Introduction

The three decades following the end of World War II marked a time of extraordinary change for America's cities. Economic, social and environmental shifts begun during the war escalated in depth and breadth in the 1950s and 1960s. Spurred by federal policies that favored expansion and embraced the automobile, city-dwellers with the means and the pedigree (white, middle and upper-class) fled the city for an expanding "megalopolis" of suburbs linked by arterial interstate highways. Elite city planners, typified by New York's Robert Moses, saw the traditional city center as an impediment to traffic and envisioned a system of bridges and highways cris-crossing Manhattan Island. Beginning with the 1949 Housing Act, federal funds for slum clearance and urban renewal manifested themselves in New York's behemoth-scale projects from the United Nations to Co-op City. Between 1949 and 1960, at least half a million New Yorkers were displaced from their homes. Although some low-income housing projects were constructed, traditional neighborhoods cleared through "slum-clearance" directives were mostly replaced with privately-constructed middle and upper-income housing and minority groups were often forced by racist real estate markets into ghettos in Harlem, the Bronx and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

Of course, historical trends and demographic shifts are far easier to see in hindsight than they are in the moment. In 1945, New York City looked like an industrial powerhouse poised to continue thriving. African Americans from the South and Puerto Ricans were drawn by the promise of well-paying industrial jobs. Simultaneously, a paradigm shift in interstate trucking was already acting like a new star, melting industrial jobs into more sparsely populated regions of the country where industry could be undertaken on a grander scale. These new communities, drawn by the city's promise, remained in its over-stressed neighborhoods, de-prioritzed by the highway-minded city governors.

It would become quite clear by the mid-1950s and 1960s that the city was imperfect and in need. Its communities were in need of empowerment; its institutional racism needed to be eradicated; its people needed to be united. This very need, caused by the chaos of demographic and post-war political shifts shown like a beacon across the hinterland. Tangled up in this chaos and need was a degree of freedom and responsibility craved by young people raised and sheltered in the safe and homogenous America idealized by the builders of suburbs and highways.

Drawn by a desire to get involved, to use their "privilege" to help those seen to be most in need, and simultaneously seeking a community that would embrace their desire for "something different" young people came to the city in the 1950s and 1960s.

Their experiences are distinct but their context is shared. These are their voices.

Tom Roderick

Tom Roderick agreed to be interviewed as part of the Judson Memorial Church Oral History Project. Born in Akron, Ohio in 1942, Mr. Roderick lived in Akron for ten years and then moved with his family to Silver Lake, an affluent suburb of Cuyahoga Falls. After graduating from Cuyahoga Falls high school, Mr. Roderick attended Yale college. At Yale, Mr. Roderick became involved with the Northern Student Movement, originally begun as a northern partner to the Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC. Mr. Roderick's work with the Northern Student Movement running tutoring programs in poor neighborhoods eventually led to his migration to New York City where he attended Bank Street graduate school, taught elementary school in Harlem and ultimately founded the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility.

• Becoming Aware of the World

Tom Roderick's life story is rooted in his midwestern upbringing, a Norman Rockwell childhood viewed by Mr. Roderick with ambivalence. At Yale, Mr. Roderick became involved with the Civil Rights movement for the first time and this involvement underscored his understanding of his sheltered childhood.




And then I became aware of all the things going on in the world. You know, William Sloane Coffin was the chaplain there and he was very inspiring and he preached about the Civil Rights Movement and organized activities for students to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement and I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement at Yale. There was an organization there called Northern Student Movement that was started by a Yale dropout, Peter Countryman and I got involved in the Northern Student Movement. You know I was this very shy, naive, nerdish, Middle-western guy. Again, I mean I'd grown up, it was just like baseball, turkey, apple pie, the Presbyterian Church, the policeman is your friend, you know the whole thing which... And in some sense you know, Norman Rockwell was really true for us. The only black people I'd had any contact with were cleaning ladies quote unquote that my mother would have. There weren't any black people, in fact there was only one Jewish family in Silver Lake and the Catholic families lives on the other side of the lake. (Laughing) So you know, it was a waspy, waspy place. And I was pretty sheltered, but I knew that, not even consciously, but I knew there was something missing in our life.

• Understanding Activism

During his Junior year at Yale, Tom Roderick devoted his energies to organizing a tutoring program in associaiton with the Northern Student Movement. Over the summer between his Junior and Senior years at Yale, Mr. Roderick organized a similar tutoring program in Akron, culminating in a party at his parents' home in Silver Lake. I asked Mr. Roderick whether he had a sense that he would want to pursue similar work professionally and his answer illuminated his understanding of activism at that time.



(Adina: Did you have a sense then that, that this was an interest to pursue, or did you have a sense at all that it could be the start of some kind of professional career? Was there any sense, in your thinking at that time, that there was a separation between those things, or was it just what you were doing?) Yeah, I think so, uh. But, I don't think I was thinking about careers so much, because at that time it seemed like "the times, they were a-changin'" you know and the uh, and maybe all bets were off. Maybe you didn't have a career anymore. Maybe you just spent your life changing society or (laughs) throwing yourself into the movement or whatever...

• Coming to New York

After a "disasterous year" spent working for the Northern Student Movement's tutoring program in Philadelphia, Tom Roderick came to New York City. For Mr. Roderick, Greenwich Village in the 1960s was the perfect place to be.




