A TEENAGER hem all-while Cicero gives his opinion
of last Sunday'r march. Many at the Negro protesters
returned insults ml ieered back .i the white mobs. w
Statements tuch it "Come out here and try to lay ihai
you i ..... whit. basiordl" were often heard from the
militant marcherl.

A RIOT was narrowly averted during lasf Sunday'x Cicero march after
a white hocklar wax accidentally cut by the bayonet of this Negro guards-
man. A threatenlng group gathered around the noldler yelling alumni in

Ii him. Rolnfo
dtsperted by th
not: in tho I'll

Cicero March: The Rejection of ;;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEAR-STREAKED Mn. Ruth Huey and h» husband, Isaac. {center} walked in th.
treat line at Sunday'l marchers. Their .on, Jlrome, wot beaten to death in Cicero
lsy . whi
'ioorehor‘r‘ held a prey" yigil "on tho upot when he‘dieo.

teenage gang ion May. He had ooh. to Cicero to look tor s iob. the

By HENRY WILHELM

Last Sunday: march into Cicero, an
all white suburb of Chicago, was a sigt
nliicant change lrom the previous, none
violent, demonstrations of the summer.
This time the marchers were prepared
to fight back if attacked. And according
to some or the more outspoken leaders.
the Negroes were prepared to use tire
arms it necessary. The change in Ne-
gro attitude was Ieadlly apparent as
many of the Negro marchers yelled in-
sults back at the angry, screaming white
crowds. The Call of “Black Power" was
irequently heard.

The Cicero March may have set the
tone tor civil rights action in the iuture
both in Chicago and other Cities. Many
observers say that the militant teelings
expressed in Cicero are the natural out-
come oi the lock or any real progress
oi the nonviolent approach in the north.
Important also is the fact that there
were fewer white people in the Cicero
March than in the previous non-violent
marches in Chicago. Part or the ieeling
of Black Power is the assertion of the
Negro male and the Cicero March had
far fewer of the Women and Children
than have been typical or other marches.
For the Negro man who has long been
used to suitering insult and degredation
irom whites, Cicero was a chance to
speak his mind.

A Cicero March was tirst planned by
Martin Luther King's Chicago Freedom
Movement, but was later called of}
when Chicago's Mayor Daley and the
Chicago Real Estate Board promised to
work toward ending the housing discrim-
lnalion that has for years kept much of
Chicago closed to Negro families Some
or the Negro groupshincluding com:

which led the march, were not satisfied

with the King agreement and ignored
the ban on marches.

The residents of Cicero are almost all
of recent immigrant background, mosrly
Polish, Bohemian and Italian. Many of
them had come to the U.S. to escape
Hitler and the Germany of World War
ll, however this background did not
seem to stop them [mm enlhusiasticall
displaying swastikas and yelling Nazi
slogans. A delegation ot Nazi's and mem-
bers of the Ku Klux Klan were stopped
by police on the way to Cicero, and th
week before a KKK group was attested
walking in downtown Cicero dressed in
tull regalia.

Cicero is a well kept City of nice homg
{or the most part. The residents have
worked hard to make it so and want to
keep it so. This combined with the more
typical ieelings oi second generation in.
migrants who have had to struggle to
make it and don’t want to lose anything,
made for the hostility shown in Cicero
last Sunday. ‘

Cicero, an industrial city of 70,000,
which has no known Negro resident, had
not been the target of previous open-
occupancy marches because oi the ce -
talnty of violent repercussions. It was
being saved as a iinal step to convince
Daley that it would be in his polit' ’
interest to meet some of the Negro’s de-
mands rather than have his city iurthe
embarrassed by violence. The last tim
a Negro tried to live in Cicero, in 133,
a riot ensued that took the Nationa
Guard to control, Cicero is also wel
known as the home and stronghold of A
Capone in the 1920s. ‘

Last May a Negro was beaten to (lost
when he went to Cicero to look for a job

To meet last Sunday's expected lroubl
in Cicero, Governor Kerner called 0%
2500 National Guard troops ". . . to me: