It's been a while since my computer took over and decided to send a
message I was just working on. Must be this pesky heat.
But back to clear memories out of the past. Seattle in 1950-1960
still red lined residential areas. But even neighborhoods such as the
one Judy and I moved to, was rarely visited by Black families hoping
to buy a home. Most realtors had an unspoken code, agreeing that they
would do all within their considerable power to discourage such
activity. In 1962 my neighbor decided to move up in the world, and
listed his home. For weeks there were no offers. Finally he
contacted a Central District realtor. Soon the house was being shown
after dark. My neighbor on the other side of this house came scooting
down the alley one evening and banged on my back door. "Did you see
whose looking to buy Dick's house?" she panted breathlessly.
"Negroes! What are we going to do?" I was stunned. This lady, a
Sunday School teacher, a member of our church choir, a woman who went
door to door to raise support for our two young missionaries in Sierra
Leone, unwilling to have a Negro family as neighbors.
The word spread like wild fire around the neighborhood. My in-laws
lived two and a half blocks from our home. My mother-in-law expressed
her shock that I was not doing all I could do to stop such a thing
from happening. "What would you do if some big Black man jumped out
of the bushes and grabbed Judy?" She demanded.
"Well," I said thoughtfully, "I'd do the same thing I'd do if some big
Green man jumped out of the bushes and grabbed Judy. I'd run for
help". She did not think I was funny. This was basically a Blue
Collar neighborhood. My father-in-law was a maintenance mechanic for
a mattress factory and my mother-in-law was a meat wrapper for a chain
grocery store. Both were good union members and voted Democrat. Both
were full blown racists. Somehow a young couple managed to buy a home
about three blocks the other side of me. They had two of the sweetest
and prettiest young daughters. Each Sunday they would walk past our
house on their way to Sunday School. But after a couple of months we
did not see them any longer. The children in their classes had been
told by their parents to have nothing to do with "those two little
Darkies". The couple themselves were both teachers, They kept their
home looking like a model home. But the neighbors gave them wide
birth, in case they tried anything.
Even earlier, around 1951, my sisters and I had a Halloween Party. We
each invited friends from our own classes. My elder sister invited
our high school's only Black student. Al was a friendly, quiet spoken
fellow who was quite talented. He had a band, and played in local
supper clubs. As a White fellow, he would have been seen as someone
to get chummy with. But as a Black fellow? After the party several
of my friends came to the house and said that they wanted me to know
that if we ever had another party, we should let them know if any
Negroes were coming. Because they would not.
Even as late as the 80's in Renton, Cathy and I had people in for
various meetings. Some of these people were Hispanic, some were
White, and some were Black. Also, from time to time I would have my
Training Center students and the staff come to our house for a
backyard barbecue. One of my staff was a Black woman. One very dark
night, around 3:00 A.M. a bright light rose up in our back yard.
Fire! A fire was burning on our lawn. We called the fire department,
and they quickly put out the flames. "Look at that," one fireman said
to another. "Been a long time since I saw a cross burning in someones
yard". And by golly, that is exactly what it was. Layers of
newspaper laid down in the shape of a cross, doused with gasoline and
torched. It was an act that caused no harm, but sent a message.
Later we had a storm window shot out by a pellet gun. But other than
me, sleeping with an old baseball bat beside my bed, and double
checking all windows and doors each night, other than that we went
about normal lives.
And even as late as 1992, a young Black man jogged up and down the
very steep hill we lived on. Several joggers, all White, ran as a
group. But this man ran alone. One day, as he was coming back down
the hill, our neighbor across the street stepped out in front of him
and demanded to know why he was casing our neighborhood. Our neighbor
made the rounds of the homes nearby, telling us all that we should be
on guard. "Don't let him fool you, he's up to no good."
Experts have proven that such behavior as racial prejudice is learned
behavior. I, for one believe it. Raised with no racial prejudices, I
never had the emotional reaction over the mixing of Colors.
