I just found a copy of “Woman of the Ghetto” by Marlena Shaw for 4 bucks! Killer Chicago recording from 1969. The song has been sampled multiple times, among them:
St. Germain sampled from “Woman of the Ghetto” from Live at Montreux used in “Rose Rouge” on Tourist (2000)
9th Wonder and Buckshot also sampled “Woman of the Ghetto” in the track “Ghetto”, and Evil Dee (of Black Moon)’s remix of the same song.
Early integration of a Kalimba in popular western music. Richard Evans production. Jazzy Funk mastery. Lyrics below. Nuff said.
I was born, raised in a ghetto
I was born and raised in a ghetto
I’m a woman, of the ghetto
Won’t you listen, won’t you listen to me, legislator?
(ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging…)
How do you raise your kids in a ghetto?
How do you raise your kids in a ghetto?
Do you feed one child and starve another?
Won’t you tell me, legislator?
How do make your bread in the ghetto?
How do make your bread in the ghetto?
Baked from the souls in the ghetto
Tell me, tell me, Legislator?
Strong true,
my eyes ain’t blue
I am a woman
Of the ghetto
I’m proud, free,
Black, that is me
But I’m a woman of the ghetto
(ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging…)
How do we get rid of rats in the ghetto?
How do we get rid of rats in the ghetto?
Do we make one black and one white in the ghetto?
Is that your answer, legislator?
How do you legislate, brother?
How do you legislate, brother?
When you free one man and try to chain up another,
Tell me, Tell me legislator?
How does your heart feel late at night?
How does your heart feel late at night?
Does it beat with shame, or does it beat with pride?
Won’t you tell me, legislator?
(na-na-na-na-na-na-na, …)
My children learned just the same as yours
As long as nobody tries to close the door
They cry with pain when the knife cuts deep
They even close their eyes when they wanna sleep
We must all have identity
That’s the only way that we can be free
Now peace, you say
is all that you ask
But self-respect is a separate task
You may be sitting up there
in your ivory tower
60 stories tall
Now you may have seen at least one ghetto
But I wonder have you lived there at all?
Places like Watts,
ah, Detroit, tell me
Chicago, ah tell me,
Harlem, tell me,
Washington, tell me
See the women cry
See the children die….
(ging, gi-gi-gi-gi-ging…)
Black youngsters cool off with fire hydrant water on Chicago’s South Side in the Woodlawn community… June 1973
darkjive.com 
Operation Breadbasket, the seed of PUSH
I have dedicated a number of posts here at Darkjive to the PUSH Expo, a 1970s exercise in Black Economic Empowerment (or Black Power as it was then known). The PUSH Expo phenomenon was borne from the seed of Operation Breadbasket (a department of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference), but the roots took twisted turns.
The term “Civil Rights Movement” often brings to mind images of the deep south, but Chicago was a key battleground in those days. Not just because of the influx of new Black citizens that the Great Migration delivered, but because of the ongoing struggles for housing equality and empowerment exacerbated by said influx.
Jesse Jackson, whose ties to Dr. King traced back to the Campaign at Selma in 1965, was selected by King to head Operation Breadbasket’s Chicago Branch. True to its name, the organization distributed nourishment to the communtity, but it also played a more proactive role to fighting for social justice.
Tactics such as boycotts were implemented, but according to Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power by David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), a seamier aspect including cronyism and strong-arming businesses to donate money to Operation Breadbasket were folded into the tactics, as well.
Eventually, leadership rifts came to a head, and in December 1971, Jackson fell out with Ralph Abernathy, King’s successor as head of the national SCLC. Jackson and his allies broke off and formed Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity).
Various sources tell me that this was a pivotal moment in Chicago History because a giant, organized black party (the largest in Chicago at the time) broke off into factions and never regained the traction it had built before that point. Then crack hit the community like the atomic bomb (and the fallout is still being felt). I argue that the hindsighted strength of the PUSH Expo-era was built on momentum created in the years that had preceded it, in conjunction with the genius of marketing with a major motion picture (!) and tons of press. Documentation equals existence itself, and media has the power to romanticize just about anything.
In the end, please leave me the romance. Let me believe that we were SO close to breaking free. It gives me a fairy tale to build tomorrow upon.
8 Comments | tags: Chicago History, Civil Rights, community building, economic empowerment, food justice, Great Migration, inner city, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, operation breadbasket, PUSH Expo, Race, Ralph Abernathy, SCLC, urbanism | posted in Chicago Cultural History, Commentary, Jive Culture