Marquette Park rallies

Marquette Park is the largest park on Chicago's southwest side and is in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. The neighborhood is also called Marquette Park by most locals.

The neighborhood was developed primarily in 1920s; it consists mostly of bungalows and single-family housing. The neighborhood developed a reputation as a "white ethnic" neighborhood, as many second-generation Americans of Irish, German, Polish and most notably Lithuanian descent moved to the neighborhood from other south side neighborhoods, such as Back of the Yards and Englewood. The latter was the site of a race riot in 1949 in which whites attacked blacks, mostly migrants and descendants from the South.

In 1960, some 53 of the neighborhood's 51,347 residents were non-white, and of those 53 residents, three were black.[1] Some African Americans had jobs that enabled them to improve their housing, but were limited by discrimination by real estate agents and banks in getting loans, and related approvals. Marquette Park had garnered a reputation as a place black people tried to avoid.[2] Western Avenue, the official border between Marquette Park and West Englewood, became the unofficial boundary line between black and white neighborhoods on Chicago's south side.[3]

In January 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and nonviolent protest, moved to a small apartment on Chicago's west side. He intended to protest and bring attention to the poor living conditions for blacks in the city in an effort to promote fair housing, as related to real estate and bank practices.[4] He also sought to bring attention to the racial discrimination that blacks faced when trying to buy homes in such blue-collar "white neighborhoods" as Marquette Park.

On July 31, 1966, 550 white and black civil rights demonstrators, not including King, marched into Marquette Park.[5] According to police reports, 700 white residents awaited the demonstrators.[6] The white residents threw bricks and bottles at the protestors and burnt cars, and the Chicago Police Department appeared to do little to protect the marchers. Over 50 people were hurt and 18 cars were burnt.[7]

On August 5, 1966, King attempted to lead 700 marchers through Marquette Park and neighboring Gage Park to a real estate office on 63rd street.[8][9] King had previously led marches into white neighborhoods elsewhere in the city and been fiercely opposed.[10] The marchers were confronted by several thousand white counter-protestors, many of whom displayed Confederate flags and swastikas. They attacked the marchers with bricks, bottles and cherry bombs while shouting racial insults. At one point King was struck in the head with a rock. He said after the march that "I have never seen — even in Mississippi and Alabama — mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I've seen here in Chicago".[10] The white counter-demonstrators fought with police after the marchers left. More than 40 people were arrested and more than 30 were injured over the day.[10]

The violent reaction to King's efforts to demonstrate in Marquette Park attracted the attention of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell, who traveled to Chicago to try to recruit members. Rockwell organized a "White People's March" on September 10, 1966, in Gage Park, which attracted about 150 supporters. This was an unusually large amount of support for Rockwell, who was rarely taken seriously elsewhere in the country. As Sean Maschmann wrote, "It took a full decade for Rockwell to gain something more than notoriety and a reputation for political titillation and buffoonery."[6]

In 1970, Chicago native Frank Collin founded the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) and purchased a two-story building in Marquette Park which he named "Rockwell Hall". The NSPA had a core membership of a few dozen neighborhood youths, but enjoyed some support from other locals due to their strong opposition to residential integration.[2] Collin and the NSPA began holding rallies throughout the Chicago area. Most of them were held at Marquette Park, though they also held rallies in such suburbs such as Cicero and Berwyn, where working-class ethnic whites had settled after moving out of the city. The rallies often turned violent; groups such as the Chicago chapter of the Jewish Defense League confronted the Nazis during their rallies.[2]

On June 6, 1976, around 200 NSPA members and local youths gathered at Marquette Park to confront a black group that had planned to protest inadequate housing. When the black group failed to show up, the protestors started throwing bricks and bottles at police officers and passing motorists, damaging more than 200 vehicles; someone shot an off-duty officer.[11] On July 17, 1976, between 1,000 and 1,500 residents of Marquette Park, including many NSPA members[11] attacked around 100 activists protesting housing discrimination with bricks and bottles, while shouting "Marquette stays white" and "go home niggers".[12] Over 30 people, including 16 policemen, were injured and over 60 arrests were made.[13][14] The activists alleged the police made little effort to protect them, and at least eight off-duty Chicago police officers were believed to have been involved in the attacks on the marchers.[15]

On August 21, 1976, around 250 civil rights activists tried again to march to Marquette Park but were stopped eight blocks short by police. Law enforcement also stopped a crowd of about 800 whites from confronting the civil rights marchers, keeping the groups apart. No injuries or serious clashes occurred, but 13 people were arrested, including two black men who fired guns into the air.[13]

On July 23, 1977, 20 to 30 black members inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy attempted to march into Marquette Park after an April bombing of three houses in the neighborhood that were owned by blacks. The police did not allow them to march into the neighborhood, declaring it too dangerous; when several entered anyway, they were arrested. White residents attacked black passersby, pelting cars with stones and bottles. One car containing a woman and her three children was overturned, and all four had to be hospitalized. A total of 19 people were injured and 27 arrested.[16]

In 1977, the City of Chicago passed an ordinance requiring that people wishing to demonstrate at public parks have $250,000 in insurance in order to obtain a permit.[17] As Collin and NSPA could not afford the insurance, they began to apply for permits to march in Chicago suburbs, including Skokie, a suburb with a largely Jewish population, including Holocaust survivors and descendants. After Skokie rejected the request, Collin sued the city. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court and Collin and the NSPA won the right to rally in Skokie. But Collin agreed not to march in Skokie if the City of Chicago allowed him to hold rallies at Marquette Park again.[2]

After the city granted the NSPA the right to return to Marquette Park, Collin held a rally on July 9, 1978.[18] The NSPA had 25 uniformed members there, but the rally attracted around 2,000 protestors (including future Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel) from each side, about a third of whom were locals sympathetic to the NSPA. During the rally Collin denied that the Holocaust occurred, but said that a real one was coming. Several fights broke out between anti-Nazi protestors and the local sympathizers, leading to 72 arrests.[19]