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.These organizations ultimately provided the institutional framework forthe development of a new community development elite.The New Kids on the Block:Black Civic Leadership, 1970 85The community organizations that emerged in the 1960s were varied intheir origins, purpose, and methods.Some were block clubs and faith-basedorganizations, which were reminiscent of Alinsky neighborhood organi-zations and devoted much of their energy to development (Gills 1991, 43).Others were established under federal antipoverty legislation and empha-sized advocacy and service delivery.While they were designed to promotethe political participation of the poor, they were kept on a tight leash bythe Daley administration, which controlled their membership and leader-ship (Greenstone and Peterson 1973).While these organizations were nota source of strong opposition to the machine, they nonetheless served as  anorganizational infrastructure of trained organizers and leaders, especiallyWHEN WE WERE COLORED  47in poor and minority neighborhoods (Clavel and Wiewel 1991, 25).Themost well known of Chicago s Wrst-wave community organizations werethose like the Woodlawn Organization and the Kenwood Oakland Com-munity Organization, which focused on organizing and building thepolitical capacity of neighborhood residents.They often found themselvesin opposition to the city and Wnancial institutions, as they emphasized opening up access, shaping government policy and practice, or Wghtingfor constituent representation on public boards and commissions (Gills1991, 43).By the next decade, however, the protest and organizing orientationof these community groups was overshadowed by a focus on communityeconomic development.As Rast (1999) argues, Chicago s neighborhoodorganizations began working  not so much in opposition to growth as infavor of an alternative set of economic development priorities to those beingadvanced by the city s traditional growth coalition of business, labor andgovernment leaders (85).They adopted instead what he refers to as a  local-producer strategy, which emphasized preserving and enhancing neighbor-hoods abilities to sustain economic institutions.Community organizationsin Douglas/Grand Boulevard reXected this broader trend.By the 1970s,Wrst-wave community groups had been largely replaced by a band of com-munity development corporations that emphasized  the technical detailsof development over community empowerment (Stoecker 1997, 9; Gills1991, 44) and provided information and Wnancial aid to those seeking toinvest in their homes and businesses.In 1976, for example, the DouglasDevelopment Corporation was founded by a group of Douglas residents.Ayear later, a group of current and prospective residents formed the ChristMediator Housing Group to aid residents in home purchase and improve-ment efforts (Young 1980).Around the same time, residents living in a sec-tion of Douglas formed the Gap Community Organization.3 Neighborhoodresidents used these organizations to challenge or circumvent the institu-tional racism that prevented blacks from building wealth and had mate-rial consequences for their quality of life.For example, they worked to linkprivate rehabbers with reputable contractors, as well as with loan and legalservices (Young 1980).In addition, the staff of the Douglas Development48  WHEN WE WERE COLOREDCorporation gave technical assistance to people trying to move into theneighborhood and rehab their homes.To some degree, this change in strategy and focus reXected chang-ing economic conditions.The decline in manufacturing employment thatbegan in the 1950s caused Chicago to increasingly lose jobs to the nearbysuburbs.These changes hit the city s blacks particularly hard: from 1963to 1977, for example, factory employment in the near South Side neigh-borhoods dropped by 47 percent (Squires et al.1987, 17, 29 30).Thenewly unemployed could not follow their jobs out of the city, nor werethey prepared for the service jobs being created by glittering Loop revi-talization [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]