Fair Housing Marches 1968
in Milwaukee

I saw on TV news tonight how the police chief was trying to dismiss the organized protest over the death of an unarmed Dontre Hamilton by a police officer by saying how one of the organizers of the protest was just doing it for his own personal glory and attention getting. A group of young men, with some African-American politicians were quick to respond to the Police Chief’s attempt to minimize the message of the group by marginalizing one of its members.

This effort to marginalize one person in a group as an effort to ignore the message is one I, sadly, know about. I am easy target for organizations like Marquette or Central office of St. Vincent de Paul because I am a loud and outspoken voice for issues of racism and resistance to war and violence.

Tomorrow we are going to picket the St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) Central Office with our message that the poor cannot afford the millions of dollars. One of the organizers of the nonviolent action got a call from the President of SVDP. One of the first questions she was asked if she was knew me. What difference did that make except as attempt to diminish this persons concern on this vital issue affecting her community?

There is another person in this struggle who has also been marginalized although as a former member of the SVDP Board of Directors he knows a lot about the inside workings or the organization and central office. What do we two, who did not know each other until this struggle, have in common. We both have nothing to lose. The other person is retired by work and left the SVDP society when he could no longer take the harm they were doing to the poor. Others can lose funding for their work, lose glory, or lose power in their community. Even the media has something to lose by covering events that influential people do not want them to cover.

The same person who received the call from the President of SVDP, the other day in a meeting with a 86 year old veteran of the civil rights struggle, started to sign some lines from a civil rights song: “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round.” The verses that stuck in my mind are: “I’m gonna keep on a-walkin’;, keep on a-talkin’, Walkin’ into freedom land.”

In the struggle to resist teaching of war and killing at Marquette I used to joke that Marquette, years ago, put me in jail, suspended me, fired me, took a degree away, so all I had to lose was my MU library card. When I was banned from Marquette they took away my library card, which since has been restored.

In this struggle with SVDP they could stop me from making home visits to those in need and receiving the blessings I receive from this work of the Society of SVDP. I doubt if they will. No matter what, I plan to keep on walkin and keep on talkin.

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