'Liberty' Is A Worthy Struggle

We all learned the touchstones of the Civil Rights struggle throughout middle school and high school history classes: the steadfastness of Rosa Parks, the oratory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the many indignities that spurred non-violent protests throughout the South. But can anyone remember what was happening in the North at the same time?

University of Pennsylvania professor Thomas J. Sugrue attempts to remedy this gap in our historical memory with his new book, “Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North.”

Sugrue’s book is something to be celebrated. We all know the injustice that pervaded the South and the struggles of Civil Rights movement to overcome it. But many of us don’t know that many similar obstacles still had to be overcome in the North. One Brooklyn minister even argued that, “when it comes to the way the Negro is treated, the only difference between the North and the South is the weather.” Sugrue humanizes the history he tells, using individuals’ narratives to remind us of an important truth: “the struggle for racial equality in the North continues.”

The book moves from the early 20th century up to the 1980s, revealing many facets of this fight for equality that aren’t exactly well known, such as the Civil Rights movement’s early associations with Communist and Socialist political parties; its leaders’ personal relations with presidents (A. Phillip Randolph and Lyndon Johnson had their fair share of meetings); and how the fight for equality was undermined by a vicious cycle of unfair, false perceptions over which black Americans had no control.

Sugrue strives to connect the struggles for rights in the North and South. It was Northerners’ success in gaining access to public buildings—such as movie theaters and restaurants—that helped the South start overcoming Jim Crow Laws. The Northern strategy of gathering outside public buildings to which blacks were denied admittance, calling the cops, and thus creating a non-violent spectacle provided the essential format for Southern protests such as sit-ins.

But Sugrue argues that the North fought just as long and hard, if not longer and harder, for full rights. After the Civil Rights movement gained some headway and anti-discrimation laws were passed, it was easier for the South to become integrated because it was actively reversing the law. Many communities in the North remained de facto segregated and many white-collar jobs continued to be all-white occupations. Northern blacks were forced to continue fighting for equal standing and reintegregation well into the 1980s. Today, their struggle continues.

The book not only provides an in-depth historical perspective but also reaches the reader at a more emotional level with its many anecdotes of injustice in the North. Sugrue tells of the 1964 police shooting of a black junior high school student during a non-violent protest in Harlem. (Immediately after the shooting, the protest turned into a riot—“the largest uprising in the North since World War II.”) He paints a picture of a black family, aided by white liberals, that tries to move to Levittown only to encounter angry neighbors who shout “Gestapo” and break their windows. The house next door, Sugrue recounts, was turned into an “anti-desegregation social club.”

At certain points, the personal voices Sugrue weaves into his history manage to inspire the reader. Take Roxanne Jones, who proclaims in response to welfare cuts, “We must make them understand that we will not stand by quietly while they throw us out onto the streets. We are fighting for our lives and we will not be denied.”

Despite being a dense and sometimes pedantic book, “Sweet Land of Liberty” successfully reveals a part of our history that many people often don’t give enough thought to: the struggle for blacks’ rights in the North. Black Americans in the North fought long and hard for their rights, Sugrue reminds us, helping motivate the rest of the black population to pressure the nation.