Editing John Hume (section)

== First civic and political engagement ==

=== Credit-union movement ===
In 1960, aged 23, Hume helped establish the Derry [[Credit union|Credit Union]], the first cooperative community bank in [[Northern Ireland]]. Pooling their resources, working people were able to create a low-interest alternative to moneylenders and pawn shops.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=Statement from Irish League of Credit Unions on the passing of past President John Hume RIP |url=https://www.creditunion.ie/news/latest-news/statement-from-irish-league-of-credit-unions-on-th/#:~:text=John%20was%20one%20of%20the,Northern%20Ireland's%20first%20credit%20union.}}</ref> Such was the success of this exercise in what he represented as "practical Christianity" (and as "Catholic in origin"),<ref name=":17" />{{rp|19–20}} that within four years Hume had become the youngest ever President of the [[Irish League of Credit Unions]], a role in which he served until 1968. He was later to remark that of all the things he contributed to in his life, he was proudest of his engagement with credit unions, no movement having done "more good for the people of Ireland, north and south".<ref>{{cite web |date=8 June 2002 |title=John Hume Biography and Interview |url=https://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/#interview |website=www.achievement.org |publisher=[[American Academy of Achievement]]}}</ref>

=== The "Third Force" ===
In 1963, drawing on his Maynooth thesis research, Hume wrote a script for a television documentary on Derry, [https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-city-solitary-1963-online "A City Solitary"], that was broadcast on both the [[BBC]] and [[RTÉ]].<ref name=":7" />{{rp|31–32}} It persuaded ''[[The Irish Times]]'' to open its pages to the "first considered statement" of Hume's political views<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Farren |first=Sean |title=John Hume: In His Own Words |year=2021 |isbn=9781846829987 |location=Dublin |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|33–34}}

In "The Northern Catholic" (18 and 19 May 1964), Hume wrote of an emerging "third force": a "generation of younger Catholics in the North" frustrated with the [[Irish nationalism|nationalist]] policy of non-recognition and [[Abstentionism|abstention]]. Determined to engage the great social problems of housing, unemployment and emigration, they were willing to accept "the [[Protestantism in Ireland|Protestant tradition]] in the North as legitimate" and that [[United Ireland|Irish unity]] should be achieved only "by the will of the Northern majority."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hume |first=John |title=A Northern Catholic writes... John Hume in 1964 |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/a-northern-catholic-writes-john-hume-in-1964-1.4321087 |access-date=2021-03-20 |newspaper=The Irish Times |language=en}}</ref>

"Normal politics" would not emerge in Northern Ireland from Catholic engagement alone. Much would depend on the responsiveness of the northern government whose "skilful placing" of investment was contributing to exceptionally high Catholic unemployment and emigration. If the governing [[Unionism in Ireland|unionists]] failed to respond to "repeated statements of Catholic willingness to get together", he warned that there would be a hardening of opinion and further polarisation.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|34}}

Hume first test of the possibilities for change was as chair in 1965 of the [[University for Derry Committee]].<ref name=":17" />{{rp|22–23}} Accompanied by the city's [[Ulster Unionist Party|Unionist]] mayor, [[Albert Anderson (politician)|Albert Anderson]], and its [[Parliament Buildings (Northern Ireland)|Stormont]] MP, the leader of the [[Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)|Nationalist party]], [[Eddie McAteer]], Hume led a 25,000-strong protest on the steps of Stormont, convinced that the case for developing Derry's [[Magee College]] as [[Ulster University|Northern Ireland's second university]] was "unanswerable".<ref name=":10">{{Cite thesis |title=John Hume : origins of a Derry icon 1960-74 |url=https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/18924 |publisher=University of St Andrews |date=2019 |degree= |doi=10.17630/10023-18924 |language=en |first=Daniel James |last=Keenan |page=|hdl=10023/18924 }}</ref>{{rp|138–139}} When the city lost out to [[Coleraine]], and when later the same year Derry again lost to [[Lurgan]] and [[Portadown]] for [[Craigavon, County Armagh|a new urban-industrial development]], Hume sensed a wider conspiracy. Addressing a meeting in London of the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] [[ginger group]], Campaign for Democracy in Ulster, he suggested that "the plan" was "to cause a migration from West to East Ulster, redistributing and scattering the minority to that the Unionist Party will not only maintain but strengthen its position".<ref>''Derry Journal'', 6 August 1965, cited in Kingsley, Paul (1989), ''Londonderry Revisited: A Loyalist Analysis of the Civil Rights Controversy.'' Belfast Publications'','' pp. 98-99, {{ISBN|978-0-9515549-0-6}}</ref>

