33.“Race Relations in Detroit: Problems and Prospects,” mimeo., n.d. [1964], 6-7, Box 71, DUL. Two years later Samuel Jackson, a federal commissioner with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, presented a similar analysis of the national situation before Detroit’s Booker T. Washington Business Association; see Michigan Chronicle, April 2, 1966. (back to text)
34.For the Garvey movement in Detroit see Dancy, Sands against the Wind, 167-68; Thomas, Life for Us Is What We Make It, 194-201; on honoring the last of the Garvey movement see Cleveland Interview, 13-14. On the Nation of Islam see Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America, 61-62 and passim. On Malcolm X see Henry Interview, 18; DeCaro, On the Side of My People; Wood, Malcolm X; Perry, Malcolm. The quote is from Betty De Ramur, “The New Malcolm Makes Local Debut,” Michigan Chronicle, April 18, 1964. (back to text)
35.On the Washington march see Branch, Pillar of Fire, 131-36; the text of King’s speech is reprinted in Washington, A Testament of Hope, 217-20. On the Freedom Now party, see Amsterdam News, November 30, 1963; William Worthy, “An All Black Party,” Liberator, October 1963, 18-19; Michigan Chronicle, September 14, October 26, November 2, 1963; Detroit News, October 12 and 18, 1963; Detroit Free Press, October 12, 1963. The draft platform of the Freedom Now Party can be found in Liberator, January 1964, 4-5; Cleage’s detailed discussion of its rationale appears in Illustrated News, March 9, 1964. See also Ofield Dukes, “Negroes Need More Than a Black Party,” Michigan Chronicle, November 23, 1963, for a critique of the Freedom Now Party in particular and black nationalism in general. King publicly rejected the Freedom Now Party on a visit to Detroit four months later; see Michigan Chronicle, March 28, 1964. (back to text)
36.The bombing in Birmingham is discussed in Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out, 403-7. (back to text)
37.Albert B. Cleage, “The Dilemma of Black Leadership,” Illustrated News, September 16, 1963; “Parents Support School Boycott,” Illustrated News, September 30, 1963. On the conference see Michigan Chronicle, October 12 and 19, 1963; CLF to “The Many Militant Citizens and Civil Rights Leaders,” form letter with leaflet announcing the Sunday rally, October 14, 1963, Detroit, Part I, Box 8, folder: Correspondence October 1963 Incoming, NAACP; CLF to Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, September 23, 1963, Detroit, Box 5, Folder 12; Smith to “Dear Frank,” October 4, 1963, Cleveland, Ohio, Box 1, folder 13; CLF to Smith, telegram, November 4, 1963, Detroit, Box 5, folder 12, all in KMS; Detroit Free Press, October 27, 1963. (back to text)
38.Michigan Chronicle, October 26, 1963. (back to text)
39.Illustrated News, October 28, 1963; Boggs, Living for Change, 126-27. (back to text)
40.Michigan Chronicle, November 2 and 9, 1963; see also Detroit News, October 28, 1963; Detroit Free Press, October 29, 1963. (back to text)
41.The most complete coverage of both conferences is in Michigan Chronicle, November 16, 1963. See also Detroit News, November 10 and 11, 1963; Detroit Free Press, November 10, 11, and 12, 1963; Illustrated News, November 25, 1963; Sterling Gray, “Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr.: Architect of a Revolution,” Liberator, December 1963. A partial transcript (approximately half ) of Malcolm X’s speech is in Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, esp. 5, 7, 8, 10-14. For insightful critical essays evaluating Malcolm see Als, “Philosopher or Dog?” and Reed, “The Allure of Malcolm X and the Changing Character of Black Politics.” Reed directly addresses the “house-field” dichotomy, 228-30. (back to text)
