Bobby Rush (Finding Aid)

Bobby Rush

1946 -

Favorite Color: Burgundy

Favorite Food: Greens, Fried Chicken

Favorite Time of Year: Cool Weather

Favorite Vacation Spot: Nantucket

Interview Length: 98 minutes

Interview Date(s): August 22, 2000, January 18, 2001

Interview Location(s): Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Congressman and civil rights activist Bobby Rush recalls his childhood in Albany Georgia and Chicago, Illinois. He describes his parents, who worked hard to improve themselves and retain their self-respect in the white supremacist society of rural Georgia. Rush remembers migrating at age seven to Chicago, Illinois; he feels thankful to his mother for deciding to move, feeling strongly that she did not want to raise black boys in the South, and he credits her with getting the kids involved in positive activities to help them transition to life in the big city. Rush talks about his childhood personality and dreams and describes fondly his working class neighborhood on Chicago's Near North Side, where blacks, Latinos, Jews, Italians, Asians and Appalachian whites lived alongside one another. Finally, he tells of a recent visit to his old neighborhood, now gentrified. Congressman and civil rights activist Bobby Rush continues to talk about his youth in Chicago in the 1950s and early 1960. He talks about his nurturing community on the Near North Side, and about the many musicians and other successful people who came from this small area. He describes very positive experiences of participation in Scouting and recalls a Scoutmaster who was a great influence on many boys. After the family had moved to the West Side, Rush says he had begun drifting on what could have been a downward path, but he then made the decision to drop out of high school and enlist in the military just after his seventeenth birthday. Congressman and civil rights activist Bobby Rush talks about his service in the Army and his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Chicago branch. He discusses the Movement's shift in focus from the South to Northern cities, to targets such as police brutality and segregation in housing, and the rise of black nationalism in SNCC. Rush explains his attraction to the ideas and discipline of the Black Panther Party and details his founding of the Chicago chapter of the Panthers. Congressman and civil rights activist Bobby Rush talks about his time as Deputy Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, and, with Fred Hampton, a leader of the Chicago chapter. He discusses the Panthers' social programs in Chicago, including their 'Breakfast for Children' program, their medical clinic, and their efforts at educating the public about sickle cell anemia. He warmly describes Fred Hampton as "the spiritual leader of the party" and tells about Hampton's and Mark Clark's assassination in 1969 by Chicago police. Rush then describes the differing ideas of Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver about the Panthers' direction in the early 1970s.

25 Stories (See Ordered Story Set)