rl10136mdv0003.dv / Tape 3, 2000 April / Duke Digital Repository

-

Sensitivity training.

0:00

One of the reasons that when I get on the staff

0:01

of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice

0:03

and we're doing all those police brutality

0:05

hearings in New York City.

0:07

The reason I do a ten-page chronology

0:09

of police brutality cases for the previous ten years

0:11

is because I knew what to do from SNCC.

0:15

That training came to me from SNCC.

0:19

It's not because I dreamed it up,

0:20

it's not because I knew it

0:21

from knowing it myself.

0:23

What happens is that you realize the necessity

0:26

for always having a factual base

0:29

for the information that you're giving out

0:31

so people just don't think that you're

0:33

making it up.

0:34

-

I'm going to go ahead.

-

Yeah.

0:35

-

Okay, I have been told we're down

0:37

to about a minute and a half at this juncture,

0:39

so we'll entertain your questions.

0:41

Sir, go ahead.

0:43

Or your comment.

0:44

Student

My question is

0:45

do you know as far as my generation,

0:47

young black male and females, what is going on,

0:49

and I just want to figure out how --

0:51

What would be the best way for them to see

0:54

the past and take the past and bring it to the future?

0:56

Because the struggle is not over

1:00

and we still have a long way to go to get there.

1:01

It feels as though they're being pacified in this time,

1:04

that, 'Okay, we're done, we don't need to work hard,

1:07

'we don't need to struggle, we don't need

1:09

'to do this again, go through that.'

1:11

What attitude did you all have at that age

1:12

that made that conviction so strong

1:14

that you all changed everything?

1:16

That's what I'd say.

1:18

-

I walk around, okay?

1:21

The answer to that question ...

1:25

Are you in school now?

1:26

Student

Yes, sir.

-

In college?

1:29

Student

Yes, sir.

-

Get your degree, okay.

1:30

Let's take 40 years ago.

1:34

How many of you here are students at Shaw

1:36

now in this room?

1:39

Anybody?

1:41

About 40 years ago, if you were a student at Shaw

1:42

about to get your degree next month,

1:44

you would've had to scramble to get a decent job

1:48

if you were not a teacher or going into a government agency.

1:52

Today, that is not true.

1:58

The unemployment situation here in the Raleigh area

2:00

is one of the lowest in the world.

2:03

All you need to do is to get your education

2:05

and you step immediately into the middle class.

2:09

Everything you need to do, and this is one of the things

2:12

that's causing so much poverty within the black community,

2:15

is to stay with your family and take care of your family.

2:19

A major cause of poverty in the black community today,

2:24

young black males leaving their families

2:28

and not taking care of them.

2:32

So number one, get an education

2:33

and you step immediately into the middle class.

2:35

Dissenter

I protest.

2:39

-

Would you please?

2:41

-

Would you please, sir?

2:42

-

Poverty is a consequence

of four hundred years of racism ...

2:45

Muriel

Let him finish and then we'll hear from you.

2:46

Dissenter

And those young black males

2:50

are already in poverty.

2:51

Woman On Panel

Well, so why don't you come next?

2:53

Dissenter

Their behavior

2:56

is a reaction to poverty and not being --

2:57

Muriel

Okay, let me say two things.

2:59

One is --

3:01

(applause)

3:02

-

Hey, Thomas. Hello, Reverend --

3:05

(laughs)

3:07

Might've expected a SNCC meeting.

3:08

-

I think that black people will join under the system

3:09

and then proceed to do what George Will does

3:13

and Pat Robinson does and say, 'It's only a few

3:15

dysfunctional black people who cause

3:20

a problem with America,' are doing nothing

3:22

but putting on a year 2000 definition

3:24

of racism of 1850.

3:28

(applause)

3:31

-

Okay, first -- Excuse me.

3:35

I'm the moderator. First, Hank.

3:37

Would you finish your comment? Thank you.

3:39

And then we'll hear from other people.

3:41

We may have to take another couple of minutes

3:42

to round this one out, okay?

3:44

-

Thank you very much.

3:47

I stand by what I said. get your degree.

3:50

Get your education.

3:54

You step immediately into the middle class.

3:56

(disagreement in audience)

3:59

Woman On Panel

I'm sorry, who has the floor?

4:00

Muriel

He hasn't finished, Reverend.

4:04

They got to hear from you.

4:06

Dissenter

I am continuously --

4:07

Muriel

Okay, but you are out of order, brother.

4:09

(Dissenter continues)

4:12

Brother. Brother.

Dissenter

And they cannot find a stable home,

4:16

neither in

4:18

Muriel

Okay.

I agree with you.

4:19

(Dissenter continues)

Dissenter

Or sales or in social service.

4:20

Muriel

I would agree with you, but this is not

4:22

the way we're gonna --

4:23

(Dissenter continues)

(hits podium) this is not they way we're gonna proceed.

4:24

This is not the way we're going to proceed, brother.

4:28

No, you are out of order.

4:30

(Dissenter continues)

You are out of order, brother.

4:32

You are out of order, and I am not gonna let you speak.

4:34

Now, I'm the moderator.

4:39

Woman On Panel

Thank you.

4:41

Muriel

Okay?

4:42

Go.

4:44

-

Just to sum it up, get your education,

4:46

take care of your family and the last thing

4:48

in living legacy as far as I'm concerned,

4:52

and this is one man's opinion of what

4:55

the civil rights movement has done,

4:57

it has expanded and literally, if you will,

4:59

created the black middle class.

5:02

Without a middle class, no group of people --

5:05

Without a middle class, no group of people makes progress.

5:09

This country has been a magnet for those who come here

5:14

hoping to get into the middle class

5:19

and that has happened.

5:21

In the 1960s and prior to us getting involved

5:22

and knocking down these laws, we were not allowed

5:27

as a people to enter the middle class.

5:30

You go to college so that you can become

5:34

a part of that middle class.

5:36

You get an education.

5:38

I know the word middle class unfortunately

5:41

has become a pejorative term for some folks.

5:44

But folks, when you go to college,

5:49

you don't get a degree so I can become a better poor person.

