DATE LINES
Ervin, Michael & Conrow, Joan & Hill, John R. & METZ, HOLLY
DATE LINES Action at the Homestead NEW YORK CITY Last year, in the basement of an abandoned Lower East Side building, twenty-three-year-old Matthew Lee and a few associates started the Inner City...
...It's just hard to get it articulated...
...But it wasn't so much a conspiracy as a pattern of interrelations and influences that began to obscure larger community needs and interests...
...John R. Hill (John R. Hill, former reporter and editor for the University of South Florida Oracle, is a correspondent for the St...
...Every Saturday and Sunday, Lee and about ten other homesteaders—mostly newly arrived female Puerto Rican immigrants—work all day clearing debris out of a sixty-year-old four-story tenement on a street commonly used by car thieves to strip cars...
...There still is a huge well-spring of feeling about a slow, balanced approach to growth on Kauai," says Blaich...
...Hasegawa's determination to see the project through was shared by the state's pro-development forces, who charged that the Nukolii dispute was giving Hawaii a black eye in business and investment circles...
...Among the protesters' fans: drivers of tractor-trailer trucks, a county ambulance crew, a young man in a white Rolls-Royce convertible...
...Our view was that to transform the system, you had to stand within it...
...About 80 per cent of the people out here today are different from those who showed up last week," says protest organizer and South Florida student Michael Granzier...
...But I notice that people are more willing to come out and be heard now...
...Lee learned about city policy while working on a legal homestead organized by RAIN Community Land Trust, a homesteading group that now represents eleven Lower East Side buildings in various stages of rehabilitation...
...The second one drew more than fifty protesters—but The Tampa Tribune, a conservative daily owned by the Media General chain, told its readers that only thirty-five protesters took part...
...And, in this staunchly conservative town better known for its reactionary Cuban population and as the home of Florida's Republican Governor Bob Martinez, the Coalition's ability to organize two such demonstrations made top news stories for the local media...
...But I only took one photo...
...He thinks his Panther past is an asset...
...He beat them all without a runoff...
...If you're working, and not doing drugs, you're okay...
...Anyone who tries to circumvent bureaucratic procedures and seizes a building to renovate is considered an illegal squatter, subject to police ouster...
...Rush had tried to hold the Panther chapter together until 1974 and was the last member when he finally resigned...
...Reagan Can Shove His Big Stick...
...There had been a meeting of Illinois Panther leaders that evening at Hampton's...
...If the Inner City Press homesteaders succeed, they will make sixteen new apartments available to Bronx families...
...Environmentalists tried to have the election declared invalid in a series of court actions—so far without success...
...Holly Metz (Holly Metz is a free-lance writer based in Hoboken, New Jersey...
...It's what the officials want that counts...
...A group of Kauai residents linked to then-Governor George Ariyoshi began another referendum drive to take the Nukolii issue back to the voters...
...Piled in a clean corner room of the Bronx tenement are copies of the Inner City Press, waiting to be delivered...
...Residents attended public hearings in droves to speak against the rezoning...
...There's less stridency, and more compromise and accommodation...
...Despite the overwhelming opposition, though, the Kauai County Council granted Pacific Standard's request...
...Environmental activists fought back with a $5,000 grass-roots campaign...
...Amid the bustle of the blue-suit traffic, fifty members of the Tampa Coalition for Peace and Justice gather to demonstrate against the Reagan Administration's order sending 3,200 U.S...
...But despite his blunt words for the Sawyer forces, Panther-style rhetoric and confrontational tactics are not Rush's usual way...
...The position we took as Panthers required a certain commitment and courage that are qualities we look for in elected officials...
...Alderman Bobby Rush roams the floor, holding conferences with colleagues...
...They don't know what's legal and what's not...
...I only took one photo," the officer says later...
...But the movement is losing some of its effectiveness because development proposals are coming more quickly and the troops are getting weary...
...The first few Lower East Side buildings that RAIN rehabilitated under the city program took five years to complete...
...A strong "good-ol'-boy" network, inextricably linked by ties of land, power, and money, dominates Hawaii's political machine, and many people feel powerless to confront it...
...The demonstration draws critics, too, of course...
