A Historical Vignette

Everyone knows Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered in August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.  What most people don't know is that the ringing conclusion to that speech actually derives from a speech MLK gave two months previously, in my hometown of Detroit on June 22, 1963:

As I move toward my conclusion, you're asking, I'm sure, "What can we do here in Detroit to help in the struggle in the South?" Well, there are several things that you can do...

...the second thing that you can do to help us down in Alabama and Mississippi and all over the South is to work with determination to get rid of any segregation and discrimination in Detroit, realizing that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And we've got to come to see that the problem of racial injustice is a national problem. No community in this country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood. Now in the North it's different in that it doesn't have the legal sanction that it has in the South. But it has its subtle and hidden forms and it exists in three areas: in the area of employment discrimination, in the area of housing discrimination, and in the area of de facto segregation in the public schools. And we must come to see that de facto segregation in the North is just as injurious as the actual segregation in the South.  And so if you want to help us in Alabama and Mississippi and over the South, do all that you can to get rid of the problem here...

And so I go back to the South not in despair. I go back to the South not with a feeling that we are caught in a dark dungeon that will never lead to a way out. I go back believing that the new day is coming. And so this afternoon, I have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day, right down in Georgia and Mississippi and Alabama, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to live together as brothers.

I have a dream this afternoon that one day, one day little white children and little Negro children will be able to join hands as brothers and sisters.

I have a dream this afternoon that one day, that one day men will no longer burn down houses and the church of God simply because people want to be free.

I have a dream this afternoon that there will be a day that we will no longer face the atrocities that Emmett Till had to face or Medgar Evers had to face, that all men can live with dignity.

I have a dream this afternoon that my four little children, that my four little children will not come up in the same young days that I came up within, but they will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

I have a dream this afternoon that one day right here in Detroit, Negroes will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere that their money will carry them and they will be able to get a job.

Yes, I have a dream this afternoon that one day in this land the words of Amos will become real and "justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I have a dream this evening that one day we will recognize the words of Jefferson that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I have a dream this afternoon.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and "every valley shall be exalted, and every hill shall be made low; the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

I have a dream this afternoon that the brotherhood of man will become a reality in this day.

And with this faith I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair. With this faith, I will go out with you and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. With this faith, we will be able to achieve this new day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing with the Negroes in the spiritual of old:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God almighty, we are free at last!

Now, MLK was thoughtful enough not to pick on Detroit when he went to Washington to give the more famous version of this speech.  But he was right about the problems in Detroit and other industrial cities across the North, of course.  Four years later, one of the formative events in Detroit history came to pass, the race riots of 1967.

I could write a whole diary on the history of the riots, on how President Johnson bickered with Governor George Romney (whose son you know) over whether to send in federal troops.  How Congressman John Conyers bravely, yet unsuccessfully, tried to quell the unrest.  But that's not what's important.  What's important is that the tragedy of the riots exacerbated all the existing racial problems in Detroit, most notably the problem of so-called "white flight" to the suburbs.  Black residents, even successful ones, were unable to follow, as a consequence of the housing discrimination referenced in MLK's speech; realtors simply wouldn't show homes in white neighborhoods to black families.  Businesses and jobs left for the suburbs as well, and the economic decline of Detroit accelerated.

The Story Becomes About Me

This is how things looked when I was born, in the spring of 1970.  I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood just about a mile north of 8 Mile Road, which Eminem later made famous as the divide between black Detroit and the white suburbs.  8 Mile really did have powerful symbolism in those days; I suppose many white folks thought it as the southern boundary of civilization, although this being the North, they were mostly polite enough not to put it that way.

As time went by, white folks had less and less reason to venture into Detroit.  The flagship of the downtown retail community, the glorious Hudson's Department Store, closed in 1983, largely because whites had all started doing their shopping in the suburbs.  When I was young - I can't even remember the year - a couple white suburbanites were shot while attending the fireworks display at the annual International Freedom Festival in Downtown Detroit.  A decade later, it was common to hear suburban families say they wouldn't attend the fireworks because of "all the danger."  They were still talking about that single episode of violence from years before.