When it came time to come to New York thought, I had heard about Judson Church, and somehow I had found out that they had a student house. So I remember going and being interviewed by Howard Moody, the minister, and being selected to live in the student house. And at that time, Bank Street College was on Bank Street in the Village. Bank Street was a wonderful experience. At that time it was very fashionable for young people to go into urban education. So I lived in the Judson student house and went to Bank Street and that was a wonderful decision because I had sort of a built in group of adult mentors and young people my age and I was living in the Village which was like I had died and gone to heaven, it was like my dream... it was just the romantic 60s place to be. We would come down, we would go from coffee house to coffee house hearing folk music... It was just Bohemian, it was just so exciting a place to be, and it felt so adult and off the straight midwestern track to be up all night on the street...

• An Educational Community

Launched at Judson House and Bank Street in the Village, Tom Roderick went on to work for the East Harlem Block Schools, an experiment in community-controlled education that provided him an opportunity both to contribute to and learn from a strong New York City community.



So I came to New York in '65, went to Bank Street '65-'66, taught for two years, '66 to '68 and, then in '68 I decided to interview for a position at the East Harlem Block Schools. Now this was a parent-controlled, store-front school that was outside the public system. And they had a first grade-- the parents had not liked the teachers they hired for the first grade-- and now they'd moved up a grade, so now they had a first and second grade, the school was growing up sort of with their kids. They'd started as nurseries but when the kids were old enough to go to elementary school, they wanted to start an elementary school. So anyway, they hired me, and so I then left the public schools and went over to East Harlem where I then spent the next seven years building that into uh, an eight grade elementary school outside of the public system. And that was really where I found my most solid, important community in the city.

Sue Harwig

Sue Harwig is along time member of Judson Church who agreed to be interviewed as part of the Judson Memorial Church oral history project. Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1926, she moved with her family to Wilkinsburgh, PA when she was still an infant. Ms. Harwig attended public school in Wilkinsburgh and then graduated from Swarthmore College in 1947. While at Swarthmore, Ms. Harwig became interested in "causes" and began a life-long pattern of service that continued when she moved to New York City to attend graduate school at the Columbia School of Social Work in 1950. Ms. Harwig has remained in New York ever since, a prominent member of Judson Church, the NAACP, the American Democratic Associaiton, the Village Independent Democrats and Civil Rights in Manhattan.

• Early Activism

Ms. Harwig's interest in activism began when she was a student at Swarthmore, a Quaker college. Hear Ms. Harwig talk about her experience at Swarthmore as she became involved in Quaker work camps and other "causes.




So while I was at college, it was during the war. Even though it was a Quaker college there was a Navy unit at the college called a V12 unit. And sailors were there and when they graduated I think they became ensigns and uh, and served in the Navy. And uh, and I met one or two people who had been conscientious objectors because it was a Quaker college and there was some influence with the Quakers. I went to Quaker uh, Quaker workcamps. There was a couple that ran weekend workcamps in the city, in Philadelphia, and they would work in people's houses sort of fixing things. (Adina: Do you remember what inspired you to do those workcamps?) Well, it was just kind of interesting, it was just kind of fun. I guess, I started getting interested in CAUSES. Ooh is that... I started getting interested in causes at that time.

• Coming to New York City

After graduating from Swarthmore, Sue Harwig began working as a social worker, first in Philadelphia and then in Peoria, Illinois. In Peoria, Ms. Harwig became dissatisfied with her perceived opportunities for personal growth. This dissatisfaction led her to come to New York City in 1950.



I spent the summer in what was called a Student and Industry Project which were kind of sponsored by the Quakers. And we lived in a place in Philadelphia that had been the Deutche Seamensheim, the German seamen's home. And we got jobs in industry and we would have meetings with Union people and we would talk with different people... And I remember talking to somebody in the Textile Workers Union and he said "you look very Wellsley," I think he thought I wouldn't really make it too well as a Union Worker, that I was a little too sheltered, that I would be a little too flumoxed by the men, both the Union staff members as well as other men that worked in... He encouraged me to go work for the Y, so I went to the Y and I worked for the YWCA in young adult work in Peoria, Illinois for three years. Then I came back to New York and I forget what I did next. (Adina: How did you come to New York?) Well my aunts lived there, so I had gone there, you know summers for... Well, I got tired. I got tired of being with the YWCA in Peoria, I got tired of getting alumni magazines that would say "so and so is studying at the Sorbonne, so and so is studying at the London school of economics, and Sue Harwig is still in Peoria!" So I thought, well I've got to come back east. At any rate, I lived with my aunt for a while, and I got a job at the YWCA. It was a sponsor of a community center in the Amsterdam houses. Well eventually I went to social work school in New York, Columbia University School of Social Work.

• Combating Housing Discrimination

In New York City, Sue Harwig became active in a variety of different organizations devoted to civil rights. Among those were the NAACP, Judson Church and CRIM, Civil Rights in Manhattan. Through these organizations, Ms. Harwig worked to combat housing discrimination in Manhattan.

But there was a heck of a lot of housing discrimination. One of the things we worked on in the N-double-A and also at Judson was the Sharkey-Brown-Isaacs bill. There had been various laws passed that outlawed discrimination in government-assisted housing as well as public housing, but the Sharkey-Brown-Isaacs law outlawed discrimination in housing PERIOD. When I started graduate school, there had been an organization called Civil Rights in Manhattan, CRIM, and it had fought restaurant discrimination. But restaurant discrimination had kind of ended by then, by the 50s, it had begun to be over. So it turned its attention to housing discrimination, and I think I joined that... Sometimes we would go, we would test places, we would go, we would answer an ad and uh white person would go on, black people would be told they didn't have anything. And we would do research on that. We would send people out in teams where we would make a point of having a white person check this place and a black person check it.