simply socialize, which in a free society is the first step in tackling any problem as a community.

Think about it another way. Say you're a Newark Central Ward resident, and you want to start some sort of council or club or action group. Where would you meet? Really, where?

Want to discuss the issues? 

Don't bother arranging a meeting at 

Newark's Starbucks; it closed in 2009.

In the 1920's and 30's, many of Newark's great community gatherings took place in its schools. But under the regime of State Superintendent Cami Anderson, whose contempt for all forms of democracy and civic expression is well known, today this is almost an impossibility. In fact, some parent organizers have even been arrested for posting material on school grounds. It's a tragedy, because much of the city's finest physical structures are completely off limits, or nearly impossible to attain, for meeting, debating and organizing.

Okay, so what about other publicly oriented businesses like cafes and coffeehouses? Well you can forget about these too. The last coffeehouse in the Central Ward - a Starbucks - closed in 2009. The event was regarded as so devastating that it was even covered by the New York Times.

And what about the Churches? Yes, there are still some churches active in our inner cities, but aside from Sunday services, they offer few other services for even their own parishioners. And from a practical perspective, from my years and years of walking around Newark and Paterson, I'd say that most Church buildings are locked and sealed shut during the week.

So how are the people of our urban areas supposed to organize if they cannot even find a place to congregate?

I hope there are some meaningful replies to this blog...am I completely wrong here? Am I on to something?  

The Plot Against Newark: The Great Depression-Era Scheme to Deport A Brick City Minority

New Jersey’s history is more interesting, tragic, triumphant and fascinating than most people know. As a history teacher my students know little about the state’s past, apart from where Washington slept and a few Revolutionary War battles. The more I study the pages of old newspapers, journals and letters the more I realize that the Garden State’s epic and sometimes disturbing past is

Newark charity soup kitchen, 1930's

worth writing about.

When it comes to great writers, Philip Roth is one of Jersey’s treasures. In 2004 Roth published an astounding masterpiece, a novel titled The Plot Against America. Set in a familiar alternate universe of the 1930’s and 40’s, Roth imagines Newark and the U.S. under the presidency of the isolationist Charles Lindbergh, and traces, in suspenseful and masterful style how conditions for Essex County’s Jews deteriorate as Lindbergh’s fortunes rise. Scary stuff, to be sure, but just fiction, right? No one ever, of course, in real life proposed sending a large portion of a state minority off to camps or distant locales?

Tragically enough, various forms of ethnic deportation and cleansing were widely and publicly proposed, from some of the highest levels of Newark’s city government, in the summer of 1932. It was, in short, Newark’s own plot against America. Had it actually worked, sights similar to the coming Holocaust in Germany would have surely panned out on the streets of New Jersey’s largest city, with African-Americans as the target.

We need to paint the scene here, to understand the context of a horrifying proposal that almost came to be. In 1932 the Depression was already in its grinding third year, and Newark, as one of the East Coast’s industrial hubs, was hit particularly hard. The New Deal was still over a year away and no end to the troubles were in sight. Factories closed. The number of the unemployed ballooned and urban aid programs were scant. There was no unemployment insurance, Social Security or Medicaid to speak of. In Newark, most aid to the poor was in the form of free distribution of flour.

Within the Brick City’s economic cauldron, racial hatred festered. New Jersey’s African-American population had grown dramatically in the 1920’s as hundreds of thousands of blacks had fled violence and Jim Crowism in the South for opportunities in the North. In the booming economy of the 20’s many men did find jobs and a better life, but with the Depression, the ebbing tide stranded all ships. Black and White in Newark faced a new, seemingly permanent world of joblessness and desperation.

It was in this atmosphere that Owen A. Malady, Newark’s official “Overseer of the Poor,” along with several allies, proposed a terrifying plan. The city of Newark would act to “deport” or “resettle” most of its African-American residents “back” to the South. More specifically, the plot was that all black residents living in Newark for less than five years would be removed from the city and forced “back to Dixie.”