Interestingly though, even though it was a non topic, I grew up very
prejudiced toward Gay Men. A prejudice I had to struggle with for
many years. But despite the jeers and ugly chants by my school mates,
I never felt that Blacks were any different than Whites. I never
thought of Jews as being cheap, as so many of the children I grew up
with believed. I do have some lingering negative feelings toward
"Japs" and "Nazis". But only the ones on old movies. And as much as
this government has worked at turning us against socialism and
communism, I find such people to be as charming and bright, and as big
hearted as I hope they find me.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/25/17, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My first wife and I were married in June, 57 years ago. 1960. While
it's difficult to reconstruct the world of 1960 totally, there are
some memories that are as clear today as when they happened.
On 6/25/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From the New York Times Book Review section
THE COLOR OF LAW A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated
America
By Richard Rothstein Illustrated. 345 pp. Liveright Publishing. $27.95.
In the summer of 1950, with Americans reeling from the news of North
Korea's
invasion of South Korea and Senator Joseph McCarthy's ever expanding 'Red
hunt' in Washington, Time magazine ran a disarmingly cheerful cover story
about the nation's housing boom, titled: 'For Sale: A New Way of Life.
Featuring the builder William Levitt, who had recently transformed some
Long
Island potato fields into a sprawling complex of starter homes -- two
bedrooms, one bath and an extension attic for $7,990 -- it spoke
reverentially of the development's parks and playgrounds and many rules.
'Fences are not allowed,' Time noted. 'The plot of grass around each
house
must be cut at least once a week,' and laundry couldn't be hung outside
'on
weekends and holidays. One rule, however, was conveniently absent from
the
piece. Homeowners in Levittown were forbidden to rent or sell to persons
'other than members of the Caucasian race. Asked about this so-called
'racial covenant,' Levitt blamed society at large. 'As a Jew, I have no
room
in my mind or heart for racial prejudice,' he said. 'But I have come to
know
that if we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 or 95 percent of our
white customers will not buy into the community. This is their attitude,
not
ours. As a company, our position is simply this: We can solve a housing
problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem, but we cannot combine
the
two. At first glance, Levittown stands as a prime example of de facto
segregation, which results from private activity, as opposed to de jure
segregation, which derives from government policy or law. Levitt, after
all,
appeared to be an independent businessman responding to the prejudices of
the home buyers he hoped to attract. In truth, it wasn't that simple. As
Richard Rothstein contends in 'The Color of Law,' a powerful and
disturbing
history of residential segregation in America, the government at all
levels
and in all branches abetted this injustice. 'We have created a caste
system
in this country, with African-Americans kept exploited and geographically
separate by racially explicit government policies,' he writes. 'Although
most of these policies are now off the books, they have never been
remedied
and their effects endure. Levittown reflected this dynamic. Popular with
World War II veterans and their families, its 17,500 houses required no
down
payment. The federal government guaranteed low-interest bank loans for
Levitt to build them, and low-interest mortgages for veterans to buy
them.
The government also made clear that developers receiving these incentives
must sell to whites only. It didn't stop there. In the 1950s, following a
Supreme Court decision that restricted the scope of racial covenants, an
African-American veteran bought a house in a second Levitt development
outside Philadelphia. A white mob formed, the house was pelted with rocks
and crosses were burned on the lawn. Amazingly, the black family held out
for several years before moving back to a segregated neighborhood.
Rothstein
sees this incident, and dozens like it, as an insidious form of de jure
segregation -- the failure of racially biased police and public officials
to
protect African-Americans from unlawful intimidation. One of the great
strengths of Rothstein's account is the sheer weight of evidence he
marshals. A research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, he quite
simply demolishes the notion that government played a minor role in
creating
the racial ghettos that plague our suburbs and inner cities. Going back
to
the late 19th century, he uncovers a policy of de jure segregation in
virtually every presidential administration, including those we normally
describe as liberal on domestic issues. Indeed, some of the worst
offenses
occurred with Franklin Roosevelt in the White House. One of his New Deal
centerpieces, the Public Works Administration, built 47 public housing
projects, all rigidly segregated, 17 for blacks, the rest for whites. His
vaunted Tennessee Valley Authority put white employees in a 'model
village'
of 500 homes, while blacks endured 'shoddy barracks' far from their jobs.