5:51

You get a degree so that you can have a standard of living

5:54

that is good, that you can support you family.

5:58

Basically, this is what has happened today

6:02

and this is the legacy, this is the fruit

6:05

of what we have done.

6:08

Muriel

I'm gonna -- Okay.

6:10

Hank, I'm gonna cut you off.

6:11

I'm gonna close this one out and I'm gonna

6:12

lay something out for the group

6:15

because we've been told we have to close.

6:16

Let me say this to you. That's Hank's opinion.

6:18

That's not all of our opinions

6:21

and I want you to be clear about that.

6:23

I work in prisons every day, okay?

6:25

I work with brothers who are coming in

6:28

with the college education, okay? Et cetera.

6:30

So I want you to know that while Hank is providing

6:33

his viewpoint -- And Hank was a part of us,

6:36

and that's one of the things I wanted to say,

6:39

that we always had room for everybody's opinions.

6:41

(agreement in audience)

6:44

This is a very big world.

There are millions of people that you hope to move.

6:47

You're not gonna channel everybody down the same highway.

6:49

People are going down other highways.

6:52

The point of the matter is, with the way

6:54

that you are gonna proceed in life,

6:56

do you see the minefields?

6:58

Are you in the position to make a decision

7:00

that is on behalf of people?

7:03

Will you engage in things that are on the other side?

7:05

Will you join the people who are enemies of the people?

7:08

You understand what I'm saying?

7:12

And these days are very problematic,

7:13

and you can tell just from this brief entree,

7:15

that there were differences and there

7:18

continue to be differences.

7:20

So I'm gonna yield to the conference coordinator here

7:22

who's asked us to close this session.

7:27

Hopefully, we can take some of this fire

7:30

onto the next level and try to get

7:31

some more into this discussion.

7:34

Brother, did you want to say something? Okay.

7:35

Sister, there you go.

7:37

Coordinator

Thank you.

7:38

Muriel

Thank you.

7:39

-

Let me just echo what was just stated,

7:45

and let me tell you something as you take out

7:49

your program pieces and take a look at them.

7:52

There will be lots of wonderful opportunities

7:57

for us to engage in these discussions both formally

7:59

by means of the various workshop sessions that are planned,

8:03

and also by means of the chatroom

8:08

which we will have available.

8:11

The chatroom is not the computer chatroom,

8:13

it's a room where you can enter

8:16

and there will be SNCC veterans who will be there,

8:19

and they may or may not have similar opinions.

8:23

In fact, they may have opposing opinions.

8:26

And I think that would be a wonderful opportunity

8:29

for young people to hear the varying opinions.

8:31

We don't want anybody to leave angry with anybody because --

8:35

Well, I won't say what my former ex-husband

8:39

used to say about opinions and parts of the body,

8:41

but we all have them.

8:44

Yes, Dr. Payne, you're trying to get my attention?

8:47

[Dr. Payne] I was gonna suggest

8:49

if other people want to view this discussion,

8:51

so for those who really want to do that,

8:52

you can use the first afternoon session in the chatroom

8:55

to start off specifically around questions.

8:57

-

Exactly.

9:00

Muriel

That's fine, that's good.

9:01

-

Let me then share with you some

9:02

information that you don't have.

9:05

If you have this piece of paper that says

9:06

Thursday, April 13,

9:08

please look down at the first thing is 11:30, lunch.

9:12

Some of you signed up to go to the

9:18

Peace Lunch Forum which will be over at NC State.

9:20

It's there because that program is one

9:25

that's been in place for many, many, many years.

9:29

They do lots of wonderful things and bring various speakers.

9:31

In being a part of this celebration, they asked

9:34

that they do their traditional program there.

9:37

So we're inviting those of you who've already

9:41

signed up to go to go over there.

9:43

What about your lunch?

9:45

Well, it will be in the Talley Student Center

9:46

and you can purchase your lunch in the Talley Student Center

9:49

or if you happen to be on the second round of shuttles,

9:52

you can get lunch from around here someplace,

9:56

but be ready to get on the shuttle.

9:58

We will have shuttles provided for you

10:00

to go over to NC State, and we will

10:03

bring you back from NC State.

10:06

That will take place between 11:30 and 1 P.M.

10:08

Then, starting at 1 P.M., when we come back, we will

10:13

come back to the Raleigh Convention and Civic Center,

10:16

which is across Wilmington Street, all right?

10:19

It's right next door to the Sheraton hotel.

10:23

It's a part of that complex that's

10:26

on the Fayetteville Street Mall.

10:28

That's where the afternoon concurrent sessions will be held.

10:30

I'm going to read the sessions,

10:34

I'm going to read the names of the persons

10:37

who are going to be on those sessions

10:40

so somebody doesn't come up to me later and say,

10:42

'Who's doing that?'

10:44

But I will tell you that I'm a teacher

10:47

and I only like to give instruction --

10:52

I'm also a grandmother, and that's

10:54

what I tell my grandchildren all the time.

10:55

I'm gonna tell you one time.

10:57

-

[Woman In Audience] Is this printed

10:59

anywhere for the panelists, even?

11:00

-

Unfortunately, it isn't.

11:01

Now, let me just try and explain what happens

11:04

when you try and do something like this

11:06

and you've got bits and pieces

11:08

coming from all around the country.

11:09

We don't all get it all when we need to have it all

11:12

so that it can be concise, but we're gonna

11:15

work with it, we're gonna help as much as we possibly can,

11:17

we're gonna try and do something special for the panelists

11:20

because I know they're gonna be concerned about it.

11:23

For the benefit of everyone else right now,

11:25

I'm gonna read out who's doing what

11:27

and the room numbers that you can look for

11:30

when you go to the Civic Center, okay?

11:32

Starting -- Yes?

11:36

Man In Audience

You don't have enough people

11:38

for a variety of different panels.

11:39

Muriel

Yes, that's right. (laughs)

11:41

-

Brother Payne, let's have a meeting.

11:45

There's been a proposal we don't have enough people

11:49

for a variety of sessions when

11:52

we do the concurrent sessions.