The scheme was publicly discussed and debated behind the doors of Newark’s stately city hall building on Broad Street. Some of the city’s commissioners wanted prompt action taken by the police, who would apparently engage in mass arrests, processing and forceful relocations. How the city would determine who was to be deported/arrested was never fleshed out. It probably would not have mattered anyway; I’m sure every African-American living in Newark would have been a target.

Though he rejected ‘force’, Malady was intensely determined to make his deportation plan work. He told one paper that he had written public officials, including governors, in Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. He even called on local Essex County churches to assist him in his efforts.

Opponents quickly made themselves vocal in newspapers North and South. Writing in the Atlanta Daily World, one Jesse Thomas scorned the plan as regressive, unwise and blatantly unconstitutional. First, Thomas openly wondered why the City of Newark had discriminated in its deportation plans against African Americans? Hadn’t many white people settled in the city over the past half-decade? Additionally, from a logistical point of view, so-called “Southern Resettlement” wouldn’t help anyone, as:

“Practically every city in the South is already taxed to its limit in an effort to take care of those who are now unemployed and living on charity.”

And most importantly, Thomas wrote, why would it matter what region anyone came from who settled in Newark? Doesn’t every part of the nation belong to every inhabitant equally? Of course, Thomas was legally correct. The United States Constitution, in its "privileges and immunities clause," blatantly forbids this kind of regionally-based discrimination. 

Newark, to my knowledge, never did adopt this appalling mass deportation plan. And while the later New Deal programs of the Roosevelt administration certainly eased poverty in Essex County, none of the programs (such as the Civilian Conservation Corps) were ever specifically targeted to help African Americans. Many New Deal agencies actually engaged in racial discrimination themselves. It would take World War II to bring full employment and opportunity back to Newark, but in 1932 that was still almost a decade away (and nobody knew it was coming at the time either).

The Great Depression is over, but the Great Recession is not. Though such schemes for mass deportations of minorities are fortunately non-existent in the United States, they’re currently enjoying resurgence in Europe. There, in nations like Greece and Hungary, Fascists are again on the march and ruthlessly targeting immigrants and Jews. And these Fascists are gaining political power by winning local and national elections. We need to remember, such conspiracies did once visit our shores. We can never let such ideas gain a serious audience again. We’re all in this economic mess, yes, but we’re in it together.

Decades Before King Unveiled His Dream, Another Pastor Spoke of His Own at Arts High

Arts High School in the 1930's

This weekend marks the 50th Anniversary of the famous “March on Washington.” The event was a high point of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, when hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to call for an end to racial hatred and discrimination against African-Americans. It was an iconic moment set in front of the marble icon of the Lincoln Memorial. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” rang out to those gathered there, and to billions more on video since then. The world wasn’t quite the same after that. Jim Crowism wasn’t dead yet, but its days were numbered. 

But the Modern Civil Rights Movement started much, much earlier, far away from the D.C. nexus of National Power and Authority. Teachers dispute over where it began, and all of their arguments are interesting and valid ones. Some teach that the 20th century movement emerged from the brutal Mississippi murder of Chicago teen Emmet Till. Other educators point back a bit beforehand, to the Second World War. In that global struggle, African-Americans like the Tuskegee Airmen proved themselves as accomplished warriors in the skies over Europe in battles with the German Luftwaffe. But being a local historian and Arts High teacher, I like to look much closer for events in Newark. And one gathering in particular stands out not only for where it occurred – in 1938 in the Arts High School Auditorium – but because of the stark, innovative and honest message of the primary speaker involved – Chicago’s Dr. J.C. Austin.

