416 ChaPter^8
so did not want Blacks being given assistance at their expense, as they saw
it.
At the same time, King’s liberal allies had shifted their attentions to
Vietnam at the expense of race relations. Indeed, Vietnam was exacerbating
the divide between American Blacks and Whites. Twice as many Blacks fought
and died in the war, in proportion to population, as Whites, while the United
States spent vastly more in Vietnam than on jobs and education combined for
African Americans. King also spoke out against the war, and his increasing
public criticism of Vietnam in the mid-1960s marked his transformation from
a race leader to a radical spokesperson for all poor or struggling Americans.
King even suggested that Vietnam was in large part responsible for many of
the urban troubles of the era. The racial implications of a war against “gooks”
was not unnoticed by people of color in the United States and the behavior
of the elite, politicians and police forces, was much like America’s military
response in Vietnam. Little wonder, then, that white leaders, who had praised
King’s passivism, were now, as the Reverend charged, jumping ship. In the
summer of 1966, for instance, King decided to bring the movement to the
North, to Chicago, where he would agitate for decent housing in the ghettos
and advocate the formation of tenant unions against the slumlords, many
allied with Mayor Richard Daley, who controlled black communities.
The Chicago campaign, however, was far from successful. As one of King’s
close associates, Andrew Young, explained, “genuine school integration, housing
integration, and employment opportunity for poor blacks was going to require
real sacrifices,” and White people were not as supportive of such goals as they
had been to southern desegregation. And King, as Malcolm had earlier charged,
did not really understand the depths of urban black rage and his nonviolent,
albeit aggressive, approach was called into question, so the movement was
constantly on the defensive. King also saw that northern Whites could be quite
similar to their southern brethren. During one demonstration, thousands of
Whites threw rocks and bottles at King and his associates, burned cars, wore
Klan attire, and waved Nazi and Confederate flags. Later, the Reverend would
tell reporters that he had “never seen—even in Mississippi and Alabama—mobs
as hostile and hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago.” To avoid further violence,
realtors in Chicago merely “promised” to help blacks find adequate housing, a
move which led many blacks to denounce King as a “sellout.” King was, how-
ever, more radicalized than ever after Chicago.