Journal of American History 2013 Davies 736 60

Black Power in Action: The Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation,Robert F. Kennedy, and the Politicsof the Urban Crisis

Tom Adam Davies

On a cold, icy February morning in New York City in 1966 local black residents Elsie Rich-ardson and Donald Benjamin led Senator Robert F. Kennedy around Bedford-Stuyvesant,their struggling neighborhood in the center of Brooklyn. They trudged through ankle-deepsnow to show Kennedy some of the problems blighting the area: run-down housing, pilesof refuse, abandoned buildings, and lthy streets. It was a bleak picture. For Benjamin andRichardson, however, the tour was a pivotal moment. Both had spent many years workingwith the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council (), a group that represented over onehundred membership organizations from the local black community, struggling to con-vince the city government to commit resources to the area in a bid to arrest its seemingly inter-minable decline. Although they had met with little success until then, Kennedys tour sawthem nally capture the interest of an inuential and concerned politician. Ever since thenation had been rocked by the Watts riots in August 1965 Kennedy had dedicated hisefforts to seeking a solution to black inner-city poverty and urban decay. For Kennedy therewas no greater single problem facing the nation. As he told a group of New York communityleaders in late January 1966, what is at stake is not just the fate of the Negro in America butthe fate of all Americans, of the legacy of our past and the promise of our future. Bedford-Stuyvesant, the junior senator feared,was anotherWattswaiting tohappen.The tourof Bed-Stuymade a lasting impression onKennedy, and he decided to pilot his new strategy for tacklingthe ghetto there. Ten months later the rst steps were taken to establish the Bedford-StuyvesantRestoration Corporation (). Restoration, as it came to be known, is today a prominentinstitution in Bed-Stuy, providing a range of essential advisory, social, and employment ser-vices for residents, and its premises serve as a focal point of community activity just as itscreators had intended nearly fty years earlier.1

Tom Adam Davies is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Leeds, England. The research for this article wasfunded by a generous grant from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, without which it would not havebeen possible. I would also like to thank Simon Hall, Kate Dossett, Damian Pargas, and Professor Ed Linenthal andthe anonymous reviewers from the JAH for their insight, feedback, and advice, which has played a major part in thedevelopment of this essay.

Readers may contact Davies at [email protected].

1 Boro Cry to , : Were Tired of Waiting, New York Amsterdam News, Feb. 12, 1966, p. 23; NewLook Coming to Bed-Stuy, ibid., Dec. 17, 1966, p. 28; Robert Kennedy Address to Second Borough PresidentsConference of Community Leaders, Jan. 21, 1966, p. 10, folder 3, box 2, Papers of Robert F. Kennedy, SenatePapers ( John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, Mass.).

doi: 10.1093/jahist/jat537 The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Organization of American Historians.All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].

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Kennedys efforts in Bedford-Stuyvesant have been relatively neglected by historians,overshadowed by his opposition to the war in Vietnam and his bid for the Democraticparty presidential nomination in1968.Only the recentworkof thehistorianEdwardSchmitthas examined in any serious depth Kennedys role in Restorations genesis. Restoration wasthe rst incarnation of Kennedys Community Development Corporation () blueprint,which he developed and articulated as the urban crisis deepened after the Watts riots. Setagainst the Lyndon B. Johnson administrations faltering War on Poverty, Kennedys plansrepresent an alternative and competing liberal vision for waging the ght against growing wealthinequality at a time when such measures were losing support among white voters. Parallelsbetween Kennedys efforts and the theory of black capitalism later championed by RichardM. Nixon further complicate our understanding of the national political discourse on eco-nomic and racial inequality, which was itself a site of constant contest.2

Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Donald F. Benjamin of the Central Brooklyn Coor-dinating Council talk with children at a playground in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbor-hood of Brooklyn in February 1966. Photograph by Dick DeMarsico. Courtesy Library ofCongress, Prints and Photographs Division, New York World-Telegram and the SunNewspaper Photograph Collection, LC-USZ62-133299.

2 Edward R. Schmitt, President of the Other America: Robert Kennedy and the Politics of Poverty (Amherst, 2010).Other works that mention the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation include Joseph A. Palermo, In His OwnRight: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (New York, 2003), 168, 250; Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.,

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More importantly, Kennedys strategy should be seen as an attempt to shape blackactivism in the nations turbulent urban centers. A program for the physical and economicrehabilitation of black ghetto communities was intended to swell the black middle classand develop a conformist and conciliatory urban black leadership from its expanded ranks.Spreading prosperity and core American values, Kennedy envisaged, would also inhibit thegrowth of anti-American radicalism and ease racial tensions in the long term. Moreover,Kennedys plans sought to co-opt and nurture the inchoate and growing black radicalismin the nations cities by involving militants in the s efforts to bring positive change toghetto communities.This,Kennedyhoped,wouldbringblackmilitantsand thedisaffectedblack urban youth who might follow themcloser to the mainstream society and institu-tionswithwhich somanyof themweredisillusioned.As such,Kennedys efforts offeran excel-lent example of what Devin Fergus has called the interplay between liberalism and blackpower.3

Most works that examine Restoration look at it through the prism of Kennedy and, ac-cordingly, deal with the organization only supercially after his death in 1968.However, Re-storations storyespecially during its rst decadeis an important one and can add to theevolving historiography of the black powermovement. The popular image of the black powermovement is still dominated by notions of political radicalism, erce rhetoric, clashes withauthority, and an emphatic advocacy of armed self-defense. Undergirded by the contem-porary white medias xation with these more sensational elements of the movementshistory, this largely negative stereotype of black power is, ultimately, a shallow and mislead-ing one. Fortunately, two signicant trends in the scholarship have helped undermine thissimplistic view of the black power movement. First, scholars have begun to rehabilitate thereputation of radical black power organizations and have tempered the groups associationswith violence, crime, andmale chauvinismwith a greater appreciation of their nuanced politicaland philosophical development, their changing gender attitudes and dynamics, and their manypositive contributions to life in their communities. Second, studies of black power havebegunto reveal itsmany dimensions, demonstrating that themovementwasmade up ofmuchmorethan just the radical elements with which it is most commonly identied. Recent work hasilluminated the complex relationships between a wide range of black power organizations,advocates, and supporters and, among other things,mainstreamwhite politicians and institu-tions; African American municipal politics and culture; black economic development; andthe educational and social welfare of ghetto communities. Consequently, the literature onblack power has now more effectively historicized its evolution and more accurately mappedits impact, both nationally and internationally.4

Robert F. Kennedy and His Times (London, 1978), 787; and C. David Heyman, : A Candid Biography of RobertF. Kennedy (London, 1998), 42024.

3 Devin Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 19651980 (Athens, Ga., 2009), 12.4 Works that have helped undermine stereotypes of radical black power groups include Jama Lazerow and

Yohuru Williams, eds., In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement (Durham,N.C., 2006); Curtis J. Austin, Up against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party(Fayetteville, 2006); Jane Rhodes, Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon (New York,2007); and Scot Brown, Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism(New York, 2003). Judson L. Jeffries, ed., On the Ground: The Black Panther Party in Communities across America(Jackson, 2010); Bettye Collier-Thomas and V. P. Franklin, eds., Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women inthe Civil RightsBlack Power Movement (New York, 2001); Dayo F. Gore, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard,Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle (New York, 2009). Scholarship that hasdealt with black powers impact and place more broadly includes Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: A





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It is to this more capacious, and increasingly sophisticated, picture of the black power move-ment that the story of Restoration can contribute. Shaped by intimate cooperationwith power-ful whites, Restoration arguably developed into an embodiment of black power as it becameintegrated into mainstream America. Run by blacks, and working toward the physical, econo-mic, and psychological uplift of the local black community and improvement of the neigh-borhoods environment, Restoration explicitly encouraged, through its ethos and work, anafrmative sense of racial pride and identity. Furthermore, it promoted and protected Afri-can American history and heritage, provided a platform for the development and expressionof the black arts and culture, and helped local blacks build new, more responsive institu-tions in their community. Before investigating how Restoration became an institutionalexpression of black power, this study will rst examine the role of contemporary politics,the urban crisis, and Robert Kennedy in shaping the development of before exploring thechallenges Bed-Stuy faced and how Restoration set about tackling them.

