American Pharaoh (79 page)

On March 2, 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders — widely known as the Kerner Commission — issued its
report on the riots of the summer of 1967. President Johnson had appointed a blue-ribbon panel on July 27, 1967, with Democratic
governor Otto Kerner as chairman and liberal Republican New York City mayor John Lindsay as vice chairman, to investigate
the causes of the riots and to explore “the conditions that breed despair and violence.” Johnson’s commission was moderate
in composition — he was criticized for not appointing more progressive voices like Martin Luther King, Tom Hayden, or even
Stokely Carmichael — but its report was far from restrained. The Kerner Commission’s arresting conclusion was that the urban
unrest had been caused by the fact that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.”
The commission’s dense report backed up that assertion with a wealth of detail, and called for a substantial new round of
social programs to address ghetto conditions. The commission found that there was a great need for additional public housing,
but that it was critical that the State Street Corridor model be abandoned once and for all. “[W]e believe that the emphasis
of the program should be changed from the traditional publicly-built, slum-based high-rise project to smaller units on scattered
sites,” it said. “Where traditional high-rise projects are constructed, facilities for social services should be included
in the design, and a broad range of such services provided for tenants.” Johnson declared the commission’s work a “good report
by good men of good will,” but he also complained that “they always print that we don’t do enough. They don’t print what we
do.” He showed no interest in following up on its extensive policy recommendations.
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Daley was at home eating with his sons John and Bill on Thursday, April 4, 1968, when his aide Jack Reilly called to say that
Martin Luther King had been shot by a sniper on the balcony of a motel in Memphis. Daley ordered the flags at City Hall lowered
to half staff. Now that King was dead, Daley spoke of him as a fallen comrade. “Chicago joins in mourning the tragic death
of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Daley said in a prepared statement. “Dr. King was a dedicated and courageous American
who commanded the respect of the people of the world.” Jesse Jackson, who was still heading up Operation Breadbasket in Chicago,
was among those who would not let Daley off so easily. “The blood is on the chest and hands of those that would not have welcomed
him here yesterday,” Jackson said.
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President Johnson appeared on television and appealed for calm and order. “I ask every American to reject the blind violence
that has struck down Dr. King, who lived by nonviolence,” Johnson implored. Nevertheless, black America erupted in a spasm
of sorrow and rage. In the wake of King’s assassination, 168 cities and towns were struck by rioting, arson, and looting.
The national statistics were staggering: before it was over, there were 2,600 fires, and 21,270 injuries. This time, it was
Washington, D.C., that got the worst of it. Arsonists set 711 fires, including some just blocks from the White House. Black
Power leaders took advantage of the situation to incite the sort of violent actions that it would have pained King to watch.
“Go home and get your guns,” Stokely Carmichael advised young people. “When the white man comes, he is coming to kill you.”
It was, of course, a minority view in the black community. But the press was filled with Black Power rhetoric and vivid accounts
of the violence. Whatever force of man or nature had prevented Chicago from becoming embroiled in the 1967 riots did not work
this time. By mid-morning on Friday, the day after King’s murder, black students were walking out of class, and by the afternoon
schools in black neighborhoods had emptied. Young people gathered in Garfield Park, where speakers exhorted them to direct
their frustration toward local businesses. The disorder began with smashed store windows and looting; arson and sniper attacks
came soon afterward. By 2:00
P.M.
, Daley asked Acting Governor Samuel Shapiro, who was filling in for Governor Kerner, to send in the National Guard. Daley
addressed the city on radio and television at 4:20
P.M.
“Stand up tonight and protect the city,” he urged. “I ask this very sincerely, very personally. Let’s show the United States
and the world what Chicago’s citizens are made of.”
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Shapiro sent 600 National Guardsmen while Daley dispatched the entire Chicago fire department, and the borrowed departments
of eight suburbs, to put out the fires that were engulfing black neighborhoods. Daley spent Friday night at City Hall, with
a radio tuned to police calls and a television set broadcasting the spreading unrest. He went to the Sherman House for a seventy-five-minute
break, to eat and take a short nap, and then returned to City Hall. Power lines on the West Side were now dead, leaving much
of that part of the city in darkness, and giving encouragement and cover to the looters. As the looting entered its second
day, 1,500 more National Guards-men were deployed on the Chicago streets. On Saturday afternoon, Daley imposed a curfew from
7:00
P.M.
to 6:00
A.M.
for all youth under twenty-one. He directed James Conlisk, the police commissioner who had taken over when O. W. Wilson retired
a year earlier, to ban liquor sales in areas where there was “serious disorder.” With military deployments guarding every
intersection on the West Side, Saturday night was quieter but far from tranquil. Molotov cocktails were still being tossed,
buildings were being torched, and firemen were being shot at by snipers. Troops patrolled the West and Near Northwest sides
in jeeps. After two nights of rioting, black neighborhoods lay in ruins and at least eleven people were dead. Stores along
West Madison Street, a modest boulevard of small shops with simple apartments in the upper floors, were charred for a twenty-eight-block
stretch. By early Saturday, 300 people had been arrested for looting and scores were jammed into the lockup at police headquarters
at 11th and State streets. Thousands were homeless. In many parts of the city, power and phone lines were dead.
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The following morning, Palm Sunday, Daley and fire commissioner Robert Quinn spent forty-five minutes surveying the West Side
by helicopter. They hovered over the smoldering wreckage of buildings on West Madison and saw devastation spreading down two
miles south to Roosevelt Road. Daley was visibly shaken when he exited the helicopter. “It was a shocking and tragic picture
of the city,” he said afterward. “I never believed that this would happen here. I hope it will not happen again.” After the
tour, Daley returned to City Hall, where he met with school superintendent James Redmond, health commissioner Samuel Adelman,
and streets and sanitation commissioner James Fitzpatrick. On Monday, April 8, Daley appointed a committee to investigate
the riot and named federal judge Richard Austin to head it.
