With Teddy and Eunice's death, the last of Joe's children have passed the scene...

Even with all their faults, the Kennedy's helped make this nation a better place for millions.

The Lion of liberalism and progressivism for this nation is no more. We are greater he was here for us and lesser now that he is gone.

Godspeed Ted Kennedy. Godspeed Eunice Shriver.

Interesting thing about this video, I have done this myself, in a car. So you see all those cars they pass by, imagine how long it takes to travel the route of the length of the convention center in a car. AND there is no pedestrian bridge, those people you see crossing are indeed crossing a major California highway, the Pacific Coast Highway to be exact. The flow of traffic AND people would be made A LOT better if the city built a sinking pedestrian bridge. As someone who has drive through it and walked across it, it gets a little dicey.

So here it is, don't try this at home!

Pics of Tony Stark and the Black Widow!

Everybody's favorite horribly scarred Confederate soldier... and Megan Fox.

And I always thought Betty would be the one...

Seth Rogan talks about GH's classic car, The Black Beauty for his upcoming Green Hornet flick

Its been a quiet year for comic book related movies, but the San Diego Comic Con is in full effect right now (damn I wish I was there again) and the previews for next year's movies are kicking in. And wait til 2011.

Starting things off, this September, Whiteout. Look for it, its a great graphic novel too.

Ms. Tree

Ménage à trois

$1865.00 for a new transmission and a working car again...

Trips with Nancy to Ann Arbor...priceless.

hmmm, who am I kidding. I could have had the greatest night of passionate love making and winning at the craps table at the casino and I would still be out $1865.

And the funny thing, it could have been A LOT WORSE.

I'll let Nancy tell you that tale.

Hi Ho Silver! The Yellow Neon Rides Again!

And my brother in Iraq, surrounded by all that is going on there, could not be any happier that I am no longer driving his Mustang. Another tale for another day.

The summer of 1976 was the first time I experienced magic, in its most joyous, wonderful form.

I was 9 1/2 years old (an age when being 1/2 of something was important still), and I was becoming enthralled with a young Detroit Tigers rookie pitcher named Mark "The Bird" Fidrych.

On August 17, 1976, my parents, my brothers and I when to see him pitch. It was a night game and we had upper deck seats behind home plate, just inside the foul ball screen, so there would be no foul balls coming our way. It was Polish American night at the park, and pitching for the opposing California Angels was local boy Frank Tanana. Tanana was a young fireball pitcher who on most nights might have brought in more than a few friends and family to see him pitch. But not tonight, for pitching for the Tigers was The Bird and the largest crowd of the season showed up, over 51,000 fans.

I was a pitcher's duel, eventually won when Mark's personal catcher since the minor leagues, Bruce Kimm, hit his only major league home run off the facing of the upper deck in left field. The final out, ground ball to Gold Glove Third Baseman Aurelio Rodriguez, who scooped it up like he was known to, take two steps towards first, held the ball for what seemed like forever, and threw a bullet to first to end the game.

My dad want to leave right away to beat the crowd. My brothers and I pleaded to stay as the fans began to chant "We Want The Bird!" As we were walking in the walkway behind the stands, my parents stopped and I could see straight behind home plate and the baseball diamond. Coming out of the dugout was Fidrych, who waved his hand and doffed his cap to the cheering crowd. I was in awe. It was the first great moment of my life that I can remember. It was then I learned what magic was.

I am now 42, and nearly 35 years later I hear of the tragic death of my childhood hero. Coming on the heels of a rather interesting moment (to say the least) in my life right now, I could say that the magic for me has died.

But I cannot. I remember the excitement, the joy, the wonderful sense of fun that special man gave me as a kid. Somewhere I still own the cheap vinyl record recorded by Dick Purtan and Tom Ryan, "Keep on Talking to the Ball." And I smile thinking about it and about "The Bird." And by all accounts, Mark Fidrych was the real deal, no phony, and loved baseball and life. He gave joy because is own life was so full of it.

As I write this, I remember the magic of that night. It has never died.

Rest in Peace, Mark Fidrych.

I am now a Master of Arts.

I'd get more excited but I think I should sleep. I have been thinking about throwing a party except it might be a cleaning party the condition my house is in! hah!

Are almost over. My paper is done, pending last minute comments and re-writes ordered by my professors tomorrow night (nearly guaranteed I am sure). My defense of it on Thursday. Then I am a Masters Graduate.

Whew.

If I drink I would get drunk. If I could find someone willing, I'd get laid. I soooooooooooooooooo much want to breath and sleep again.

PDF versions of the paper available soon. I will post the sections on MySpace, and maybe here too.

My brain is mush. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I had put Louie down tonight, the tumor, kidney failure, thyroid condition, anemia, he could barely move this morning and I am sure he could really not see much either.

The last link to my marriage is now gone. And my house is now a very lonely place. I miss them all, Louie, Squeak, and Tabitha. Louie nearly had 18 years, and I would have been happy if it could have been another 18.

He was a good boy.

Because I am a sucker for help, I continue posting here my essay so far, this time (out of order), the Introduction and Chapter 1...

And even if you don't help proofreading it for me, I hope you enjoy it anyways!

“Don’t be afraid of important people, such as Mayor Cavanagh. Just imagine Mayor Cavanagh sitting on the toilet… particularly if he’s in trouble.”

Saul Alinsky to the West Central Organization, circa March 5, 19661

Introduction
They are referred to by many names--community groups/organizations, grassroots groups/organizations, militant local groups/organizations, and so on. They represent movements that ran the entire spectrum of 20th and 21st Centuries causes, whether it was day-to-day problems as local trash pick-up to global issues of political injustices of all stripes. Their jobs were to be the “skunk” in local politics and to shake things up. Their tactics have shaped local neighborhoods, cities, and states. In 2008, their examples even shaped the election of the President of the United States when Barack Obama, a former community organizer, took the game plan of grassroots organizing and applied it towards a Presidential campaign.

