For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
Detroit Churchmen Hanged In Effigy
DETROIT (AP) – Archbishop John F. Dearden, the Rev. Albert Cleage, Milton Henry and Richard Lobenthal were found hanged in effigy Thursday in Detroit’s Kennedy Square.
The name-carded, stuffed-clothing figures were cut down quickly by police.
Archbishop Dearden heads the Detroit archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Albert Cleage and Milton Henry, are leaders among “Black Power” advocates, and Lobenthal is Michigan director of the Jewish Antidefamation League.
Police said they did not know who hanged the four in effigy, but suspected “right wingers who have created similar incidents in recent months.” They did not name the “right wingers.”
The figures were strung up on the superstructure of a new underground parking garage in the square.
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Oddly enough, although I was 21, I don’t remember anything about this event. I wonder if it was not printed in the Detroit papers. I found this article in an Ann Arbor paper. Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr. is my father.
Note: From November 1967 to August 1968, both daily papers, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News were on strike. That is why it didn’t appear in my search of those papers online. Also why I didn’t know about it.
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My friend, historian Paul Lee, put this short clip of an interview with my father, Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr. by Chet Huntley on YouTube. It is from late 1967 or early 1968, not long after the 1967 Detroit riot.
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1300 Lafaytte – Apartment for Security 1968 – A post about my father’s life during that time
HOw wonderful to have footage of you father, you must be very proud. I wonder if the news about the effigy hanging was suppressed or deliberately not published in home paper. I suppose it depends like today who controls the media.
There are several youtube videos with him speaking or being interviewed and I have quite a few of his sermons on tape, or formerly on tape and now on my computer. I wish I had some of my mother’s voice.
Those were dark days in America’s history. Things got better and now they’ve gotten bad again.
There also seemed to be more hope. More organizing going on, more regular people involved in movements. More community unity. Today things seem so bleak.
thank you for including the video! interesting that you don’t remember it ~ i wonder if pearl might? this post taught me the word “effigy”
I checked with Pearl as soon as I found it. I wonder if the adults didn’t mention it to us? That would be unusual as we were not youngsters. Weird.
Glad you learned a new word!
Wow – what a dramatic discovery, Kristin!!! You must be very proud of the stance your father took and dismayed at the current climate which is taking, or trying to take, the US backwards…
It really involved the whole family back then and yes, I’m very proud of my father and my uncles and aunts and mother. It’s so sad that so much of what my father was saying back then, in the 60’s is still true today. Horrifying really.
The white -washed news continues today with stories skewed to sell products to the more affluent of white viewers. I was not pleased to see that effigies were hung in 1968. Civil Rights worked so long and hard, but schools weren’t even successfully integrated by then, and my children who were born in the 60s attended Florida schools where lots of bussing had started. I did enjoy hearing your father being interviewed.
I just remembered that there was a newspaper strike in Detroit around that time, both the big papers – The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News were on strike for nine months from November 1967 to August 1968, which includes the time of this incident in April of 1968. That explains why it wasn’t in the local papers.
As for schools, they still are largely not integrated. i don’t think integration is the answer though. How about good schools for all, across the board instead.
Oh wow! That’s really scary. It is interesting that you don’t remember the incident. As you point out, it raises the question of whether it was kept from you. And it is wonderful to have videos of people who have passed. Really reminds you how they sounded and moved. Thanks for this!
I just realized there was a newspaper strike in Detroit during that time and that is why we didn’t hear about it.
I agree about having videos.
What profound pieces of history to carry forward, ensuring they will not be erased by time or narrative. I’m so glad you have them.
Me too!
That seems like such a scary to have happen. At the same time, it’s an indication that your father was effective in his work to get that much attention.
Both those things.
I wonder if the news was “hidden” – I’ve been amazed at the things that happened in my lifetime that I knew nothing about. When I took history last year, I was stunned at the truth that was not in my history books when I was growing up. I’m pretty sure my original history books (in the 60’s) were written by white men (I know they were!). It is amazing to hear history from the voice of others!!
There was a newspaper strike in Detroit from November 1967 to August 1968. Both of the big papers weren’t publishing during the time the above incident of hanging effigies happened. I went back to newspapers.com and found articles in newspaper all over Michigan, outside of Detroit.
I was lucky to be brought up in a family with lots of books that told the rest of the story because it wasn’t in my history books either. In fact I remember telling a teacher about the internment of the Japanese during World War 2 and he told me that it didn’t happen.
I’m glad you had the opportunity to take that history class last year.
I too was wondering why you didn’t hear the news of those effigies at the time. Perhaps the reasons were benign–maybe neither the targeted people and their communities nor the responsible media outlets wanted to give it attention (oxygen, as they say nowadays) for fear of encouraging the perpetrators or sparking copycat crimes. And perhaps your parents were being protective in not wanting to draw the family’s attention to it.
What a turbulent time!
I think it was just because the local papers were on strike so we didn’t read it. They talked about everything else and we were 21 and 19 at the time so I don’t think it was protective. Wish someone of that generation was here to ask. I do miss that ability.
OMG Kristin, I can’t imagine how you must have felt reading that about your father even long after it happened. It would shake you to your core. Your family were very courageous. What a shame you have no recordings of your mother’s voice. Sad to think that after all this time the situation is regressing.
I remember the Sunday he announced in church that if he were kidnapped, the church was not to pay the ransom because he’d most likely be dead already. And he did used to go through his apartment with a handgun drawn to check before we could come in. I don’t remember being as afraid as I would have been if it happened now.
This is a great post mommy. I really appreciate the inclusion of the video… to me it was important that the last word not go to the actions of the enemy.
I’m very thankful that Paul Lee found so many videos and made them accessible through youtube.
That’s so scary! Interesting that you don’t remember being so scared about some of those things at the time. I feel like the older I get the more scared I get, which is not the direction I’d like to be going!
I really wasn’t. You’d have thought I might be worried about being kidnapped myself, but the thought never crossed my mind. Around the same time an insurance man was shot to death in front of the house next door and the man who did it ran through our yard. Nobody was home, but my mother no longer felt safe there and that summer we moved to a flat with my grandparents, they were downstairs, we were upstairs. I don’t remember being worried about that either.