Although most of the problems facing Bed-Stuy residents in the mid-1960s were not new,it was not until President Johnsons Economic Opportunity Act () of late 1964 that theestimated 40 to 50 million Americans living in poverty were rmly placed on the nationspolitical agenda. The Ofce of Economic Opportunity, created by the to coordinate anationwide antipoverty effort, symbolized the Johnson administrations new commitmentto helping the nations poor. It is unlikely that Johnson could have foreseen the profoundand polarizing effect his antipoverty legislation would have on American politics and society.The disproportionately high incidence of poverty among black families during the 1960s(55 percent compared to only 18 percent for whites) was the reason the War on Poverty,and indeed poverty itself, became primarily identied with African Americans. The specterof a federal government intent on furthering the cause of social, racial, and economic justiceunderpinned conservatives political resurgence. Their staunch opposition to liberal socialwelfare policy resonated with growing numbers of increasingly resentful white Americanvoters, as urban unrest and racial polarization continued apace through the mid- to late1960s.5

Certain aspects of theWaronPoverty, inparticular theCommunityActionProgram(),seemed to generate controversy from their rst day. Designed to provide opportunities formaximum feasible participation for the poor in devising and implementing their owncommunity-oriented antipoverty programs, the was the cornerstone of the JohnsonadministrationsWar on Poverty. By allowing community groups to bypass local government

Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York, 2007); Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics andAfrican American Identity (Baltimore, 2005); Cedric Johnson, Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and theMaking of African American Politics (Minneapolis, 2007); Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of Ameri-can Politics; and Komozi Woodard, A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics(Chapel Hill, 1999). For a black power historiographical survey, see Peniel E. Joseph, The Black Power Movement:A State of the Field, Journal of American History, 96 (Dec. 2009), 75176.

5 Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York, 2008),357; Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, 2003), 1617. On theEconomic Opportunity Act, see Gareth Davies, War on Dependency: Liberal Individualism and the EconomicOpportunity Act of 1964, Journal of American Studies, 26 (Aug. 1992), 20531. On the Ofce of EconomicOpportunity, see Alice OConnor, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-CenturyU.S. History (Princeton, 2001), 16695. On the statistical data for the number of Americans living in poverty, seeMichael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York, 1962), 1, 17587.





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and receive federal funds directly, the fomented widespread conicts between poor com-munities and city politicians for control of poverty programs. These clashes threatened toundermine completely the pursuit of consensus so central toPresident Johnsons visionof lib-eral politics.6

As congressional support began towane by late 1965 President Johnson was already back-ing away from theWar on Poverty.Many African Americans interpreted the antipoverty effortas a long-overdue attempt to begin correcting the damage that endemic racial discrimina-tion had done to the black community. Consequently, when already-meager levels of anti-poverty funding decreased further, as defense spending soared, many blacks concluded thatthe government, despite its noble rhetoric, cared far more about the war in Southeast Asiathan it did about the pursuit of social justice at home.7

Growing domestic discontent with Johnsons presidency emboldened potential chal-lengers to his renomination in 1968. Although Kennedy had only been a senator since1964, the presidency, as Johnson feared,was his long-termpolitical ambition. Long-standingrivalry and animosity between the two worsened as Kennedy increased his criticism of theVietnam War and its impact on domestic affairs. As a historian and Kennedy condante,Arthur Schlesinger has suggested that once conict in Southeast Asia started to eclipse theGreat Society, Kennedy decided to strike out on his own. However, as much as Kennedysdeveloping political platform was calculated to enhance his prospects for the presidency byexpanding his support base among poor, minority, and white liberal voters, it was also a prod-uct of a deep, genuine, and growing personal concern with the social and economic impactof poverty and racism in the United States.8

In the six months between theWatts riots and Kennedys rst tour of Bed-Stuy, his ideashad crystallized into a coherent plan. In a series of three speeches in New York in January1966Kennedy detailed his vision. Wiping out the ghetto, he declared, was essential to thefuture of the Negro and of the city itself. It was a task, he argued, that the federal govern-ment could not accomplish alone. His speeches called for a total effort at regeneration thatmobilized the skills and resources of the entire society, including all the latent skills andresources of the people of the ghetto themselves, in the solution of our urban dilemma.The answer, Kennedy believed, was the Community Development Corporation, a not-for-prot body that would be able to receive and spend federal antipoverty funds and that wouldbe set up in poor urban areas to give direction to specic programs for the physical and eco-nomic regeneration of these communities.9

6 William Clayson, The Barrios and the Ghettos Have Organized!: Community Action, Political Acrimony,and the War on Poverty in San Antonio, Journal of Urban History, 28 (Jan. 2002), 15883, esp. 161.

7 On Lyndon B. Johnsons backing away from the War on Poverty and on the decrease in funding for theprogram, see Guian McKee, This Government Is with Us: Lyndon Johnson and the Grassroots War on Poverty,in The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History, 19641980, ed. Annelise Orleck and Lisa Gayle Hazirjian (Athens,Ga., 2011), 4455. Perhaps the most prominent African American critic of Congresss retreat from the ght againstpoverty was Martin Luther King Jr. Growing disillusionment and unrest in black ghetto communities, he argued,resulted from many factors, one of which was anger at a federal administration that seems to be more concernedabout winning an ill-conceived war in Vietnam than about winning the war against poverty here at home. SeeMartin Luther King Jr.,Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community (Boston, 1967), 3536.

8 Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, 784.9 The three speeches were delivered to a range of groups. The rst was before the Federation of Jewish Philan-

thropies, the second before a conference on urban revitalization held in Harlem, and the last one was given at aregional meeting of the United Auto Workers. Robert Kennedy Address to Second Borough Presidents Conferenceof Community Leaders, 8.





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In Kennedys eyes, the failure of Johnsons antipoverty legislation to focus on job crea-tion or to tackle urban blight left two root causes of urban disorder virtually untouched, ren-dering the presidents program incapable of bringing the positive, long-term, and structuraleconomic change so badly needed in the nations ghettoes. If pioneered successfully in Bed-Stuy, the strategy would, Kennedy hoped, reorient national policy away from the seem-ingly ineffective and politically divisive approaches tried by theWar on Poverty, boosting hispolitical prole in the process.10

Convinced that the long-term salvation of the inner cities could not (and should not)be achieved with government funds alone, Kennedy challenged American industries andbusinesses to bring their ingenuity to the task and become a generator of social change andimprovement in the nations slums. The process of urban rehabilitation, Kennedy believed,could itself be an immediate and sizable source of jobs for ghetto residents, especially foryoung unemployed blackmen. Physical regeneration of the ghettowas also intended tomakethe community a more conducive and appealing environment for business, which dovetailedwith a more direct program for boosting inner-city economic development. Businesses wouldbe offered inducements to relocate to the ghetto, and local private enterprise would be facil-itated and supported, nancially and otherwise. Together, these businesses from inside andoutside the ghetto would be critical to developing the commercial vitality of the ghetto andexpanding employment opportunities for residents.11

Giving the private sector a major role would also allow government to share the costsand work load while restricting inefcient federal and local government bureaucracies tosmaller roles. This, in turn, would help protect Kennedys plans from the guerilla skir-mishes of local politics that he felt had seriously undermined the War on Poverty. More-over, this approach promised to mitigate the disapproval of conservatives vehemently opposedto an activist federal state and public spending.12

Kennedy also envisaged important political consequences owing from the rehabilita-tion of urban slums and their economies. The desperate conditions of ghetto life threat-ened to alienate legions of urban blacks from mainstream society and make the inner citiesa breeding ground for extremism. As Kennedy warned shortly after the Watts riots, thearmy of the resentful and desperate is larger in the North than the South, but it is an armywithout generalswithout captainsalmost without sargeants.Kennedy criticized south-ern civil rights leaders and the black middle class for not reaching out to the growing blackurban underclass. That failure, he argued, had created a situation in which demagogueshad oftenusurped thepositions of leadership in ghettoes across the country.Kennedysblueprint was intended to encourage the development of moderate black leaders in the citiesas a counterbalance to the appeal of violence or political radicalism for the desperate anddisadvantaged. Cultivating a new urban black leadership, Kennedy reasoned, could only beachieved by giving black communities a degree of control in shaping their own destiny. Wewill be tempted to run these programs for their [the poors] benet, he argued, but it isonly by inviting their active participation . . . that we can help them develop leaders whomake the difference between political forcewith which we can dealand a headless mob.13

10 On Robert F. Kennedys view on the War on Poverty, see ibid.On his hopes for his Community DevelopmentCorporation, see Schmitt, President of the Other America, 14445.

11 Robert Kennedy Address to Second Borough Presidents Conference of Community Leaders, 7.12 New Look Coming to Bed-Stuy, 28.13 Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, 781; Schmitt, President of the Other America, 122.





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The middle class, Kennedy believed, represented the best hope for developing responsi-ble, moderate ghetto leadership, and Bed-Stuys core of middle-class blacks, reected inthe neighborhoods relatively high level of residential owner-occupancy (15 percent com-pared to only 2 percent in Harlem), made the community particularly suitable for Kennedyspurposes. Accordingly, Restorations focus on developing Bed-Stuys economy, physicallyrehabilitating the neighborhood, and making affordable nance available to local residentswas intended to stabilize the middle class and expand it by lifting poorer residents up frompoverty. The founders of Restoration were clear in their belief that the black middle classwas the foundation on which growth and opportunity for the entire community depend.The emphasis on private enterprise and economic opportunity would also foster local entre-preneurship and encourageAmericanmiddle-class and reformist values, drawing urban blacksociety as a whole more fully into the American capitalist system and ethos.14

Molding a more conciliatory and middle-class-oriented black urban society and politicswould also require engaging with the growing black radicalism that greatly concerned theyoung senator. In the spring of 1963, convinced that the next major battlefront for racialjustice outside of the South would be in the nations ghettoes, Kennedy (then the U.S.attorney general) asked to meet with the novelist James Baldwin, whose evocations on thesuffering and anger of blacks in urban America had made a considerable impression on him.Convening at Kennedys Manhattan apartment in May 1963, Baldwin brought a numberof prominent blacks with him, including, among others, the psychologist Kenneth Clark,playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and entertainer Harry Belafonte. Despite the exalted com-pany in which he stood, Jerome Smith, a young Congress on Racial Equality () activist,was the person who ensured the meeting remained an unforgettable experience for Kennedy.Recounting the horrors of his experiences in the South with , Smith told Kennedy hewas to the point of renouncing nonviolence. When I pull the trigger, he warned, kiss itgoodbye. The heated and confrontational meeting gave Kennedy a glimpse of the depth ofblack anger and frustration with American society and resentment of liberals in particular.From that point on Kennedy was increasingly able to understand the anger of black radi-cals even if he sharply disagreed with many aspects of their activism and message. Themeeting left Kennedy in little doubt that the clock was ticking for the nonviolent and grad-ualist approach of the civil rights establishment.15

It was not until June 1966 that the rst chants of black power reverberated across thenation. In the weeks and months that followed, the Student Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee () and , two of the nations leading civil rights groups, adopted blacknationalist positions and began advocating armed self-defense, abandoning nonviolenceand the pursuit of integration. Coming just nine months after Watts, a schism between theolder, moderate civil rights organizations and the new, younger black power groups appearedto have rent the freedom struggle in two and set the ght for racial justice on an ominousnew path. Ultimately, however, calls for black power did not represent a radical departure.Notions of black nationalism and armed self-defense expounded by , , and later

14 Robert Goldmann, Performance in Black and White: An Appraisal of the Development and Record of theBedford-Stuyvesant Restoration and Development and Services Corporations, Feb. 1969, report, pp. 4, 135, folder1, box 1, Ford Foundation Records (Kennedy Presidential Library).

15 According to Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedys attention was rst drawn to James Baldwin by an article publishedin late 1962. See James Baldwin, Letter from a Region in My Mind, New Yorker, Nov. 17, 1962, pp. 59144.Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, 33034, esp. 332. Emphasis in original.





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black power groups had deep roots in the black freedom struggle. The fundamental demandfor political and economic empowerment evoked by the new slogan was already evident inthe long-standing battles (fought by groups such as ) for access to better jobs, housing,and education, and for greater self-determination in the nations ghettoes. These battles,which overlapped and intertwined with civil rights activism, had been further illuminatedby contests over control of antipoverty programs in hundreds of black urban communitiesnationwide.16

In their infancy, Kennedys plans recognized black radicalism in the nations innercities and, understanding its appeal and presaging its future growth, sought to engage withit for two main reasons. First, his strategy intended to channel militants passion anddrive for black advancement away from radicalism and into what Kennedy saw as a morepositive direction by involving them in the revitalization of their communities. Second,Kennedy wanted to reach out to the vast numbers of young, disaffected, undereducated,and unemployed black males in the nations ghettoesthe group to whom the empower-ing and masculinist rhetoric of black radicals such as Malcolm X was most appealing. AsKennedy told a Senate subcommittee in August 1966, his programwas designed to tryto meet the increasing alienation of Negro youth. We must, Kennedy asserted, workto try to understand, to speak and touch across the gap, and not leave their voices of protestto echo unheard in the ghetto of our ignorance. Their alienation, he warned, came froma frustration so terrible, an energy and determination so great, that it must nd construc-tive outlet or result in unknowable danger to us all. Kennedy believed that including blackmilitants in his ghetto regeneration plans offered the best hope of connecting with blackurban youth and moving both groups toward mainstream American society and away fromthe despair and frustration that might breed violence, crime, and urban disorder.17

Kennedys aspiration to nurture black militant groups (especially those linked to ghettoyouth) was also evident in his public identication and association with the Sons of Watts,a collective of exgang members formed in the aftermath of the Watts riots who performedlocal community-improvement work and services. As Edward Schmitt has suggested, bywearing a Sons of Watts pin and having the group handle his security as he addressed alarge local crowd while campaigning in Los Angeles in March 1968 Kennedy was effec-tively endorsing the groups emphasis on community self-help and racial pride,which werethe elements of the Black Power movement that he found most valuable. Appreciatingthemilitant groups desire to be heard, Kennedys posture toward themwas also grounded ingenuine sympathy with their concerns, as a private audience with black radicals in Oakland,shortly after his appearance in Watts, revealed. Recognizing that he was a powerful symbolof white society, Kennedy warned his staff prior to the meeting: These people have a lot ofhostility and a lot of reasons for it. When they get somebody like me theyre going to takeit out on me. . . . But no matter how insulting a few of them may be, theyre trying tocommunicate whats inside them.Though the meeting proved turbulent, as the young senatorhad predicted, Kennedy later told his campaign manager, I am glad I went. They need to

16 A number of works over the last fteen years have traced the roots of black power. See, for example, TimothyB. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill, 1999); Joseph,Waiting Tilthe Midnight Hour; Woodard, Nation within a Nation; and Yohuru Williams et al., Black Politics/White Power: CivilRights, Black Power, and the Black Panthers in New Haven (St. James, 2000).

17 Statement of Senator Robert F. Kennedy before Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee onExecutive Reorganization, Aug. 15, 1966, p. 13, folder 6, box 2, Papers of Kennedy, Senate Papers.





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know somebody wholl listen. Although there were certainly risks (and, indeed, potentialpolitical benets) in associating with black militant groups, Kennedys approach to blackradicals was driven by his palpable concern with their cause and a rm conviction thattheir constructive and creative potential, if properly harnessed, would be a powerful tool inthe task of improving the nations ghettoes.18

In this respect, Kennedys intentions seem to accord with Devin Ferguss reassessmentof the relationship between liberals and black radicals. In challenging the notion that blackpower led to the disintegration of the liberal consensus, Fergus argues that liberalism infact helped to bring a radical civic ideology back from the brink of political violence andsocial nihilism, demonstrating its capacity to reform revolution. Between January 1966,when Kennedy rst outlined his plans, and December of that year, when the rst stageswere implemented, black power became a xture on Americas urban political landscape,ensuring that Kennedys approach to black radicalism would be put to the test in Bed-Stuy.19

Occupying an area covering 653 city blocks, and with close to 450,000 inhabitants, Bed-Stuy, by the mid-1960s, was Americas second largest ghetto, behind Chicagos South Side.If it had been a city by itself, it would have been, in terms of population, the twenty-ninthlargest in the country. Although conditions in Bed-Stuy compared to those in the nationsmore notorious inner-city slums, the area had not always been that way. As recently as 1950the then relatively salubrious Bed-Stuy had a population that was over 50 percent whiteand was home to a large number of upper- and middle-income white families, many ofwhom lived in the large and impressive brownstone homes, and the other characterful resi-dential properties that lined its streets. The familiar story of white exodus from the centralcities, repeated in so many of the nations urban centers, also played out in Bed-Stuy. By themid-1960s whites constituted less than 10 percent of the areas residents. African Americanswere the newmajority, representing over 80 percent of the local population, with the remain-der composed almost entirely of recent Puerto Rican immigrants.20

The key driver of ghetto formation in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the United States, asCraig Steven Wilder has explained, lay in Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal housing pol-icies. The Great Depression had decimated the mortgage market, resulting in multiple bankfailures and widespread foreclosures. In a bid to return stability and, above all, prots to thehousing market, the Roosevelt administration created the Home Owners Loan Corporation() in 1933. In Brooklyn and across the United States, in league with local propertyand nancial interests, agents instituted an ostensibly qualitative assessment practicethat subdivided cities into numerous communitiessixty-six in the case of Brooklyn. Thisprocess, called zoning, made the racial homogeneity of a community a primary factor inits grading, critically linking a neighborhoods racial composition and its property values. Anydegree of racial diversity adversely affected a neighborhoods rating. Areas with a signicantnonwhite population invariably received the lowest grade, D, and were colored red on maps, giving rise to the term redlining. Across the nation, redlining virtually guaranteed prot

18 Schmitt, President of the Other America, 208; Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, 9089.19 Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1011.20 The Bedford-Stuyvesant Community, n.d., report, p. 1, folder 2, box 1, Thomas M. C. Johnston Personal

Papers, 19362008 (Kennedy Presidential Library). Many histories of the urban crisis and suburban developmentdiscuss white ight, but only one has it as its sole, in-depth focus. See Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and theMaking of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, 2005).





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for vested nancial and property interests by actively discouraging residential integrationand incentivizing the exodus of white residentswho often made use of federally subsi-dized mortgagesfrom racially mixed inner cities to newly built, racially exclusive suburbs.21

For African Americans in Brooklyn and elsewhere the redlining of their communitieshad several injurious consequences: it decreased neighborhood property values; made it vir-tually impossible for locals to attain affordable home nance; and effectively restricted themto redlined neighborhoods, denying them residential mobility. Worse still, these discriminatorypractices supported erroneous white beliefs in the supposed undesirability and irresponsibilityof African American and other nonwhite city dwellers. These policies simultaneouslyencouraged businesses, jobs, capitaland even municipal servicesto abandon redlinedareas for the suburbs. The continuation of these trends over the following three decadesensured the creation of racially segregated, crumbling, overcrowded, and economically depressedghettoes. By the mid-1960s there were few ner examples of this process than Bed-Stuy.22

Like most of the nations ghettos in the mid-1960s Bedford-Stuyvesant exhibited allthe classic indicators of extreme social and economic deprivation. It had no hospital, and itsinfant mortality rate was nearly twice the national gure. Local schools performed badly,doing what they could with meager resources, and drop-out rates in the area were high. Forthose who did nish school decent employment opportunities were scarce. The local unem-ployment rate was nearly 50 percent higher than the city average, and over 42 percent ofall men who were employed were in unskilled jobs. The areas median income was $1,500below the citywide gure, and 70 percent of local families earned less than $5,400 annu-ally, the basic subsistence level set by the U.S. Department of Labor, with 36 percent ear-ning less than $3,000 per year. Despite the communitys middle-class core then, poverty wasrmly entrenched in Bed-Stuy and presented a formidable challenge.23

To give his Bed-Stuy experiment the best chance of success Kennedy sought the backingof several important groups. The support of the Ford Foundation and other philanthropic orga-nizations reinforced the projects liberal identity and widened its nancial base. Key New YorkRepublicans and fellow liberals Senator Jacob Javits and Mayor John Lindsay were invited onboard in the belief that with city halls blessing and bipartisan political support (which severalof the supporting foundations had stipulated) the project would be protected from politicalattack. In amove that promised to yield little personal political benet, Javits and Lindsay threwtheir weight behind the plans, and their links to New Yorks Republican-dominated businesscommunity were vital in Kennedys attempts to bring yet more powerful whites into the equa-tion. Assisted by Javits, Kennedy assembled a stellar cast. Prominent business leaders, lawyers,and nanciers from the upper echelons ofNew York society, including the investment bankingguru AndrMeyer and former secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon, pledged themselvesto the cause. Beyond the extra gravitas, expertise, and business acumen these powerful gureswould bring to the project, Kennedy hoped their involvement would set an example for thewider American business community.24

21 Craig Steven Wilder, ACovenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn (New York, 2000), 18595.22 Ibid., 202, 2067. On the impact of New Deal housing policies on ghetto formation in Brooklyn, see ibid.,

175217. On how federal government policies inuenced the development of segregation across America, see DavidM. P. Freund, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (Chicago, 2007).

23 Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 4; Grant Proposal to Ford Foundation, Feb. 1967, pp. 12,folder 4, box 2, Johnston Papers; Bedford-Stuyvesant Community, 2.

24 Among the other foundations that committed funds to Restoration were the Astor Foundation, the Tatonic Foun-dation, the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, the Stern Family Fund, the Field Foundation, and the J. M. Kaplan Fund.





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With all the pieces seemingly in place, Senator Kennedy nally announced the creationof the Bedford-Stuyvesant Renewal and Rehabilitation Corporation (R&R) and its sisterorganization, the Bedford-Stuyvesant Development and Services Corporation (D&S), at a convention on December 9, 1966, just over ten months after his rst tour of Bed-Stuy. While R&Rs board was composed almost entirely of local blacks, the D&S boardwas made up of the high-prole whites Kennedy had recruited. This all-white corporationwas charged with attracting and securing the levels of funding that would allow R&R to pur-sue plans ambitious and large-scale enough to effect real change in Bed-Stuy. Beyond this,as key Kennedy staff member Thomas Johnston suggested, the D&S boards greatest valuewould be in the perspective of its collective experience and its ability to assist in an-ticipating and dealing with problems as they arise.R&Rwas the vehicle for developing localleaders and ensuring community participation in the planning and prioritizing of regenerationprograms. As Kennedy and his staff described the co-venture to the Ford Foundation, it wouldbe a novel attempt to produce a new blend of planning action in the nations second largestghetto by linking the powerful with those thirsting for power in a unique pattern of workingrelationships.Having two boards, clearly separated along racial lines, brought important ben-ets. Not only did it allow for the powerful to guide and inuence those thirsting for powerbut it also gave the separate corporation for the white businessmen a more clearly denedrole and set of responsibilities, helping sustain their interest in the long term.25

R&R was made separate for other reasons. First, Kennedy hoped that experience of con-trolling R&R would help set local black politics on a moderate, responsible, and construc-tive trajectory. Second, it satised s demand for community participation. Kennedywanted R&R to be strongly and unmistakably identied as the communitys organizationrun for and by local blacks who were independent of the white corporation but workedalongside it as equals.26

Unfortunately,R&Rquickly ran into serious problems andwas dissolved just fourmonthsafter its creation, replaced in late March 1967 by the newly formed Bedford-Stuyvesant Re-storation Corporation. A 1969 Ford Foundation report on Restoration during its rst two yearssheds light on the tumultuous events that led to its birth. The breakdown of R&R, though dueto many factors, largely stemmed from a fundamental miscalculation by Kennedy and his staffconcerning prevailing local politics. Negotiating these proved far more difcult than they hadimagined.27

Therst seeds of troublewere sownwhenKennedy tappedR&Rchairman JudgeThomasRussell Jones to appoint an executive director. Jones, who had been a prominent gure inthe localDemocratic party formany years, a state assembly representative, andnow civil courtjudge, enjoyed a close relationship with Kennedy. In choosing a chief executive for R&R,Jones clashed with a group of leaders on the R&R board who were determined to

On the foundations desire for bipartisan support, see Astor Foundation press release, March 26, 1967, p. 1, folder 2,box 2, Johnston Papers; and David Stern to Robert Kennedy, Oct. 13, 1966, p. 1, ibid.; Goldmann, Performancein Black and White, 1415, 1921, 2223.

25 New Look Coming to Bed-Stuy, 2829; Thomas Johnston to Andr Meyer, Nov. 20, 1967, memo, p. 5,folder 3, box 1, Johnston Papers; Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, i.

26 Robert Kennedy Address to Independent Order of Oddfellows, Aug. 18, 1965, p. 5, folder 1, box 1, Papersof Kennedy. Senate Papers; James Booker, Brooklyn Leaders Get Support from , New York Amsterdam News,Oct. 22, 1966, p. 25.

27 Goldmann, Performance in Black and White.





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play a key role in Kennedys plans. Five women constituted the core of this leadership group:Elsie Richardson, Lucille Rose, Louise Bolling, Almira Coursey, and Constance McQueen.Friction between this group and Jones, Kennedy, and the senators staff intensied as itbecame increasingly clear that the ve women were going to be denied the central role in theorganization they believed they deserved. Tensions reached a climax at a meeting on March30, 1967, when Jones attempted to expand R&Rs board membership not only to increaseits representativeness but also to dilute the power of the female leadership. Accordingto reports, when the group refused to support him, Jones lost his cool and castigated thewomen for being a matriarchy trying to emasculate him. In doing so, Jones echoed sen-timents shared by others in Bed-Stuy. Local black power militants, including Sonny Carson,the head of Brooklyn , also resented s female leaders, believing they exerted undueinuence over the organization, denied black men the chance for leadership, and skewedthe s priorities and activism toward middle-class concerns rather than those facingBed-Stuys majority of poor and working-class residents.28

The animosity toward the female leaders expressed by Jones and Carson wasinformed, at least in part, by the debate over the place of African American women in con-temporary black society, a conict that had been amplied by the release of a controversialgovernment report entitled The Negro Family: The Case for National Action less thantwo years earlier. As black feminist intellectual Angela Davis has argued, the MoynihanReport, as it was known, directly linked the contemporary social and economic problemsof the black community to a putatively matriarchal family structure. Ultimately, as Davishas asserted, the report placed the absence of male authority among Black people at theheart of a tangle of pathology in Americas ghettoes. The reports solution, Davis contin-ues, was the reintroduction of male authority . . . into the Black family and the commu-nity at large. Moreover, as the historian Steve Estes has suggested, because the report wasreleased in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Watts in August 1965, it came tobe seen as the White Houses ofcial analysis of the urban disorders that shook the nationduring the mid-to-late 1960s. As a consequence, riotingan activity in which many youngblack urban males were implicatedcame to be explained in part by the lack of male lead-ership in the nations black urban communities. This discourse of stigmatized black femaledominance and emasculated black manhood, bearing the federal governments imprima-tur, was an important backdrop to the discord between Kennedy, Jones, Carson, and the female leadership group. As an anonymous, presumably male, Restoration sourcequoted in the New York Times said of the boardroom struggle: The situation really con-rms all thats beenwritten about the powerof thematriarchy inNegro communities, and theresentment many men feel about it.29

Ultimately, the and its female leaders, though widely representative of the localcommunity, did not have the respect of local black militants whose support Kennedy hadprioritized for a number of reasons. First, the involvement of black radicals, he envisaged,would help tie them and their supporters to moderate community leaders, the growing

28 Schmitt, President of the Other America, 152; Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 25, 31, 33, 34.29 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965), in The Moynihan

Report and the Politics of Controversy: A Trans-action Social Science and Public Policy Report, ed. Lee Rainwater andWilliam L. Yancey (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 41124. Angela Y. Davis, Women, Race, and Class (New York, 1983),13; Steve Estes, I Am a Man! Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill, 2005), 107; StevenV. Roberts, 800 Demand Vote on Renewal Unit, New York Times, April 7, 1967, p. 49.





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middle class, and mainstream society. Second, Kennedy believed that men such as Carsonwould be far more useful than s female leaders in helping the organization connectwith the areas black male youth. Finally, getting the most vocal and dissident elements inthecommunityonboardandkeepingatight reinover their rolewould,at thevery least, con-strain their potential criticisms. Attempting to justify the exclusion of the women, ThomasJohnston, a Kennedy staffer, later advised the leadership that their organization wassimply not sufciently representative of the community as a whole to serve as a focus for thedevelopment effort.30

The solution was the creation of Restorationwith Jones retained as chairman, a widercross-section of community representatives than R&R had, and the supposedly safemembers of the defunct organization brought on board. Outraged at having been pushedout of Kennedys plans, the leaders, along with their supporters in the community,organized a protest rally, which drew close to one thousand people, in support of R&Rand against the new corporation. Thosewho attended heard erce denunciations ofKennedyand Jones, among others, but the rally was most signicant for how it ended. In bringingSonny Carson, head of Brooklyn , to Restorations board Jones had sought and beenassured of Carsons assistance in shoring up community support for the new corporation.True to his word, Carson, with other members, turned the rally on its head when theyseized the microphone and, declaring Restoration the best possible outcome for Bedford-

Sonny Carson was the head of the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality.This photograph was taken not long before his death in 2002. Photography by JayMuhlin.

30 Earl Graves to Thomas Johnston, May 22, 1967, memo, p. 4, folder 8, box 2, Johnston Papers; Thomas John-ston to Lionel Payne, April 4, 1967, p. 2, folder 13, box 1, ibid.





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Stuyvesant, lambasted R&R and the female leadership of for emasculating the com-munity and denying us our models of black manhood. The split between R&R and thenew corporation was left beyond repair, and as Restoration took its rst steps R&R beganto recede into the background.31

The executive director of D&S at the time, the young investment banker Eli Jacobs,wrote to the Ford Foundation to express his regret that R&R had proved unworkable dueto a small number of women unrepresentative of the community and uninterested ineffecting positive change and assured the foundation that with Restoration in place theproject was back on track. Jacobs also happily reported that Restoration had appointed anexecutive director of whom they had high expectations. The man chosen to lead the was Franklin Thomas (Judge Joness preferred candidate), and he arrived with impressivecredentials. A Bed-Stuy resident his whole life, Thomas had been an assistant U.S. attor-ney before becoming New York Citys deputy commissioner of police, the position he leftto join Restoration. Thomas certainly t the model of strong black male leadership forwhich some in Bed-Stuy had been calling; his appointment, along with the exclusion ofthe female leadership group, raise interesting questions about the gender dynamics withinRestoration.32

Not only was local male opposition to female leadership a useful common ground forKennedy and his staff to occupy while they worked to sideline s female leaders andcement a working relationship with local black militants, it was also entirely compatiblewith Kennedys paternalistic brand of liberalism. Kennedys relationship with some of thewomen in question was strained, as he confessed to Judge Jones: I have never been dealtwith as rudely and abruptly, by anybodyeven my worst adversariesthan I have beenby some of the women of Bed-Stuy. They take particular delight in accusing me, in harass-ing me. . . . I dont know what to do but I just cant stand it. Kennedy gave Jones thegreen light to start a new corporation without them. Whatever way you want to do it, hetold the judge, you do it. Jones later justied his actions by explaining that, although thesocial pressures on African American men had led to a larger and larger role being playedby black women, the white societythe dominant societydoesnt have that kind oforientation; it operates on the basis of the leadership of men.33

It was a bitter pill for the leaders to swallow as their years of hard work in relativeobscurity appeared to be diminished as Kennedys project stole the headlines in Bed-Stuy.Clearly, the female leaders prominent community activism and strong leadershipabilities violated gender stereotypes of the time and posed an unwelcome challenge to localmale leaders. For most in the group their deep commitment to the struggle for racial justiceand a better city for their families and communities continued well beyond R&Rs defeat.While Almira Coursey joined the Restoration board, the others continued their work with (Elsie Richardson and Lucille Rose later progressed to high-ranking and inuentialroles in city government) and persisted in redening the societal boundaries of female agencyand authority. Restoration, however, was being fashioned in the image of the typical Amer-ican business, an entity that exuded the national capitalist culture andwheremale dominance

31 Graves to Eli [Jacobs] and Tom [Johnston], May 27, 1967, memo, p. 2, folder 7, box 1, ibid.; Goldmann,Performance in Black and White, 34.

32 Eli Jacobs to Louis Winnick, June 20, 1967, folder 14, box 1, Johnston Papers; City Bank Ups Black,New York Amsterdam News,Dec. 19, 1970, p. 40.

33 Heyman, , 423; Schmitt, President of the Other America, 154; Heyman, , 422.





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was still the norm. In early 1969, after just under two years of operation, the D&S boardincluded just onewoman alongside tenmen, while Restoration had three female boardmem-bers out of a total of twenty-six. Over a decade later, in 1981, this gender disparity remainedvirtually unchanged with ve women now included on Restorations twenty-ve-memberboard, while a reduced D&S board of ve retained its sole female representative. Ken-nedys efforts to reshape urban black communities therefore rested upon reinforcing genderhierarchies and stereotypes in the local black community, which dominated, and were instatedin, mainstream white society and its political and economic structures.34

Because of the simmering resentment of some in the community, Restorations earlydays proved difcult for Franklin Thomas. As the organization grew so did the challenge itposed to other local groups. In particular, the , Youth-in-Action (, Bed-Stuys of-cial antipoverty agency), and Brooklyn Model Cities felt aggrieved, not unjustiably, overthe amount of government funding that Restoration attracted. Support for Restoration in thecommunity was also affected by Kennedy and Joness failure to include certain local politi-cians in their plans. The most notable gure excluded had been Shirley Chisholm, who hadbeen elected to theNewYork State legislature in 1964 and became in 1968 the rst blackwomanelected to the U.S. Congress. Little love was lost between Chisholm and Jones, who washer main Democratic rival in the race for New Yorks Twelfth Congressional District seat.Aligned with and , Chisholm understandably lent little support to Restorationsefforts.However, opposition toRestoration should not be overstated, and ultimately, the cor-poration collaborated with many local groups, including , in the years that followed.35

A bigger issue confronting Thomas was coming to grips with the corporations unusualtwin-organization structure. The relationship between the black and white boards was com-plicated and took time to settle down. Thomas had warned of the dangers of having twoseparate boards. In a letter to the D&S board in January 1967, written shortly after he hadrst been contacted about the possibility of joining the project, Thomas suggested that withdual leadership a cynic might well say that the Negro community has a Negro board with aNegro executive director and no money, while the actual work, power and authority resideoutside the community. Thomass fears were certainly realized during the twin corpora-tions rst year, during which the D&S executive director Eli Jacobs perceived Restorationas the junior partner in the project.36

Having D&S dominate proceedings was arguably benecial for Restoration during itsearly months, while its leaders found their feet, hired a full staff, and built a list of priorities.Eli Jacobs was never intended to be the long-term leader of theD&S board, and the appoint-ment of a replacement at some point after the rst year was openly discussed between Ken-nedy and Jacobs from the beginning. Indeed, Jacobs himself later admitted that when hetook the job he did not think he was the best suited, either by temperament, experience,or ability, to run that project. Understanding that a dominant D&S would stymie

34 Elsie Richardson later enjoyed a number of different positions within Central Brooklyn Model Cities, andLucille Rose became the head of the citys Department of Employment. See Elsie Richardson, Open Letter,New York Amsterdam News, April 15, 1972, p. C1; and Lucille Rose Given Powell Award, ibid., Nov. 10, 1973,clipping, folder 5, box 1, Ford Foundation Records. On the composition of the two boards, see Restoration Newsletter,11 (no. 1, 1981), 1, folder 2, box 2, ibid.; and Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 14143.

