Hobohemia, Homeless, Hushed

The hobo outsiders of the early part of this century fought the crush of the capitalist system. The homeless have always been with us but in these days--especially after the gwb 2006 budget--there is a hush as the republorcan dominated government looks for ways to fund war rather than help the most vulnerable.

We need another advocate like Mitch Snyder. Before Snyder's death by suicide in summer of 1990 the republican DeLay taunted him. I guess Delay could not stand Snyder, a man who said:

"..All this happens at a price. We cannot foresee a miraculous season that in which no deaths or injuries occur. We know that we will be out dispensing blankets in the wind and the snow. We also know that literally as well as figuratively, we will be breaking down the doors and walls that separate us from the very poor and that stand between them and their survival. We do it gladly, grateful that some of the scales have dropped from our eyes."

Mitch Snyder, 1983

Some of the Community for Creative Non-Violence and Snyder papers are at George Washington University.

Voices of protest will not be hushed; we will rise up again.



Books:
Todd DePastino.
Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America.
University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Nels Anderson.
On Hobos and Homelessness. The University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Hobohemia; Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other Agitators & Outsiders in 1920s/30s Chicago - By Frank O. Beck; Introduction by Franklin Rosemont - Bughouse Square Series. Charles H. Kerr. 1956