Community groups help channel neighborhood frustrations into an organization that can bring attention to these matters. Grassroots groups can be nice, pleasant, and comfortable to work with if you sit on the other side of a conference table with, or they might be hostile, unfriendly, and in your face just as easily. Their goal is never to placate the “powers that be,” but instead to make sure that their issues are addressed, acknowledged, and acted upon.

Saul Alinsky was the father of modern community organizing. It was his work through the Industrial Arts Foundation (IAF) that set the pattern for hundreds of other groups that followed. He was rough, abrasive, and helped changed local politics forever.

One group that was inspired and nurtured by Alinsky, was an organization founded in 1965 on Detroit’s west side known as the West Central Organization (WCO). The WCO was a community group that represented numerous other area community groups which dedicated itself to bring about social, institutional, and political change to an area of Detroit’s west side roughly bordering Woodward Avenue to the east, 14th Street to the west, West Grand Boulevard to the north, and the Detroit River to the south.

The West Central Organization holds a unique place in Detroit’s history, but one could not tell by reading the way historians have treated this organization. There are two ways the WCO has been judged by history writers over the past 40 years. Histories that covered the general aspects of Detroit political and social life for regular public consumption have completely ignored this group’s existence. Histories that covered the militant aspects of Detroit political and social life to offer a more radical viewpoint have glossed over the organization, or dismiss the West Central Organization’s existence as a less-than-radical pre-revolutionary organization doomed to failure by its limited polices.

I submit that the West Central Organization should be known as this—it was a radical grassroots organization that completely changed the way government in the City of Detroit operated towards its own citizens and provided the training ground for radicals of much later and more celebrated organizations whose political philosophies still dominate city politics today. The WCO ranks with Mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh, urban renewal, the 1967 rebellion, crime, and police brutality as the people, events, and issues that most affected the City of Detroit during the 1960s for good or ill from that point onwards.

To understand how the West Central Organization came to be, one also needs to understand where the City of Detroit was at during this time, especially with its urban renewal projects that would involve heavily Wayne State University (WSU). To understand how and why the group did what it did, one also has to understand who Saul Alinsky was, what he did, and what he inspired and taught in others.

Chapter 1: Detroit By The 1960s

Detroit during the 1960s was characterized by the automobile industry, urban renewal, and eroding/contentious race relations. All three were inter-related to each other. The automobile industry encouraged the building of expressways and helped create the need for urban renewal projects to replace destroyed properties. A downturn in the automotive industry resulted in increased competition for jobs and stirred up racial tensions among competing racial groups. Urban renewal disproportionably affected African-Americans and added to eroding race relations.

The hostility related to race relations would manifest itself in a number of ways. From many in the white community came open forms of racism, which was reflected in regular and random acts of police brutality. Racist attitudes and paranoia also came forward in the efforts by many whites to actively stop African-Americans from moving into white neighborhoods.

For African-Americans, this hostility would guide many into various acts of militancy. The willingness to physically confront violent racists led to many clashes between black and white individuals or black individuals and the police. Blacks would struggle with the mostly white Board of Education over control of public education, as evident by the Northern High School walkout on April 7, 1966.1 African-Americans had also become increasingly involved with new political and social philosophies that emerged from the Civil Rights struggle—Black Christian Nationalism and Black Power movements. By 1965, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Michigan Civil Rights Commission saw rising complaints about discriminatory practices in job hiring of blacks by whites.2

The automobile industry made Detroit the fifth largest city in the country by the 1960s and dominated all aspects of city life as the primary economic engine of the region. Without its presence, the city of Detroit would have been a fraction of its size and an overwhelming white population. The industry helped make modern suburbia possible. It helped spur the freeway portion of urban renewal, and it also drew hundreds of thousands of people to the city. In two waves came the great internal migration of African-Americans to Northern cities in general and Detroit specifically. The first Great Migration before and after the First World War saw the rise of Detroit’s African-American population from 5,741 in 1910 to 120,066 by 1930.3 The second Great Migration took place during and after World War II. As war production increased demand for workers, African-Americans (along with whites from Appalachia) continued to pour into Detroit looking for work. The African-American population increased from 149,199 in 1940 to 487,174 by 1960.4

Downturns and economic slumps within the automobile industry throughout the 1950s had caused serious troubles for the city. The smaller automobile firms suffered blow by blow during the entire decade. They were badly capitalized, and struggled with declining market share (in total from 18 percent in 1948 to 5 percent by 1955). In an effort to maintain profitability, the smaller automotive firms increasingly turned to automation, costing the metropolitan Detroit region thousands of jobs. Capitalization soon hampered these efforts, as the smaller automotive companies could not compete with Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors in both technology advancements and in keeping profitable while retooling their plants.5 By 1954, Hudson and Nash Motors had merged to form American Motors. Kaiser Motors merged with Willys-Overland Motors, the makers of the Jeep brand. Chrysler shut down its DeSoto line by 1961.6 Studebaker and Packard Motors merged and eventually folded by 1962.7 Ford moved its Lincoln division from Detroit to Wayne, Michigan.8 By the mid-1950s, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors began to no longer rely on independent suppliers and began to produce their own parts and auto bodies in automated assembly plants. In 1953, Chrysler absorbed Briggs Auto Body. In 1954, Murray Auto Body closed its doors and in 1956 Motor Products closed its Mack Avenue facility.9 Firms began locating jobs outside the city to the larger spaces of the suburbs. Historian Thomas Sugrue figured that Detroit lost 134,000 manufacturing jobs between 1947 and 1963.10 African-Americans were hit harder as a result of the job losses. They were unemployed from the automotive manufacturing sector in 1960 at the rate of 19.7 percent compared to their white co-workers at 5.8 percent. African-Americans were more than likely to have lesser seniority than their white counterparts, as most were hired from the late 1940s to the early 1950s (with the refrain of “Last Hired, First Fired” becoming common). Blacks also had to face greater likelihood of job discrimination if the business was smaller and/or relocated to the suburbs. Finally, African-Americans often were ghettoized within the industry into working unskilled and dangerous jobs—which were more likely to be eliminated due to automation.11