35 Fund Resolve Fight to Be Settled Here, New York Amsterdam News, July 29, 1967, p. 23; Goldmann, Per-formance in Black and White, 25; Economic Confab, New York Amsterdam News,Nov. 9, 1968, p. 30.

36 Franklin A. Thomas to D&S Board, Jan. 1967, p. 1, folder 12, box 2, Johnston Papers. On Franklin Thomassfears and Eli Jacobs perception of Restoration, see Franklin A. Thomas Oral History Interview # 1,March 23,1972, pp. 4344, Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Collection (Kennedy Presidential Library).





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Restorations long-termgrowthanddevelopment,Kennedy,alongwithhiscloseadviserBurkeMarshall, identied John Doar, the former assistant attorney general for civil rights in theU.S. Justice Department (and with whom Kennedy and Marshall had both worked) as theperson to replace Jacobs in January 1968. In their estimation, Doars character, strong asso-ciation with the civil rights movement, and positive public reputation among African Amer-icans made him an ideal replacement.37

A popular choice among the local media, Doar quickly struck up a good partnership withFranklin Thomasthough Thomas still chafed at the dual-board structure. Doars arrivalheralded a number of important changes that put the twin corporations on an even footing.Thomass salary was increased to match Doars. Control over disbursement of funds, whicheffectively entailed programmatic control and had been closely guarded by Jacobs, becamea shared responsibility of Thomas andDoar in April 1968. In addition, all funds were placedinto a joint account shared by the two corporations. Doar also moved D&S into the sameofces as Restoration for the rst time, so that both corporations and their staff worked inthe same building. While this arrangement had always been the plan once construction of theambitious headquarters was completed, the interim period had seen the two corporationsbased in different ofces, further underlining their separation. Under Thomas and Doarthe two organizations developed an amicable, effective, and productive working relationship

Franklin Thomas, the head of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Corporation, sitting on sofa next to twomaps of the Bed-Stuy section of Brooklyn during a meeting about a Restoration project for theneighborhood in January 1968. Photo by Bob Gomel. Courtesy Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

37 Eli Jacobs Oral History Interview #1, Oct. 27, 1976, p. 15, Kennedy Oral History Collection. Onthe reasons for John Doars selection, see Benno C. Schmidt Oral History Interview #1, July 17, 1969,pp. 4243, ibid.





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that gave Restoration the power and space it needed to grow and overtake D&S as the primemover of the twin corporationsas Kennedy had intended and as Thomas desired. WhileRestoration was becoming an increasingly powerful black organization at the boardroom level,its programs in the community were shaping it into a model of institutional black power.38

Had Robert Kennedy not been assassinated in June 1968 he would have lived to see hisoriginal ideas pursued faithfully by Restoration. Kennedy knew that a great deal of thedespair in the nations ghettoes was due to the appalling conditions their residents had toendure. Likened by the D&S board member J. M. Kaplan to a decaying cemetery, Bed-Stuy was a case in point. Revitalizing the ghetto was central to Restorations mission and,as Thomas suggested, the organization adhered to the principle that urban redevelopmentwas itself a big industry and the people who ought to benet from that process are thepeople who live in that area. True to Kennedys blueprint, Restoration ensured thatas many local residents as possible were employed in the regeneration efforts. Ultimately,Restorations construction and rehabilitation programs became one of the neighborhoodslargest housing sponsors and landlords.39

Beyond the construction of new properties, another key part of Restorations plan torehabilitate Bed-Stuy was the Community Home Improvement Program (), a popularinitiative that reected the organizations ethos perfectly. Run as a series of one-year programs,the scheme offered blocks the chance to have the exterior of their buildings completely ren-ovated. All those employed in the renovation were local residents who received on-the-jobtraining. Any block wishing to participate had to meet certain criteria. First, each neededits own block association. Second, each homeowner had to pay a fee, regardless of theamount of work being done on their specic property, and a minimum of 60 percent of thehomeowners in the block had to sign up. Finally, all participants had to pledge to maintaintheir properties exteriors and make interior changes if necessary, agreeing to use only locallabor when doing so. demonstrates the ways Restoration tied the areas rehabilitationto the creation of employment opportunities for local residents, while forging a strong senseof community and civic pride. Furthermore, as Edward Schmitt has suggested, the home-owners were not the only ones who benetted from the scheme,made evident by the fact that workers even began wearing their hard hats as a badge of pride.40

Restorations motto was to make the neighborhood a place to live, not to leave, and animportant corollary to Restorations housing programs was its effort to help local residentsbecome property owners. The areas reputation among mortgage lenders, a legacy of redlining,was so bad that it was very difcult for anyone, let alone impoverished black citizens, to obtainhome nance there. Restoration and D&S endeavored to change that lending pattern by work-ing with banks and the Federal Housing Authority () to create a mortgage pool avail-able to owners or occupiers of one-to-four bedroom family dwellings in Bed-Stuy. Under theguidance of D&S board member GeorgeMoore, eighty-ve banks agreed to participate andcollectively provide $100 million in funding. The also agreed to act as guarantor for

38 Dick Edwards, New Guy in Town, New York Amsterdam News, Jan. 13, 1968, p. 21; Franklin A. ThomasOral History Interview, 79; Minutes of Development & Services Corporation Board Meeting, Feb. 5, 1968,p. 4, folder 7, box 1, Johnston Papers; Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 118.

39 Minutes of Development & Services Corporation Board Meeting, March 8, 1967, p. 8, folder 1, box 1,Johnston Papers; Pat Patterson, New Life for the Inner City, Black Enterprise, June 1975, clipping, p. 1, folder 1,box 2, Ford Foundation Records.

40 Annual Home Improvement Program, New York Recorder, May 11, 1974, clipping, folder 5, box 1, FordFoundation Records; Schmitt, President of the Other America, 162.





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approved loans. The mortgage pool, described by the Ford Foundation as potentially themost signicant housing program being carried out by the twin corporations, helped makehomeownership possible for hundreds of local families. Restoration also bought local resi-dential properties (foreclosures acquired via the ) and sold them through a low-incomehomeownership scheme. Under this initiative, priority was given to applicants who lived onthe same block that the property for sale was located. At the center of Restorations housingprogram lay the desire both to regenerate Bed-Stuy and to facilitate property ownership amonglocal black residents, a crucial step on theway up the economic ladder for many poor AfricanAmericans.41

Although Bed-Stuy, as Eli Jacobs suggested, was a marketplace of 400,000 [people]perhaps the most densely concentrated market you will nd on this planet, the areas physicalrehabilitation and its potential for private enterprise alone would not be enough to attractnew residents and businesses. Kennedys plans, therefore, outlined two other key approachesfor developing the local economy. One was encouraging large businesses to locate premises inBed-Stuy and employ local residents. To this end D&S used its inuence and connections tohelp bring a number of sizable businesses into the area. The most notable success story camewhen International Business Machines (), one of Americas biggest companies, located anew plant in Bed-Stuy in 1968. Of the initial 155 local residents that employed, nearly40 percent had no high school diploma. It was hoped that, if s venture into the ghettowas a success, other large businesses would follow. As with the mortgage pool, the twin corpo-rations were dedicated to changing attitudes in the private sectora vital step if deep-seatedpatterns of discrimination in virtually every aspect of commercial life were to be over-turned. Although the number of companies who followed s lead was not as high as the twincorporations would have liked, Bed-Stuy residents nevertheless saw s arrival as a symbol ofthe positive changes taking place in their neighborhood. The plant went on to grow, and in1994 was sold to Advanced Technological Solutions Inc. (), a company set up by a groupof the plants black and Puerto Rican employees, who, with the help of the city, the localcommunity and , completed a $6.5 million leveraged buyout of the plant. In doing so instantly became one of the nations largest minority employee-owned businesses.42

The other main thrust of Restorations economic development program involved pro-moting and nancially assisting business ownership among local residents. Finance wasalways arranged in cooperation with an external bank, a deliberate tactic designed to startchanging the reputation of black businesses as credit risks. Technical and managerial exper-tise was also made available to instill good business practices and help new ventures growsustainably and securely. By late 1972 Restoration had helped provide nearly $9 million toover one hundred local black-owned businesses, which had resulted in a number of rstsfor Bed-Stuy, including the rst black-owned car dealership in New York State. Restora-tion also worked to extend opportunities to Bed-Stuy residents for opening national chainbusiness franchises, and in October 1971 much local fanfare accompanied the start of con-struction on what became the rst black-owned and -run McDonalds restaurant. Fosteringprivate enterprise among local residents, as a Ford Foundation report noted, also brought

41 Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 9394; Minutes of Development & Services CorporationBoard Meeting, July 26, 1971, p. 5, folder 3, box 1, Ford Foundation Records.

