YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Pfleger

lines on the record
84
first
2016-08-29
most recent
2016-08-29
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

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  1. “Oh, yeah, he was very. Oh, scary on it, but once he told me that it's only a matter of time, then I decided that I was going to dig my heels in.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Oh my God, yeah He just said, Well, I'm going to let you stay here until things calm down. And I'm going to make you permanent administrator. And he said, don't make any changes. And I said, what's a permanent administrator? He said, it's a term I created so it has no canonical power and I can remove you as soon as things calm down. Well, a couple other priests”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Both, but primarily black people, though. And the diocese decided the Cardinal Cody at the time who did not care for me, said he.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “You know, I don't know. I was frustrated and I knew that I had to continue to do the work I was doing on the West Side and that I got ordained to do. So I was considering leaving. And then... November 19th, this pastor drops dead of a massive heart attack And I've signed a lease now, and this small group of people is trying to organize to have me stay there. I'm trying to go buy furniture for my apartment. They don't know anything about. But they began to really organize and bring people in from the community. I was saying to people at meetings with the personnel board that were coming and I never saw them before in my life.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Not only grow up, I wanted to really celebrate because you walked in our church and you thought you were still in the church of the Saint Abinas from 1940 and 50. And now we have this neighborhood that is all African American. If we're not embracing the community with which now we live, then we're going to end up being irrelevant and we will close. And he was told just to maintain it. And we were in the church was going to close. So I was actually getting ready to leave. I signed a lease on an apartment. I was going to leave right after Christmas. Had told my father about it.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Yeah. I mean, beautiful, beautiful church. Interesting because the stained glass and the woodwork saw hand carved in that church. Was brought in, the church would be in 1933 during the middle of the oppression. The Catholic Church was shipping in stained glass and kind covered woodwork from Paris. Only the Catholic Church could get by with that. Yeah, so it was down to about 80 people, top four of the school was closed. The basement of the church was all closed off. Half our gym building was all closed off. So we told we're going to close in about three years. So I'm there now almost six years and I'm deciding I got to go because if Pastor and I are hitting heads, I don't want to be at a place that he's just maintaining the clothes.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Oh, yeah. When I got there in 75, I'm there about three weeks before. I'm told that the church has going to close in sometime in the next three years. It was about 80 people left. There was still a number of white people that came to the church”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Yeah, it was very strong, well known church in the South Side, primarily Irish congregation. Interesting history, though. In the 60s, when African Americans were moving further west on the south side, Monsignor John McMahon, who was the pastor at St. Sabine at the time, he wanted to integrate the parish. He hired Solinsky to be on staff. Work for integration. Sansky often talked about as one of his big failures. He couldn't do it. Right north in the 15th ward on the south side of Chicago is a priest named Francis Lawler. Who was working on segregation. So you had these two priests, 15, 20 minutes away from each other, one working on segregation, one working on integration. In fact, Francis Law or the priest got elected as all men because of his stance on segregation.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Yeah, I wanted to continue to stay in the African American community. And they gave a couple of different places that had openings that I could look at. And I guess my initial feeling of St. Sabina was is that when I was growing up, many of my parents' friends were”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “What I've looked at in the neighborhood is nobody in that neighborhood was doing more to care for the community than the Panthers. And so I wanted to learn about them and what they were doing. So I helped with the breakfast program. They actually ended up coming and meeting in our rectory basement because I asked the pastor there because they were being kicked out of place if they could meet there and they met for two years there before at that time a Chicago newspaper called The Daily News did a story about the Panthers meeting of this church and the then Cardinal of the Archdiocese told the pastor they couldn't meet there anymore.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And at the order of Hanrahan, who was the state's attorney at the time. But I realized the reason I got connected with them was, and it's kind of strange because I'm a Dr. King groupie and he's total nonviolence and the Panthers still believe in violence.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “African American. What was funny? It was right at the Eisenhower Expressway on the west side of Chicago. And across the bridge was all African American and Rockwell projects. South of the bridge was a lot of some left Italian that had not moved out of the neighborhood and Puerto Rican and Mexican. But my whole ministry became with the African American community across the bridge. Fred Hampton of the Panthos took me under his wing. I used to go pick up bread for the breakfast program for the...”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “No, it was kind of, we were told we can get involved with a ministry project like tutoring at a school. I started out with the tutoring at Precious Blood School and realized this is the place I wanted to be in.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I was just in the end of college school. When I first made contact with her. and kept contact with her up until her death. And one of the people that spoke at her funeral, her and the family, in fact, Bernice King gave the first sermon she ever gave at our church when she was at Spellman.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Oh, absolutely. I reached out to her and to the family and became very close with them. She used to always call me my son. And she realized, I think, soon on she says, your love for my husband is very deep. And I want to open up his life to you as much as I can. And so she let me go through papers and stuff before it went to Emory's in Boston and Argentina Courts.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I can only describe it in my 67 year old terms is that it was a depression, but I remember I felt like my world would come to the end because his was my hero. This was the guy I wanted to grow under, learn under, and I wanted just to spend time with him. I wanted to work with him. You know, I think what saved me in a day, to be honestly, was his wife, Coretta, took me under her wing. And she got to learn.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And it wasn't two years later. I realized all those dots that all that stuff tapped into what the prejudice I saw against my sister.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And that was an anger inside of me. I go freshman in South America high school down to Wilberton, Oklahoma, and what Native Americans show in the first time of their two weeks were walking into town to get some ice cream. And there at ice cream shop, the owner says, you can come in, you're wife, but the Indians can't come in. And I called my mother that night and said, I'm moving down to Oklahoma. It's crazy down here and sort of what happened. She laughed at me on the phone and said, welcome to America, Michael. And so I have this experience with my sister. I have this experience of Native Americans. And then I go down to the West Side of Chicago because of Dr. King. And I see all the prejudice and racism. That's here in this city and in this country.