In 1970, Chicago native Frank Collin founded the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) and purchased a two-story building in Marquette Park which he named "Rockwell Hall".
Marquette park chicago police blotter full#
As Sean Maschmann wrote, "It took a full decade for Rockwell to gain something more than notoriety and a reputation for political titillation and buffoonery." This was an unusually large amount of support for Rockwell, who was rarely taken seriously elsewhere in the country. Rockwell organized a "White People's March" on September 10, 1966, in Gage Park, which attracted about 150 supporters. The violent reaction to King's efforts to demonstrate in Marquette Park attracted the attention of American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell, who traveled to Chicago to try to recruit members.
Formation of the National Socialist Party of America More than 40 people were arrested and more than 30 were injured over the day. The white counter-demonstrators fought with police after the marchers left. He said after the march that "I have never seen - even in Mississippi and Alabama - mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I've seen here in Chicago". At one point King was struck in the head with a rock. They attacked the marchers with bricks, bottles and cherry bombs while shouting racial insults.
The marchers were confronted by several thousand white counter-protestors, many of whom displayed Confederate flags and swastikas. King had previously led marches into white neighborhoods elsewhere in the city and been fiercely opposed. On August 5, 1966, King attempted to lead 700 marchers through Marquette Park and neighboring Gage Park to a real estate office on 63rd street. Over 50 people were hurt and 18 cars were burnt. The white residents threw bricks and bottles at the protestors and burnt cars, and the Chicago Police Department appeared to do little to protect the marchers. According to police reports, 700 white residents awaited the demonstrators. On July 31, 1966, 550 white and black civil rights demonstrators, not including King, marched into Marquette Park. He also sought to bring attention to the racial discrimination that blacks faced when trying to buy homes in such blue-collar "white neighborhoods" as Marquette Park. He intended to protest and bring attention to the poor living conditions for blacks in the city in an effort to promote fair housing, as related to real estate and bank practices. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and non-violent protest, moved to a small apartment on Chicago's west side. Western Avenue, the official border between Marquette Park and West Englewood, became the unofficial boundary line between black and white neighborhoods on Chicago's south side. Marquette Park had garnered a reputation as a place black people tried to avoid. Some African Americans had jobs that enabled them to improve their housing, but were limited by discrimination by real estate agents and banks in getting loans, and related approvals. In 1960, some 53 of the neighborhood's 51,347 residents were non-white, and of those 53 residents, three were black. The latter was the site of a race riot in 1949 in which whites attacked blacks, mostly migrants and descendants from the South.
The neighborhood developed a reputation as a " white ethnic" neighborhood, as many second-generation Americans of Irish, German, Polish and most notably Lithuanian descent moved to the neighborhood from other south side neighborhoods, such as Back of the Yards and Englewood. The neighborhood was developed primarily in 1920s it consists mostly of bungalows and single-family housing. The neighborhood is also called Marquette Park by most locals. Marquette Park is the largest park on Chicago's southwest side and is in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. Marquette Park, Chicago, Illinois Background
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