A Country Torn: The Cicero March, 1966

From the Chicago Film Archives FilmGroup Collection, 'Urban Crisis and the New Militants Series.' First viewed in 16mm at Terror & the Inhuman: Magic Lantern Cinema, curated by Beth Capper. Description: 'Cicero March details a civil rights march on September 4, 1966. Robert Lucas led activists through Cicero to protest restrictions in housing laws. White residents of Cicero respond with vitriolic jeers as the police struggle to prevent a riot.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGH5IyKQn98

 

Elsewhere:

Rashad Shabazz, 'Black Militancy: Notes From the Underground'

For a generation of young activists, the reality of war, imperialism, racism and the growing fragility of democratic liberalism was too much to handle. Force became a means to wrestle with this tension. As the discourse of a "country torn" finds its way into mainstream political analyses (for many the deep divisions in this country are not a new political reality), we should reflect on the writings of political dissidents and radicals. We should recognize the diversity of political analysis that is very much alive. The histories of armed struggle, if taken seriously, provide us with a means to think more critically about the center, and complicate its claims of moral and political right.

David Manning, 'A Tale of Two (or Three) Marches'

Unlike 1968, this [2003] march was overtly patriotic. These people were not marching in opposition to the United States, and certainly no one among the quarter million or so marchers was marching in support of Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. There were flags and signs that read "Patriots for Peace."