11:55

Given the number of people who have registered,

11:59

they must be somewhere.

12:02

What do you want to do? What do we want to do?

12:05

[Payne] I just have a feeling going by the elevators,

12:08

(audience chatter drowns out Payne)

12:09

but what is also happening is

12:10

people are just sort of trickling in,

12:12

and that by the time 1 o'clock comes,

12:14

I'm expecting to have a full theater.

12:17

That's the way it appears.

12:20

Muriel

So we go forward.

12:22

-

I hear motions to go forward.

12:24

All right.

12:27

1 P.M. to 2:45 P.M.

12:29

Emerging Scholarship on Miss Ella Baker

12:33

and Grassroots Organizing,

12:36

the moderator is Joanne Grant, the panelists are

12:37

Hasan Jeffries, Abigail Lewis, and Barbara Ransby.

12:41

That will be held in Room E2.

12:47

There will be a film, Eyes on the Prize,

12:55

a segment of Ain't Scared of Your Jails with discussion --

13:00

Actually --

13:03

Dr. Payne.

13:06

-

[Woman In Audience] Charles.

13:08

-

Charles Payne.

13:09

Ain't Scared of Your Jails.

13:13

The film.

13:16

We're on the second panel.

13:18

Muriel

He doesn't know what you're talking about.

13:21

-

The film Ain't Scared of Your Jails?

13:22

Muriel

Where?

13:24

-

Is that gonna be shown today

or just discussed today?

13:26

Payne

It was gonna be both shown and discussed.

13:28

-

Today, right?

13:30

Okay.

13:32

Where are we showing the film?

13:33

(microphone does not pick up Payne's answer)

13:35

-

All right, that'll be in Room E3.

13:39

Something's a little bit different about that for me.

13:44

The third one is SNCC Culture: What Held Us Together.

13:46

Gosh, and it must have been a lot of talking

13:50

and dialoguing and arguing and getting points across.

13:52

All right.

13:57

We're gonna stay together.

13:59

Ivanhoe Donaldson, Jim Foreman, Judy Richardson,

14:00

and Charles Sherrod are on that panel,

14:04

and that will be in Room E4 in the Civic Center.

14:06

The fourth session, Black and White, Together or Separate.

14:11

Panelists are Joan Browning, Martha Norman

14:15

if she gets here, she's driving down,

14:19

Muriel Tillinghast, and Bob Zellner.

14:21

That will be in Room E5.

14:25

Organizing: The Mississippi Experience.

14:30

Panelists are Sam Block, Laurence --

14:33

Is it Guyot or -- Guyot,

14:36

Mary Lane and Wazir Peacock.

14:39

That will be in Room D3.

14:42

-

[Person In Audience] If it is, it's in the room

14:47

with Eyes on the Prize.

14:48

Woman On Panel

No, you said D.

14:50

Muriel

D as in David.

14:52

-

D for David, 3.

14:53

The first one was E, as in elephant.

14:55

Time now is 3 to 4:45.

14:59

Telling Our Story: Women in the Movement,

15:03

will be the Deep in Our Hearts book authors,

15:05

we didn't get their names so I can't tell you

15:08

who all those folks are, but

15:10

that will be in room E2.

15:13

Teaching the Movement: What Do Students Learn from It?

15:18

John Ditmore, Martha Norman, Cleveland Sellers.

15:21

That will be in Room E3.

15:26

Teaching the Movement through Music: Song Leaders,

15:32

Betty Feitz, that booming voice,

15:35

Sam Block, Wazir Peacock, and Bill Pearlman.

15:38

That will be in E4.

15:43

Group-Centered Leadership: What Did We Learn in the 60s?

15:48

Charlie Cobb, MacArthur Cotton, Casey Hayden.

15:51

Room E5.

15:57

Where Are We Today? Issues of Race, Justice, and Peace.

16:01

James Lawson, Charles Sherrod.

16:05

Room D, David, 2.

16:08

Another film, Freedom on My Mind

16:13

and the discussion following that is Victoria Gray.

16:16

That will be in Room D3.

16:20

D like David.

16:26

The Research Committee Room will be announced

16:35

because it'll have to be one of the rooms

16:38

that you are exiting from.

16:39

So find me and we'll have that

16:43

taken care of for you by that time.

16:45

I might as well continue with the rest of what's here

16:48

for Thursday so that you can note that right now.

16:50

Dinner break is on your own.

16:56

Moore Square is right up the street,

16:59

and other nearby restaurants.

17:00

I'm coming back.

17:02

At 7, here in Estey Hall,

17:03

the showing of Fundy, with a discussion following that.

17:08

Miss Ella Baker: Developing Grassroots Leadership.

17:13

The moderator is Dr. Willie High and the panelists

17:16

are Joanne Grant, Charles Sherrod.

17:18

That will be here in this room.

17:21

I see some hands, yes.

17:24

Audience Member

Just a point of information,

17:27

this weekend, it's the shutdown of

17:31

the IMF World Bank WTO too in D.C.

17:33

There are two buses going from North Carolina,

17:38

one from Chapel Hill, two blocks

17:40

up the street from UNC-Chapel Hill.

17:42

One going from Durham with students from Central and Duke.

17:45

We leave on Saturday morning at 6 A.M.

17:48

and 8 A.M. respectively.

17:51

So many of us will not be able to participate

17:52

in the big day on Saturday.

17:55

So I'm really taking issue with that,

17:56

go to lunch now, kind of a rigid schedule,

17:58

but people seem to want to continue discussion

18:01

and I'd just like to say is it possible for us

18:05

to continue discussion for those who want to do that?

18:08

-

Yes, and I was going to say that.

18:11

Audience Member

There's great stories

18:12

being told and I think it would be great

18:13

to hear some of those other stories.

18:15

I'd like to tell my share of the story too.

18:17

From 1966.

18:20

-

I agree with that totally.

And that was going to be my final statement,

18:23

that if anybody was obliged to stay here and converse,

18:25

you may continue to do so.

18:28

Again, that's why we try to provide

18:30

the chatrooms, so that these kinds of discussions

18:32

could go on in those places and the rest

18:35

of the program could continue.

