One Cool Cat – Brief History of Michael James

Rogers Park is the northernmost community in the city of Chicago. It’s a 30 minute taxi ride from downtown, and I would imagine that most visitors to the city would never make it this far north. If I was not asked by Michael James to be interviewed about our movie screening in Chicago, I would have never made my way this far north either, but I am sure glad I did.

I don’t often get interviewed and so for me there is certainly a novelty appeal to being the subject of a radio interview. As a result I was eager to meet Mr. James and happy to answer his questions about the film, about Canadian health care, or about anything else he wanted to discuss.

I arrived to Heartland Café just before  9:00am Saturday morning. My first impression of Michael is that of a warm and welcoming human being. He is the busy co-owner of the Heartland Café and host of its Saturday morning radio show. Located in ‘the Heart of Rogers Park,’ it is a little north of Uptown Chicago where Mr. James made his start in Chicago.

Over the course of the next hour I got a glimpse at the life of a fascinating individual. From the corner stage I sat answering questions while the typical sounds of a busy café whirred in the background. And along the walls I could see a photo-display of Mr. James’ activity during the 60s and 70s as a community activist alongside groups like the Black Panthers.

Michael James reached out to a poor, mixed racial community in the north of Chicago and is still there today. He was a voice for change and unity from the time he first arrived in Chicago right up to today. I felt inspired by his story and compelled to learn a little more about this man.

History of Michael James’ Chicago

“I spent the summer hanging out under the el tracks [Chicago’s elevated trains], on corners, building stoops, and back porches, and in corner restaurants… spent time with guys drinking, bullshitting, complaining, telling stories, and playing guitar… it captured my heart and changed me forever” James said in an essay he wrote about his first summer in Chicago in 1964 called Getting Ready for the Firing Line.

James spent some time in California as a grad student before being drawn back to Chicago just a few years later. He worked with JOIN Community Union which had grown out of Jobs or Income Now, which reached out to the community, mostly the the poor, and assisted with housing issues, women’s rights issues , and unemployment. As James puts it, he “stood up for the little people.”

By 1968 Michael James had roots in the community. That was also a year of great turmoil, with events that effected not only Chicago, but much of the United States. It started with the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr in April and then Robert F. Kennedy in June. Riots broke out in a number of cities following Dr. King’s death and then, in August of the same year, fierce protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago capped off a year of division and unrest.

Certainly, these difficult times for Chicago and America were part of James’ motivation to move on and try something a little different. So Michael James’ work with JOIN ended and in 1969 he started Rising Up Angry.

The idea was to reached out to the white youth not only in Uptown but throughout Chicago and the surrounding region. Rising Up Angry would create a unique voice that it hoped would steer people away from racist forces at work in the city. Rising Up Angry also worked closely with Bobby Lee and Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers Party, with the Young Lords, and the Young Patriots. It was a newspaper, and a community voice.

Here’s an excerpt from an article explaining what Rising Up Angry was:

With profiles of figures such as Malcolm X and Fred Hampton, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, reviews of the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and The Wild Bunch, Rising Up Angry mixed political and cultural commentary with cartoons, montages, discussions of motorcycles and custom cars, with histories of labor activism and guerrilla warfare.

In a interview with James Tracy, Bobby Lee explains how Mike (Michael) James and Rising Up Angry helped to make the Rainbow Coalition a reality.

When I went to Uptown Chicago, I saw some of the worst slums imaginable. Horrible slums, and poor white people lived there. However, two organizations prepared the way for the Rainbow Coalition, without them there wouldn’t have been a chance of forming one. Rising Up Angry (rua) and [JOIN] Community Union. The uptown neighborhood was prime recruiting zone for white supremacists. Most of the cats who were in the Patriots also had at least one family member in the Klan. Cats like Mike James and Jewnbug, and Tappis worked hard to fight that mentality. Mike James and rua drove a wedge in that bullshit, that white supremacist bullshit, their groundwork was just amazing, out of this world.

