When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, it meant the end of segregation in public places and employment discrimination.
Johnson laid out a fragile vision.
“Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole,” he said.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. heralded the measure as a “second emancipation.”
Johnson’s hope for a “nation whole,” remains a vision some 56 years later as new waves of massive protests over police brutality against Blacks ripple across the country.
While the 1960s civil rights movement led to political advances, including the election of Richard Gordon Hatcher as the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city, racism and unrest persists.
Graphic images of Blacks being choked or shot recorded on cellphone cameras, sparked a fresh movement and rallied a new generation. They’re united by a singular theme that “Black Lives Matter.”
Rewind to the ’60s and another young generation found its political voice, as Gary voters made history.
Confined to the city’s central district and banned from traveling south into Glen Park, Blacks argued without success for basic services, such as street lights and garbage pickup.
They finally coalesced around a young Black city councilman, a staunch activist attorney in his first term.
With two white candidates, including the incumbent mayor splitting the white vote in the primary, Hatcher emerged victorious.
With 5,000 National Guard troops standing by, Hatcher claimed the mayor’s job in November by 1,865 votes over his GOP opponent.
He served for 20 years and left a legacy of pride among his supporters, but he couldn’t save the city from economic despair.
Last December, two months after the city erected a statue in his honor at City Hall, Hatcher died at age 86. His backers still hope to establish a civil rights museum in the city to mark Hatcher’s tenure.
“It was a movement and it set the tone for the next 40 years,” said Lamar Taylor, of Gary, an early Hatcher supporter.
“What we see now with all the Black elected officials in the country was a result of the 1967 election. It was the beginning of Blacks being involved in the political arena,” he said.
Taylor, 77, said he grew up in a Gary where segregation was rampant. High school Black golf coaches couldn’t tee up alongside white coaches, he said.
Seeing injustice in his daily life moved him to speak out.
“Our parents told us it was not the time. My mother and father were not anxious to see me out there going against the police… perhaps we were young and didn’t have the fear of death. We just thought this was wrong. We should have a right to live where we want to live,” said Taylor.
The Rev. Dena Holland-Neal was just 14 when Hatcher was elected in 1967, but her father, James Holland, played an integral role in the campaign and would become deputy mayor.
“I remember handing out lollipops that I put Hatcher stickers on when I got on the school bus,” she said.
Holland-Neal said she held great optimism about the civil rights movement, but barriers still remain.
“Mayor Hatcher used to say it’s not so much about civil rights, but about ‘silver rights,’ or not being able to pay bills because of a lack of jobs and opportunities.”
Holland-Neal said Black Lives Matter puts the focus squarely on racism.
“It’s concentrated on how to erode the racism that been here for more than 400 years.
“George Floyd’s death opened the eyes of many people who never thought about what systemic racism means,” she said.
Taylor said comparisons between the two movements are difficult.
“This is a different time, a different age.
Many of us who was involved in Hatcher’s first election, we went up against the ‘Machine,' the power structure. We had this vision that we ought to be included,” he said.
Taylor said he’s impressed by the diversity in the Blacks Lives Matter protests across the country since Floyd was killed May 25 by a Minneapolis police officer.
“There are a lot of white folk who are taking the time listen. At least they’re putting it on the front burners,” he said.
Another longtime activist and retired university educator, Ruth Needleman, of Gary, said there were no Blacks in skilled trades or high office in the ’60s.
She said the United Steelworkers formed a committee and leaders became active in the NAACP and community organizing.
“There was a lot of struggle inside the Steelworkers,” she said.
Similar strides swept through the United Autoworkers union and others across the country.
“Even though police played a role in the ’60s, it’s nothing quite like today,” said Needleman.
"We didn’t get to see the police killing people in quite the same way. A lot of white people don’t want to take it personally, but you can’t deal with racism as an abstract issue, somebody else’s problem.”
Carolyn McCrady said she moved to Gary because she wanted to work in Hatcher’s press office.
“He put the civil rights movement in action in Gary,” she said.
“The civil rights movement included whites and was multi-generational and it was the beginning of what we see today,” she said.
McCrady said today young generation won’t walk away from suffering. “They connect racist oppression with all the other problems we’re facing.”
Gary’s Black Lives Matter local chapter meets weekly at the Rev. John Jackson’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ.
“Back then, the strategy was to protest and disrupt peacefully, knowing the response would be violent and vicious so the world would see it and force those in power to negotiate for reform,” Jackson said.
“Now, the strategy doesn’t have to try to trigger something. It’s just having a phone and it will go all over the world. During the ’50s and ’60s, it would take three or four days to go across the country.”
Jackson said the early civil rights movement was male-dominated and mostly conservative.
“Now, you have a society all over the world that knows more and has a broader perspective… It’s more of a human rights struggle now.”
by Carole Carlson
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