by Fred Logan
This past September 11, 2022 marks forty years, two generations since the Saturday, September 11, 1982 “March Against Dope” through Pittsburgh’s predominately Black Homewood neighborhood.
The 1982 March is part and parcel of the long historical struggles of African American people against illegal drugs that began long before the March and continue on today.
What is the legacy of these struggles? After all, illegal drugs continue to plague the Black community. Pittsburgh’s Homewood is a prime example. Have these struggles all been in vain, hopeless?
No! They have not! Absolutely not! The legacy of these struggles is the invaluable lessons they hold for the Black Community today and tomorrow.
Over the last 50 plus years, the Black struggle against dope may well be the most frequent persistent struggle in the national Black community. The Pittsburgh Black community has led the struggle against illegal drugs in the city. It has initiated countless peace marches, prayer vigils, community meetings large and small, protest marches large and small, and other forms of struggles against illegal drugs. Check the pages of the New Pittsburgh Courier.
The March Against Dope was organized by the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Black independent Political Party (NBIPP) and the ad hoc September 11 Mobilization Committee. Some 1,500 people were expected. The expected attendance from Homewood churches fell short and some 700 people marched.
At the March, Homewood resident and community activist Willie “Bill” Norman called for a “No Dope Sunday.” And later in April 1985, over 20 Pittsburgh area African American churches with, according to the Reverend Albert Pugh of Macedonia Baptist Church, a combined membership of well over 20,000 people participated in “No Nope Sunday”. Four years later in April 1989, some 500 church members participated in a “No Dope Sunday” event at Homewood and Frankstown Avenues. The Reverend W.C. Wentworth, the Reverend Canon Junius Carter, and Imam Mustafa Hassain played key roles in all of these events.
Pittsburgh NBIPP co-chair Malik Bankstown designed a “No Dope in Homewood” window poster that was sold to residents and Black merchants in the community. The 13th Ward Democratic chairman Euzell “Bubby” Hairston paid for a huge March street banner that was hung across Frankstown Avenue at Homewood Avenue. The Black community paid for all of the expenses for the 1982 March Against Dope: Black self-reliance in action!
The March organizers made a serious mistake and did not hold the first follow up meeting until several weeks after September 11 and much of the community’s earlier enthusiasm had waned.
The Homewood/East Hills No Dope Coalition formed after the March never received or sought funding from public or private foundations. It wrestled with the perennial questions that confront Black coalition-building. Two of these are coalescing independent community-based organizations with community organizations that are branches of larger city-wide or county-wide institutions, and coalescing organizations that are social service providers with community advocacy organizations.
The No Dope Coalition failed to provide on-going analysis, critiques and critiques of its activities or the evolution of illegal drugs across the USA. The extreme lesson from this cannot be over emphasized.
Look back over the past 50 or so years and ask this important question: What has been the impact of the city’s official policies to the Black community’s anti-drug struggles. Three examples are the Weed and Seed program, the COPS (Community Oriented Police) program, and the Boston Plan.
And what does the long Black struggles against illegal drugs tell the Black community about the narco-gun violence that now plagues the Black community?
The brief commentary here does not even begin to do justice to the historical importance of the legacy and lessons of the African American struggles against illegal drugs and related narco-violence.
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