42.Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 7, 8, 10; Henry Interview, 21-22; De Ramus, “The New Malcolm Makes Local Debut,” Michigan Chronicle, April 18, 1964. (back to text)
43.Michigan Chronicle, November 30 and December 21, 1963; February 22, 1964. On the testimonial dinner see Michigan Chronicle, February 8 and 29, 1964; for Milton Henry’s analysis see Michigan Chronicle, February 8, 1964; Dunbar, “The Making of a Militant,” 29. (back to text)
44.For a detailed, contemporary analysis of the political infighting within black Detroit, see Robert Hoyt and Van Sauter, “How Negro Leadership Shifts,” Detroit Free Press, December 27, 1964. On the 1964 congressional primary and general election see Stepp Interview (2000), 1-7; Featherstone Interview, 9, 15; CLF Interview, October 14, 1977, 63; Michigan Chronicle, April 4, June 13 and 27, August 1, 15, and 29, September 5, 12, and 19, October 3, and November 14, 1964; Stovall, The Growth of Black Elected Officials in the City of Detroit, 153-56; Titon, “Clarence LaVaughn Franklin,” 1039. (back to text)
45.On the 1964 campaign and the subsequent resignations, see New York Times, October 4, 1964; Michigan Chronicle, September 26, October 31, November 14 and 28 and December 5, 1964. (back to text)
46.On Coretta Scott King’s visit see Michigan Chronicle, November 20 and 27 and December 4 and 18, 1965; on Martin Luther King Jr.’s, Michigan Chronicle, October 15 and 22, 1966; on efforts for Selma, Michigan Chronicle, February 13 and 20 and April 17, 1965; National Baptist Voice, March 1966. Claud Young notes CLF’s presence on SCLC’s board, Young Interview, 31. On CLF and New Bethel’s outreach to the poor, see Michigan Chronicle, August 10, 1963; January 2 and July 3, 1965; January 15, 1966; May 20 and November 25, 1967. (back to text)
47.CLF had minor surgery (ailment unknown) but was in good health; see Michigan Chronicle, April 18, 1964. On CLF’s easing the demands of preaching see Hooks Interview, 21; CLF Interview, November 30, 1977, 177; CLF Interview, May 3, 1978, 202, 224; Kyles Interview, 46. (back to text)
48.Holley Interview, 17-18; Jasper Williams Interview, 17-18. (back to text)
49.On the membership decline from the mid-1960s on, see Kincaid Interview, 20-21; Jenkins Interview, 13; Perry Interview, 14; McCoy Interview, 25; Penn Interview, 37-38; Rosenberg, Can These Bones Live? 141. See also EF Interview, 57. The break-in was reported in the Michigan Chronicle, July 21, 1962. (back to text)
50.On CLF’s daily activities see CLF Interview, November 15, 1977, 150-52; King Interview, 6-7; Thompson Interview, 15; Margaret Branch Interview, 21; Greenleaf Interview, 24-26; Kyles Interview, 17-18. On CLF’s relationship with Jesse Jackson see EF Interview, 58-59, 60; Corbett Interview, 22-23; McCoy Interview, 31; Malone Interview, 16; King Interview, 10; Michigan Chronicle, July 15, 1967; Miller, Voice of Deliverance, 25; Titon, Give Me This Mountain, vii (foreword by Jackson). (back to text)
51.Kirby Interview, 10-11. (back to text)
52.For CLF’s attitude toward reducing his touring see Detroit News, September 26, 1977; Michigan Chronicle, April 3, 1965; October 8, 1966; on the inaugural, see Michigan Chronicle, February 13, 1965; on his anniversaries, Michigan Chronicle, May 15, 22, and 29 and June 5, 1965; June 4, 11, 18, and 25, 1966; June 3, 17, and 24 and July 1 and 15, 1967. (back to text)
53.CLF, federal income tax returns for 1963 and 1964, Michigan income tax returns for 1967 and 1968, and City of Detroit income tax returns for 1967 and 1968, all in CLFP; Michigan Chronicle, April 23, 1966. Accounts of his income are very incomplete: a royalty statement from the General Recorded Tape Corporation, dated July 1-December 31, 1974, CLFP, reports royalties of $428.10. GRT purchased Chess Records in January 1969; see Cohodas, Spinning Blues into Gold, 292-96. (back to text)