42 Minutes of Development & Services Corporation Board Meeting, March 8, 1967, p. 54; Goldmann, Per-formance in Black and White, 5658; Dawnyielle Peeples, Workers Use a Buyout to Buy In, Black Enterprise,Jan. 1994, p. 1.





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intangible benets that ow from the emergence of new black-owned businesses . . . thesense of satisfaction that the community derives from such developments is not measurablein economic terms.43

While Restorations efforts to increase levels of black property ownership, support andnance black businesses, and improve local employment opportunities were intended, astheir director of economic development George Glee declared, to make the rhetoric of blackpower a black reality, they alone are not enough to warrant placing Restoration within a frame-work of black power. As the historian Peniel Joseph has suggested, although black powerencompassed many things, it was characterized by certain xed core values and goals. Theseincluded pursuing self-determination through black political and economic empowerment,the redenition of black identity, greater racial pride and solidarity, and a critical emphasisupon a shared African heritage and history of racial oppression. Therefore, to more fullydevelop a critique of Restoration as an institutional expression of black power we must turnour attention to the aspects of Restorations work that explicitly sought to foster greater ra-cial pride and celebrate African American history and culture; build community solidarityand empower Bed-Stuy residents; and help local blacks shape the development of new insti-tutions in their community.44

An excellent example of Restorations support for the promotion and celebration of blackculture and heritage is the Design Works of Bedford-Stuyvesant which, with an $180,000loan from Restoration, began life in 1969 as a small silk-screen studio with three employees.The companyproduced textiles, clothing, and jewelry inspiredbyorbasedonAfricandesigns.Five years later the company had over one hundred workers, and annual revenues in excessof $600,000, and sold their products worldwide. By assisting Design Works, Restorationhelped put local blacks at the forefront of a cultural industry that grew rapidly through the1970s.45

Other aspects of Restorations work further demonstrated its commitment to advancingand protecting black history and heritage. Between 1827 and 1875 a free black communitycalled Weeksville had existed in Brooklyn, encompassing part of what later became Bed-Stuy. As the areas history increasingly came to light during the late 1960sRestoration becameinvolved in efforts to preserve the site and in mid-1973 purchased a number of historic pro-perties on Old Huntery Road. Not only did Restoration save the site from the threat ofdemolition, but, in league with the Weeksville Society, also helped secure New York CityLandmark status for it. The same buildings on Old Huntery Road are now home to theWeeksville Heritage Center, which continues to keep a unique part of Brooklyns black his-tory alive.46

Beyond its emphasis on black history and culture in the wider sense, Restoration wasalso committed to promoting racial solidarity and positive, constructive relations at thecommunity level. Annual Soul Sunday festivals, sponsored by Restoration and other local

43 George Glee, Spotlight on Economic Development, Restoration Newsletter, 2 (Oct. 1972), 1, folder 2, box 2,Ford FoundationRecords; FirstMcDonalds Store in Bed-StuyGoingUp,NewYork AmsterdamNews,Oct. 16, 1971,p. D1; Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 59.

44 Glee, Spotlight on Economic Development, 1; Joseph, Black Power Movement, 4.45 Design Works, Downtown Brooklyn, April 1974, clipping, folder 6, box 1, Ford Foundation Records;

Designing an Idea, Black Enterprise,Nov. 1974, clipping, folder 7, ibid.46 J. Zamgba Browne, Historic Weeksville to Be Preserved by Bed-Stuy Rest Corp, New York Amsterdam

News, June 23, 1973, p. C1; Weeksville, Restoration Newsletter, 3 (Sept.Oct. 1973), 23, folder 2, box 2, FordFoundation Records; for information on the Weeksville Heritage Center, see http://weeksvillehc.tumblr.com.





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groups, combined a celebration of black music with the opportunity for residents to relaxand socialize together. A number of Neighborhood Restoration Centers, established in late1967, fostered and supervised the creation of new block associations, worked with existingonestodetermineandprioritize thecommunitysneeds, andencouragedorganizationaroundissues of importance.These centers, avital linkbetweenRestoration andBed-Stuys residents,helped empower the local community by giving residents the tools they needed to effectchange in their own lives. For example, in 1968 a number of the block associations Resto-ration helped form joined forces with other local groups (including and the )and negotiated with the city to secure a dramatic improvement in their neighborhoodssanitation servicesan upgrade that most Americans took for granted but one that Bed-Stuyresidents had been long denied.47

The neighborhood centers also assisted in voter registration drives, encouraging the growthof African Americans voting strength in Bed-Stuy. Free tax clinics were made available to localresidents, and a Tenant Aid program was started that not only educated tenants about theirlegal rights and responsibilities but also met their emergency needs, including making re-pairs, restoring essential services, and, if necessary, dealing directly with intransigent land-lords on tenants behalf. Beyond this, the centers ran summer schools where local childrenwere taught practical life skills, performed community service, and enjoyed classes in Africanculture and languages. The entire thrust of such activities was to educate Bed-Stuys residentsand move them toward greater independence, self-reliance, and responsibility, and imbuethem with the belief that they could deal with their problems and assert their rights, asindividuals and collectively, through the existing structures of American society.48

Perhaps the best example of why Restoration should be seen as an expression of blackpower can be found in the organizations impressive headquarters, situated on Fulton Street,at the heart of Bed-Stuy. Restorations original plans had always intended to give Bed-Stuythe centerpiece it lacked by creating ofces that would serve as a focal point for the community.The organization hired black architects, construction superintendents, and administratorsto carry out the ambitious plans they had for converting a former milk-bottling plant knownas Shefeld Farms that the twin corporations had purchased in 1967. Restorations commit-ment to using local residents on all its building schemes resulted in delays, and construc-tion on the site was not nished until 1972; in 1975 it was expanded, taking over adjacentbuildings. Restoration Plaza, as it was called, was worth the wait. Once completed it swiftlybecame the commercial heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant. More importantly, though, the BillieHoliday Theater and large art gallery that Restoration Plaza also housed made signicantcontributions to local cultural life. The platform these facilities provided for black artists,writers, musicians, poets, and actors was unrivaled in Brooklyn. Controversial and chal-lenging plays by black playwrights dealing with the experience of poverty and racism inAmerica dominated the theaters program. The art gallery was dedicated to showcasingthe work of black artists from Bed-Stuy and around the world. Together, their ethos

47 Bed-Stuy Soul Sunday, New York Amsterdam News, May 1, 1971, p. 23; Goldmann, Performance inBlack and White, 7072.

48 Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 72; Tenant Aid, Restoration Newsletter, 3 (April 1973), 5,folder 2, box 2, Ford Foundation Records; Free Tax Clinic Reopens, Restoration Newsletter, 2 (Dec. 1972), 34,ibid.; Debra Walton, My Experiences Working for the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation This Summer,Restoration Newsletter, 2 (Oct. 1972), 6, ibid.