These changes directly affected Detroit’s budget, causing budgetary shortfalls, with a projected deficit of $29 million by the end of the 1962 fiscal year.12 In an effort to eliminate budget problems (and not cut back on services), the City of Detroit embarked on two plans to increase income into the city. One plan resulted in the creation of a city income tax.13 The other was to continue to expand urban renewal.

The Detroit Plan Commission saw urban renewal as a perfect one-two punch. Urban renewal would remove blighted areas. The removal of blighted areas allowed new development with higher tax assessment rates. A grant study put together by the Planning Commission in 1962 basically outlined this idea. “When Old Structures are replaced by new ones, striking increases in assessed values usually result.”14 The Planning Commission outlined all the reasons as to why blight existed. Low-income households, population turnover, pattern rigidity, structural deficiencies, and rural immigrants unfamiliar with proper urban home maintenance. Developments that were already considered successful, like Lafayette Park, the Medical Center, and University City, were used to bolster the argument for even further plans. The report even outlined the costs associated with condemnation and development.15

What the Planning Commission never considered were the long-term costs for displacement of the residents who were forced to relocate. Over time, the Lodge Freeway destroyed Detroit’s Chinatown, Lafayette Park, and the Chrysler Freeway wiped out the African-American enclave known as the Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, and the new West Side Industrial development zone continued to threaten Corktown and the local Maltese community. The building of freeways south of Grand Boulevard itself resulted in an estimated 7,660 families and 6,730 single individuals who were forced to relocate with little to no compensation.16 As the freeway and urban renewal agenda continued into the 1960s, this policy would have consequences.

The one issue that effectively altered life in Detroit was race relations. Joel Aberbach and Jack Walker’s Race In The City from 1973 contended that Detroit was basically divided into four core racial groups, two black and two white. The detailed study showed the researchers bias towards class-based research and, as a result, was clearly general in nature. The study also fails to examine the thousands of black and white citizenry who were either apolitical/apathetic to politics or decided to engage in practices outside of societal norms (like drug addicts or career criminals). Aberbach and Walker did provide a general guideline on a way to view the political situation in Detroit throughout the 1960s. One group they referred to as Traditional Blacks. According to Aberbach and Walker, Traditional Blacks were more inclined to be religious and accepting of social orders. Another group in the African-American community was identified as Black Militants. Black Militants were younger and demanded immediate changes to the social order. Aberbach and Walker claimed that the white community in Detroit also was divided into two core groups. Progressive Whites represented the long-entrenched Democratic power structure in the city and heavily supported by middle class whites in Detroit. Progressive Whites in general accepted the need for change, but were seen as also protecting their own power base. Being in power, Progressive Whites were assailed by Black Militants--who scorned them as being too patronizing. The fourth group, according to Aberbach and Walker, were called Reactionary Whites. Reactionary Whites were generally working-class competitors in the workplace with African-Americans and distrusted expansion of their power. Aberbach and Walker contended in their study that Reactionary Whites had a deep-seated distrust of government and an extensive fear of criminal activity. To many Reactionary Whites, Progressive Whites gave in too much to Black Militant and other radical group demands. Aberbach and Walker stated that Reactionary Whites fought the hardest to keep de facto segregation polices in place throughout the city.17

The interplay between all four of these groups dominated nearly every aspect of life in Detroit. Progressive Whites might have seen themselves as the ones who could solve the social ills of Detroit, but they were also the ones who initiated the plans that contributed to the growing discord between the groups. Mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh was the epitome of the Kennedy-era Democrat and a Progressive White. Elected at the age of 33, he quickly initiated a number of projects to improve the city, including his own anti-poverty program. Capitalizing on President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program18, Mayor Cavanagh was able to obtain actual and promised monies into the tens of millions of dollars for Detroit.19

Having been elected in part due to the African-American vote in the city, Cavanagh tried to demonstrate that he was a friend of African-Americans. He had initiated a number of directives to improve the racial situation in the city. Among the executive decisions he made was to demand equal opportunity for African-Americans in regard to city employee promotions. Cavanagh also appointed George Edwards as Police Commissioner.20 Edwards, a member of the Socialist Party prior to World War II, endeavored to initiate polices to change the police department’s structure. He began the hiring of more African-American police officers. Edwards also agreed with Cavanagh’s urban renewal policies. But confronted by a steadily rising crime rate, a hostile police force with low-morale and their white supporters, Edwards was unable to affect the change he wanted.21 Edwards resigned his post as Police Commissioner in 1963 and in November 1965 summed-up the core issues that plague law enforcement, “…local police forces generally regard themselves as public servants with the responsibility of maintaining law and order, they tend to minimize this attitude when they are patrolling area that are heavily populated with Negro citizens. There, they tend to view each person on the streets as a potential criminal or enemy, and all too often this attitude is reciprocated. …It has been a major cause for all recent race riots.”22 Even with that setback, Cavanagh’s nationwide reputation remained strong. His charismatic promotional skills gave Detroit the appearance of a city on the rise again. It seemed to outside observers that it had solved its racial problems. Cavanagh continued to triumph Detroit as the “Model City,” an example of social and urban planning following Johnson’s Great Society programs for other cities to follow.