54.Michigan Chronicle, May 1, 1965; Franklin, Aretha, 117; CLF to “president Lyndon Baines Johnson,” n.d. [1965], unsigned draft, typescript, CLFP; CLF to E. H. Vaughn (U.S. Treasury Department), May 5, 1965, Detroit, and Sheldon S. Cohen to CLF, April 15, 1965, both in CLFP; Detroit News, September 26, 1977. This effort to hide income from the IRS was both very American and specifically quite common among black preachers; see Reid, The Negro Baptist Ministry, 89. (back to text)
55.Michigan Chronicle, April 23, 30, 1966; McGraw, “Style to Spare,” 72-73. (back to text)
56.Michigan Chronicle, October 21, 1967. (back to text)
57.Michigan Chronicle, October 1, 1966. CLF and Sanders Mallory Jr. probably crossed paths in various Detroit nightclubs over the years, but they also shared the same lawyer, Lawrence Massey. See Michigan Chronicle, April 23, 1966. (
back to text)
58.On Cleage’s development see Cleage, Black Christian Nationalism, passim; Wilmore and Cone, Black Theology, 67, 68, 251-52, 329-39; on Cleage’s nickname see Henry Interview, 2. For Milton Henry’s involvement with Malcolm see Henry Interview, 23-24; Michigan Chronicle, February 20, 1965; Detroit Free Press, February 15, 1965; Parks, “A Time for Martyrs,” 316-18. Malcolm’s dinner speech is reprinted in Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 157-77. For a sense of the political distance Malcolm had traveled between 1963 and 1965, compare his five speeches given between December 1964 and February 1965 with his November 1963 speech in Detroit, in Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 6-14, 105-77. (back to text)
59.On NOW! see Richard Henry to “Dear Rob,” May 10, September 5, and November 1, 1966, Detroit, and “R” [Robert F. Williams] to “Dear Milton [Henry],” May 29, 1966, Havana, Cuba, all in Box 1, RFW. On evaluations of the American Communist party and the larger white Left, see Williams to Julian [Mayfield?], December 18, 1963, Habana [Havana]; “Rob” to “Dear Conrad [Lynn],” May 18, 1964, La Habana [Havana]; Mrs. C. L. James to “Dear Robert Williams,” June 4, 1964, London; Lynn to Williams, September 7, 1964, New York; Robert F. Williams to the Toronto Daily Star, April 5, 1965, La Habana; Robert F. Williams to Henry Wallace, August 2, 1965, La Habana; Williams to Sylvester Leaks, August 2, 1965, La Habana; “Rob” to “Dear Bill” [William Worthy?], April 28, 1966, La Habana; “Richard [Gibson]” to “Dear Rob,” March 9, 1967, London—all in Box 1, RFW. On the trip to Cuba see Milton R. Henry to Robert Williams, telegram, January 5, 1966, Detroit, and Milton R. Henry and Laurence G. Henry to “Dear Dr. Castro,” January 10, 1966, Mexico City, Mexico, both in Box 1, RFW. (back to text)
60.On the strike see Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Proposed Nation-wide Strike, 2/13/67, by the United Strike Committee in Support of Powell, Racial Matters,” January 25, 1967, 3-4, FBI; leaflet, “Conference: The General Strike as a New Weapon of Struggle,” February 13, 1967, GB; Detroit Free Press, January 25 and February 14, 1967; Michigan Chronicle, January 28 and February 4, 11, 18, and 25, 1967. (back to text)
61.On the Black Arts conventions in Detroit see Michigan Chronicle, July 2, 1966, and July 1, 1967; Smith, Dancing in the Street, 191. On Dudley Randall and Broadside Press see Thompson, Dudley Randall, Broadside Press, and the Black Arts Movement in Detroit. Powell’s unseating is discussed in Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., 13-22, 37-39. On Conyers see Michigan Chronicle, March 4, 1967. (back to text)
