Transcripts

KATE WILLIAMS: Craig has lived in Minneapolis for the last 16 years. He ran for the US Senate in 1970. He was the chairman of the Black Caucus of the Democratic National Committee in 1975, and he's currently the president of the Minneapolis Urban Coalition. So one might say he's no stranger to Twin Cities politics.

He said over the years, it's been hard for Blacks to organize a political force here because what few Blacks live in this area don't live in a centralized place as in many larger cities. He said they either live in Saint Paul or the North or South sides of Minneapolis or the suburbs. He says a large bulk of the political organizing, aside from the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, was done within the Democratic Party.

There were other attempts outside of the party too. Two such efforts were the Black Coalition in 1969 and a Black National Convention in Gary, Indiana, in 1972. But he said those were short-term, unified efforts that died out.

LARRY CRAIG: There either have been short-term in terms of organizing an organization like the Black Coalition to short-term crises. In other words, whether it's in support of the more board, the old agency in Minneapolis to respond, to develop to the civil disturbances in the late 60s that created the organization that I'm, the president of now, the Urban Coalition to a lot of but crises ad hoc kind of organizations that have not lasted.

KATE WILLIAMS: Craig's political segment is only one part of the conference. Other segments include the Black family, community organizing, and communications. Some immediate concerns they all share, though, are police relations, employment, housing, and social services.

LARRY CRAIG: And all of these kinds of things, it's easy to talk about malevolent people, but it's probably more realistic that people are making trade offs. And the trade offs, more often than not, work to the detriment of poor people than to their benefit. Without saying that people are being evil, it's just political trade offs, limited economic resources, the size of the political pressure that poor people can bring all means that poor people and minority people are getting the short end of the stick. And this comes right back to the whole question of organizing, to put pressure on, to deal with those four or five problems that I mentioned in any number of others.

KATE WILLIAMS: Earl Craig Jr., chairman of the political organization of the Black Unity and Futurism Conference. He said an immediate political goal of theirs is to rally support around a candidate to take Fifth Ward city Councilman Lou Demers seat should he step down. The Fifth Ward includes the Black community of North Minneapolis. The group will also give support to a Black man running for the City Park Board, and an American-Indian running for the school board. Craig says the Black community is more politically sophisticated now, and he's optimistic that the new organization will last. I'm Kate Williams.