Activism
In the photo that closes his oral history video, a young Cliff leans slightly over the crowd. One hand clasps a megaphone. The other holds Rev. Virgil Woods’ hand. Together, they lead at least five hundred people in singing “We Shall Overcome.”
This rally, which took place at the Willard Avenue Shopping Center in Providence, RI in 1966, followed marches against the deterioration of local housing.
This particular rally followed years of agitation. Across Providence, Cliff and many others protested against redlining, racist housing policy and the unequal impact of urban renewal on working-class Black communities. In January of 1961, five Black residents even filed suit against the Providence Redevelopment Agency to halt the urban renewal project that threatened the West Elmwood neighborhood—arguing that Black residents would have difficulty finding housing elsewhere in the city. They had a case: George Lima of the NAACP testified on a survey showing 97% of Providence landlords polled would not rent to non-whites, and representatives from the Urban League testified that Relocation Services blatantly had separate housing lists for whites and Blacks. Clearly, action needed to be taken.
The court disagreed. One day after trail, the judge ruled that discrimination against Black residents was merely “incidental to and not the purpose” of the Redevelopment Act of 1956. The urban renewal project went forward, displacing a generations-old community of Black homeowners.
Although the Providence community was not able to halt redevelopment, other communities during this time did find success. The “Mission Coalition Organization” campaign in San Francisco (1968), for example, harnessed the power of a working-class, immigrant Latino community to stop the city from redeveloping their neighborhood.
In looking back at past failures and successes, we can learn how to build robust movements in the present. What would a five-hundred-strong housing rights rally in Providence look like today?
This rally, which took place at the Willard Avenue Shopping Center in Providence, RI in 1966, followed marches against the deterioration of local housing.
This particular rally followed years of agitation. Across Providence, Cliff and many others protested against redlining, racist housing policy and the unequal impact of urban renewal on working-class Black communities. In January of 1961, five Black residents even filed suit against the Providence Redevelopment Agency to halt the urban renewal project that threatened the West Elmwood neighborhood—arguing that Black residents would have difficulty finding housing elsewhere in the city. They had a case: George Lima of the NAACP testified on a survey showing 97% of Providence landlords polled would not rent to non-whites, and representatives from the Urban League testified that Relocation Services blatantly had separate housing lists for whites and Blacks. Clearly, action needed to be taken.
The court disagreed. One day after trail, the judge ruled that discrimination against Black residents was merely “incidental to and not the purpose” of the Redevelopment Act of 1956. The urban renewal project went forward, displacing a generations-old community of Black homeowners.
Although the Providence community was not able to halt redevelopment, other communities during this time did find success. The “Mission Coalition Organization” campaign in San Francisco (1968), for example, harnessed the power of a working-class, immigrant Latino community to stop the city from redeveloping their neighborhood.
In looking back at past failures and successes, we can learn how to build robust movements in the present. What would a five-hundred-strong housing rights rally in Providence look like today?
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