I had to run with those cats, break bread with them, hang out at the pool hall. I had to lay down on their couch, in their neighborhood. Then I had to invite them into mine. That was how the Rainbow Coalition was built, real slow.

So with community activism now part of his life for over 11 years, and while running a successful magazine, and a Rainbow Coalition taking root, what was next on the horizon for Michael James?

He saw a new challenge and a new way to strengthen the community. The progression saw Michael create the Heartland Café. Opening its doors in 1975 the Café served “Good Wholesome Food for the Mind and Body,” it grew into a community focused hub for art, music, food, and celebration. With a Saturday morning radio show – broadcast right in the Café – a general store, a bar, a theatre, an athletic organization, and much more.

In the words of Jessica Herman of Centerstage “Heartland Cafe is more a lifestyle than simply a restaurant, bar or music venue: Entering this haven of color, cornbread and community spirit feels like taking a trip to Berkeley for the price of an [el] ride north to Rogers Park.

A Few Questions for Michael

I asked Michael some questions in a follow up email a short time after we had met:

What has been the most rewarding thing for you with Heartland Café?

Well, I would say keeping it open, having up to three generations of families coming through, and the rally for mayoral candidate Harold Washington, who two days later won the primary and went on to be Chicago’s first African American mayor. He was a wonderful man; too bad he didn’t eat at the Heartland more that two times – his health would have been better.

(Washington died of a massive heart attack early into his second term as mayor.)

What were the most memorable interviews you have had?

Barack Obama (Feb. 4, 2004), and Studs Terkel.

(He also interviewed Gary Fisher in 2008 and ME.)

What’s next big plan on the horizon for Heartland Café?

We started a substantial gardening project on the roof. Want to really develop that over the next couple of years: We have 8000 sq. feet up top with lots of sun.

How’s the cycling in Rogers Park?

There are a lot of bike riders, increasing bike parking, designated routes after the lake front parks stop to the south, though the routes don’t hook back into the lakefront in Rogers Park (& 49th ward). Only one bike shop, Roberts, though several in Evanston, and some to the south of us. A co-op bike group was going to open a place. not sure where that’s at.

Strong Community Activism Still Needed Today

In Michael James’ own words…

1968, and the consciousness symbolized by Chicago’s Rainbow Coalition saw the emergence of a movement in Chicago and beyond that forged a generation whose actions, beliefs, and spirit is coming to fruition, whose involvement in politics and government is emerging today. There is a direct line, a direct link, from 1968 through the election of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington all the way to the Obama for President campaign.  Perhaps more than ever We the People are in a position to help create a politics of affirmation, of unity and inclusion, that is about justice, fairness, and peace, hopefully playing a part in bringing people everywhere to that place where we can share one heart.  All Power to the People!

Some time had past after meeting Mr. James, when I was reading through a Rogers Park neighbourhood newspaper that I had grabbed when I left the Heartland Café called the Urban Coaster. One of the cover stories was of an extremist Christian group called the Westboro Baptist Church that had made a stop in Rogers Park to protest in front of a Jewish Synagogue.

This hate group I remember first came to my attention when members had tried to cross into Canada to protest at the funeral of a man brutally beheaded on a Greyhound bus, saying that it “was God’s response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and divorce and remarriage.”

A few haters were out on Sheridan Road in Chicago, but from the article it appeared that the community was out in force too. Refusing to stand for this; Jews, Christians and regular old activists alike lined the street in front of the Synagogue, while a few haters occupied the opposite sidewalk – it was peaceful, but forceful in the numbers of citizens who would not let this pass quietly . The article states that the haters “were confronted by 10-deep phalanx of citizens who stood quietly in front of the Synagogue”

Though I don’t know for sure, I suspect a guy like Michael James would not have been able to resist the urge to be at such a protest. Though if he weren’t there in body, the spirit of resistance by groups like the Black Panther Party, Rising Up Angry, and the forming of the Rainbow Coalition and other movements and community groups James was involved with made this community stronger and intolerant of such hate.

photos by Shanny Hill