Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama [72]
“So what makes you think they can work together now?”
“They don’t have any choice. Not if they want their jobs back.”
As we reentered the highway, Marty began to tell me more about the organization he’d built. The idea had first come to him two years earlier, he said, when he’d read reports of the plant closings and layoffs then sweeping across South Chicago and the southern suburbs. With the help of a sympathetic Catholic auxiliary bishop, he’d gone to meet with pastors and church members in the area, and heard both blacks and whites talk about their shame of unemployment, their fear of losing a house or of being cheated out of a pension—their common sense of having been betrayed.
Eventually over twenty suburban churches had agreed to form an organization, which they named the Calumet Community Religious Conference, or CCRC. Another eight churches had joined the city arm of the organization, called Developing Communities Project, or DCP. Things hadn’t moved quite as fast as Marty had hoped; the unions hadn’t yet signed on, and the political war in the city council had proven to be a major distraction. Still, CCRC had recently won its first significant victory: a $500,000 computerized job placement program that the Illinois legislature had agreed to fund. We were on our way to a rally to celebrate this new job bank, Marty explained, the opening shot in a long-term campaign.
“It’s going to take a while to rebuild manufacturing out here,” he said. “Ten years, minimum. But once we get the unions involved, we’ll have a base to negotiate from. In the meantime, we just need to stop the hemorrhage and give people some short-term victories. Something to show people how much power they have once they stop fighting each other and start going after the real enemy.”
“And who’s that?”
Marty shrugged. “The investment bankers. The politicians. The fat cat lobbyists.”
Marty nodded to himself, squinting at the road ahead. Looking at him, I began to suspect that he wasn’t as cynical as he liked to make out, that the plant we’d just left carried a larger meaning for him. Somewhere in his life, I thought, he, too, had been betrayed.
It was twilight by the time we crossed the city line and pulled into the parking lot of a large suburban school, where crowds of people were already making their way into the auditorium. They appeared as Marty had described them: laid-off steelworkers, secretaries, and truck drivers, men and women who smoked a lot and didn’t watch their weight, shopped at Sears or Kmart, drove late-model cars from Detroit and ate at Red Lobster on special occasions. A barrel-chested black man in a cleric’s collar greeted us at the door and Marty introduced him as Deacon Wilbur Milton, copresident of the organization. With his short, reddish beard and round cheeks, the man reminded me of Santa Claus.
“Welcome,” Will said, pumping my hand. “We been wondering when we’d actually get to meet you. Thought maybe Marty just made you up.”
Marty peeked inside the auditorium. “How’s turnout looking?”
“Good so far. Everybody seems to be making their quota. Governor’s people just called to say he’s on his way.”
Marty and Will began walking toward the stage, their heads buried in the evening’s agenda. I started to follow them, but found my path blocked by three black women of indeterminate age. One of them, a pretty woman with orange-tinted hair, introduced herself as Angela, then leaned over to me and whispered, “You’re Barack, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“You don’t know how glad we are to see you.”
“You really don’t,” the older woman next to Angela said. I offered the woman my hand, and she smiled to show off a gold front tooth. “I’m sorry,” she said, taking my hand, “I’m Shirley.” She gestured toward the last woman, dark and heavyset. “This is Mona. Don’t he look clean-cut, Mona?”
“Sure does,” Mona said with a laugh.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Angela said, her voice still lowered a pitch.