Originally published on January 22, 2020, this blog by Edith and Neill von Gunten reflects a reality in 1966 that is still prevalent today and has become more apparent during the ensuing months of 2020. As Martin Luther King, Jr. day approaches, read this blog and reflect on Dr. King’s legacy as he said, "Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’"
Even before our wedding in 1965, we had
decided to spend the first years of our marriage in Mennonite Voluntary Service
(MVS). Several units were suggested to us; we chose to go to the inner-city
unit at the Woodlawn Mennonite Church in southside Chicago. It was a decision
that completely changed the course of our lives.
The Woodlawn congregation felt
strongly that it was their role to speak out on justice issues and to get
involved. Opportunities for involvement were often shared before the Sunday
morning service ended.
Woodlawn Mennonite Church pastor Delton and Marian Franz can be seen in the center of this picture of the Chicago march. Photo by Neill von Gunten.
As we began to really listen to the
people we lived and worked with, we started to understand how pervasive racism was.
As we heard the stories and experiences of people in the community, we came to know
more about their reality and ongoing issues.
These were the years of the civil
rights movement in the United States. Soon after we joined MVS, Martin Luther
King, Jr. was invited to come to Chicago to bring the racism and prejudice of
the north to light. Both of us, along with other VSers, Woodlawn church members,
and thousands of others joined together in marches through downtown Chicago
(often from Buckingham Fountain to City Hall) and in rallies.
Most of the marches were peaceful,
but once the marches spread beyond downtown and the Black neighborhoods, it was
a different story. Here is one example that Neill experienced while protesting
the housing discrimination in some neighborhoods in the city.
Dr. King’s entourage sent two couples into the Chicago Lawn – Gage Park area, a
lower middle-class neighborhood in the city’s southwest side, on the pretext of
renting an apartment. The area’s population was largely made up of
working-class eastern Europeans who lived in bungalows and for generations were
predominately Irish Catholic. One couple sent there was Caucasian with little
education, and the other was a well-educated African-American couple. The
Caucasian couple was given several choices to rent; the African-American couple
was given no options.
As a result, Dr. King and his
delegation organized a march through Gage Park on Aug. 5, 1966, to highlight
this disparity. Dr. King had orders for the
assembled crowd before the march began. We were to look forward at all times.
We were never to look into someone’s eyes during the march because we could set
them off on a tirade. We could not chew gum. Women were to be put in the
middle, with men on the outside. If we could not refrain from violence when confronted
by people watching, we were to leave and not participate. He did not want us
there if we could not follow these orders.
Dr. King was struck by a rock thrown
by a taunting mob as he was leaving his car — a sign of the violence that would
happen that afternoon. Thankfully, he was not hurt too badly and, after being cared
for, came to the front of the line to finish leading the march, with police
right by his side. He was understandably shaken and told newsmen that he had
never been met with "such hostility, such hate, anywhere in my life."
The night-stick wielding police
estimated that there were approximately 7,000 of us there to march that day. We
were ridiculed, sworn at, called all kinds of names, and spat on. Children spewed
the same hate as the parent next to them as we walked past their house. Some
carried Confederate flags. Signs were common: "N***** Go Home,"
"Wallace for President," "KKK Forever," "White Power,"
"Wallace in ’68," "Washington D.C. is a Jungle — Save What is
Left of Chicago."
We were told that when the march ended at Marquette Park, there were about 3,000
police officers to watch us. As the Caucasian crowd of men, women and children
grew and tried to confront us physically, the police surrounded us marchers to
protect us from what had become a mob throwing cherry bombs (exploding
firecrackers), stones and bricks — in addition to their slurs and insults. I was
ashamed to be Caucasian!
As this chaos swirled around us, we
waited for the rented buses to pick us up and take us all back home. When the
buses finally arrived, the bus drivers needed full police protection to get
through to us. For a moment, I felt safe on the bus, but I was wrong! We had to
stop at a red light before leaving that neighborhood and a group of about 50 youth
and men rocked our bus and tried to get at us inside. Someone threw a brick
through the bus window and hit a man in the seat in front of me in the head,
giving him a large gash. The rest of us yelled at the bus driver to go through
the red light to get us out of there. It was not until we got into the African-American
area that we felt safe.
After the march, we regrouped, and Dr.
King spoke to the gathered crowd. He had been hit with a brick on the back of
his head during the march. I remember him saying then — as well as many other
times — that we must forgive our Caucasian brothers and sisters because they do
not know what they are doing. They were taught that hatred, and now we needed
to show them forgiveness and not fight back, he said. That is the only thing
that can make them stop and think.
Another photo of the civil rights march in Chicago, 1966. Photo by Neill von Gunten. |
Those two years with MVS in Chicago
made us question the role of the church in “real life:” We witnessed the
unfairness of the political process in the United States in regard to its
neediest residents.
The desire to learn more about how we
as Christians could affect change and work with people in marginal situations
influenced our education after MVS, as well as our decision to live alongside
indigenous communities bordering Lake Winnipeg. We served there in a pastoral
and community development role for 36 years before becoming the co-directors of
the Native Ministry program for Mennonite Church Canada.
As you can probably imagine, we have
many stories of our MVS time in Chicago that made an impact on our life — way too many to include
in this reflection!