Like King, who would emerge politically decades later, Austin was a Christian preacher that promoted civil rights. But the Chicago pastor embraced the equally important link between civil rights and the human condition. In the late 1930’s, Austin had more or less lost faith in any government’s ability to raise living and educational standards for African-Americans. Instead, like Malcolm X would in the early 1960’s, he preached a dramatic form of black self-reliance. And on October 13, 1938 he preached to a packed audience in Newark’s newest Art Deco Masterpiece, Arts High School, to promote his principles.

The 1930’s had not been kind of the Brick City. Newark was heavily industrialized during this era, and had experienced massive unemployment coupled with several waves of bank failures. Though FDR’s “New Deal” had been operational for a few years by 1938, its benefits had touched the city unevenly. For some, the new Federal programs such as Social Security and public works had eased their poverty. But for Newark’s large black population at the time these programs were of limited help, and like today, the black unemployment rate was higher than the national average. Racial discrimination, though less outright in the North than in the Jim Crow South, was taking its disproportionate economic and social toll on the African-American community. As the Great Depression wore on, and evenworsened after 1937, Austin’s thunderous message of racial economic self-reliance gained more and more listeners.

In his opening remarks, the pastor provided himself as a tangible example of one who actively practiced what he preached. He announced to the audience that his fine clothing had been bought in shops he had carefully researched as ones that employed African-Americans, and that others should follow.

Austin told the audience that he blamed slavery for the overall condition of African-Americans, but not for the reason that most people thought. Slavery had in fact divided African-Americans into competing sub-classes that competed and discriminated against each other. So from the slave past emerged an equally great peril that threatened to keep the African-American community in a near-permanent state of poverty: fragmentation. This had to be countered with a working unity of purpose, with the end-goals of widespread, meaningful economic prosperityand self-respect.

The churchman then explained how these goals could be accomplished. First, African-Americans had toorganize, socially and economically. They had to patronize their own businesses. Affluent black professionals like dentists and lawyers needed to spend their money buying products sold by stores that didn’t discriminate in their hiring practices. Black-owned businesses required support as well. The community needed to stick together and remain socially aware, even in times of economic turmoil like workers’ strikes. “No Negro should walk past a picket line where his race is trying to win job opportunities…he should willingly get in the line and help win the fight.”

Austin was aware that there would be resistance from the white majority…and that this resistance could manifest itself in many forms, violent or otherwise. But he told the crammed audience that day at Arts High not to give into fear. “We don’t rise by accident, but by our own efforts…nervous and fearful people will not rise. Don’t be a coward. In order for the race to succeed in the fight for more jobs, they must adhere to the law that governs man.”

To make the core concept of his speech a reality (racial self-reliance), Austin told his captivated listeners that the black race wouldn’t prosper before the liberation of the Black Mind. Outside forces such as sympathetic white politicians or otherwise could not be counted on. “We hope for our redemption to come by the way of some emancipator, but it will only come by our own efforts.”

Yes, King had a dream, but so did Austin. Whose dream was more valid, more workable, more realistic? History, I believe, has made room for both. Minority populations should organize and promote their own interests…it only makes sense to, especially during eras of open discrimination and hatred. So in this sense, Austin was right. Even in 1938 Newark had long been home to a wide variety of ethnic and religious self-help societies. But King’s triumph decades later needs to be acknowledged as well. King’s (somewhat) successful efforts to convince the majority of Americans that African-Americans were people entitled to equality and a decent life of opportunity and education should never be discounted. It was a white-majority Congress in the 1960’s that passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and help to amend the Constitution to bar poll taxes.  

It gave me a great sense of pride to find this story in the pages of the now-digitized Pittsburgh Courier. Every morning when I pull up to Arts High and walk through its beautiful, marble-plated masterpiece of a lobby, I cannot help but admire the finery of its civic architecture. But the building’s historic legacy isn’t just in brick and mortar. It’s in the stirring events and decades of learning contained within. It’s in the people,who have passed through its halls over the past two centuries…pastors, activists, and of course, teachers and students. Thankfully that legacy of progress and intellectual vibrancy continue within its walls to this day.