62.Perry Interview, 25-26; Henry Interview, 31. (back to text)
63.Jasper Williams Interview, 13. (back to text)
64.Corbett Interview, 23-24, 36. (back to text)
65.Michigan Chronicle, July 29, 1967; John Lee Hooker, “The Motor City Is Burning,” on Hooker, Urban Blues. On the 1967 riot see the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Report, 47-60, 351, 372-73; Fine, Violence in the Model City; Hersey, The Algiers Motel Incident. (back to text)
66.For a politically different version of “The Motor City Is Burning,” which emphasizes the riot’s purported revolutionary potential, see MC5’s version on their album Thunder Express. (back to text)
10. NOW HE IS DOWN
1.On the growing militancy see interview with Kenneth Cockrell by Sidney Fine, 39-40, 46, 70-71, MHC; interview with Karl Gregory by Sidney Fine, 27-29, 45, MHC; Gregory Interview, 27, 35-41; Hersey, The Algiers Motel Incident, 346-48. On Cleage see his columns in the Michigan Chronicle, January 6 and 13, 1968; Cleage, “Inner City Parents’ Program for Quality Education in Detroit Inner City Schools”; Cleage, “The Death of Fear” and “We Have Become a Black Nation”; Serrin, “Cleage’s Alternative.” For contemporary overviews of the 1967 violence and its meaning for the city, see Boggs and Boggs, “Detroit: Birth of a Nation,” 7-10; Philip Meyer, “The Rioter—and What Sets Him Apart,” Detroit Free Press, August 20, 1967; and Meyer’s series, “Return to 12th Street,” in Detroit Free Press, October 27, 28, and 31 and November 1, 1968; Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, A Review; Alex Poinsett, “Motor City Makes a Comeback,” Ebony, April 1978. (back to text)
2.Michigan Chronicle, January 27, March 2 and 30, April 6 and 27, and July 27, 1968; Gregory Interview, 46; Republic of New Africa, Now We Have a Nation, passim; Republic of New Africa, “Agenda—Saturday 30 March 1968,” and “Declaration of Independence, Approved in Convention, 31 March 1968,” all in Box 4, RFW. (back to text)
3.“Brother Milton R. Henry” to “The Honorable Mao Tse-Tung,” March 14, 1968, Detroit, Box 2, RFW. (back to text)
4.CLF Interview, November 8, 1977, 147; Young, An Easy Burden, 444-49; Commemorative Journal, 29. (back to text)
5.CLF Interview, November 8, 1977, 147. (back to text)
6.Young, An Easy Burden, 455-61; Beifuss, At the River I Stand, 211-42, 292; Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 417 ff.; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 611-15. (back to text)
7.The speech is reprinted in Washington, A Testament of Hope, 279-86. (back to text)
8.Young, An Easy Burden, 463. (back to text)
9.Kyles Interview, 55-66; Young, An Easy Burden, 464-69; Beifuss, At the River I Stand, 290 ff.; Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 439-50. (back to text)
10.CLF Interview, November 8, 1977, 148. (back to text)
11.Henry Interview, 25; Sherrill, “We Want Georgia,” passim. On the creation of the Black Legion and an account of the Republic’s deliberations in its first months, see Ujamaa: News of the Republic 1, no. 1 (June 15, 1968), Box 4, RFW; Michigan Chronicle, June 29, 1968. (back to text)
12.For the interview with Cecil Franklin see Michigan Chronicle, February 3, 1968. (back to text)
