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Draft:1966 West Side Rent Strike

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1966 West Side Rent Strike
Part of the Civil Rights Movement
DateJanuary 26, 1966 (1966-01-26)
Location
North Lawndale (West Side), Chicago
Parties
  • Unions to End Slums
Lawndale Union[a]
East Garfield Park Union[b]
  • JOIN[c] Community Union
Students for a Democratic Society
Tenant Action Council
Lead figures

CCCO member

Al Raby

AFSC members

Kale Williams
Bernard Lafayette
David Jehnsen
Bill Moyer

SCLC members

Martin Luther King Jr.
Bernard Lee
James Bevel
Jesse Jackson
Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement

Minor:

[1][2][3][4][5]

Major: [6][7][8][9][10][11]

Background

[edit]
Main article: Chicago Freedom Movement
See also: Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Redlining
MLK speech, against Chicago Slums
image icon Chicago, Civil rights leaders address crowd in soldier field

On January 26, 1966 Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta King moved into a North Lawndale slum flat at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave, with rent at $90 a month (equivalent to $845 in 2023). The goal was to highlight the slum conditions in Chicago.[10]

"A West Side apartment will symbolize the slum-lordism that I hope to smash."

— Martin Luther King, [10]

The Kings' had a two of SCLC staff pose a couple looking for an apartment in order to secure the place for the Kings' without revealing their identity. After the landlord realized who would be living there they scrambled to send over a crew to fix up the apartment. Both the fridge and the gas stove in the apartment were partially broken, and the apartments' complex hallway smelled of urine.[10] [12]

Map
Location of where the Kings' rented and lived, who choose a slum tenement to highlight the cities inequality, and markers of the rent strikes in the surrounding Chicago area.

Strike

[edit]

[13]

By Thomas Crane
By Thomas Crane

Aftermath

[edit]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Full name:Lawndale Union to End Slums
  2. ^ Full name:East Garfield Park Union to End Slums
  3. ^ Jobs Or Income Now

References

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  1. ^ "The Chicago Freedom Movement | National Low Income Housing Coalition". nlihc.org. 2024-10-24. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  2. ^ Tatman, Heather (2022-01-29). "Fair Housing History Lesson: The Chicago Freedom Movement". Fair Housing Council of Oregon. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  3. ^ Momodu, Samuel (2016-08-31). "Chicago Freedom Movement (1965–1967) •". Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  4. ^ "DR. KING OCCUPIES A FLAT IN SLUMS; Will Lead Chicago Campaign Threatens Rent Strikes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  5. ^ Reporter, The Chicago (2016-02-01). "The roots of the Chicago Freedom Movement". The Chicago Reporter. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
  6. ^ "Chapter 28: Chicago Campaign | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute". kinginstitute.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  7. ^ Hill, Gil Cornfield, Melody Heaps, Norman (2018-01-15). "The Chicago Freedom Movement's quest for economic justice". The Chicago Reporter. Retrieved 2024-10-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ "Launching the National Fair Housing Debate: A Closer Look at the 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement (Sara Asrat & Philip Tegeler, December 2005) - PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy". 2005-12-01. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  9. ^ "The housing struggle then and now". SocialistWorker.org. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  10. ^ a b c d "The Longest March". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  11. ^ Gellman, Erik S. (June 2017). "The Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the North". Journal of American History. 104 (1): 270. doi:10.1093/jahist/jax135. ISSN 0021-8723.
  12. ^ Sonnie, Amy; Tracy, James (2011). Hillbilly nationalists, urban race rebels, and black power: community organizing in radical times. New York, N.Y: Melville House. ISBN 978-1-935554-66-0.
  13. ^ https://www.sds-1960s.org/NLN/NewLeftNotes-vol1-no19.pdf. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
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