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That same day, Daley attempted to explain the devastation that had struck the city. He had looked haggard and depressed since
the riots broke out, and his unrehearsed comments turned into a bizarre rant. Thrashing around to make sense of the disorder,
Daley insisted that the riots had been caused by the violent conditions that prevailed in Chicago’s public schools. “The conditions
of April 5 in the schools were indescribable,” he said. “The beating of girls, the slashing of teachers and the general turmoil
and the payoffs and the extortions. We have to face up to this situation with discipline. Principals tell us what’s happening
and they are told to forget it.”
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School superintendent James Redmond expressed puzzlement the next day over the charges leveled by Daley. “I do not know of
any beatings of girls,” Redmond said. Nor could he understand Daley’s reference to April 5. He knew of no incident in which
a teacher had been slashed that day — the only school day during the riots — and he was not aware of anyone giving principals
instructions to “forget it.” But Redmond nevertheless launched an investigation. “We are concerned and we are reviewing all
activities which led up to Friday,” he said. Daley’s anger over the rioting seemed to have pushed him over the edge.
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Daley’s reaction to the rioting became more coherent, but no less inflammatory, as the days passed. The police bore some of
the blame as well, he said on April 15, because of the restraint they showed. “I have conferred with the Superintendent of
Police this morning and I gave him the following instructions,” Daley said, “which I thought were instructions on the night
of the fifth that were not carried out: I said to him very emphatically and very definitely that [he should issue an order]
immediately and under his signature to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand in Chicago
because they’re potential murderers, and to issue a police order to shoot to maim or cripple any arsonists and looters — arson-ists
to kill and looters to maim and detain.” Daley said he had thought these instructions would not even need to be conveyed.
“I assumed any superintendent would issue instructions to shoot arson-ists on sight and to maim the looters, but I found out
this morning this wasn’t so and therefore gave him specific instructions,” he said.
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Many cities had been torn by rioting in the wake of King’s assassination, but Daley was alone in advocating that his citizens
be fatally shot. In New York, Mayor John Lindsay had responded to riots in Harlem by walking the streets of black neighborhoods,
doing call-in shows, and assuring blacks that he empathized with their frustration. “I think I understand,” Lindsay said.
“I understand the temptation to strike back.” Daley’s “shoot to kill” comments set off an impassioned debate. His supporters
rushed to back him up. “I don’t know why we are disturbed about the mayor’s statements,” Alderman Keane said. “Instead of
criticizing actions of police, I feel it’s time to use brass knuckles and get down to telling those committing crimes to stop.”
But U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark called Daley’s statements a “dangerous escalation” of racial violence. Independent
aldermen also took issue with Daley. A. A. “Sammy” Rayner charged that Daley was “apparently going to great lengths to save
the Democratic national convention.” Even Wilson Frost, one of the machine’s heretofore silent black aldermen, called Daley’s
comments inflammatory. In the face of the criticism, Daley backpedaled. He called a press conference the day afterward and
insisted: “There wasn’t any shoot-to-kill order.”
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The Daley camp also began to resort to one of its favorite tactics: blaming the press. Earl Bush, Daley’s press secretary,
had an ingenious explanation for why the whole “shoot-to-kill” controversy was reporters’ fault. “They should have printed
what he meant not what he said,” Bush insisted. Daley also lashed out at reporters. “They said that I gave orders to shoot
down children,” Daley complained. “I said to the superintendent, if a man has a Molotov cocktail in his hand and throws it
into a building with children and women up above, he should be shot right there and if I was there I would shoot him. Everybody
knows it was twisted around and they said Daley gave orders to shoot children. That wasn’t true.” It was not what Daley had
said originally, but Daley’s policy on the use of force was getting better in the retelling. His own investigative committee
would later note that Illinois General Order 67-14 actually prohibited the police from using the kind of “deadly force” Daley
had called for. But Daley found ultimate vindication by having Jack Reilly announce that he had been getting letters of support
for his policy from all fifty states, and that the mail was supporting his position by 15 to 1.
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After calm was restored, Daley lifted the curfew and, playing to his strengths, assembled a package of state and federal aid
to rebuild the West Side. His analysis of what set off the riots never went any deeper than his wild stories about the school
system and his flailing at the police for exercising too much restraint. The truth was, of course, more complicated. One of
the most notable aspects of the riots was that they were concentrated on the West Side. The West Side was the newer of Chicago’s
two ghettos, comprised of neighborhoods that had been white not long ago. Compared to the South Side, it had fewer community
organizations, less-established churches, and fewer black-run businesses and institutions. Its residents were also different
from blacks on the South Side. More of them had personally made the Great Migration from the rural South. They were more likely
to be poor and undereducated, to have loose ties to the city, and to still be experiencing the disappointment of the gap between
what they expected when they moved north to Chicago and what they found there. Another large group of West Side residents
were uprooted migrants from closer by. West Side neighborhoods were home to many blacks forcibly displaced by Daley’s urban-renewal
programs — a Chicago Urban League report called them “dumping grounds for relocated families.” In a 1958 series on urban renewal,
the
Chicago Daily News
compared “Chicago’s DP”— for the most part poor blacks pushed out by urban renewal — to European “displaced persons” uprooted
by world war. Chicago’s DPs were “made homeless not by war or communism or disaster but by wreckers,” the
Daily News
reported, and were “refugees of the relocation that inevitably accompanies redevelopment. They are people, angry, indifferent,
resentful, resigned.” It was the kind of alienation, the Chicago Urban League’s report concluded, that made an area a likely
site for civil unrest.
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