History in Person: Enduring Struggles, Contentious Practice, Intimate Identities

5 Placing the Politics of Black Class Formation

5 Placing the Politics of Black Class Formation Steven Gregory We are still in the process of experimenting with a new form of politics where the constitution of identities, the winning of identification, is itself part of the struggle, not something preliminary to that struggle. —Stuart Hall, “Discussion,” Black Popular Culture Arthur Hayes was weeding a triangle-shaped lot across the street from his house in East Elmhurst, Queens, when I arrived. He shook the soil from a huge clump of weeds and topped off the last of three Hefty trash bags. “I decided to make a garden in this lot twenty years ago,” he declared, wiping the sweat from his forehead and smiling. “That was after a neighbor almost ran over a drunk who was sleeping in here with all the weeds.” He pulled off his canvas work gloves and then raised them to shoulder level to show me how high the overgrowth had been. A tall, large-framed man, Hayes was president of the East Elmhurst–Corona Civic Association, the most powerful black homeowner association in the area. Founded in 1952, when East Elmhurst and nearby Corona were experiencing the brunt of postwar urban decline, the civic association emerged in the wake of the civil rights period as the neighborhood’s most influential civic group, eclipsing the NAACP, churches, and other community institutions in its capacity to muster and sustain a sizable, largely homeowning constituency. In recent months, members of the association had complained about receiving parking tickets on blocks where the “No Parking” signs 137 were missing or unreadable. To address this problem, Hayes had decided to conduct a block-by-block “inspection” of the area to assess the condition of its signs. The completed survey would be presented to a New York City Traffic Department representative at the next civic association meeting. Born in Louisiana, Hayes grew up in a small oil town in Texas. In the 1930s, like many other African Americans, he migrated to Harlem and, after serving in the war, found work as a seaman on a passenger ship. In the mid-1950s, Hayes and his family bought a home in middle-income East Elmhurst with a Veterans Administration–insured mortgage. “Was mostly Italian and Irish and some Germans too when we first got here,” Hayes told me, waving his hand at the houses surrounding his detached home and landscaped yard. “They were all pretty nice but they were leaving. At the time, they were going out to Long Island–Levittown and places like that. See, we used to have the G.I. Bill back then.” We began the tour on Astoria Boulevard and Ninety-third Street, which marked East Elmhurst’s border with predominantly white and Latino Jackson Heights to the west. I checked the readability of each sign, and Hayes noted the location and condition of each on a clipboard . Many of the signs had been worn by wind and acid rain, leaving only a bleached white surface with traces of pink lettering. Between signs, Hayes told stories about his experiences growing up in the South, underscoring the race pride that his family had instilled in him. As we zigzagged our way south into low-income Corona, he pointed out important places in the community’s past. When we reached the Refuge Church on tree-lined Thirty-fourth Avenue, Hayes told me that the site had been an early home of the First Baptist Church. “See, the church has always been a sanctuary for blacks,” he said. “It was the only place where we could be complete men for a few hours a day.” To stress this point, Hayes explained that most of Corona’s Baptist congregations had been organized by small groups of people who mortgaged their homes to finance their churches. He then called my attention to a vacant lot next to the church that was being used as a dump for car tires. The narrow lot was littered with a motley assortment of bald tires. A pink refrigerator door, its corners eaten away by rust, rested awkwardly against a jagged chunk of brick and mortar. STEVEN GREGORY 138 Hayes told me that he had been monitoring the situation for some time and believed that tire repair shops operating illegally in residentially zoned buildings were dumping their tires in the lot. He made a note on his clipboard. When we reached the Congregational Church...