In July of 1969, 17 black youths seized the offices of the Chicago Building Trades Council, the federation of construction unions, to demand that high-paying construction jobs be opened up to African-Americans. It was the start of an uprising that would shake the city’s most politically powerful unions for months. The building trades were unions whose apprenticeships were handed down by fathers to sons, or by uncles to nephews, and nonwhites need not apply. For example, in 1969 blacks constituted just 6 percent of the apprentices in 12 construction unions and only 3 percent of the journeyman members.
By August pressure came to bear big time. The Coalition for United Community Action, representing 61 groups and led by a black minister, began picketing union construction sites on the South Side. The coalition wanted 10,000 blacks admitted to the building trades. Of course, this didn’t sit well with the unions, and they resisted. Then the Southern Christian Leadership Conference weighed in, and by late August talks between CUCA and the building trades began. But by then the demand was for 40,000 jobs, ten times the number being suggested by the unions. All this time I was writing news stories almost daily, unsure where all of this was headed.
Then the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a young Martin Luther King Jr. protege and director of Operation Breadbasket, an economic uplift organization for blacks, threw himself into the fray. At a construction side on the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus, he was among 500 demonstrators and one of five arrested for trespassing. Rather than post $25 bail, he opted for the Cook County Jail.
The next morning, Jim Hoge, by then my newspaper’s editor in chief, visited me in the city room. Did I remember Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” Jim asked? I said yes, vaguely. In 1963, Dr. King had been arrested in the Alabama city during a demonstration and did not make bond. A group of white clergymen issued a statement saying the battle against racism should be fought in the courts rather than the streets. Thus provoked, Dr. King penned “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to argue for nonviolent resistance to racism. He said people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws.
What Hoge wanted me to do was to ask Jackson to write a public letter from Cook County Jail explaining why he was willing to be arrested and remain in custody. I told Jim I’d get right on it. I didn’t give myself much chance of getting that letter.
I called Operation Breadbasket and spoke to one of Jackson’s assistants, who I knew. We need to talk, I said. At Breadbasket headquarters, I explained what I wanted and why it was to Jackson’s advantage to follow through on the idea. The young man shook his head, but said he’d try.
The next morning, my phone rang. I’ve got what you want, said my contact. Jackson’s wife Jacqueline had visited him and was given a letter to deliver to me. “We are seeking meaningful participation in the American economy . . . not just a minimum wage but a livable wage,” he began. The letter went on to say why it was important for white and black workers to band together to achieve justice for all.
Hoge was elated that his idea had worked. The letter was splashed across the bottom half of the front page on September 11. Two days later, weakened by bronchial pneumonia contracted in the jail, Jackson was released on his recognizance.
My own feelings were mixed. On the one hand, being involved in this little stunt gave me a day’s notoriety, and perhaps I felt socially useful in achieving the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. But it was a stunt, no getting around that. It played on the memory of the bravery of Dr. King, dead just over a year from an assassin’s bullet.
It’s undeniable, however, that immediately thereafter Mayor Richard J. Daley abandoned his neutrality and tried to mediate a settlement. At that, he was quite unsuccessful. Tensions only kept escalating, and now white union members were facing off against the black demonstrators.
Matters reached a head on September 25 on South Canal Street. I could hear gunfire behind my back as a group of white building tradesmen fought a pitched battle with police and four black protestors outside a federal government office building where a hearing into the matter was being conducted. When order was restored ten minutes later, six blacks and four whites were in custody, four cops and a construction worker required ambulances and two guns and four expended cartridges lay unclaimed in the street.
That night, at home, I gave myself a pat on the back. I was in the midst of a big melee—a mini-riot—and had kept my cool. When the first edition deadline had approached, I found a pay phone, told the rewrite man I’d dictate the complete story from top to bottom and did just that, propping the phone against my shoulder as I consulted my notes. Any reporter will tell you that composing a news story on the phone is an acquired skill, and at age 25 I had acquired it.
I have no doubt that Mayor Daley told the building trades to stop the violence at once, or else. Talks dragged on for months, until early 1970. Then one Friday morning, January 9, I got a call from someone intimately involved in the negotiations, someone who swore he would get in touch if an agreement were ever reached. That person was Charles Swibel, chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority. Swibel was trusted by both Mayor Daley and the coalition of black groups to mediate the dispute, which he had patiently done for months. I had gotten to know Swibel through a mutual friend and had even been in his home in Skokie a time or two. Charlie got right to the point. There’s a deal, he said, but you can’t say I said it. He even let me read the official, signed document in his office and take notes from it. I phoned Tom Nayder, the number-two person at the Chicago Building Trades Council—he and I had a grudging respect for each other. It’s true, he said, reluctant as he was to let anything out before an official announcement the following Monday. He confirmed the basic outline of the agreement, which was to train 4,000 black youths for construction jobs over the next three years. This was essentially the deal the black groups had rejected months earlier.
At 3:35 p.m. that afternoon, after the first edition deadlines of both morning papers, I called “Jimmy Hoffa”—Jim Strong—at the Tribune. Here’s what the Sun-Times will publish, I said, for once stealing a beat on my dear friend and chief rival. When the One-Star Edition came up at 5 o’clock, my story was on the top of Page One. And best of all, it carried a 20-point tag line that warms any reporter’s heart: EXCLUSIVE.