Crossing the Red Sea

To Negro civil rights workers, Cicero, Ill. (pop. 70,000), is a symbol of Northern discrimination--a Selma without the Southern drawl. The last time a Negro tried to live in Cicero, in 1951, city police harassed him, then did little to quell three days of rioting as mobs burned his possessions and wrecked his apartment. Some 3,000 National Guardsmen finally restored order but, from that day to this, no Negro has openly sought residence in the town that gave Al Capone haven, a suburb of Chicago that is largely populated by blue-collar workers of East European extraction.

Dr. Martin Luther King, who for several weeks has been spotlighting Negro grievances in the Chicago area through demonstrations, scheduled a march to protest closed housing in Cicero early last month, but called it off at the urging of Chicago religious and civic leaders. He scheduled it again for last Sunday--to the horror of Illinois officials. Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogilvie warned that a march through Cicero would be "suicidal" and would make previous disturbances in Chicago itself "look like a tea party."

Open City. Ogilvie, together with Cicero officials, appealed to Governor Otto Kerner for National Guard troops to preserve order during the march. Said Cicero Town Attorney Christy Berkos: "The probability of danger and destruction to human life and property now has become a certainty." Kerner agreed, and prepared to call out the Guard. Major General Francis Kane, Guard commander, grimly made plans to arm his men with tear gas, bayonets and machine guns. "If anyone fires on my men," warned Kane, "my men will fire back, and the same goes if anyone fires at the marchers."

Realizing that a march through Cicero might lead to disaster, the civic leaders of the Chicago area quickly moved to meet the challenge with positive action. Sitting down with King at week's end, they agreed to his demands for an "open city," promised to take affirmative steps to open all-white neighborhoods to Negroes. The Chicago Real Estate Board withdrew its opposition to the basic tenet of open-housing legislation. The housing authority promised to improve public housing and place families in the best available housing without regard to the racial character of the neighborhood. Mortgage bankers said that they would provide mortgage money without regard to race. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice said that it would investigate possible discrimination in the issuance of federally insured loans.

Historic Day. That satisfied Martin Luther King. Calling his agreement with the Chicago leaders "one of the most significant programs ever conceived," he once again agreed to postpone the march through Cicero--at least until the Chicago leadership had had a chance to demonstrate its good intent with action. "We've come a long, long way," he said. "We've crossed the Red Sea right here in Chicago." Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley agreed that it was a "historic day."

A dissident group of Negroes denounced King and the agreement as "a betrayal" and "treason" and threatened to march through Cicero anyway, but they, too, backed down at week's end. No agreement can be truly successful, in fact, until Cicero agrees to open up its houses and apartments to Negroes. "Didn't we show them the last time?" asked one Cicero housewife.

"It's all right for them to work here," said another, "but we won't have them shoved down our throats." A soft answer turneth away wrath, but Martin Luther King is a practical Christian. "It is a noble agreement on paper," said he, "but it must work, it must be implemented, and we're going to have to watch to see, day by day, week by week, that it is being carried out." Otherwise, he plans again to march on Cicero.

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