...Asked why, he says, "I take a photo of everything I see in my job...
...The first one, held right after Reagan dispatched the troops, drew sixty protesters in a cold and pouring rain-though one television station put the figure at twenty...
...The Panthers never viewed ourselves as being outside the system...
...Vestiges can be seen around his ward...
...I gave six years of my life to the fight, and I didn't see any change on a long-term basis...
...In a move that infuriated environmentalists, the county gave Hasegawa its resort-building permit just one day before Kauai voters went to the polls and chose, by a nearly two-to-one margin, to reject the resort zoning...
...You expect this kind of harassment in Tampa," says Steve Korn, another protester...
...The poorest ward, it includes 38 per cent of the city's public housing...
...Even in Tampa...
...Some people with political pull wanted a resort," says Gary Blaich, president of 1,000 Friends of Kauai, the island's oldest formal environmental group...
...The community interests became obvious when Pacific Standard announced its intent to seek resort zoning for Nukolii...
...High-ranking officials, from judges to county-board commissioners, who have come out of Rush's ward acknowledge they never would have gotten so far so fast without him...
...There's a core of people who are committed...
...And he still has a strong urge for revenge...
...Petersburg Times...
...Thus Rush, former fugitive radical, entered the inner circle of city hall, once the object of his deepest scorn...
...Disillusionment, rather than diminished numbers, may be the most damaging result of the Nukolii defeat...
...The government ignored what the people had to say, and the public hearings were a sham...
...Advocates for the homeless estimate that 60,000 New Yorkers are without permanent shelter, and 200,000 families are waiting for public housing...
...There are 5,000 vacant buildings in New York City, abandoned by private owners, then claimed and boarded up by the city...
...Eleven months later, on December 3, Hampton and another local Panther leader were shot to death in a police raid on Hampton's Chicago apartment...
...So, pretty much on impulse, he ran for alderman again and won...
...subsidiary of a billion-dollar Japanese firm engaged in condominium development...
...We know the resort is here to stay," Soares says...
...But there are also pockets of new and old wealth, with homes that have six-figure price tags...
...But on this day, Rush and other strong Washington loyalists are giving Sawyer a chance...
...Give Peace a Chance, No More Contra Aid, pleads one sign...
...It's a logical progression," he says...
...He's most comfortable asserting his power through efficient organization...
...Rather than picking up a gun and saying I have to defend myself against the police, I can pick up the phone and call the local police commander...
...Council-woman JoAnn Yukimura cast a dissenting vote, apologized to the disappointed crowd, and said, "This is a black day for Kauai...
...You just have to begin...
...An article about "new housing that the lower-income community itself will control" has brought almost a dozen Bronx residents together to homestead a city-owned building...
...Once people are working, it makes more trouble to stop you...
...Rush drew four opponents when he ran for reelection last year, including his old machine opponent...
...The company rapidly began to build condominiums and applied for the rest of the permits it needed to build the resort...
...But these legal renovations take time...
...But Rush takes some comfort in his theory that the Panther raid was the first domino to fall, the beginning of the end for Mayor Richard Daley's machine...
...Rush is lucky to be here at all—lucky to be alive...
...Rush couldn't stand the thought of being left out...
...The people downtown are much more aware of this issue than the students on campus are," Granzier says...
...Sometimes you need strong reasons to break bad habits," says Rush...
...Michael Ervin (Michael Ervin is a free-lance writer in Chicago...
...The people down here wave and honk and yell...
...Activists quickly began a referendum drive to put the issue on the ballot, and Pacific Standard sold its interest to Hasegawa Komuten, the U.S...
...The Nukolii rezoning served to polarize pro- and anti-development forces to an extent never before seen on Kauai...
...Lee, who has moved to the Bronx and taken the Press along, says the paper actively encourages unapproved homesteading—and not just because it creates housing...
...I will never forgive nor forget the police agencies that murdered Fred...
...While local officials slowly verified the election results, Hasegawa Komuten proceeded to build...
...Common are large-scale food drives reminiscent of the breakfast-for-children program, free health clinic, and other "basic survival programs" that first attracted Rush to the Panthers...
