Mainstreaming Black Power by Tom Adam Davies

Author:Tom Adam Davies [Davies, Tom Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 0520292103
Google: KUInDgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B06XF7W5NZ
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:49:56.569000+00:00

THE FIGHT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY IN ATLANTA’S GHETTOS

The battle to invalidate the Calhoun settlement and make busing the primary weapon in the fight for educational equality in Atlanta, emerged from a diverse base of grassroots community activism rooted in Peoplestown, one of the city’s poorest black neighborhoods. At the heart of it all was Emmaus House, a local social service and community support center established in 1967 by the Diocese of Atlanta. The center’s operations were run by local blacks alongside the predominantly white church staff, as well as unpaid workers (often white northern college students), all under the leadership of white Catholic priest Father Austin Ford. Emmaus House sought primarily to empower the local poor by making them aware of their rights and helping them to fight for positive change in their community.125 Strongly committed to their cause, Emmaus House became perhaps the greatest wellspring of African American grassroots activism for social and economic justice in the city.

In mid-July 1968, inspired by a visiting NWRO spokeswoman from Washington, D.C., five local black welfare mothers established the neighborhood’s first NWRO branch. The group elected one of their number, Ethel Mae Matthews, as president. Matthews soon emerged as one of the most committed and hardworking leaders and advocates for social and economic justice in Atlanta. Led by Matthews, and with the help of Emmaus House staff, the group’s membership quickly swelled to more than 150.126 Emmaus House offered vital organizational support to burgeoning local welfare rights activism by providing both a space for meeting and transport to and from meetings for those involved, and with Emmaus House’s help a number of other NWRO chapters formed in nearby disadvantaged black neighborhoods. The following year, along with several local black ministers, Emmaus House worked with public housing residents to start the citywide tenants’ rights organization Tenants United For Fairness (TUFF), which, like local NWRO branches, was predominantly female-led. Over time, TUFF’s battles with the Atlanta Housing Authority resulted in significant victories for poor local blacks. These included improved leases, better housing code enforcement, and the establishment of a grievance review procedure that was the first of its kind and that later became a requirement in public housing nationally.127 Together with the local welfare rights groups (with which there was considerable membership overlap), these organizations represented the city’s most energetic grassroots community activism.

Emmaus House’s commitment to economic and social justice led it to play a central role in the battle for integrated local education. In October 1969 the Supreme Court’s decision in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education forced the Atlanta school board to adapt once more to the changing terrain of school desegregation jurisprudence. In Alexander, Chief Justice Warren Burger decreed that dual school systems were to be eradicated immediately, invalidating long timetables for desegregation despite the protestations of the Nixon Department of Justice. Accordingly, the city devised a new plan that did increase desegregation of both pupils and faculty but limited racial change by increasing black enrollment in white schools and white enrollment in black schools by less than 10 percent.

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