I think to understand the 60's, you have to
understand the racial situation in the country
at that time. Uh, in the south, you know,
at that time, over the course of 10 years
earlier, at that time, you have racial segregation.
I know as Rik indicated, it's hard to believe
uh but when we were kids, in the south, it
was in the newspapers over there. This was
White only, this was Black only. Alabama and
Mississippi, you had black people sitting
at the back of the uh buses. You had kids
getting absolutely inferior educations. Uh you had vestiges of slavery.
And I remember on a personal level the idea
now one sees a black and white couple, you
know a guy or a woman, no one really blinks
much of an eye now but in that time, even
in cities like New York City which certainly
had large multiracial populations. It was
an astounding sight to see a black and white
person holding hands. People really couldn't
believe…it was really just absolutely startling.
Hard to believe.
And for me, one of the important things about
the 60's and being in Chicago, was the first
opportunity I had in my life to work with
black people and understand, and work together.
And I think one of the things that I saw being
at the University of Chicago, which was and
was and is certainly a very highly regarded University. Much higher than say on the level on the level of supposedly good
univerities, like UVM is the basic hypocricy
of most of what was going on.
I can say without blinking an eye that I learned
infinitely more in the streets and in the
community than I did in the classrooms. The
classrooms were extremely boring and I remember
one incident that comes out in my mind. It
strikes me, I'll never forget it. We were
involved in the real world. Dealing with the
civil rights and so forth. And at that time
and became later very apparent, and I'm sure
Rik and I will get up to this later. In 1968
as some of you may recall from the history
and it's in that anthology that you have.
There was a very, the democrats held a convention
in 1968, elected Hubert Humphrey for president,
They were rioting in the streets and so on and so on.
And the Chicago police were exposed at that
point as being extremely brutal. Well I learned
that actually some years before. Uh, there
were demonstrations and I remember uh dealing
with segregated schools. The schools in Chicago
were segregated, and the neighborhoods were very rigidly segregated.
And there were demonstrations, blacks and
whites working together. And I will never
forget, there was a picture in the Chicago
Defender which was and I suspect still is,
the black newspaper for Chicago, and there
was a photograph on the front page of a white
policeman twisting the arm of a young black
girl behind her back. It was a very effective
photograph and somebody had cut this out and
put it on a poster. we were holding a meeting
to protest police brutality in Chicago. I
remember, walking down 57th street in Chicago,
walking away and tacking up these posters
"come to a meeting. protest police brutality."
And I'm walking down the street "protest police
brutality" putting posters up. Little did
I know there's a police car following me down
the street, the guy stops and is taking down
the posters. Finally I come to the corner,
the guy says "Are these your posters?" and
I said "Yes." and he said "The problem with
the city is outside agitators like yourself.
You know, a few people weren't doing this
the city would be y'know etc." I was very
frightened needless to say. Very frightened.
And then I had to leave because I had to leave
because I had to race upstairs to go to my
political science class and I sat in the back
of the room there, thinking about the tremendous.
The lack of reality, the lack…here I had
just deal with something that was very real.
I was out on the street dealing with a policeman
about a situation regarding racial segregation
that was taking place 3 blocks from where
this class was occuring. Uh teachers talked
away and it was like a million miles away,
and some of us would raise a hand "But what
about what's going on now?" and the answers
you'd get. They'd bore you, they'd say "This
is what's going on outside my window and this
is what's going on inside the classroom."
And by and large that was true with very few
exceptions. And now I'm talking about one
of the…was then and probably still is today,
one of the better universities in America.
There were few teachers who had openess and
compassion among them a fella who had left Nazi
Germany, a very very decent guy. But by and
large most of what we were hearing in class
was not relevant to what we were feeling,
in sync out on the streets and out in reality
and I can say without the slightest doubt,
I learned far far more outside on the streets
and also what happened is the University and
I had a difference of opinion, about my academics.
I wasn't doing very well, the dean suggested
that maybe I take a little bit of time off
to think about whether or not I was going
to continue going to the school. Uh so I sat
down, and it was amazing what I ended up doing
is I. I guess I was out for a semester and
I buried myself I was working but I buried
myself in the basement of the library, it had very
very fine library. Which probably doubled
as a bomb shelter, speaking of bomb shelters,
massive building and miles down into the …you
had to fight your way into the stacks, they
weren't open you had to sneak in, sneak in
to read books. It was a good university but,
you'd slip in and you'd bury yourself down
there for days, uh and I would do an enormous
amount of reading.