...It is the first session since the council selected Eugene Sawyer to succeed Harold Washington as mayor—mostly with the support of white ethnic aldermen who were Washington's strongest opposition...
...Rush had planned to stay overnight, but it was too crowded and he went home...
...Having access to the levers of power is about the only change I see...
...The only low-income homesteads in New York City that worked were illegal first," says Lee...
...a new election law allowed the sending of absentee ballots to carefully targeted sympathetic voters, and Hurricane Iwa arrived to devastate the tourist industry and leave many locals unemployed...
...It was the second Friday in a row that the Coalition, a loose group of local activists and University of South Florida students, held a downtown protest...
...It's a slow process," she says...
...Rush had bitter words for Sawyer's supporters, saying anyone who voted for him was "spitting on the late mayor's grave...
...Still, even Soares doesn't believe that environmental activists should abandon the fight...
...The activists renounced squatting, and the city kicked in renovation funds in return...
...The guys on top make all the decisions, and it has nothing to do with the people...
...And she adds, pointing to the other women, who are sweeping up chunks of plaster, "This is for the future...
...In eight years, only nineteen buildings have been sold to homesteaders in all five boroughs...
...This sale, plus subsequent events, led many activists to believe the hui had been able to assure Pacific Standard that the commission's crucial redistricting would be forthcoming...
...But they willingly tell their stories...
...Rush's apartment was raided the next day, but he was hiding out...
...He made futile attempts to run for the city council and the state legislature in 1975 and 1978 and was selling insurance when the political excitement of Washington's campaign began whipping up in the community around him...
...Construction equipment was sabotaged, and bombs exploded twice in the mayor's office...
...Resort Roils Activists KA VAI ISLAND, HA WAII For much of the past decade, a grass-roots coalition of Ha-waiians was fighting major corporations, their state and county governments, the local police, the construction industry, and sometimes their own families and friends...
...Ultimately, the courts ruled that the election was valid and the half-finished resort was illegal...
...Thirteen more are under construction, and seventeen are "in the pipeline," according to representatives of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development...
...Despite being such a conservative town, Tampa does have a vocal following opposed to Reagan's war in Central America...
...Joan Conrow (Joan Conrow is a free-lance writer based in Hanalei, on the island of Kauai...
...troops to Honduras...
...His ward delivered far more signatures for Washington's reelection petition than any other...
...DATE LINES Action at the Homestead NEW YORK CITY Last year, in the basement of an abandoned Lower East Side building, twenty-three-year-old Matthew Lee and a few associates started the Inner City Press...
...Contra Thugs Smuggle Drugs, proclaims yet another...
...With its ranks decimated and demoralized by the bitter struggle over Nukolii, the movement is in danger of losing the larger war against urbanization of this rural and scenic garden island...
...Tucked into the first issue was a voter-registration form with the heading Know Your Rights and Fight for Them...
...We repudiated those who dropped out...
...It's also so people will be more in control of their lives...
...They shot my door down and scared the hell out of everyone in my building, all based on birdseed...
...Granzier smiled as cars lined six-deep at traffic lights honk in support, with some motorists flashing thumbs-up signs as they pass...
...I don't think it matters where the people stand," says Nukolii activist Jo Soares...
...With a donated mimeograph machine, the squatters churned out twenty-two pages of political commentary, poems, and housing advice in Spanish and English for the city's poor and homeless...
...From Panther to Alderman CHICAGO The Chicago City Council is in session...
...Others, relaxed and confident, head for Happy Hour...
...screams another...
...Under this program, the city provides technical assistance and up to $ 13^000 per unit for electrical and plumbing systems...
...Rush sees this as sophistication—a change in methodology but not in ideology...
...We had a demonstration on campus last week and didn't get squat...
...Inner City Press gives precise advice on how to find out who owns an abandoned building and recommends homesteading in one that's city-owned...
...A carload of young men ride by and one shouts, "Fuck you communist assholes...
...Then the hui sold the land to Pacific Standard Life Insurance Company for $5.25 million...
...Certainly the death of Fred Hampton was a strong enough reason for black people to break the habit of voting along straight party lines...
...As the headline says, You Take It from Here...