18:38

I see another hand.

18:40

-

[Woman In Audience] Yes, would you tell me

18:41

the room that third chatroom is gonna be located in?

18:42

-

The Board Room. Yes.

18:46

In the Civic Center.

18:49

Please enter the Civic Center from

18:51

the Wilmington Street side.

18:53

There is some major conference going on

18:57

where people are entering the South Street side

18:59

and they have security, so you will not

19:02

be allowed in that entrance.

19:05

Please enter the Civic Center from

19:07

the Wilmington Street side.

19:09

-

And I frankly was on the Albany Freedom Ride because

19:12

(static)

19:15

He bought all the tickets he said

19:17

he had money to buy, which was nine tickets.

19:18

One person had to be the observer,

19:21

and of the eight people who were like me,

19:23

who were to subject themselves to arrest,

19:26

he wanted it to be four white and four black.

19:28

So we had Bob who was white, and Tom Hayden,

19:31

and a wonderful redheaded bearded Dane,

19:34

on a brider from Denmark, and the --

19:40

Man On Panel

Pier Larson.

19:43

-

Pier Larson.

19:45

My boyfriend at the time, Bill Humphries,

19:46

wanted to be the fourth white person,

19:50

but he was at the Georgia Institute of Technology

19:52

on an Air Force ROTC scholarship,

19:54

and he knew that life was gonna be really miserable

19:56

for him if he went on a Freedom Ride and were arrested,

19:59

so it's almost an accident of history that I had

20:01

the right skin color to be an Albany Freedom Rider.

20:04

I echo what you've heard from Charlie --

20:09

Man On Panel

And Casey was the observer.

20:12

-

She was the observer.

20:13

-

Hollis and Charlie have talked about regional issues

20:15

having an influence almost as strongly as racial issues.

20:19

I was a Southerner and I felt a little intimidated

20:25

about 1963 when all these brilliant Northern people

20:29

started coming down much more articulate

20:32

than I ever could aspire to be.

20:34

So I understand a little of that

20:37

regional sensitivity.

20:41

As a white person, I knew that I,

20:45

particularly as a white woman, because understand now

20:48

that white supremacy is based on the fact

20:50

that the elite white men in the South wanted to be sure

20:52

they passed on their property to their heirs.

20:55

And the way that they could do that is they had to be sure

20:59

that babies born to white women were their progeny.

21:02

So white women were captured and dealt with --

21:08

There were a lot of ways of dealing with that,

21:12

including becoming a white supremacist yourself.

21:13

White women were a special target

21:16

of the Klan from the 20s on.

21:20

People don't generally know it,

21:22

but some white women were lynched,

21:23

particularly white women who crossed the racial lines.

21:25

So I knew that being a white women brought

21:30

a lot of new wrath, more wrath than might

21:33

otherwise be in place in demonstrations and in the movement.

21:37

And for that reason and others

21:41

I was really anxious to be told what to do.

21:44

I never aspired to be a leader.

21:47

I didn't think I had the smarts to know

21:50

the kinds of situations that my family

21:52

and others in the South had created.

21:54

I was delighted to be a part of SNCC

21:57

and part of those times.

22:01

Even today as I work for the kinds of things,

22:05

and I'm a local person, I have a major case

22:08

of local person-itis, I can only do it interracial.

22:11

I live in a place that's only 5% minority,

22:16

but I cannot work in a group that's not interracial.

22:18

Even today.

22:23

And I would really hope that you young people

22:24

find it uncomfortable to do that too.

22:27

We're going this way.

22:31

-

Well I was just getting ready to give it to Zellner.

22:34

Joan

Well, you know I'm not a leader.

22:37

-

That's okay.

22:39

Well, okay.

22:41

With regard to what I thought we were going to talk about,

22:43

I thought that we were in fact going to not just talk about

22:49

what happened then, but that we would also try

22:53

to project into the current situation.

22:56

Perhaps you spent enough time visiting the past

23:01

so I will speak to what I think young people

23:04

ought to be thinking about doing and how.

23:09

I work with, and I try to continue

23:12

to work with young people.

23:15

First of all, because as an aging,

23:17

I'd like to say revolutionary,

23:19

but sort of an aging angry progressive,

23:20

I like to keep in with young people for several reasons.

23:23

One, because they keep you young.

23:28

Their ideas are fresh. They are new.

23:30

They have a higher level of energy

23:33

so that 18 to 20 hours a day is not

23:35

an impossible day for them.

23:38

In that regard, I work with a group in Boston

23:42

that called Center for Campus Organizers,

23:45

and I'd like to encourage you to be a part of that group

23:48

if you've never heard of it before,

23:51

and I'd be glad to talk to you later.

23:53

I also work in prisons where I see a lot of young people.

23:56

One of the things that occurred to me,

24:01

and I've often thought about SNCC,

24:03

because it was a life-transforming process,

24:04

is that in some cases we did not

24:08

recognize or appreciate our place in history.

24:10

This morning I indicated that we

24:12

did see ourselves moving the Earth.

24:14

That's a lonely spot to be in

24:18

and you have quite a bit of weight on you

24:20

and it's singular.

24:23

When I say that, most of us in SNCC

24:24

use SNCC as the family base, because those other people

24:28

had now divorced themselves for one reason or another.

24:30

Either they thought we had lost our minds

24:33

or that we would engage in something

24:35

for which they would ultimately have to answer.

24:37

So we clung to each other pretty tightly.

24:40

The point, however, is that

24:43

we did not --

24:46

What's the word.

24:49

We did not transition well the next forces to come in.

24:50

There were efforts on the part of SNCC

24:54

to reach out laterally to the Panthers,

24:56

and that's a whole other story.

24:57

There was an effort to develop white organizing,

24:59

but that went off half-cocked to my viewpoint

25:02

because of what happened within SNCC.

25:05

I don't think that it had a good transition.

25:07

Then we also issued people in Palestine,

25:10

which alienated most of the Jewish people,

25:13

so then we were financially strapped.