This “Model City” tag would be shown as a farce as the decade ended. Freeway construction, urban renewal polices, and stories of police abuse and killing of blacks undermined all the goodwill Cavanagh had created within the African-American community. From the time Cavanagh took office until the 1967 Rebellion, 25,927 structures in Detroit were demolished while only 15,494 were built. Housing problems and overcrowding, a problem since World War II, got only worse.23 More African-Americans in Detroit disproportionably lost their homes than whites did. By 1962, the Detroit News estimated that 160,000 (or one-third) of Detroit’s African-American population had been negatively affected by urban renewal.24 On top of it all, housing discrimination and unofficial segregation imposed by white Detroiters severely limited the locations any African-American could live.25

West Central Organization member and later Detroit City Councilwoman, Shelia (Murphy) Cockrel referred to as almost “pathological” the way Mayor Cavanagh was “tone-deaf” to the major problem with white racism and brutality within the Detroit Police Department during the 1960s. To Councilwoman Cockrel, Cavanagh appeared to be too caught up in the Irish-based Liberal-Democratic culture to realize that what he was doing was not enough to address the needs of the African-American community.26

Two incidents highlighted the tension between the white police force and the black community. On the early morning of July 5, 1964, a middle-aged black prostitute named Cynthia Scott got into an altercation with Officer Theodore Spicher and his partner after they began to harass Ms. Scott. Scott was a well-known figure in the 12th Street area where she worked and who had accumulated a number of arrests involving similar confrontations. The encounter between them turned ugly as a drunken Ms. Scott allegedly pulled a knife on the officers. The officers responded by shooting Ms. Davis dead with one shot in the stomach and two in the back. The officers were eventually cleared of all wrongful death charges on the grounds of self-defense. On July 13, several hundred protestors including James and Grace Lee Boggs and Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. protested Detroit Police headquarters over the death of “Saint Cynthia.”27

The following year the plight of Howard King, Jr. got the direct involvement of the WCO. On September 12, 1965, a groups of African-American kids were playing football on Pine Street between 12th Street and Vermont with Officers Parker and Stratton pulled up in their squad car to order them on the sidewalk and to ask why they were not using the neighborhood park. King went to retrieve the football still in the street when the cops called him over to the car and asked King for his I.D. King responded that he had no I.D. and then told him his address. Apparently not liking the response, Officers Parker and Stratton order King into the vehicle and as King began to push over a briefcase on the seat, Parker shoved him into the car. King’s cousin Henry Jackson told Officer Parker that pushing him was unnecessary, Parker responded by pulling out his nightstick and hitting Jackson in his arm with it. Soon Parker and Jackson began to wrestle with both officers. A increasingly angry crowd gathered which resulted in Parker drawing his gun and ordering the crowd to disperse. Police backup arrived to break up the crowd and chase off a photographer from CKLW television in neighboring Windsor, Ontario.28,29

Three out of the four kids who were arrested were beaten at the scene, handcuffed, and taken to the Vernor police station. King and Jackson were further beaten and kicked at the police station by the police. King would suffer a broken hand and nine stitches to close a wound over the left eye. None of the arrested was ever charged with a crime.30 Witnessing the events in the Vernor Station was African-American officer Kenneth Johnson. Officer Johnson reported to Sgt. Henry Jason that he witnessed Officer Parker and other white officers kick and drag face down king while handcuffed.31

Unfortunately for the police, Howard King’s aunt was Margaret Shire, one of the founding members of the WCO and Police Activity Spokesman for the group.32, 33 Through Mrs. Shire’s encouragement, the WCO began to pursue the actions of the police. On September 17, on his way to meet with Ronnie Freeman of the WCO to file a complaint, King was again was stopped by the police and ordered to produce identification.34
While the WCO began to pressure the police, city, and state officials, Officer Johnson was now being harassed at the 2nd Precinct on Vernor and had to be transferred out to another station. Officers Parker and Stratton were suspended from duty.35, 36

On October 26, 1965, members of the WCO picketed Police Commission Ray Girardin and were holding her personally responsible for the actions of all the officers in the West Central area (Precincts 1, 2, and 13). They left Commissioner Girardin a gift of a nightstick sheathed with foam rubber. Attached to the stick was a bag of black and white jellybeans. The idea behind the prop was that symbolically the nightstick could not be used without the disruption of the peacefully integrated community.37 The WCO continued to hound Commissioner Girardin to take action on the incident and to fire the officers involved throughout 1966. The WCO also pushed for a complete inspection of the 2nd Precinct and the establishment of a Citizen’s Review Board to review conducts of officers in that precinct. The WCO pressured even further, demanding Commissioner Girardin and Mayor Cavanagh start the process of racial integration of the police force and to end police intimidation and name-calling.38

The Michigan Civil Rights Commission had taken King’s statement at the WCO in September 1965, but it took until July 17, 1966 for Howard King to give his testimony to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).39 As late as June 1966, the Citizen’s Complaint Bureau of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission’s final report had yet to be released on the incident. The WCO warned it would make the incident a public matter if the issue was addressed. They apparently went through on the threat as on July 8, The Detroit Free Press reported the story.40, 41

On June 24, 1966, an Inspector Harge stationed at Police Headquarters on 1300 Beaubien refused to meet with the WCO on a Progress Review Board Meeting. The WCO delegation, led by WCO’s President Reverend Richard Venus and Mrs. Howard King found the “open door policy” as promised by Inspector Harge previously to be completely false. Inspector Harge, the WCO was informed, was out of the station. Further investigation found the Inspector in his office meeting other visitors and refusing to meet the group. Asked to explain himself by the WCO, Inspector Harge summed up the hostility of the white police force to the investigation, “Seventy-Five percent of B&E is (sic) done by teens, and you are telling me about police harassment!”42

