But not all. The Reverend Lawrence Mohammed and the Black Muslim community were not calm. Some of the parents in the crowd before him wept uncontrollably with recent loss. Mohammed had spent much of the afternoon counseling and comforting them, before talking with confused, harried police who had told him what they could, which wasn’t nearly enough. They had nothing no hard leads, no clues nothing. Just an abandoned vehicle and a playground littered with dead children.
Mohammed scowled. His brand of Islam was not strong on conciliation or patience, and it drew a sharp line between black and white. For all their talk of “energetic investigations” and “methodical searches,” he did not believe the FBI and the police would find the schoolyard butchers. In his heart, he did not believe the authorities really wanted to find them. All his life he had seen the police for what they really were merely the slave-catchers of old in a new guise.
But now, perhaps, more of his brothers and sisters would come to realise the truth of his vision.
Already traumatised by the death of Walter Steele and other mainstream leaders in the press club bombing, America’s black community was on edge. Many had wondered openly whether that attack was the last gasp of a former racist era, or just the beginning of a new time of persecution and murder. For many, the Settles School massacre had answered that question.
And now they were here hanging on his every word, waiting for a call to action, a call to arms.
Mohammed leaned closer to the microphone, speaking quietly at first.
“And so now our enemies openly gather round us, my brothers, my sisters. These men, these evil men, threaten our people, all our people, with extermination with genocide.” His voice rose, gathering strength gradually. “And what is the law doing? They’re sitting, that’s what they are doing! Sitting while we die!”
The crowd growled.
He nodded flatly. “They’re being careful, they say. They don’t want to miss anything, they say. It all takes time, they say.” He shook his head. “Oh, yes, they are taking their time taking time and giving it to the killers. Handing precious hours, precious days, to those who use it to murder more of our children!”
Lawrence Mohammed’s voice rose higher to an angry shout. “These evil white men, these devils in sheets, strike, and strike again, and the police are no closer to catching them. They will never be closer, because the police are part of the same problem!
“We have been betrayed by our brothers on the police force and in City Hall! The police are one arm of the white establishment, the racists are another!”
Mohammed shook his head in disgust and asked, “Now, can one hand fight the other?”
As one the crowd roared out its resounding answer, “No!”
“Can two hands work together?”
“Yes!”
“Are those two hands aimed at us?”
“Yes!”
“Are they aimed at our children?”
“Yes!”
Mohammed paused again. He seemed to look each man and woman there in the eye, and his next words were quieter, softer. “Now, as long as I have had someone to preach to, I have preached pride, solidarity, and strength for our people. Did you ever wonder why?”
All of those filling the hall and the streets outside were silent, holding their breath in a collective hush.
He said it again, louder. “Did you ever wonder?”
The silence broke in a shout from thousands of throats. “Yes!”
Mohammed nodded, satisfied. “I’ll tell you why! So we could have the power to fight this white man’s war on us!
“If a man strikes at your children, do you turn the other cheek?” His voice rose again as he asked the question.
“No!”
“If a man strikes at you, do you give him time to strike again?”
“No!” The shout rang out, deeper and uglier this time. Men and women were already moving toward the exits, pouring out onto the streets in a fury.
The Reverend Lawrence Mohammed stood back from his microphone and watched with pride as they left. His words had become weapons. These white devils of the New Aryan Order had struck the spark, but now he would turn the flames against them and against their more powerful masters.
Chicago was on fire by nightfall.
Gunfire echoed above the keening wail of police and fire sirens the single, distinct cracks of pistol shots interspersed with the echoing thumps of shotguns and the rattle of automatic weapons. The National Guardsmen scrambling down out of their canvas-sided, three-quarter-ton trucks stopped in midmotion and looked south in apprehension. Their olivegreen battle fatigues, Kevlar helmets, and M16 rifles looked eerily out of place against the elegantly dressed mannequins visible in the display windows of the Carson Pirie Scott department store.
Lieutenant Richard Pinney, a lawyer by day and soldier by weekend, glanced at his company commander in shock. “Jesus Christ, Captain, what the hell’s going on? A full-scale war?”
A harassed-looking Chicago police sergeant standing nearby saved Captain Philip Jankowski from answering. “That’s it exactly, pal.” He wiped a hand across his weary, red-rimmed eyes and nodded south down the broad expanse of State Street. “Things are totally out of control down there. What was a protest march up Martin Luther King Drive turned into a pushing and shoving match with our crowd control guys. And then that turned into a riot with looting. And now, shit, now it’s a god damned civil war.”
Jankowski’s jaw tightened. It was clear that the hurried phone briefing he’d been given by city officials before leaving the armory was already way out-of-date. He stared down State Street, peering intently through the pall of smoke and soot cloaking the area. Flickering orange-red glows several blocks away marked fires that were steadily consuming the rows of retail stores lining Chicago’s north-south commercial axis.
He turned back to Pinney. “Get the men formed up, Dick. You know the drill. Make sure everyone’s in full gear. Flak jackets, helmets… the works.” He swore softly. “Damn it. I wish we had more troops.”
The sudden activation order from the governor’s office had caught everyone by surprise. By the time Bravo Company moved out of its North Side armory, barely half its one hundred men had reported for duty. Jankowski had left another lieutenant and sergeant behind with orders to bring the rest down south as soon as they showed up. He only hoped they wouldn’t be much longer. He also earnestly hoped Bravo wasn’t the only outfit being summoned to emergency duty.
The lieutenant nodded hesitantly. “What about our weapons, sir?”
More gunfire rattled through the darkness.
“Make sure they’re loaded, Dick. I don’t want anybody opening fire without my orders, but I don’t want anyone going down that street without a full magazine and several spares. Clear?”
Pinney nodded, eyes wide under his helmet.
“Okay. You and Crawford get ‘em organised.” Jankowski pointed toward the exhausted police sergeant. “The sergeant and I are gonna pay a visit to the local CP to find out where they want us.”
Five minutes later, Jankowski emerged from the police radio van being used as a temporary headquarters even more worried than he went in. The earlier reports calling the situation in the Loop area “volatile” had been about as accurate as calling a tornado an “atmospheric disturbance.” Police commanders weren’t sure where the largest pockets of looters and rioters really were.-They weren’t even sure where very many of their own men were. Sporadic reports came in from small bands of regular police and riot squad officers cut off by the mob and forced to hole up for safety. There were unconfirmed reports that several of those tiny groups had been overrun. All communications circuits were jammed by a flood of frantic calls for fire and ambulance service.
Jankowski shook his head in dismay. One thing was clear: Many among the rioters were well armed and fully prepared to use their weapons against anyone who got in their way. Apparently, Chicago’s notoriously violent street gangs were out in force to settle old scores with each other, with the police, and with the “white establishment” especially with those who owned stores selling jewelry and consumer electronics goods.
He was pleased to see that Pinney and his noncoms had the men deployed and ready to move. The formation