...The front-page article talks about the homestead, which workers hope will be completed in a year and a half, with city approval...
...A clique, known here as a hui, whose members included judges, politicians, and businessmen linked to Hawaii's highest courts and governmental offices, originally purchased the land for $1.2 million...
...But homesteaders complain that the poorest people are effectively denied participation in the program, because city policy doesn't allow renovators to live in a building while they're working on it...
...It may also prove to be the last stand for Kauai's environmental movement...
...But the Urban Homesteading Program, which seems a realistic alternative, is often a source of frustration to would-be homesteaders...
...Although the housing department has said it "won't deal with squatters," Lee says activists in the East New York section of Brooklyn persisted in squatting in city-owned buildings until the city agreed to negotiate...
...They are still awaiting a final decisioh but have lost all hope of vindication...
...In the next couple of years, you're going to see this number grow...
...They weren't surprised when pro-resort forces won the election, relying largely on the overwhelmingly favorable absentee vote...
...But you must continue to be aware and politically active, even if only in small ways...
...The political machine is really big, and it takes a lot of people and a lot of energy if you're going to work from the bottom up...
...Admitting that he's "always an optimist," Blaich contends that Kauai's environmentalists "aren't powerless and disinterested...
...In 1969, Rush, whose political background was with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, joined with former NAACP activist Fred Hampton to form the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party...
...Just up the street, a Tampa police officer watching over the demonstration takes photographs...
...Shortly thereafter, the state's Land Use Commission—whose members are appointed by the governor-voted to turn Nukolii from an agricultural district into an urban district and thus cleared the way for its ultimate development...
...The situation turned ugly as protesters linked arms in front of bulldozers...
...It is this overwhelming cynicism that has discouraged Kauai's environmental movement and pushed it into a pattern of concession rather than confrontation...
...Their efforts were fortified by three important factors: Hasegawa contributed heavily to a $150,000 media campaign and agreed to bear the cost of a special election...
...squatters...
...Rush's ward is among the most difficult to serve because it's among the city's most diverse...
...The paper also advises its readers on how to claim the building, obtain technical assistance from an architecture and planning school, and garner support from local community groups and churches...
...In each issue, Lee describes how to turn an empty city-owned building into a home-starting off illegally and working toward entry into the city's Urban Homesteading Program...
...After about ten days, Rush made a public surrender...
...Another, who can take only temporary work because she has polio and her legs swell periodically, immobilizing her, remarks that "being on public assistance don't help you build no kind of future...
...Rush thinks this swelled the tide that swept Washington— and Rush—into office in 1983...
...Outside another car, a man exposes himself to two female protesters...
...It is now the Kauai Hilton and Beach Villas, a resort and condominium project that is, in the words of activist John Pilkington, "not just another development, but a symbol of the people of Kauai losing their right to effective self-government...
...Cook County Attorney Edward Hanrahan, who ordered the raid, was stunningly upset in the 1972 election, largely because of the black community's campaign against him...
...The paper notes there is always the possibility of starting another building...
...The battleground was Nu-kolii, once a sixty-acre piece of marshland fronting the last stretch of open beach on southeast Kauai...
...Protests Hit Conservative Town TAMPA, FLORIDA Friday afternoon rush hour at the intersection of Ashley Street and Kennedy Boulevard...
...They [the police] said I had a bag of marijuana, which turned out to be birdseed...
...They'll do something if they're ordered by the city...
...Many of the women are single mothers, some of them on public assistance, so they don't want to be identified...
...But Lee notes that "the police do very little about 'Inner City Press' homesteaders are turning an abandoned Bronx tenement into a home for sixteen families...
...Some curse at the traffic lights delaying for precious moments the start of another weekend...
...That seemed especially true with Nukolii, a project that particularly rankled activists because it appeared to receive preferential treatment throughout the development process...
...One woman talks about living doubled-up with her relatives—fifteen people in a one-bedroom apartment...
...But the activists' victory was short-lived...
...Across the cover, the Inner City Press proclaimed its purpose: To inspire, to give pride, to move us forward...
...Volunteers delivered 10,000 copies to shelters, health clinics, check cashiers, and public libraries...
Vol. 52 • June 1988 • No. 6