Outside the black press, the story of Howard King, Jr. was in the end little told. The final fates of Officers Parker, Stratton, and Johnson are not known. But the fate of Howard King, Jr. would be news again, and it would be more of the same. On July 18, 1966, a white 18-year old named Danny White assaulted King. King returned the favor by hitting White’s car with a baseball bat. White returned with the police who then gave chase to King until he was cornered at his home. Howard’s mother confronted the police and was soon also set upon by them. She too was beaten and even bit by one of the officers.43 The WCO demanded Mayor Cavanagh’s presence at a rally for Howard King on Campus Martius Square (which he did not attend). Mrs. King was convinced the police were targeting her and her family and wanted protection from them.44 Mayor Cavanagh finally met with the WCO about the incidents on July 25. The WCO pressed their demands again, but no commitments were known to have been made by the Mayor’s office. Margaret Shire, now a WCO Vice-President, stated plainly to Mayor Cavanagh that police/community relations had broken down. It was a warning that went unheeded and had its own tragic consequences a year later.45

The stories of Howard King, Jr. and Cynthia Scott happened with far too much frequency to the African-American community by Detroit’s white police force. Resentment and anger from those Black Militants soon found voice in the movement of Black Christian Nationalism, encouraged especially by the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr. and his Central Congregational Church (later known as the Shrine of the Black Madonna) on Linwood and Hogarth, not far from 12th Street.46 Unlike the Black Power movement, which had one of its core principals in Marxist-Leninist economic and political theory, Black Christian Nationalism championed the caused of African-American empowerment and self-determination with its core principals based in Christian philosophy, especially that of the earliest Christian church before the philosophies of Paul the Apostle took hold. To Rev. Cleage, Paul the Apostle took away the most radical aspects of Jesus’ teachings and it was those teachings of challenging authority they most gravitated to. Cleage regularly challenged existing black and white power structures in the city.47

In many ways, Traditional Blacks could rely on the “scarier” Black Militants like Rev. Cleage to help get their agenda items approved by White Progressives. Rev. Nicholas Hood of the Plymouth Congregational Church created in 1961 the Fellowship of Urban Renewal Churches after he found out that his church was slated to be victim to urban renewal. This coalition of clergymen had gotten nowhere with Mayor Louis C. Miriani in their efforts, so they backed Cavanagh for the office. When Cavanagh was elected, overnight the policy towards the group changed. Hood worked with the U.S. Government’s Department of Housing and Urban Development to create the Medical Center Court, which was a 20-acre 230-unit development and was the first low to moderate-income project built in Detroit since World War II. Rev. Hood was also about to move his church to its current location on East Warren and St. Antoine. Nicholas Hood’s efforts helped win him election to the Detroit Common Council in 1965.48 To Hood, Rev. Cleage served a valuable purpose, even if what he stood for never came to be, “In the city we’ve got to have the thrust of an Al Cleage, because he scares people half to death and then they open the door to me.”49

By the time of the Rebellion of 1967, urban renewal programs had created a vicious cycle. The more programs that were created to improve the lives of Detroiters wound up instead displacing and angering thousands of its poorest citizens. Acts of police brutality further angered the community. Black Militant’s in Detroit would become increasingly resentful of these projects and white law enforcement and started to draw more Traditional Blacks to their cause. White Reactionary response to the rise of more Black Militants was equally negative and they also started to draw greater support from those who had previously supported the White Progressive elite. White Progressives and Traditional Blacks power bases eroded.50 By the time the 1970s started, Detroiters increasingly turned to answers from those who could be identified as Black Militants and Reactionary Whites.

There was one person, not a Detroiter, who was instrumental in creating a movement that helped change the history of the city of Detroit. Stepping into the fray in Detroit was a professional radical known as Saul Alinsky.

Introduction

1 Guggenheim, Joe. March 5/August 10, 1966. "3-5 Session, 8-10 Session (Meeting Notes)." In New Detroit, Inc. Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

Chapter 1

1 Franklin, Barry M. 2004. "Community, Race, and Curriculum in Detroit: The Northern High School Walkout." History of Education 33, no. 2 (2004): 137-40.

2 Thompson, Heather Ann. 1999. "Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City: Detroit 1945-1980." Journal of Urban History 25, no. 2 (1999): 174.

3 Anonymous. 1966. The Detroit Low-Income Negro Family, edited by Research Department of the Detroit Urban League. Detroit: Detroit Urban League, 5.

4 Walker, Joel D. Aberbach and Jack L. 1973. Race In The City: Political Trust and Public Policy in the New Urban System. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 9.

5 Sugrue, Thomas J. 1996. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 136.

6 Anonymous. 2007. Walter P. Chrysler Museum 2005 [cited March 7, 2009]. Available from http://www.chryslerheritage.com/pg500chron.php?pageNum=1&totalRows=93&year=1960d.

7 Anonymous. 2007. Timeline Cars 2007 [cited March 7, 2009]. Available from http://timelines.ws/subjects/Cars.HTML.

8 Anonymous. 2007. Lincoln Motor Company Plant 2003 [cited March 7, 2009]. Available from http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/detroit/d35.htm.

9 Sugrue, Thomas J. 1996. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 136-137.

10 McGraw, Peter Gavrilovich and Bill. 2000. The Detroit Almanac. Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 294.

11 Sugrue, Thomas J. 1996. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 144-145.

12 Fine, Sidney. 1989. Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 17.

13 Ibid, 17.

14 Detroit Plan Commission. 1962. Renewal and Revenue. Detroit: City of Detroit, V.

15 Ibid, 1-5, 93-95.

16 Woodford, Arthur M. 2001. This Is Detroit 1701-2001. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 168-169.

17 Walker, Joel D. Aberbach and Jack L. 1973. Race In The City: Political Trust and Public Policy in the New Urban System. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 93-101.