13.For coverage of the campaign in Detroit, see Michigan Chronicle, February 10, March 23, April 13, and May 4, 11, 18, and 25, 1968; Detroit American, May 14 and 15, 1968; Longworth D. Quinn Jr. (Official Observer, City of Detroit), “Report Concerning Incident Involving Detroit Police Department and Midwest Contingent of Poor People’s Campaign,” May 14, 1968 (typescript); report of interview of Timothy Chambers by Patrolman Salvatore Palazzolo, May 16, 1968 (typescript); report of interview of Bobby Bass by Detective Richard Redling and Patrolman Reginald Turner, May 20, 1968 (typescript); report of interview of Reverend Cecil Franklin by Detective Richard Redling, May 27, 1968 (typescript); report of interview of Dr. Claud Young by Detective Earl Gray and Patrolman Salvatore Palazzolo, May 29, 1968 (typescript), all in Box 561, folder 1, JPC. (back to text)
14.Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 494-539; Young, An Easy Burden, 477-92; Fager, Uncertain Resurrection, passim. (back to text)
15.Fager, Uncertain Resurrection, 102-5; see also CLF, The Fiery Furnace. The text is from Daniel 3:17-18 (KJV). (back to text)
16.Young Interview, 13. (back to text)
17.On the presidential campaign and George Wallace see Michigan Chronicle, May 4, September 21, and November 2, 1968; Malone Interview, 26-29. Marc Stepp was far blunter than Malone about the attitudes of white workers: “How did we not see this when the water’s coming through, with the veneer of white liberalism that the labor movement really doused you with, how was that veneer so thin?” Stepp Interview (1999), 26. On the “Watch” meeting see Michigan Chronicle, December 28, 1968. (back to text)
18.Reverend Richard H. Dixon Jr. to “Brother Franklin,” November 21, 1968, Mt. Vernon, New York; International Afro Musical and Cultural Festival, Inc., “Press Release,” n.d., Chicago; International Afro Musical and Cultural Festival, Inc., “Board of Directors,” n.d.; “Honored Guests,” n.d., all in CLFP. The directors included Harry Belafonte, Reuben Gayden, Coretta Scott King, Jesse Jackson, Clara Ward, Roebuck “Pop” Staples, Aretha Franklin, Samuel Billy Kyles, Benjamin Hooks, Nelson Jack Edwards, and Horace Sheffield. See Michigan Chronicle, February 15, 1969, for the projected program of the three-day event, “Spectacular ’69,” then scheduled for the Houston Astrodome. (back to text)
19.CLF, “Say It Loud, I Am Blac
k and I Am Proud,” typescript, CLFP. (back to text)
20.CLF cited Gladys Knight’s 1967 version and not the more recent release by Marvin Gaye, another Motown artist. On the two recordings see Ritz, Divided Soul, 122-23. Neither version has the pronoun “I” in the title. (back to text)
21.CLF, I Heard It through the Grapevine. At times in this talking sermon, the power of an alternative vision jangled roughly against CLF’s affirmations of such innate black “racial traits” as religiosity, selflessness, loyalty, and simplicity. That he tried to turn these qualities back toward a defense of democratic equality in his conclusion only underscores the conceptual and performative weakness in this effort. (back to text)
22.CLF, The Meaning of Black Power, where he cites Chuck Stone’s book Tell It Like It Is (1967); Dawson, Black Visions, chap. 3. On Detroit’s black population in 1970 see Stovall, The Growth of Black Elected Officials in the City of Detroit, 6. (back to text)
23.On CLF’s approach in this regard see Gregory Interview, 47; Holley Interview, 12-14; Perry Interview, 27; Young Interview, 21; Kincaid Interview, 18-20. (back to text)
24.Ralph Williams Interview, 42-44; Henry Interview, 33-34; Lonnie Saunders to Richard V. Marks, “Field Division Report on the March 29, 1969 Shooting at New Bethel Baptist Church and Subsequent Events,” April 24, 1969, 1-2, Box 122, folder 36, DCCR; Detroit Free Press, March 31 and April 1, 1969; Detroit News, March 31 and April 19, 1969; Dunbar, “The Making of a Militant,” 30. RNA members believed the two officers were an assassination squad intent on killing Milton Henry; see Lumumba, “Short History of the U.S. War on the R.N.A.,” 72-73. (back to text)
Singing in a Strange Land Page 48
