Marion Pastor Maintains
“Psychological walls” Mark Gent’s
The Rev. Robert Buchanan, pastor of the Bethel AME Church, Marion, doesn’t like the psychological walls around his home.
He lives on Monroe Street in the heart of Gent’s addition, but the barriers to which he refers don’t surround a circumscribed area. They surround a people. His people.
“Gent’s Addition is a ghetto. It didn’t have to be at first, but restrictions both inside and out have sustained the old ghetto way of life.
By a ghetto, the Rev. Buchanan means “a place where low-income people live in sub-standard housing without the aid other parts of the city receive.”
“Many people who live here don’t consider themselves in a ghetto. They may be, but they don’t want to feel different.”
The Rev. Mr. Buchanan views Gent’s Addition from a different perspective than most blacks in the area. He moved to Marion six years ago from Tennessee and the city’s history of racial docility, a source of pride to many, he sees as a source of today’s problems.
“Some of the barriers that created the ghetto no longer exist, but psychological barriers do. There’s a stigma attached to Gent’s Addition. It can be overcome, but first you have to shake people out of this complacency.”
Outside restrictions are easier for the Rev. Mr. Buchanan and his wife Ethel to describe. They need only to point out facts.
Employment and housing are two of the Rev. Mr. Buchanan’s major concerns.
“Unemployment is not too bad in this area. Under-employment is the problem.
“No Advancement”
“People should have better jobs. You start out as a janitor and you die as a janitor. No advancement plays a vital part in the ghetto way of life.”
There are no black teachers, lawyers, policemen or doctors in Marion. Most local retail merchants have not hired a single black employee for a full-time position.
The Bank of Marion and the Bank of Egypt each have one black employee. General Telephone Co. is the largest employer of blacks in Marion and Central Illinois public Service Co. and the Marion federal penitentiary also have hired blacks.
“It’s tough, really tough,” the Rev. Mr. Buchanan says.
“There are job openings, but a lot of people can’t get jobs. “Black still means you’re a second class citizen to some whites.”
Many blacks who can afford better housing have moved out of Gent’s. But it often takes more than financial resources to move out, according to the Buchanans.
“Federal housing is segregated. All blacks live in the project in Gent’s. They have tried to get in other ones, but can’t, somehow, they never have any openings.”
There is, however, a large waiting list for federal housing.
According to the Williamson County Housing Authority, some people have been on the list since 1967.
Mrs. Buchanan said there are “other places in Marion just as run down as Gent’s. But they can move out easier.
“Maybe they could live in these $150 apartments, but who can afford it? You either have to buy a trailer or low income housing, but there are still some places that find ways to get around renting to blacks.”
The lack of public day-care centers for people who can’t afford private ones has limited female employment. The state Department of Children and Family Services withdrew a $20,000 grant in April, 1971, when no facility could be found for the center.
“Church Women United has a steering committee for a center and we raised enough funds, but private day-care centers blocked the committee action,” Mrs. Buchanan said.
“In six years, we’ve had one person to run for the school board. If someone is selected as a leader from this area, whites always pick what we call an “Uncle Tom.” It’s better not to even have someone like this; they do more harm than good by never demanding anything. Most whites don’t like to hear the truth, but that’s the only thing that can help.”
According to Mrs. Buchanan, the majority of residents in Gent’s voted Republican in the 1972 election. “I don’t know that they really wanted to, but they’re promised things for it.”
Discriminatory practices form only the outer edge of racial separation, but their results have widened the dividing line and created an internal barrier.
“You have to be reaching and have someone step on your hand to know what it means to be hurt and to be black,” the Rev. Mr. Buchanan said.
“In school, the children get the feeling that they’re doomed, there’s no chance, so why try,” Mrs. Buchanan added.
“People don’t have dreams anymore. They just can’t see themselves trying again after having their dreams smashed.”
One of the Rev. Mr. Buchanan’s primary objectives is to motivate blacks to “become a part of Marion, not just Gent’s.”
“One day, blacks will go with America like coffee and cream; we just have to work out our social differences. But younger people are suspicious. You take 200 years of racist separation and you alienate people from each other. We need time to expose people to each other.”
The Rev. Mr. Buchanan said the ministry had brought him closer to the community. Citing congregational meetings with different churches, the minister said such joint activities “have formed a springboard. We need exposure and the church gives us a chance for confrontation with each other. But this doesn’t reach people not involved with the church and only about 50 per cent are involved, with about 25 per cent active.”
Marion blacks are complacent the Rev. Mr. Buchanan says and must be shaken out of it. “But how can a mother or grandmother with a fourth or fifth grade education help but become complacent.
“If a child’s parents provide no incentive, if he doesn’t get motivation in the home, church or school, he’s not going to get it. For a young black person there is no one here he can point to as an image He has no one to identify with and it makes them hostile toward the community. They feel bitter, alienated.”
Relief programs have greatly stifled motivation, the Rev. Mr. Buchanan says, though he emphasized that there are not as many blacks on the county relief rolls as assumed.
“One of the main problems is with Aid to Dependent Children. To get ADC, there can be no man in the house,” a state-wide problem.
“Take a person who can’t find a job and his children are hungry and need clothes or a home. Then he’ll leave so they can get what they need.”
Relief programs also have added to the feeling of “self-doom” described by Mrs. Buchanan. The Rev. Mr. Buchanan explained that expanded checks on blacks for relief eligibility suggest mistrust or black inferiority.
“Relief programs have guidelines. There should be no need to check, but there is a much stronger check on blacks.”
The Rev. Mr. Buchanan is not concerned with correcting the past; his concern lies in what can be done to improve the present.
“The more education blacks get, the more they realize they have been pushed into second class citizenship. They become hostile and reach for better jobs and advancement.
“But just reading and studying facts isn’t going to help. By education, I mean becoming educated to one another’s problems and conditions, an education in understanding.”
The Rev. Mr. Buchanan stressed that the black man should strive to “be accepted first as a man,” not as a black.
“It’s an integrated society that we live in and we have to teach it that way. It wouldn’t make sense to teach just blackness.”
“Blacks in Gent’s are confined by an invisible wall. Gent’s has to be eliminated before blacks in Marion make any progress.”
See Also:
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 1 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 3 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 4 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 5 of 6
1973, Gent’s Addition, Part 6 of 6
(Southern Illinoisan article by Sandy Blumenfeld, published August 13, 1973)