18 Fine, Sidney. 1989. Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 71.

19 McGraw, Peter Gavrilovich and Bill. 2000. The Detroit Almanac. Detroit: Detroit Free Press, 265.

20 Fine, Sidney. 1989. Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 17-21.

21 Jones, E. Michael. 2004. The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 394-399.

22 Widick, B.J. 1989. Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 161.

23 Jones, E. Michael. 2004. The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 392.

24 Carlisle, Jack Crellin and John M. 1963. Cry for Freedom Rings out to Throng. Detroit News, June 24, 4A, quoted in The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing, 392.

25 Fine, Sidney. 1989. Violence in the Model City: The Cavanagh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 58-61.

26 Bottorff Jr, Ray. 2009. "(Telephone Interview with Councilwoman Sheila M. Cockrel)." Detroit: (Unpublished), Conducted: February 12, 2009.

27 Dillard, Angela D. 2007. Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 267-268.

28 Anonymous. July 12, 1966. "(Statement to F.B.I. By Howard King, Jr.)." In David Cohen Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 2. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1-2.

29 Anonymous. Undated (circa 1966). "Police Cases (West Central Organization)." In New Detroit, Inc. Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 2. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

30 Ibid.

31 Anonymous. 1966. "Police Brutality Cover-up Charged." Detroit Free Press, July 8, 1966, 1.

32 Anonymous. July 12, 1966. "(Statement to the F.B.I. By Howard King, Jr.)." In David Cohen Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 2. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

33 Shire, Margaret. August 9, 1966. "Letter to W.C.O. Delegate Body from Mrs. Margaret Shire, Police Activity Spokesman, Subject: Police Community Relations Activity Report." In New Detroit, Inc. Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

34 Anonymous. Undated (circa 1966). "Police Cases (West Central Organization)." In New Detroit, Inc. Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 2. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

35 Anonymous. 1966. "Howard King Beat Again His Mother Bit on Neck." The Michigan Chronicle, July 30, 1966, 1 clipping.

36 Shire, Margaret. August 9, 1966. "Letter to W.C.O. Delegate Body from Mrs. Margaret Shire, Police Activity Spokesman, Subject: Police Community Relations Activity Report." In New Detroit, Inc. Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

37 Anonymous. 1965. "WCO Pickets Police." The Michigan Chronicle, November 6, 1965, 1 clipping.

38 Anonymous. June 26, 1966. "Police Resolutions Adopted June 26, 1966 (West Central Organization)." In Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

39 Anonymous. July 12, 1966. "(Statement to the F.B.I. By Howard King, Jr.)." In David Cohen Collection, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 2. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

40 Venus, Reverend Richard. June 27, 1966. "(Letter to Police Commissioner Ray Girardin and Burton I. Gordon, Michigan Civil Rights Commission, Howard King, Jr. Incident)." In Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

41 Anonymous. 1966. "Police Brutality Cover-up Charged." Detroit Free Press, July 8, 1966, 1.

42 Anonymous. June 27, 1966. "(West Central Organization Press Release) for Immediate Release (Howard King, Jr. Incident)." In Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

43 Anonymous. 1966. "Howard King Beat Again His Mother Bit on Neck." The Michigan Chronicle, July 30, 1966, 1 clipping.

44 Shire, Margaret. July 18, 1966. "(Telegram on Howard King Incident)." In Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

45 Shire, Margaret. July 28, 1966. "(Telegram on Howard King Incident)." In Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

46 Dillard, Angela D. 2007. Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 204.

47 Ibid, 253-263.

48 Ibid, 202-203.

49 Ibid, 263.

50 Jones, E. Michael. 2004. The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 394.J

Because I feel like it, I am previewing one of the Chapters on my Master's Essay that I am writing as I type this...

This is RAW DRAFT, which means I have done ZERO spelling and grammar corrections. If anyone would like to help me by being a proof reader for the paper, I will owe you dinner!

So here is Chapter Two:

