Between Civil Rights and Black Power in the Gateway City: the Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes , 1964-75

Journal of Social History, Spring, 2004 by Clarence Lang

Many of the "Mill Creek exiles" beelined to Carr Square Village, the Pruitt-Igoe homes, Darst-Webbe, and other low-rent federal housing projects on the city's near North and near South sides, both directly adjacent to the devastated urban renewal area. Mainly constructed during the 1950s as high-rises, these projects lacked adequate playground space and proximity to social amenities. Shoddy doorknobs, locks, window frames and water pipes underscored the buildings' overall makeshift structures. Other black refugees from St. Louis urban renewal settled in the midtown area, whose growing reputation for crime became fodder for the daily media. The neighborhoods north of Delmar Avenue also became solidly black as white St. Louisans quit their homes in the city for residences at the western suburban fringe. In 1960, the St. Louis Urban League reported, 70 percent of the city's 214,337 African Americans lived in or near deteriorating housing stock, much of it built prior to 1939. Through the 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court ruling, and the efforts of the Greater St. Louis Committee for Freedom of Residence, many black families of means relocated to nearby St. Louis County suburbs. But continuing employment discrimination, particularly in the skilled trades, affected workers' ability to secure lives outside the deteriorating urban core. At the zenith of the Civil Rights struggle, then, two St. Louis metropoles were coming into stark form: a central hub, mainly black and poor; and a western suburban crescent, largely white and more affluent. (15)

This growing racialized poverty undermined the promises of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, and as in other urban centers seeded the soil for a revivified black nationalist upsurge. (16) The volatile Civil Rights consensus clearly disintegrated as battle-fatigued activists divided over such matters as whether African Americans should have privileged, or sole, leadership in Civil Rights organizations; whether whites should remain part of such organizations; and whether activists should focus more clearly on the problems of the black urban poor. This proposed strategy of inner-city community organizing, which became CORE's official policy around 1964, reflected an ethos that would become known as "Black Power." By 1966, both SNCC and CORE had endorsed interpretations of this slogan. ACTION emerged from these economic travails, mounting tensions within CORE, and the overall schisms altering the Civil Rights struggle.

"More and Better Paying Jobs for Black Men": ACTION's Program and Strategic Thrust

The Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes began its nascent development in January 1964, when the results of the Jefferson Bank boycott split the ranks of St. Louis CORE. Direct action dissidents soon began consolidating a separate infrastructure, though as the Gateway Arch demonstrations illustrated, they continued to organize protests under the recognizable name of their parent group. By December 1964, the formal split with CORE had occurred and the dissidents stepped fully out of the shadows. ACTION established headquarters at 2906 Union Boulevard, in St. Louis's black-populated Ville area. In one of their first public acts, members publicized a Civil Rights Benefit Program featuring jazz, folk music, and dramatic performances. The fundraiser took place in early June, and members announced plans to share the monies with SNCC's upcoming summer Southern Voter Registration Project. The newborn group's name easily evoked the image of an old-guard Civil Rights organization, particularly the use of the term "Negro," which was falling out of usage among younger activists, who viewed themselves as "Black." But the group's acronym, ACTION, betrayed a far more militant essence. Its twenty-five initial members reflected the more grassroots and action-oriented forces who had gravitated toward CORE's employment committee. The presence of political radicals, liberal integrationists, and peace activists all enabled the organization to tap a vast array of talents and skills. Program, not ideology, was primary. A number of internal councils formed, including a finance committee that coordinated the sale of organizational memberships and one-cent "freedom stamps." Both projects provided needed revenue, while regular Sunday meetings open to the public helped the organization maintain contact with a variety of potential cadre and supporters. (17)