Involved in [[Housing association|voluntary housing movement]] in his home city, Hume argued that (notwithstanding "excellent assistance" form the Ministry of Development),<ref name=":17" />{{rp|20}} he battled the same sectarian-political logic within Derry itself. A unionist minority secured majority control of the city council through [[gerrymandering]] which involved restricting planning permission for potential Catholic homes.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|38–39}}<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Bardon |first=Jonathan |title=A History of Ulster |publisher=The Blackstaff Press |year=1992 |isbn=0856404764 |location=Belfast}}</ref>{{rp|648}}

=== Duke Street march, October 1968 ===
On 5 October 1968, the Derry Labour Party and [[Derry Housing Action Committee]] proceeded with a march in the city, originally sponsored by the  [[Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association]] (NICRA), in defiance of a last-minute order by the government alarmed at the prospect of a clash with parading [[Apprentice Boys of Derry|Apprentice Boys]]. Hume, had had no part in the organisation. He had refused an invitation to set up a NICRA branch in his home city. He was wary of the association's infiltration by left-wing activists such as Derry socialist [[Eamonn McCann|Eamon McCann.]]<ref name=":7" />{{rp|48}} McCann later conceded that "conscious, if unspoken strategy", of the march organisers, "was to provoke the police into overreaction and thus spark off mass reaction against the authorities".<ref name=":222">{{Cite book |last=McCann |first=Eamon |title=War and an Irish Town |publisher=Pluto |year=1993 |isbn=9780745307251 |location=London |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|91}}Hume appeared on the day but, in the recollection of McCann, walked on the pavement alongside the march, "half there and half not".<ref name=":7" />{{rp|53–54}}

A later official inquiry found that all that had been required for police to begin "using their batons indiscriminately" against the 400 protesters (among them  Belfast [[Republican Labour Party|Republican Labour]] MP [[Gerry Fitt]], hit twice on the head and hospitalised)<ref name=":17" />{{rp|76}} was defiance of the initial order to disperse.<ref name="derrymarch">{{cite web |author=Martin Melaugh |title=The Derry March: Main events of the day |url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/derry/events.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071123235747/http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/derry/events.htm |archive-date=23 November 2007 |access-date=16 February 2008 |work=[[Conflict Archive on the Internet]] (CAIN) |publisher=[[Ulster University]]}}</ref> The Duke Street march sparked two days of street fighting as protesters and residents resisted the entry of the [[Royal Ulster Constabulary]] (RUC) into the Catholic [[Bogside]]. Hume, elected vice-chair of a new Citizens’ Action Committee (CAC), called for a [[Sit-in|sit-down protest]] at the [[Guildhall, Derry|Guildhall]] two weeks later. A further peaceful demonstration organised and stewarded by CAC on 16 November attracted 15,000. With the government appearing to respond, both Hume's committee and NICRA called for a suspension of further protests.<ref name="bew2">{{cite book |last1=Bew |first1=Paul |title=Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles, 1968–1993 |last2=Gillespie |first2=Gordon |publisher=Gill & MacMillan |year=1993 |isbn=0-7171-2081-3 |location=Dublin |page=10 |chapter=1968 |author-link=Paul Bew, Baron Bew}}</ref><ref name=":17">{{Cite book |last1=Prince |first1=Simon |title=Belfast and Derry in Revolt: a New History of the Start of the Troubles |last2=Warner |first2=Geoffrey |publisher=Irish Academic Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-78855-093-2 |location=New Bridge, Ireland |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|102–107}}