Chapter 2: Saul Alinsky, Radical Pioneer
Saul Alinsky did nothing less than change American politics. And by extension, his lessons also changed Detroit politics. Alinsky fundamentally altered structure of the flow of democratic power, by investing in people on the lowest strata of the process and taught them how to have a voice so those on the highest strata had to take heed of them.
Born in Chicago to Sarah and Benjamin Alinsky on January 30, 1909, Saul Alinsky was raised in a tight-knit ethnic ghetto where the kids on the street often graduated as future members of criminal gangs and, eventually, Al Capone’s mob. Alinsky started running with the “wrong crowd” and joined an area street gang. Horrified, Saul’s mother took him to an area rabbit to help set him straight. As historian P. David Finks wrote about it, “He gave Saul a maxim of the great Rabbi Hillel: “Where are no men, be thou a man.” Alinsky never forgot it.”1
Saul’s parents divorced as a child and he spent time between his father in Los Angeles and his mother in Chicago. Saul’s father was as cold and distant as Saul’s mother was warm and caring. Saul’s father eventually agreed to pay Saul’s way through college, but only if Saul agreed to relieve his father of any further responsibility for him. By doing so, Saul had gained a level in independence afforded to few seventeen year olds.2
Alinsky attended the University of Chicago during the 1920s when it had what was considered one of the world’s premiere sociology departments. Alinsky would come to be influenced by newspaper reporter turned sociologist, Robert Ezra Park, who was the most famous person of the “Chicago School” of sociology.3
After graduation in 1930, Alinsky could not find a job in the midst of the depression, so he hung around the University until he was awarded a fellowship to study social science in graduate school. The fellowship provided tuition, room and board. Alinsky decided to study criminology, especially that of organized crime.4 Alinsky then began to hang around the Lexington Motel in Chicago, home to Capone mob. He let the gangsters there know that he was a university student and wanted to study how gangs operated. Eventually Alinsky earned the mobsters’ trust, and say both the glamorous and dark side to a life of organized crime.5 Frank Nitti, head of the Capone mob while Al Capone was in prison, explained to Saul why they hired out of town killers for local hit-man jobs, “It was one thing to shoot a stranger, Nitti explained, but much tougher when he had to kill a guy he knew…”6 For Alinsky, this taught him a valuable lesson about the “terrific importance of personal relationships.”7
Alinsky’s work with the Capone gang got him the notice of Clifford R. Shaw, director of the Chicago-based Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR). The IJR provided diagnostic studies of delinquents brought before the city’s juvenile court. Alinsky took up the offer to become a field researcher. This work as a field researcher got him in contact with the same type of Chicago gangs he grew up with and it also led him to a job as prison sociologist at the Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet.8
Alinsky’s skills in maintaining good relations with both the underworld and prison officials served him well on the job, and helped develop his abilities to work with vastly different groups. He was seen as a professional worker, but became disenchanted with the work he was doing. He found that his work was not being used for rehabilitation.9 Saul decided further work in the field of criminology was not for him, “I’ve never encountered such a mass of morons as in the field of criminology.”10
As his time at Joliet ended, the IJR sent Alinsky to Chicago’s west-side neighborhood known as “Back of the Yards” in order to get to know the neighborhood, find local leaders, and help organize an anti-juvenile delinquency program. Arriving at the same time to the same area was John L. Lewis, the President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) who was looking to organize the meat industry and their “Big Four” meat packing companies (Swift, Armour, Wilson, and Cudahy). Alinsky would soon come in contact with the union activists and found himself impressed on how good they were in organizing members. In time, Alinsky began moonlighting as a CIO organizer.11
By 1939, the CIO was running into a roadblock in organizing the packinghouse union, as they found themselves being challenged by local priests who took an anti-CIO stance due to the involvement of some communists within the union. Members of the Catholic Church did not want to cross their local parishes to join the CIO.12 Saul decided what needed to be done was to organize the entire Back of the Yards neighborhood. This was no easy task, as this slum area with filled with ethnic groups that hated each other, Poles, Mexicans, African-Americans, Lithuanians, Germans, and Hungarians.13
During the spring and summer of 1939, Alinsky worked with local pastors to strengthen the neighborhood and get them to become involved. The Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council held its constitutional convention on July 14, 1939. They issued their support for the CIO. Two nights later, Alinsky managed to get Bishop Bernard J. “Bennie” Sheil, Archdiocese of Chicago’s Senior Auxiliary Bishop and founder of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), to sit down with CIO President Lewis in order to support the group.14 The fight with the packing companies was brief and the CIO was able to organize the meatpackers. Time Magazine praised the community partnership.15
The first year of the Back of the Yards Organization (BYO) worked on much the same issues the West Central Organization would 25 years later—much of it involving little issues and small victories, but all helped strengthen the group within the community. The BYO focused its attention on issues and made complaints in regards to municipal services, police patrols, light repairs, vacant home. After much initial feet dragging, city officials soon began to address the complaints.16
Saul’s efforts at union organizing cost him his job with the IJR, so he approached Bishop Sheil about a job. Bishop Sheil suggested that Alinsky start a non-profit group to support his BYO efforts. Bishop Sheil then arranged for Saul to meet with Marshall Field III, the grandson of the founder of the Marshall Fields department stores. In 1936, Marshall Field III had decided to devote his life and fortune to social philanthropy. In August 1940, Field joined with Alinsky and Sheil in forming The Industrial Area Foundation (IAF).17
In 1945, Alinsky published his notes on community organizing called Reveille for Radicals.18 Historian Finks accessed the reason for the success of the book, “Part of the reason for the popularity of Alinsky’s book was the author’s straightforward style and language. It had none of the usual scholarly detachment of political science texts. Reveille was a fiery manifesto, writing on the run by a young American activist.”19
Alinsky argued that there was not enough democracy in the nation, that it had not really been tried in urban neighborhoods or small towns. Saul never considered himself a revolutionary, but instead a radical in the same long tradition of political radicals in the nation’s history, stretching back to Patrick Henry or Samuel Adams. Alinsky’s ideological mentors were not Marx or Lenin, but instead Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Alinsky used Reveille to urge the development of similar “people’s organizations” like his BYO.20
By the time of the 1960s, Saul Alinsky’s work and his IAF organization had worked with many groups in Chicago and around the nation. He aided Fred Ross and Cesar Chavez’s efforts to organize Mexican works in California.21 Alinsky expanded operations in Chicago into the Woodlawn area, his first efforts in mostly African-American slum.22 His work was in demand.
Alinsky did not mythologize the “nobility of the poor.” In California, Saul saw what became of the desperate dust bowl era farm workers immortalized by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, “Too often I’ve seen the have-nots turn into haves and become just as crummy as the haves they used to envy.”23
Alinsky also observed conditions on the South Side of Chicago during the 1950s that would letter resemble conditions in the West Central area of Detroit in the 1960s. Alinsky knew better than most the state of race relations in the country due to his work. Most “interracial communities” were not that all to Alinsky, as true integration was not was going on there. “So-called interracial communities are actually communities in a state of transition. They are called interracial during the short period when Negroes are moving in and whites are moving out. On close inspection they turn out only to be bi-racial communities which are shortly entirely Negro.”24
In 1960, events took lace in Chicago that would eerily reflect events in Detroit 5 years later. One of Alinsky’s top organizers, Nicholas Von Hoffman, helped form The Woodlawn Organization (TWO). The goal of the organization was to organize the all-black south side of Chicago the same way BOY had been two decades earlier. One of the major issues involving the neighborhood was that of the expansion of the University of Chicago without consulting with the neighborhood it was expanding into. Alinsky aided the group with his expertise.25
The University of Chicago announced in July 1960 that they would take over a mile long strip of land for the University’s expansion. Pressure from local residents through the Woodlawn Organization forced a temporary back off of the project. The stalemate lasted for several months until Chicago city planners and the University of Chicago decided to proceed with the project. This action refocused the community and the organization, which visited the Mayor’s office en masse, forcing a get together with the Mayor, members of the TWO, and the University’s Chancellor on July 11, 1963.26
During the time of the discussions, Alinsky would act as a “good cop” to the TWO’s “bad cop.” In the end, a Woodlawn Citizens’ Planning Committee would be created to monitor the urban renewal program and assist in the building of low-income housing on vacant land in the area.27 The Woodlawn Organization turned out to be very important to the development of the West Central Organization, as I would help train a WCO founder.
By the time the 1960s had rolled around, Saul Alinsky created, or helped create, organizations that aided in local grassroots activism. Saul was the pied piper of the movement and was a regular in making headlines, even if he was not the direct reason for the activism that was happening. He dressed conversantly and much was often made in press accounts of Alinsky making a $25,000 annual salary with the Industrial Arts Foundation by the mid-1960s. Alinsky used this persona as a way to catch opponents off guard. He went out of his way to often be abrasive and coached those he taught to be the same, “The vitality of life comes out of a matrix of controversy. It is healthy in a democracy. You cannot avoid controversy if you get involved in the issues of change.”28
So now in this tempest brewing known as Detroit came to the mix Saul Alinsky and his disciples. But there is one final piece of the puzzle that would aid in bringing about the WCO, and that would be the history of postwar expansion of Wayne State University (WSU). “Blight by Announcement” as the people of the area known as University City would call it.29 It was Wayne State’s embracement of urban renewal to help aid in its expansion that would be one of the triggers for the creation of the West Central Organization.