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, but actually through Quigley High School. This is crazy when I started to draw the dots years later, and it was years later, I grew up with a sister who was mentally challenged, and I watched her constantly called retarded, laughed at, taken advantage of.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yes, I spent two summers in first and second year high school. The summers down in Wilburton, Oklahoma, working with Native Americans. And, you know, it's also through the...”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “No question, man. I know that I made a conscious decision at the end of senior year to saying I needed to explore this district. And I happen to, you know, I was Catholic, so I went into the Catholic seminary. But I knew I'd explore. But I also knew I had to stay connected with stuff in the street. People always say, well, how do you, why you weren't staying at the seminary, you got kicked out of the seminary for not staying there enough? And why are you living on the west side? Because I had to stay in connection with this Dr. King who taught about, you know, this relationship with the community. And so that's why I lived in the west side. That's how I got involved with the Panthers. That's how, you know.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I started to read everything he had read up to 66, and then at a wall in my room where I cut out stuff and put up from the papers and realized this guy who decided, you know, he didn't want to be known as the civil rights activist. He wanted to be known as a minister because he used to consistently say that We can make laws and we need to make laws that make lynching and segregation illegal. But laws can't change hearts and the ways we treat each other as brothers and sisters. And that was the job of the faith.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Well, so we went over to where we heard the march was coming from off of Kedzi. And when I saw him, he had already been hit by the rock. I didn't even know. I didn't know about that until days later in the news. And what kind of got obsession with me was looking him and all this hate, the shouting, the screaming, and this negativity, and he's never responding to it. You know, he's looking at each other and talking about, you know, we have to learn to live together and we have to learn that brothers and sisters. And I'm like riding away that day all the way home I was silent because my friends go, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I just realized, what is it about this man? Either this guy was totally crazy or he had some kind of strength and power that I want to know about. And when people say to me, Dave, why are you a Catholic priest today? It's because there's Black Baptist minister in 66 because then I...”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, and certainly on the southwest of Chicago, but also a pivotal figure in the segregation in Chicago. And I say that because when I was growing up, there was the Italian church, there was the German church, there was the Irish church. Every little group had their own church. So all these churches were built so close to each other. So that was just a way it was done in the early days. So now when all those churches became those segregated churches continued, we have, I think, an obligation. We help create this segregation. We have an obligation to do away with it. But unfortunately, the church has been way too silent.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “He'd have been booed out. There's no question about it. And I think, unfortunately, that's true so often today. You know, the same thing. I mean, let's face it, a whole lot of... Police and fire people are Catholics. Catholic is a predominant religion in America. And not only that, the Catholic Church, you know,”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Well, I think at first I felt like, well, there were two different things. But I think as I continued to read and study more of Dr. King and his challenge to the churches, I began to wonder. I remember asking one of the priests at our church, one, how come we never talk about this in our pulpit? In our church, I never hear anything about this. And he really just kind of dismissed me. That we were here to talk about God. How”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Screaming racial slurs, rock throwing, bottle throwing, one group is trying to turn over a car. It was just, I was frightened at first. It's crazy because we almost turned around and left because it was so frightening to see all this. I'd never seen hate like that. I never saw anger like this. But I think my curiosity outwon my fear at that point. I wanted to see this guy king that I everybody had been talking about. Let me stop.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “And then we rode on into Marquette Park and saw people I knew there. I saw a parent of one of my friends. I saw somebody I went to our church, lived in my neighborhood. And it was just like, I was frightened. What were they?”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, my father came out of World War II and a lot of people in the community there were veterans. And here's his Nazi headquarters, but the interest and the acceptance of it was that they were there to make sure African Americans did not come further west and into the white community. And they were kind of like maybe not a wonderfully liked group, but they served a purpose for the neighborhood”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Yeah, and it was very loud, very determined, very angry. And I knew if I asked my parents, they'd never let me. But I asked two of my friends to ride their bikes with me. And the first thing that was so awakened me, we rode down Western 71st Street, down 71st Street to California. And passing on 71st and Rockwell, the Nazi headquarters, which I never knew was there. Years later, I asked my parents about that, and they said, Well, we never roll by there because we never wanted you or your sister to see it. So all this Nazi, you know, swastika and go home.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Strange to me knowing you, but too much of a surprise, but they never allowed the F word or the N-word in our house. And which were both common by everybody on that I grew up with in the southwest side. So, it was curiosity, really.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Why did you go I had heard so much negativity in my neighborhood about Dr. King and what he was trying to move blacks into the white community.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “I always have thought about it was always something on my mind just because my mother worked at the church office, a priest came over the house a lot, and it was something I always had in the back of my mind. But I think what really... What really kind of seasoned it out for me, if you will, is after junior year high school when I saw out of curiosity, myself and two of my friends riding over to Marquette Park and saw Dr. King marching there. And 50 years ago.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Zero. I mean, I grew up in Southwest side, a very inbred sort of very white, a lot of police firemen, middle class, Catholic, primarily Irish community in the southwest side of Chicago. And really, the only first African-American person I ever even had a contact with was a lady who worked at the church office as a cook. And Mary Betts had the first impact of my life, but a strong impact as a child growing up.”

    2016-08-29 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 75 - Fr. Michael Pfleger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source