Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a reflection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opinion on the below topics.
By Axell Boomer
As marches proliferated in the Jim Crow South during the 1960s, movements also gathered in the North, protesting segregated housing and unequal treatment of Black Americans. In Milwaukee, a priest named Father Groppi—after witnessing the maltreatment of Black Milwaukeeans throughout his youth and adulthood—decided to use his position in church leadership to aid the efforts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to achieve fair housing.
Patrick D. Jones’ “‘Selma of the North’: The Fight for Open Housing in Milwaukee” analyzes grassroot movements for and against Black integration into the southside of Milwaukee. Jones writes that “Fr. Groppi, who had heeded Dr. King’s ecumenical call to Selma in 1965, brought back the lessons he learned about militant nonviolence and the need to foster ‘creative tensions’ within the community.”[1] Growing discontent and frustration led “many liberal activists [to] embrace… the Milwaukee campaign as ‘the last stand of an integrated, nonviolent, church-based movement.’”[2]
Despite critics and the press framing Groppi as responsible for mobilizing Black Milwaukeeans, Groppi felt it important to recognize the organizing strength of Black leadership. One article, titled “GROPPI DENIES HE IS A LEADER IN MILWAUKEE,” demonstrates this, as Groppi articulates that Black leaders “have always done the speaking,” and “claimed that his role ha[d] been strictly that of an advisor,” refusing to take authority from or credit for Black leadership in Milwaukee.[4]
Groppi held a nuanced relationship with nonviolence, making the practice a goal of his marches, but welcoming and encouraging self-defense.[5] Any perceived violence in the acts of self-defense by Black protesters, Groppi argued, was “minor… in comparison with violence visited on [Black Americans]… by white opponents of open housing.”[6] In defending Black protesters, Groppi marked White anti-protestors as the sources of violence. An article titled “GROPPI MARCHERS REJECT VIOLENCE” further demonstrates Groppi and the commandos’ dedication to nonviolence as they suspended two members who had acted violently during a peaceful demonstration, and “told advocates of violence to stay away if they did not want to demonstrate peacefully.”[7]
James E. Groppi, in his years of resistance, was met with severe criticism. A series of hate and critical mail of Groppi reveals the difficulty in maintaining a nonviolent image within a movement. Many of these critics “appealed to racist or stereotyped thinking that cast African Americans as inherently lazy, immoral, stupid, dependent, criminal, and violent.”[8] Some felt that it was not the church’s place to stand for revolutionary movements, writing “its [sic] not up to you—a priest—to instigate, but rather, I should think, to harmonize and keep peace.”[9] Others claimed Groppi approached the issue erroneously and listed that Groppi should instead make Black Milwaukeeans earn fair housing.[10]
Even when marching nonviolently, Groppi’s critics framed his organizing efforts as violent, claiming his mobilization was rooted in “hatred and revenge” as he “inflame[d]” and instigated his constituents.[11] Nonviolence struggled to win the hearts of Groppi’s critics because they already believed Black Milwaukeeans to be unworthy of housing in White neighborhoods.
Critics failed to see the violence which Groppi placed his energy against—the violence perpetuated by racist institutions. While a letter attacked Groppi for not discouraging the violent acts of “shooting, burning, and looting,” it did not account for the violence Groppi observed in the hunger and poor living conditions of his Black constituents.[12] “Violence,” Groppi reflected, “is many things.”[13] Critics of Groppi viewed the self-defense of his constituents and looting of markets as violent; however, Groppi chose to focus his attention on the condemnation and termination of racial violence.
Groppi marched nonviolently with his constituents; despite his nonviolence, he was still attacked in letters for supposedly provoking hate in Black Milwaukeeans. The mobilization for equal rights was a threat in itself for racist White Milwaukeeans who believed Black community members had not earned their way into White neighborhoods. Critics of Groppi dismissed Black Milwaukeeans, deeming them unfit for housing in White neighborhoods due to violent protests in Black neighborhoods, but had nothing to say about White protesters who hurled rocks and screamed slurs at nonviolent protesters beside Groppi. Even when Groppi and his constituents protested nonviolently, it did not appease White Milwaukeeans.
Groppi recognized this double standard in the treatment of Black and White protesters, and commented on it in an article discussing the church’s role in civil disobedience, writing:
I asked for the protection of the National Guard, but the Mayor said he couldn’t call them out. ‘Good hard-working people live out here,’ he said.
I don’t know how good they were, but they were certainly hard-working. They hit us with everything they could throw. They called us black bastards. And then violence broke out on the north side. The Mayor called out the National Guard and put the entire city under a curfew … and issued a proclamation.[15]
From Groppi’s perspective, the mayor failed to employ the National Guard to protect Black protesters from White violence but utilized them to swiftly break down riots in Black neighborhoods. In focusing on the supposed violence of Groppi and his fellow protesters, critics disregarded the violence of White anti-protestors and the violence of the state housing policies for Black citizens in Milwaukee.
[1] Patrick D. Jones, “‘Selma of the North’: The Fight for Open Housing in Milwaukee,” OAH Magazine of History 26, no. 1 (2012): 19.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Father Groppi in Police Wagon, circa 1966.
[4] “GROPPI DENIES HE IS A LEADER IN MILWAUKEE: Claims White Press Focused on Him,” Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1967.
[5] Donald Janson, “Milwaukee Priest Asks Whites to Help on Open Housing Protest,” New York Times, September 18, 1967.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Donald Janson, “GROPPI MARCHERS REJECT VIOLENCE: Milwaukee Negroes Rebuff Outsiders in Housing Drive,” New York Times, September 22, 1967.
[8] Jones, “‘Selma of the North’,” 20.
[9] Anonymous to James Groppi, February 8, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 8), Correspondence, Hate Mail, 1965 December 7 – 1967 September 1; Anonymous to James Groppi, August 30, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 6, Folder 3, page 3), Correspondence, Criticism Mail, 1965-1967.
[10] Anonymous to James Groppi, August 30, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 6, Folder 3, page 3), Correspondence, Criticism Mail, 1965-1967; Anonymous to James Groppi, May 7, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 6, Folder 1, page 2), Correspondence, Criticism Mail, 1965-1967.
[11] Anonymous to James Groppi, February 8, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 8), Correspondence, Hate Mail, 1965 December 7 – 1967 September 1; Anonymous to James Groppi, August 15, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 6, Folder 3, page 2), Correspondence, Criticism Mail, 1965-1967; Anonymous to James Groppi, August 30, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 6, Folder 3, page 3), Correspondence, Criticism Mail, 1965-1967.
[12] Anonymous to James Groppi, August 13, 1967, letter, from Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, James Groppi papers, 1956-1978, (Box 6, Folder 3), Correspondence, Criticism Mail, 1965-1967; James Groppi, “The Church and Civil Disobedience,” in Violence: an element of american life, eds. Karl K Taylor, Fred W. Soady, Jr. (Boston: Holbrook Press, Inc., 1972), 190, 192, 194.
[13] Groppi, “Church and Civil Disobedience,” 192.
[14] Father Groppi Leads Demonstration.
[15] Groppi, “Church and Civil Disobedience,” Ibid., 195.