1 Finks, P. David. 1984. The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky. Ramsey, New Jersey: Populist Press, 1-3.

2 Ibid, 4-5.

3 Ibid, 6.

4 Ibid, 7.

5 Ibid, 8-9.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid, 9, 11.

9 Ibid, 11-12.

10 Anderson, Patrick. 1966. "Making Trouble Is Alinsky's Business." In New York Times Magazine (in Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs), 14. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, October 9, 1966.

11 Finks, P. David. 1984. The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky. Ramsey, New Jersey: Populist Press, 13-15.

12 Ibid, 16.

13 Anderson, Patrick. 1966. "Making Trouble Is Alinsky's Business." In New York Times Magazine (in Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs), 14. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, October 9, 1966.

14 Finks, P. David. 1984. The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky. Ramsey, New Jersey: Populist Press, 17-18.

15 Ibid, 18-19.

16 Ibid, 21.

17 Ibid, 23-24.

18 Ibid, 29.

19 Ibid, 30.

20 Ibid, 31-32.

21 Ibid, 34-37.

22 Anderson, Patrick. 1966. "Making Trouble Is Alinsky's Business." In New York Times Magazine (in Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs), 14. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, October 9, 1966.

23 Ibid.

24 Finks, P. David. 1984. The Radical Vision of Saul Alinsky. Ramsey, New Jersey: Populist Press, 112.

25 Ibid, 134-136.

26 Ibid, 144, 146, 152=153.

27 Ibid, 153.

28 Blanchard, Allan. 1965. "Alinsky Defends Policy of Stirring up the Poor." In Detroit News (in Jerome P. Cavanagh Collection Papers, 1960-1979, The Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs), 1 clipping. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, October 5, 1965.

29 Mason, Reverend Thomas H. F. Undated (circa 1965). "Wayne State University Vs. Its Own Community." In Office of the President William Rea Keast, Wayne State University Archives, 1. Detroit: Walter Reuther Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University, 1.

Detroit knocked out of top spot as 'Most Miserable City'

The Detroit News

DETROIT -- A mayoral scandal, auto industry woes, rising unemployment and a local NFL team's record losing season in 2008 was not enough for Detroit to retain its title as America's Most Miserable City, according to Forbes.com.

In the site's second annual list of America's 10 Most Miserable Cities, released last week, Detroit ranked No. 7 -- slipping from the top spot claimed last year.

"The Motor City benefited from our revised criteria this year (we added sales tax and sports teams in addition to corruption)," according to the site. "Its 6% sales tax is one of the lowest in the country. The success of Detroit's winter sports teams more than offset the ineptitude of the Lions. The Red Wings and Pistons won two-thirds of their games, including a Stanley Cup title for the Wings."

No. 1 on the list was Stockton, Calif. Rounding out the top five were Memphis, Chicago, Cleveland and Modesto, Calif. Flint also outranked Detroit.

Forbes.com compiled the rankings by examining the nation's 150 largest metropolitan areas -- those with populations of 378,000 or more. Nine factors were cited: commute times, corruption, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, taxes, unemployment, violent crime and weather.


Find this article at:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090210/METRO/902100400

Ah, perfect way to end the 1970s shuffle, with the song that was THE first video shown on MTV. Ah, remember when MTV used to show videos? With TRL cancelled recently, the network made official what has been happening for over 15 years, that it doesn't do videos.

That being said, it was a good run while it lasted, and here is the one that started it all... (as shown on MTV at that time!)

Ah, my iTune / You Tube shuffle continues and now...

There were three bands of my youth that I loved the most. One was Queen. The other The J. Geils Band. And this one, E.L.O. the Electric Light Orchestra...

Sure this song panders to the disco beat, but I love Jeff Lynne's harmonies and vocals.