25:16

Basically right in a lot of ways

25:19

and advanced in a lot of ways, but never having

25:23

laid the groundwork.

25:26

Of course, at the same time, COINTELPRO

25:28

was wreaking havoc with us.

25:30

Man On Panel

Does everyone know what

25:35

COINTELPRO is?

25:36

-

You can't have it both ways.

Oh, COINTELPRO was the government intelligence program

25:38

which was an infiltration, it was really

25:41

the equivalent of a buy-and-bust,

25:44

only this time intellectually.

25:46

Infiltrate and kill them.

25:49

If you have to do it physically, okay,

25:51

but if you just confuse them, we'll go with that.

25:53

If you can -- What's the word.

25:56

Yeah, it's a high-level disinformation issue,

26:00

and I worked in the finance office.

26:03

I have to tell you how I heard this story.

26:05

I was in the finance office of SNCC

26:06

and we used to hear a lot of stuff

26:08

and one time Foreman got a phone call

26:10

from somebody, because when you do good things

26:12

there's always a little birdie.

26:15

It may not be a big birdie, may not be the eagle you want,

26:16

but you can find a canary every so often.

26:18

We got a call from Washington from a source

26:20

that was well-placed that essentially said

26:24

that the joint chief of staff have now had a meeting

26:27

and they have made a decision, and you're gonna have to go.

26:30

Part of that was in terms of that internationalism

26:34

that I began to talk to you briefly about this morning,

26:37

that you're just getting too big for your britches.

26:41

We can't fathom you, we can't control you,

26:43

we don't know which way you're going,

26:46

and you're asking some pretty fundamental

26:48

questions along the way.

26:50

A lot of what we were about was --

26:52

People talk about blacks and whites,

26:55

we had Asians, we had all kinds of people in SNCC.

26:57

We had gays, non-gays, we had a few heroin addicts.

27:00

You know, we had a few people from every walk of life

27:05

but one of the things that we were was a place

27:08

where, whatever your past was, we tried to be able

27:11

to transform you into something else,

27:15

that we work together as a catalyst in that process.

27:17

Having said all that, one of the things

27:21

that I've spent some time thinking about is

27:22

what happens when the intellectual head of a movement dies?

27:25

Because that's what happened to SNCC in many ways.

27:31

We spent a lot of time weeding

27:34

and a lot of time trying to plow the land in front of us,

27:35

but as I said, we had no back troops.

27:38

Our own physical situation was one of exhaustion.

27:41

I gave you an idea of eating once a week,

27:45

that kind of extreme strain.

27:47

I didn't tell you about people who could not

27:51

stay in the same place for more than 12 hours

27:53

because they were being looked for by dogs

27:55

and anything else walking.

27:58

It was open season on shooting them.

28:00

This was not always the case, but it was enough of the case

28:03

for people to understand that you could not really

28:06

get settled wherever you were.

28:08

If you were not in the middle of

28:11

either a major cultural redefinition,

28:14

I'll use that for the White Sisters Council

28:18

and all other kinds of things,

28:21

then you were gonna be the recipient of somebody

28:23

who was coming out of that, and you had to be ready

28:25

to move to be of assistance.

28:27

SNCC, in many ways to me, was the

28:30

intellectual leadership of the movement.

28:31

It spawned a lot of thought and people were willing

28:33

to go out and develop those ideas and make them happen.

28:36

Having the intellectual leadership of this operation

28:41

mark itself down in what I consider internal racialism

28:45

was a real step to the rear as far as I was concerned.

28:49

I wasn't a part of it, I always

28:53

spoke against it to anyone who cared.

28:54

There were times where our leadership was

28:58

really not under a collectivity,

29:00

if I could just say it that way,

29:03

that it was more singular.

29:05

So people set up the singular style

29:06

and they went that in, as far as I'm concerned,

29:08

a direction that did not have everybody on board with it.

29:11

But be that as it may, that's history

29:15

and that is what has happened.

29:17

I believe too that the world has to be --

29:19

You live in the present, and so the organization

29:23

that you work with ought to look like

29:25

the group of people you want to live with.

29:27

There's no such thing as moving it,

29:30

'I'm going to do it down the line.'

29:32

You may not have down the line,

29:35

all you have is today, you know?

29:36

So the people that you work with,

29:39

the people that you respect, the people that you

29:41

cohabit with, the people that you swap lies with,

29:43

et cetera, are all the people around which

29:47

you should surround yourself and your current situation.

29:50

I encourage people not to look at what we did historically,

29:53

but to look at where you are in your classes,

29:57

to make your classroom work serious,

30:00

to start doing research where it counts.

30:03

I mean, those silly little research projects on whatever,

30:06

you can turn it, you can make it politically right.

30:09

You can raise the questions in class.

30:13

You should be --

30:15

Everything in the bibliography, ace out the professor,

30:16

turn the class around on him or her

30:19

and say, 'And what about so-and-so?

30:23

'And what about so-and-so?'

30:25

So that you have dealt with the class.

30:27

That's a basic.

30:29

The leadership in the 21st century

30:31

has got to be technologically ept.

30:33

You just can't be angry and you just can't be cross-eyed.

30:36

You've got to have technology,

30:38

you've got to be able to finesse and work with people,

30:40

you've got to be able to negotiate,

30:42

and you need to be able to walk from a prison cell

30:44

to a corporate boardroom in the same breath

30:46

and be able to move both of those parallels together

30:49

and come out with something that's common.

30:53

You're constantly synthesizing.

30:55

You're constantly raising the correct questions,

30:58

not the questions that get pushed, necessarily,

31:00

because you will find special interests is very apt

31:03

at changing and massaging what you say.

31:07

Responsibility.

31:12

I find that Northerners, for example, when they organize,

31:14

try to organize on a union kind of model.

31:16

You have a particular interest with me,

31:19

I'm trying to work this with you.

31:20

The nature of human rights is much broader than that.

31:23

Everybody, white people, ought to recognize

31:27

that racialism and racism has worked to their detriment.

31:30

And that's hard to explain to white people

31:34

who feel like at this juncture, the world is their oyster.

