[Dialogue] 44 years ago today ...

[Bill Schlesinger]

Mixed memories.  Mine included Tony going around putting out fires as (never
mentioned) friends set them in the building, and instructions not to discuss
those activities with the police, JWM talking earnestly with folk asking
them not to destroy what we were building.  Life is complex.

 

Bill Schlesinger

Project Vida

3607 Rivera Avenue

El Paso, TX 79905

(915) 533-7057 x 207

(915) 533-7158 FAX

 <mailto:pvida at whc.net> pvida at whc.net

www.projectvidaelpaso.org

  _____  

From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Wilson Priscilla
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 5:03 PM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Cc: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] 44 years ago today ...

 

We lived near O'Hare so we were picking up returning pedagogues from the
weekend...then farming out Order children until the riots quieted down. We
had the Marshall children at our house during for a week...or more, I can't
remember. 

I'm sure everyone has memories of those moments...where we were when we got
the word of MLK's death and the subsequent fires across the nation.

Thanks for the reminder of how the "gangs" really saved the Institute work
at that moment.

Priscilla

 

On Apr 5, 2012, at 8:31 PM, Ken Fisher wrote:





 

 

Dear Colleagues,

On my fb page I wrote ...

44 years today, the West Side and South Side were burning and seething with
rage. The shock of 'oblivion' or non-being catapulted Joe Mathews and the
Order: Ecumenical into the New Religious Mode and the New Social Vehicle. I
recall arriving on the West Side five weeks later and being a part of the
spirit rebirth of that cataclysmic event. At that time, Gene Beasely and his
gang moved into an apartment of 3444 as protection.

Ken

 

 

>From  <http://www.facebook.com/cultureyen> Kathleen Hamm Jones 

Wow, thanks, Ken. I remember so well where I was, in an apartment on
Blackstone St in Hyde Park. Unlike the West side of Chicago, the Southside
was kept from burning mostly by patrols by Jeff Fort and the Blackstone
Rangers, who went door to door of the businesses and posted flyers
signalling their protection of the establishments. The back story was of
course about Rev John Fry of 1st Presbyterian Church who poured his whole
life and at times, his sanity, into making that gang into a precursor of the
"guardians" which got attention in NYC later. Somewhere I think I still have
his book of sermons from that time called "Fire and Blackstone." Since then
I think we have gone backward in institutional racism, as the USA leads the
world in incarceration of African-American males. And on top of that fact,
the pernicious reality that prison populations are being "sold" as private
corporations take over running the prisons. It's a profitable biz if you
contract out cheap captive labor. It makes my head feel like exploding.

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Priscilla H Wilson

Pris at TeamTechPress.com

913-432-2107

www.teamtechpress.com

 

 

 





 

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