THE MARCH ON MILWAUKEE – 200 NIGHTS

 Despite objections children were included in Father James Groppi’s struggle for justice. 

In a book of poems by Margaret Rozga, the poem, Jeannie’s Birthday Gift, speaks of children involved in the marches.  (200 Nights and one day, Benu Press, Hopkins, MN)

Jeannie’s Birthday Gift

It was Jeannie’s birthday.  We

Had a big family dinner before

Going to St. Boniface to march.

She put on her new tee shirt, just

a plain White shirt, but what she wanted

Mom said no, better not, but she begged

and begged ‘til Mom gave in.  She

never could wash out the egg that

splattered all over Jeannie’s back.

Jesus and the children

People even brought little children to him, but when the disciples saw this they turned them away.  But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”  Lk. 18, vs. 15-17  

Why go through the organizing, the confrontation of hate and violence for 200 nights, in the hope of getting a fair housing law?

Matthew Desmond, in his award winning book,  Evicted,* writes:

The home is the center of life. (p. 293.) The United States was founded on the noble idea that people have “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Each of these three unalienable --- so essential to the American character that the founders saw them as God-given----requires a stable home. (p .300.)

And so the march to Lincoln Avenue.

*Matthew Desmond, Evicted, Crown Publishers, New York, 2016