31:36

But spend some analysis, in terms of reversing

31:40

what is considered and normative

31:42

so that you can, in fact, have new information,

31:44

new perspectives to bring.

31:46

That's kind of it for me right now.

31:49

(gospel music)

31:50

-

It's wonderful to hear such good sense,

31:54

such good sense and so clear.

31:57

To me, it's clear.

32:00

I think we all know enough to know

32:03

that what you're talking about is very good.

32:05

I'm a little puzzled also about

32:10

what was the slogan for today?

32:13

Thanksgiving?

32:15

(gospel music drowns out speech)

32:16

(laughter)

32:17

Are they scared of you in jails?

32:17

Black and White?

32:18

Audience

Together and Separate.

32:20

-

Together and Separate, okay, good.

32:21

Well, they're all relevant.

32:22

[Joan] Every seminar, every session is the same.

32:27

(laughter)

32:29

-

You have different things to say at different ones.

32:31

I did do a little bit of thinking beforehand,

32:34

which I normally don't, I just

32:37

bounce off of things that are going.

32:39

I see some of my students here also.

32:42

Natalie and Jeff for sure, anybody else?

32:46

Natalie

No, it's just us.

32:50

-

If you've heard it all before,

32:51

just say, 'Hey, you're going over the same stuff again.'

32:53

I did a little thinking and I looked back at what

32:57

Clayborne Carson said in one of the editions,

33:00

maybe the last edition to In Struggle.

33:04

He put it very simply.

33:09

He said that around the middle 60s, sometime after '64,

33:11

SNCC, and to a larger extent, the civil rights movement

33:16

in the South, gave up three terrific weapons

33:21

that they had used to very good effect.

33:25

They gave up basically --

33:28

Come in. Join us.

33:32

We are discussing today

33:36

White and Black: Together or Separate.

33:38

Glad I know that now.

33:41

(laughter)

33:42

Clayborne Carson in the introduction to his book

33:46

posed the question, first a problem and then a question.

33:50

He says that around the middle 60s, SNCC and the movement

33:54

gave up three tremendously potent weapons

33:58

that had gotten them a long distance.

34:02

Grassroots community organizing, because basically

34:04

we did a pullout of Mississippi

34:08

and part of the rationale for that

34:12

was we'd produced local leadership,

34:15

we work ourselves out of the job and go.

34:17

So we had a rationale for that,

34:19

but basically it was a pullout.

34:22

Secession, at least for a long time,

34:25

on a nationally-organized level

34:28

of doing grassroots community work

34:30

where you burrow into the community,

34:33

develop ties that Muriel was talking about.

34:34

The other was that they gave up in a large measure

34:37

nonviolent direct action.

34:41

Nonviolent direct action was still used in some cases

34:44

and so forth, but basically it was not

34:46

one of the three strong arrows in the quiver anymore.

34:51

Thirdly, basically gave up interracial work,

34:54

which in terms of SNCC had been part of the keystone

34:59

of what we had always talked about

35:02

because we realized, I think very early on,

35:06

maybe under the leadership of Ella Baker and others,

35:09

that you're never gonna reach a time

35:12

when everything is the way you want it

35:13

and it's gonna stay that way from then on.

35:16

We learned that struggle is a constant struggle,

35:19

and therefore whatever society that you want in general,

35:22

you should have that society for yourself.

35:25

Part of that beloved community was

35:29

that it would be interracial.

35:31

One of the things that's happening to history

35:34

and the telling of the story in the last 25 or 30 years

35:36

is that a lot of times that has been overlooked

35:40

or underplayed to such an extent --

35:44

Let me stand up here.

35:48

It's been underplayed to such an extent

35:50

that many people don't realize that the early movement

35:52

was quite incredibly integrated.

35:55

Some people are aware of a few of us who did certain things,

35:59

but in a lot of ways, the movement was very integrated.

36:02

Now, the question that Clayborne Carson asked

36:06

after saying we gave up those three weapons.

36:12

He said, "What took the place of those

36:17

weapons in the movement?"

36:19

And that is a question that I've heard him pose,

36:22

I've never heard a thorough investigation of that question.

36:25

If we're going into nationalism,

36:32

if we're going into all of those elements

36:34

that have, if you're a dialectician you believe

36:36

that they had positive and negative aspects.

36:39

Part of the reason for giving up the grassroots community

36:44

and the nonviolent direct action and

36:48

the interracial work together was

36:51

the move for the nationalists' point of view.

36:53

And that, to me, is the period that we're still in.

36:56

We have not yet answered those questions,

36:59

we have not yet really had a thorough

37:03

going examination on it and say,

37:05

'Okay, if, in fact, we've given up those weapons,

37:08

'how do we -- Do we need to take them up,

37:11

'along with what other weapons?'

37:14

Number one is we always talk about biracial,

37:16

black and white, and now it's not a question

37:19

of biracial black and white, it's multiracial,

37:22

racial, it's multicultural.

37:25

The kind of organizing that many of us are doing today --

37:28

For instance, last night, I conducted

37:31

a nonviolent workshop in Southampton, New York.

37:33

This was after five people had been arrested

37:38

and injured, some of them quite severely.

37:40

I was beaten up by the state troopers.

37:44

My right arm, and I made a pledge to myself

37:47

that I'm gonna do this, as hokey as it is,

37:51

because the report from the New York State Police

37:54

and everybody is no injuries.

37:57

Black people were arrested.

38:00

And if you'll look at my two arms,

38:02

this arm right here is so severely dislocated,

38:05

it'll never actually be the same again.

38:08

This is after the arm has basically healed.

38:11

Ripped open with tendons and everything.

38:14

They trained these cops, by the way,

38:16

to concentrate now on soft tissue and on joints.

38:20

They don't break the major bones,

38:24

that's gonna show up in an x-ray.

38:26

They broke my left leg in the knee,

38:28

broke my arm in the elbow.

38:31

They also knocked my jaw out of place,

38:34

which has been knocked out of place before

38:36

a number of times, and now I have some kind of PMS.

38:39

Or uh ...

38:42

Joan

TMJ.

38:44

-

TMJ.