The mayor of Detroit during this period was a black man named Coleman Young, who once upon a time had told off the House Un-American Activities Committee by saying: "You have me mixed up with a stool pigeon."  Notwithstanding that auspicious beginning to his career, Mayor Young was an incredibly corrupt politican whose chief tool in holding onto office was exploiting racial politics to the hilt.  Every election, like clockwork, Young would accuse his opponent of being in the pocket of the moneyed interests from north of 8 Mile Road - in short, no matter how black they might be, they became the "white candidate."  Employing this strategy, he always won reelection easily, even as the economic decline of Detroit continued.  White suburbanites were, naturally, repulsed by Young's tactics and the way he managed to hold onto power even though "everyone" knew he was a terrible mayor.  They all genuinely wanted the best for Detroit, one might say, as long as they never had to go there.

My Misspent Youth

I don't remember a single act of overt racism from my childhood, yet it was somehow understood that if a black family visited the upscale shopping mall, they'd probably get followed around pretty closely by a security guard because they "didn't belong."  In high school, I worked for a local lawyer who told me he couldn't hire a black secretary, not because he had a racist bone in his body, you see, but because he knew it would upset his clients.  (Young liberal that I was, I tried and tried to persuade him to hire a certain black woman who was clearly the most qualified applicant; he finally relented and did the right thing, and then she didn't show up for her first day of work.  So much for that story.)

There were a few black families in the community, but decades of de facto segregation take a long time to break down.  In fact, when diversity finally came around, it was mostly attributable to immigrant communities (Indians, Chaldeans, Armenians) than to migration of blacks from Detroit proper.  I can offer no better description of the community than by pointing out that when my school held a mock election in 1984, Reagan got 100% of the vote.  (I blame it on peer pressure; I really did like Mondale!)

When Jesse Jackson won Michigan in 1988, I'm fairly certain he didn't get a lot of votes in my hometown.  What's relevant, though, is the reason why.  I don't believe there was simple racism so much as there was a polarized community with an instinctive revulsion to what would have been perceived as "racial politics."  After all, Jesse was going around Detroit campaigning for the votes of those black folks; ergo, he's just one of those "black politicians."  Reagan wasn't overtly racist, after all, but he sure got a lot of votes by speaking in code to people like my neighbors.  

Fast-Forward to Today

But time changes everything.  In 2004, in Oakland County which used to be solid Reagan Republican territory, Kerry and Bush split the vote 50/50.  Part of this is because the Republican Party has moved away from fiscal conservatism, but most of it simply has to do with changing demographics and the fact that de facto segregation barriers finally broke down.  When I go back to my old high school, the student body looks nothing like how it used to.  I couldn't be prouder.  I could easily, easily see this diverse community voting for Barack Obama, and I don't just mean the minority residents of the diverse community.

In my simplistic version of history, I think the 60s and 70s were pretty much about race, and the 80s were about a backlash against race.  But we're 20 years past that, and I think the relevant question is not whether Barack Obama bears a resemblance to Jesse Jackson, but whether there are more communities across America which simply don't care whether he does.

I think the biggest problem Obama faces with white voters, in terms of being seen as a "black politician," is in places that are polarized the way my hometown used to be.  Those still exist, obviously, but no longer is that the story of the entire country.  And in lily-white places like Iowa, he obviously doesn't have an African-American base but he also doesn't have to deal with white voters who have an instinctive revulsion to racial politics, so I'm again not sure the problem comes up.

As we go forward in this election, I have a feeling Barack Obama will continue to do better among white voters than people imagine.  Just like everyone else, I have only one personal history to draw impressions from, but I think I can tell a pretty compelling story of a place that used to be polarized beyond belief and has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, and no longer lives in fear of the "black candidate."  And if you don't believe the polarization was really that bad, you can take it up with Martin Luther King.