When war came, the Roosevelt administration provided housing for white
defense plant workers, but only temporary, poorly constructed dwellings
for
black workers. The few protesters included Eleanor Roosevelt, whose pleas
for fairness fell on deaf ears. The president, no friend of civil rights,
argued that ending the Great Depression and winning World War ll must
take
precedence over divisive social issues. Among Rothstein's more telling
examples is Stuyvesant Town, a 9,000-apartment complex built on
Manhattan's
East Side in the 1940s by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The
process of construction began with the city condemning 18 square blocks
of
a
racially integrated neighborhood and transferring the land to the
company,
which received tax relief as well. Met Life executives made it clear that
Stuyvesant Town was for 'white people only' -- a policy that led to
protests
and a compromise whereby the company agreed to lease a handful of
apartments
to 'qualified Negro tenants,' while building a 'smaller development' for
black renters in Harlem. By this point, however, Stuyvesant Town was
almost
fully leased. Blacks were shut out, and would remain so, because New York
City's rent control laws kept turnover low for the original white tenants
and their 'lawful successors,' while rapidly rising rents for its vacated
apartments made the development unaffordable for even middle-class
families.
Today, African-Americans constitute a minuscule part of Stuyvesant Town,
which sits in one of Manhattan's most famously 'progressive' districts.
(Donald Trump received a paltry 15 percent of the vote there in the
recent
presidential election.) What are the remedies? Here, Rothstein has less
to
add. A number of his pet ideas have no hope of gaining public acceptance,
he
readily admits, like withholding mortgage interest and property tax
deductions from those living in neighborhoods that actively exclude
blacks
and the poor, or having the federal government buy a percentage of the
houses that come up for sale in Levittown, which would then be resold to
African-American buyers for $75,000 -- far below their current market
value
but equal, in today's dollars, to the original asking price of $7,990.
Sadly, there is no easy fix. Though many states place restrictions of
some
sort on 'exclusionary zoning,' a few have gone further to mandate 'fair
share' requirements for low- and moderate-income suburban housing, with
incentives both for developers and local communities -- a plan Rothstein
favors. As a call to arms, 'The Color of Law' may be difficult for
potential
allies to embrace. Interracial alliances break down, Rothstein insists,
'when whites develop overly intolerant judgments of the unfortunate --
from
a need to justify their own acceptance of segregation that so obviously
conflicts with both their civic ideals and their religious ones.
Supposedly
blinded by bigotry or ignorance, they refuse to acknowledge what
Rothstein
seems to see as self-evident: that the myriad social problems plaguing
the
inner cities today arise from race discrimination, and race
discrimination
alone. To dare to challenge this -- to speak of individual agency, for
example -- is akin to flogging the victim. End of discussion. Rothstein,
moreover, rejects the phrase 'people of color,' because it lumps
African-Americans with groups that didn't suffer as systematically at
government hands -- like Asians and Hispanics. (First- and
second-generation
Mexicans live in segregated neighborhoods by choice, we are assured, not
because they are forced to.) While the history of African-Americans is
undoubtedly unique, ranking groups by the discrimination they endured may
not be the most productive way to proceed. In his preface, Rothstein
writes
that America has a constitutional obligation to remedy de jure
segregation
in housing, and that its story must be told. While the road forward is
far
from clear, there is no better history of this troubled journey than 'The
Color of Law. PHOTO: Police and demonstrators in front of the home of a
black family in Levittown, Pa., Aug. 20, 1957. (PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM
MYERS/ASSOCIATED PRESS).