38:45

(laughter)

38:45

Muriel

Not close.

38:47

-

That too.

38:51

I can have both of them, and I've got a .38 in my purse.

38:58

(laughter)

39:02

-

What we're talking about basically

39:07

is something that is still happening today.

39:08

I mean this is a Shinnecock reservation.

39:11

We have so many situations --

39:14

And when those cops started beating me,

39:15

first of all, they dragged me over behind cars.

39:17

Four or five of those cops beat me, working on my joints.

39:20

They broke this arm twice, and then when they put me

39:23

in the paddywagon, the slammed the door on that arm.

39:26

I mean, I had never ever had such excruciating --

39:30

And nonviolent, you're supposed to be cool, right?

39:33

The kid was screaming, you know?

39:36

I said, I am -- I was 60 years old and since then

39:40

I've had a birthday, I'm 61 years old.

39:42

My bones are not that resilient anymore, okay?

39:45

But what I'm saying is we're still doing the same thing.

39:48

We're so trained that the situation develops,

39:53

we just go there and do it, but y'all gonna have to do it

39:56

now because we're getting too old.

39:59

Used to be we would spring back right away.

40:01

Going around, I have debated whether or not

40:05

to bring my walking stick, because I remember Danny Lyon

40:07

had something temporarily wrong with him,

40:10

he brought his walking stick.

40:12

Ever since then, I've been thinking about

40:13

poor Danny Lyon walking around with a walking stick.

40:15

And everybody says, 'Bob, you're really getting old.

40:18

'You've got a walking stick.'

40:20

What I'm talking about is what it's gonna take --

40:24

How are we gonna get back together?

40:27

And are we gonna say, can we get back together

40:29

without really dealing with the time?

40:32

And a lot of times we approach it,

40:34

we don't really deal with it.

40:35

Maybe there were some mistakes made.

40:37

Obviously, SNCC went out of existence

40:39

in terms of an organization.

40:42

SNCC never died in terms of a spirit.

40:44

In fact, they might've done us a favor

40:47

in that we were gonna be like --

40:50

Who was it, they shot Big Bill?

40:51

Bill Haywood? Yeah.

40:58

He was always gonna be around wherever they were struggling.

41:00

At least that's what we're doing.

41:03

But what I want to tell you is

41:05

that we need to tighten it up.

41:07

We've got a lot of things right there in Southampton.

41:10

Now they're less embarrassed about being racist

41:13

and beating up people in Southampton now

41:16

than there would be in Southampton, Virginia.

41:18

Southampton, Virginia, that would be all over the news.

41:22

But they can beat up Indian activists

41:25

and Indian community people and poor

41:27

old aging activists up in Southampton.

41:30

And you know what they do?

41:33

They do put it in the New York Times.

41:34

In the Long Island Edition.

41:36

They put it in Newsday in the Long Island Edition.

41:38

If it gets in anything else other

41:41

than the Long Island Edition, it gets

41:43

in the Metro section of the New York Times.

41:44

They don't even put it so that the Indian activists

41:47

in the northern part of the states can do it.

41:50

But Danny Lyons -- You know that Danny's

41:54

working on a book now on American Indian activism?

41:56

And he says that around the reservations and all the places,

41:59

they're looking at what's happening in Shinnecock,

42:03

and I'm wondering how is the information getting out?

42:05

We do have a movement grapevine and everything.

42:08

So I'm just telling you that what happened then

42:11

is really basically the same things

42:14

that we're faced with now.

42:16

So we're having to go through a whole new process

42:18

of organizing people, getting them together,

42:20

and talking about that situation of jail,

42:23

and also the situation of allies.

42:26

In the situation with the Shinnecocks,

42:29

there's a tradition of being very close,

42:31

very dignified, very secretive and everything.

42:33

Now, they're reaching out for allies

42:36

not only among other native activists and everything,

42:39

but also in the white community.

42:42

I've been appointed the, what is it,

42:46

Co-Chair of the Anti-Bias Task Force in Southampton.

42:49

And they've made a mistake, I know that they

42:54

didn't know this was gonna happen.

42:56

Never appoint an old activist to some kind of town

42:57

position, because they expect that you're gonna be

43:01

respectable and deferential and everything like that.

43:04

But we have a habit of calling things like they are.

43:07

First of all, we did something that was symbolic.

43:12

The town has a seal, and it's a big white pilgrim.

43:17

Big white pilgrim with a rock over one shoulder

43:22

and a big three-masted schooner over the other shoulder.

43:24

We don't even have Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower

43:28

in Southampton, but they're using all this imagery, right?

43:32

So we made a modest proposal that we would change that,

43:35

and the vitriol that came out in the papers and everything.

43:39

'Who is this guy? Where'd he come from?

43:43

'Where is this Jew Zellner?

43:45

'I bet he's only been in this country 20 years.

43:49

'Messing with our seal,' and everything like that.

43:53

So then we said, 'Okay, we'll make a deal with you.

43:58

'You keep the white man, but let's have

44:00

some hiring in the town.'

44:03

Because now we have about one third of this town,

44:06

Southampton, is minority, people of color,

44:09

Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans.

44:12

In the 338 people hired by our town in Southampton,

44:16

19 are people of color.

44:21

One is an American Indian.

44:23

And in the school, which gets $8 to 12 million a year,

44:26

there is one Native American hired in the school.

44:31

That is incredible.

44:34

They've had an affirmative action plan in place since 1979.

44:37

So when we begin to find out those things,

44:43

we had to tell the truth.

44:45

And then pretty soon, we had people

44:47

marching on Town Hall, we had people standing behind

44:48

the town board with signs saying 'shame on the board,'

44:51

and people taking pictures of the board

44:54

and there's that white pilgrim up there.

44:57

But we started joking about the pilgrim.

45:02

We thought, 'Well, maybe we can demystify.'

45:04

Do you know why a pilgrim's pants always fall down?

45:05

Because he has his buckle on his hat.

45:09

(laughter)

45:12

But my point is, and this is the last thing I'm saying.

45:19

My point is that if we transition the organizing

45:22

that we're doing now, in Southampton College,

45:25

in the town and everything, on the reservation.

