It is early in August
of 1966, you are 20, and you and your parents are trying to figure out
how they are going to solve a big financial question. Like most of the
"baby boomer" generation that is flooding America's colleges, you are
the first person in your family to attend college.
Your Dad, a veteran of the Second World War, married your mom in 1945
and you were born in 1946. Six months later, thanks to the GI Bill,
your parents moved into your home in Cicero, on the "outskirts" of
Chicago. Although it has sometimes been a struggle, they've been
paying out on a conventional 30year mortgage for just over twenty
years. With luck, they hope they will be able to finish paying off the
house about the same time that your youngest brother will be applying
for college. Their "plan" is tied to the idea that your Dad will
keep working for his company for another ten years, and that will let them pay off the
mortgage. With that done they can use the sale of the family home to finance
both your younger brother's education, and their retirement home in
Florida.
The problem is that there is a "hitch" in "the plan". College costs
have risen faster than your Dad's salary, and your sister and you, as
well as your little brother, have all announced that you want to
attend college. The end result is that the only way your parents think
they can pull all this off, is by taking out a second mortgage – and a
mortgage, whether it is a first or second mortgage, is always tied to
the "value" of the home in question.
That is where the "King
protest" comes in. Your parents have been told that if the protestors
Dr. King has organized get what they want, blacks will move into your
neighborhood. That, according to a local real estate agent, would mean
a drop in the value of your home. A local politician, a neighbor your
Dad has known for years, has asked to use your house for a
neighborhood meeting. His objective, he says, is to explain to people
what "they have at stake". What he wants to do, he tells your dad, is
to get "everyone in the neighborhood" to show up for the next planned
march by the "open housing" movement. That way, he says, "we can show
these outsiders that they can't take over our neighborhood".
