Rev. Henry M. Williamson`s resignation this month as president of Operation PUSH marks the latest chapter in the history of the embattled and controversial civil rights organization whose future is at a crossroads.
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Its leaders and critics both agree that PUSH must redefine its role and methods in order to survive. But if its supporters agree that PUSH, with its 20,000 paid members, still has a vital role to play in Chicago and nationwide, they cannot agree on what that role should be.
Some insiders believe PUSH`s greatest strength is as a street-level organizing group poised to demonstrate and boycott the white power brokers on issues of economic and political parity.
Others believe it must evolve into a more sophisticated and forward-looking entity focused on issues such as the economic independence of blacks.
”Twenty-one years ago was the civil rights era, and PUSH was and still is a civil rights organization,” said veteran activist Lu Palmer. ”The feeling among so many people in my community today is that there must be a shift to economic self-determination, to help African Americans be dependent as much as possible on ourselves and our own labors, and I don`t know how much of that Operation PUSH is doing.”
”If ever there was a time we need PUSH it is now,” said Rev. Willie Barrow, PUSH`s acting chairman. ”They (the Clinton administration) may be coming in, but they may not come through unless you apply the pressure and have an organization like Operation PUSH.”
Williamson, 44, took over the presidency temporarily in 1991 after the resignation of Rev. Tyrone Crider. The organization had just suffered a loss in clout and credibility after PUSH`s boycott of Nike athletic shoes. It was also about $300,000 in debt.
Twenty months later, Williamson is leaving PUSH with the debt settled, he said, and the staff pared down to the bare bones-six full-time workers. He has recommended that he be succeeded by Rev. James Demus, 39, pastor of the Park Manor Christian Church, 600 E. 73rd St., a 20-year PUSH activist.
Henry Creel, a Cleveland certified public accountant who has been auditing PUSH`s books since 1982, confirmed in a telephone interview that the debt has been settled through fundraising and private donations.
”They are totally in the black, aside from some current payables of $5,000 to $6,000, the same as any company has,” Creel said. ”The old debt was liquidated.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who started PUSH in 1971 and was in Chicago on Saturday to celebrate its 21st anniversary, said the turnover in leadership within the organization is not unusual.
Jackson said he supports Demus as PUSH`s next president.
”He`s superbly qualified,” Jackson said in an interview at PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St.
Despite the scaled-down operation and the erosion of PUSH`s influence in Chicago politics, Jackson, Williamson and other PUSH officials insist that the organization still has a place in the black community in Chicago and nationwide, albiet a different role than that started by Jackson.
”PUSH is still a source of community reference,” Jackson said. ”It plays a very necessary role and has a continuity of leadership. It`s a watering hole for social justice.”
Williamson agreed.
”PUSH today is still a civil rights organization,” Williamson said in an interview at the Carter Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, at 79th and Wabash, where he has been pastor of the 2,000-member congregation since 1986.
”It has the flexiblity to speak to the immediate needs and crises of the community. People see it as an ambulance that helps get people to the hospital. It is willing to be the first on the scene, to take a risk on speaking out on issues involving education, police, politics.”
Williamson pointed out that even the lackluster Nike boycott had some success, mainly the appointment of Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson to the Nike board of directors.
PUSH`s boycott was based on Nike`s poor record for employing blacks in top-level corporate jobs and for doing business with black-owned companies.
Most recently, Williamson said, PUSH championed the cause of the street gangs that have purportedly agreed upon a truce, and met with Police Supt. Matt Rodriguez to convince him that gang members were sincere.
PUSH also endorsed and campaigned for U.S. Sen.-elect Carol Moseley Braun, Williamson said.
At his direction, PUSH has initiated a program in which 80 churches nationwide have agreed to form a partnership with a local school.
Demus, a lifelong Chicagoan who has been involved with PUSH for 20 years, although in no official capacity, called it ”a necessity” for the organization to survive.
”It is effective and it can become more effective to serve the needs of our people better, to protest the institutions that are the cause of institutional racism” and to propose programs to address the economic advancement of the poor, Demus said.
But Palmer insists there must be direction.
”You really have to put Operation PUSH in the context of the times, and I`m very honest in saying I`m really not sure where that kind of organization fits in today,” he said.
Conrad Worrill, professor of Inner City Studies of Northeastern Illinois University, said Operation PUSH should return to its tactics of organizing and mobilizing in the street instead of concentrating on getting African Americans into elected office.
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Williamson acknowledges that PUSH is no longer as economically oriented as it was under Jackson`s stewardship.
It used its influence to persuade companies to hire African Americans, to set aside some of their business for African-American companies, and to place African Americans on their boards.
Over the years, he said, PUSH evolved into a more political entity, working to get African Americans elected to public office.
”The shift is now back to economic empowerment,” he said, although the strategy in the future is likely to be less of picketing and more of sitting down at a conference table with the heads of business and ”partnering with corporate America.”
”A couple of years ago, people didn`t know if we would exist today,”
Williamson said. ”But we have pulled people together around meaningful issues. By solving the financial crisis and keeping our Saturday morning programs going and our radio show, we were able to prove our ability to endure.”
Much of the funds that saved the South Side organization came from donations and from African-American business people, Williamson said.
Joe Gardner, a PUSH board member who served as interim executive director in 1991, said the organization must learn to utilize timely, action-oriented research relating to public policy that will quickly get PUSH`s message disseminated through the mass media.
”There`s still a role for direct action like picketing,” said Gardner, who is also a commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
”But what`s become more important is the ability to use the mass media, because people are now much more influenced by what they hear and see on TV than on the radio.”
One of PUSH`s most enduring attributes, Gardner said, is its Saturday morning radio show, where politicians and others still fight to be heard.
PUSH plans to launch a membership drive in January, Barrow said, and there are plans to start training young people in organizing and social action techniques. PUSH also plans to step up pressure on companies and government agencies for minority participation in contracts, such as the Cook County jail food service.
While Williamson has said he will recommend that Demus succeed him, his replacement has not been chosen.
”That might be a suggestion, but it`s not anything official,” Barrow said. ”We will be having several persons, I`m sure, applying for the job.”