Jimmie Lee Robinson's Hunger Strike Continues
Bluesman Jimmie Lee Robinson started a hunger strike on August 18, 2000 to save the old Maxwell Street area and has now been on his fast for a full month.
"On one side of my family were followers of Marcus Garvey and Christianity. On the other side were Communists. From early on, I was trained not to give up.
At the age of two years old, my Grandmother ask me two questions, Can't and Try? And She would make it difficult for me to answer. And then she would ask me. Which one would you want to be, Can't or Try? If I said Can't, she would hit me with a spoon and some times with a case knife. Her motto was and is Look Up And Live.
Where there is a struggle that I must engage in to help all of the people and those with out power and money, I will give my whole Self for their needs. We are all one Family.
I've have cried in the day and in the night, hoping that UIC and Chicago will treat us right.
When I seen that Wrecking Ball, it made me feel like my Soul was being destroyed, and my neck was hanging from a tree.
People from all over the World have laid down and dream dreams of the greatness of Maxwell Street. I know no way and no words to express its greatness.
Maxwell Street was a poor peoples' place. It gave the world and Chicago its Blues.
There are lots of Blues musicians who played there and created their music styles. Some became famous but most are forgotten. I must not let their memory be destroyed. Rev Uncle Guitar Johnny William, ninety five years old. -- James Williamson Guitar, known as [HOMESICK JAMES], over ninety five years old. -- also "Honey Boy Edward" eighty five years old, the greatest true Blues player of our time.-- Rev: "Snooky Pryor" on his way to the eightys -- "Rev: Sugar Hampton" up in his ninetys from the old days, The Man Of the Bible.-- These are some of the old time Maxwell Street Blues Boy's, that's still around.
There are those who was born to destroy the remembrance of the past, and there are those who was born to preserve.
Those buildings are very historic and important to me. They tell what happened there for those who could not speak. I was there in the 1930s & 1940s. I saw it. These buildings there now were back there in the good old day. Were those bureaucrats in Washington and Springfield there then? What do they know about the Blues? We've had them before and every since we was brought here on the slave ships.
This is a moral struggle for me. I must be purified. I will give my life if need be. I ask all those of good will to plead with Mayor Daley to stop the demolitions in the Maxwell Street area. I ask kind and thoughtful people to plead with the University of Illinois to compromise and save the remaining nine whole buildings on Maxwell Street and the 28 on Halsted. And save the hot dog stands, and the Blues Record shop and let the merchants stay who want to stay, and let the Blues musicians have their community bandstand. They ain't hurting no one.
My grandmother was a Choctaw Indian from Mississippi so I am sensitive to what happens when people are forcibly pushed off their land. That is the past . We must not make the same mistakes again.
And please don't forget we need a Natural Health Morality Institution of learning. And also a Blues Museum."
JIMMIE LEE ROBINSON
For information about the initiation of Mr. Robinson's hunger fast see <www.openair.org/maxwell/jlprot.html>.
Also read about and hear his Maxwell Street Tear Down Blues <www.openair.org/maxwell/ptear.html>.
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