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representedacelebrationofblackartandcultureandpromotionofblackproducerspast,present,and future.49

Restoration Plaza also included a large auditorium and meeting rooms that served as aspace for local community groups to meet and conduct their affairs. There is no better exam-ple of how Restoration helped the local black community fashion new opportunities foritself than the creation of Medgar Evers College. The establishment of an innovative edu-cational institution in Bed-Stuy had been an early goal of the twin corporations, and inApril 1967 William Birenbaum, formerly of Long Island University, was hired and assem-bled a team of educators (many of whom were black) to assist in the planning and deliveryof the new facility. The nal plan for a four-year college to be administered by a commu-nity board with signicant student representation had strong community support. D&Sboard member William Paley played a critical role in getting the City University of NewYork () to pledge $30 million toward the creation of the college. However, fearing thatcritics would label an all-black campus as segregated, demanded changes to the plansthat Birenbaum was unwilling to accept. In response to this impasse a group of communitymembers formed the Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition on Educational Needs and ServicesNegotiating Team and, with the support of Restoration, took over the planning fromBirenbaumand continued discussions with , ultimately succeeding in getting the original plansfor the college accepted. Restoration Plaza was the community groups base throughoutthe process, and they benetted from the close involvement of Restoration board membersJones and, in particular, Albert Vann, the head of the Afro-American Teachers Association(). The result was the creation of Medgar Evers College, one of the most respectedblack educational facilities in New York City today.50

By working to facilitate the creation of Medgar Evers College, Restoration helped thelocal community physically build black institutional power: a place where black teacherstaught black children and where direct input into college governance gave parents a greaterlevel of inuence over their childrens education and future than ever before. In addition,Vanns held its meetings in the Restoration ofces, ran talent schools to identify poten-tial local teaching recruits, and held the rst New York City Black Teachers Conventionthere inMay 1972, further underscoring the vital contribution Restorationmade to the edu-cational opportunities available to local blacks.51

Restoration also came to stand at the center of developments that shaped new politicalinstitutions and recongured local black political power. In early 1975 around seven hun-dred local residents gathered in the main community room at Restoration Plaza to witnessthe creation of a new local political organization and to honor Carl L. Butler, a recent

49 Daphne Sheppard, Bedford-Stuyvesant Was the Newer World of , New York Amsterdam News, June 15,1968, p. 17. On the development of Restoration Plaza, see John Morris Dixon, Restoration of Condence: Restora-tion Plaza Shopping Center, Brooklyn, , brochure, folder 2, box 2, Ford Foundation Records. This brochure wasoriginally published in Progressive Architect (Nov. 1977). On Restorations cultural programs, see Beauty of theGhetto Exhibition at Restoration, Restoration Newsletter, 5 (Winter 1975), 1, folder 2, box 2, Ford FoundationRecords; Albert Jones, What Makes a Ghetto?, Antillean Caribbean Echo, Nov. 10, 1973, clipping, folder 5, box 1,ibid.; Mel Tapley, Cultural CenterHome of Dreams, New York Amsterdam News, May 4, 1974, clipping, ibid.;and Local Artist Returns Home to Brooklyn, New York Amsterdam News, Jan. 1, 1978, ibid.

50 Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 4447.51 Albert Vann, View of the Black Teachers Conference, New York Amsterdam News, May 20, 1972, p. A5;

The African American Teachers Association and Its Search for Black Talent, Restoration Newsletter, 1 ( June 1971),45, folder 2, box 2, Ford Foundation Records.





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additiontoRestorationsboard,forhiselectionasdistrictleaderforBed-StuysFifty-SixthAssemblyDistrict, a powerful position in local and county Democratic politics. Alongside Butler wasRestorations own Albert Vann, who had just been elected by local residents to the NewYork State legislature as assemblyman for the same district. Together they launched the CrispusAttucks Regular Democratic Club, whichmarked a signicant power shift within local blackpolitics (both Butler and Vann had displaced long-standing incumbents). CongresswomenShirley Chisholm characterized these developments as part of the wind of change bringingthe infusion of new blood in the political system from the national down to the local level.It seemed tting then that such an occasion should take place in Restoration Plaza, perhapsthe biggest and most vital symbol of the change underway in Bed-Stuy.52

As Restorations impact on the local community grew, its organizational self-image andthe personality it projected changed too. Though D&S may have overshadowed Restora-tion in the beginning, that situation proved momentary. Indeed, as Schmitt has suggested,the balance of power between the two corporations began shifting toward Restoration asearly as mid-1967. With Restoration conducting the overwhelming majority of the twocorporations business, some Restoration staff began to question the need for D&S. As oneemployee explained in early 1969, he sometimes felt that D&S only still existed to makesure Restoration did not steal the money. This kind of self-assurance is, arguably, exactlywhat one might expect from employees of an organization that embodied and exercisedliteral black power and meant to keep doing so. Although the twin-organization struc-ture remained until 2000 (when D&S was subsumed into the Restoration board), it playedan important part in forging Restorations image as a black organization. This became evidentin the wake of John Doars departure from D&S in December 1973 when a Restorationsourcewas quick to reassure people thatDoars resignationwould not alter the racial divisionbetween the two groups.Whereas in the early days the racially split twin-corporation structurehad concerned many in Restoration, not least Franklin Thomas, by the time Doar exited ithad become an integral part of its identity.53

Restorations continued association with controversial individuals such as Sonny Carsonrevealed its growth into an organization that celebrated its blackness, made no apology forits methods, and unswervingly dedicated itself to the Bed-Stuy community. In late 1968Carson (already a contentious gure when he joined Restoration at its inception) wasprominently involved in the Ocean HillBrownsville School controversy along with fellowRestoration board member Albert Vann. This erce clash between black activists and thewhite, predominantly Jewish, United Federation of Teachers () over decentralizationand community control of public schools was mired in charges of white racism and countercharges of black anti-Semitism and left a bitter legacy for the city. Restoration continuedpublicly to support Carson even when, in 1973, he was arrested, tried, and convicted oncharges of kidnapping and attempted murder.54

52 Simon Anekwe, Launch Crispus Attucks Democratic Club, New York Amsterdam News, Feb. 1, 1975,p. C1.

53 Schmitt, President of the Other America, 162; Goldmann, Performance in Black and White, 11920;Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, PlaceMatters, http://www.placematters.net/node/1028; Doar Quits,Restoration Will Still Have 2 Boards, New York Amsterdam News, Dec. 29, 1973, p. C1.

54 Jerald Podair, The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean HillBrownsville Crisis (NewHaven, 2002); Sonny Carson Faces Charges, New York Amsterdam News, July 28, 1973, p. A1; Sonny CarsonBack to Brooklyn, ibid., March 11, 1978, p. B1.





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Popular with neighborhood youth, and a powerful local image of strong black mascu-linity, Carson remained militantand a part of Restorationfor the rest of his life. As alocal journalist wrote following Carsons death in late 2002:

One would only have to spend a day at his basement ofce at Restoration Plaza tograsp the pivotal role that Carson played in the sociopolitical economy of Bedford-Stuyvesant and, by extension, the black community at large. Carson was the elderstatesman, the tribal counselor, and the warrior king adorned, staff in hand, in regalAfrocentric garments as he held court and weighed in on matters from the mosttrivial of domestic affairs to issues of great import to the black diaspora.55

With its continued support of, and identication with, Carson, Restoration projected animage of itself that was clear and uncompromising: it was concerned rst and foremostwith conforming to the standards and norms of the black community that it represented.While Restoration had been shaped by Robert Kennedy and his blueprint, and con-tinued to embody the conventions of the male-dominated national political and economicculture, it was able tomove beyond those inuences and dene its owndistinctly black image.For Restoration, conforming towhitemainstream society was not absolute and did notmeanrenouncing the promotion of racial pride and solidarity.

Although judging Restoration in terms of success or failure is not the main aim here, itsachievements must be put in context. Ultimately, Restorations success was limited for anumber of reasons. The failure of private enterprise to rise to Robert Kennedys challengein the long term meant that the private investment required to effect large-scale transfor-mation never materialized. Even if those funds had come through, the incremental changesneeded to remedy the underlying causes of black urban poverty would have likely takengenerations, despite the eras optimistic political rhetoric predicting the problems swiftelimination. Restorations programs helped create several thousand jobs, repaired and builtthousands of local properties, and attracted an unprecedented level of investment into thearea. Nevertheless, poverty persisted in Bed-Stuy. As the national economy worsened duringthe 1970s and manufacturing industries in the Northeast andMidwest further declined, theunfavorable nancial climate made life increasingly difcult for Restoration and Bed-Stuy.The election of Ronald Reagan to theWhite House in 1980, the apotheosis of the conserva-tive resurgence, brought the decimation of federal funds for s, which were already suf-fering for lack of large-scale private sector involvement. Budgets were severely reduced formost s, including Restoration, and for many others this loss of money spelled the end.56

Restoration undoubtedly helped Bed-Stuy remain on an even keel during a nanciallychallenging period in which political hostility to its aims and methods increased. Not allurban African American communities were as fortunate. Indeed, Restoration was path-breaking, and its legacy goes far beyond Brooklyn. It has been the model followed by manyothers, and estimates suggest there are as many as ei

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