45:28

If we try to do that without having

45:31

all races of people together and black and white

45:33

working together, boy we'd be ridiculous.

45:36

We could not do it.

45:39

So especially getting ready for the world that we're in now,

45:40

with the globalization and everything,

45:43

the mechanization, learning all this stuff

45:45

about computers and everything,

45:47

we're old to learn that.

45:48

That's so natural to you guys.

45:50

We can't even talk about being --

45:53

We can talk about nationalism.

45:55

We can talk about those feelings.

45:57

We can talk about positive aspects of that,

45:59

but in terms of working together

46:01

and making a movement, we have to constantly

46:02

change our ideas about doing it

46:05

multi-culturally, multi-racially, multi-nationally,

46:07

and all those ways.

46:11

That means black and white have to work together.

46:12

Thank you.

46:14

(applause)

46:16

Joan

We don't actually have a moderator,

46:22

so Hollis, you're in the center.

46:24

Male Panelist

Hollis is the one.

46:25

Zellner

Did everybody see the movie, by the way?

46:28

-

Freedom Song.

46:31

Zellner

Freedom Song?

(laughter)

46:34

Hollis is one of the main characters of the movie.

46:36

Hollis

Thumbs down on Freedom Song.

46:39

We don't talk about it.

46:43

-

I want to raise another aspect of it.

46:45

I'm Teresa Del Pozzo and I worked with SNCC

46:49

first in Wisconsin as a support person

46:53

spreading the word in Wisconsin

47:00

and in the student community,

47:03

and then through a larger community about the summer

47:05

project, about what was happening in the South.

47:08

At that time, when I first started doing that,

47:11

I was stunned to find out that most white people

47:15

didn't know that black people couldn't vote in the South.

47:18

There was a lot of educating to be done.

47:27

Then there was the summer project came along.

47:31

And I want to raise the question about --

47:34

We talked a lot about the community organizing of SNCC,

47:37

but there was also another side of SNCC which was

47:43

sometimes in conflict with this idea and sometimes not.

47:48

And that was reaching the larger national community.

47:53

The debate that has always gone on

47:58

was that the recognition was that unless white people

48:02

were also targeted the way black people

48:08

were being targeted, there was not going to be

48:12

any concern about what was happening

48:15

to black people in Mississippi.

48:18

I would call this the approach that was targeted

48:25

at the national politics of the country,

48:28

as opposed to the community organizing.

48:32

In fact, it was true.

48:37

Because when the summer project happened

48:40

and all those people came from all over the country

48:42

and their parents became interested,

48:45

their churches became interested in what happened

48:51

in Mississippi, the local television stations

48:53

where they were were interested

48:56

in what happened in Mississippi.

48:58

For the first time, the community organizing

49:03

that had been going on in the South

49:07

was now getting a support from the national political scene.

49:10

I, for one, don't think that the gains

49:20

that were made by the movement would've ever been possible

49:25

if it had not been for that pulling together

49:30

of both the grassroots organizing

49:34

and the national attention and the spread out of that

49:38

that then had influence on the antiwar movement,

49:45

the women's movement, and all the kinds of things

49:48

that followed from that.

49:51

This is a subject that I --

49:56

When the stuff started to happen in SNCC

50:00

where the nationalism became a reality,

50:03

to me it was just something I'd kind of expected to happen.

50:06

I knew about it as a historical phenomenon

50:10

and I had seen it in Northern situations

50:13

and I kind of expected it.

50:17

And I think that we have seen the results of it.

50:19

We've seen 30 years of results of it,

50:23

which is very splintered.

50:25

We have people constantly duplicating their efforts.

50:29

You've got the groups that are lobbying

50:37

for the condition situations in prison.

50:40

You've got people lobbying about the environment.

50:42

You've got people lobbying about local political.

50:47

You've got people arguing about the distribution

50:52

of income for schooling and education.

50:54

All those kinds of things.

50:58

And what we've all been doing, what I feel for years,

51:00

is like we're all spinning our wheels, the same wheel,

51:04

where everybody's out there working over the same issue

51:08

rather than working in a coordinated effort

51:11

because somehow we lost that track at that point in the 60s,

51:15

and I'm one who just accepts that that had to happen

51:20

because somehow that is like the history

51:26

that this country is saddled with.

51:30

That's the outcome of slavery,

51:35

that its impact was so deep and so divisive

51:39

that people would, in fact,

51:42

just as you say, give up the most successful weapons

51:47

they had and go off on another track.

51:52

I think also that we've seen from the FBI files

51:56

that have been released and the COINTEL stuff

51:59

and all of that, that there was a tremendous effort

52:01

directed at SNCC to foster this kind of divisiveness

52:08

and to set people against each other, et cetera.

52:13

I think that what Bob says is absolutely right,

52:18

as we go into this next century,

52:22

for the people who are coming up now,

52:28

I just don't see that there can be --

52:33

To me, it almost seems ludicrous

52:35

that we're still discussing this subject.

52:37

It's so self-apparent that unless people

52:44

with the same interests, whether they're Native Americans,

52:48

whether they're African-Americans,

52:53

whether Italian-Americans or whatever,

52:54

can be unified and work together in coalitions.

52:59

I just don't see how there could be any

53:04

success for anybody.

53:08

-

I would rather not, because I'm sure

53:15

you've learned from this, never bring a bunch

53:18

of us together or we do all the talking.

53:21

Always bring one or two if you want to ask a question.

53:24

He had a question.

53:26

-

Okay, wow.

53:28

Hey, I'm Billy, and I'm a white kid

53:33

in case you folks are wondering.

53:35

(laughter)

53:37

Let's just start from there.

53:43

I'm having a hard time trying to frame

53:47

what I'm trying to say.

53:48

I'm understanding the stuff about,

53:55

yeah, we gotta build multiracial coalitions

53:58

and things like this, that makes sense to me.

54:00

I'm really struggling with this,

54:04

because another thing is

54:06

for example, I work with a youth organization,

54:08

defining young people as 18 and under.

54:12

We're trying to build this organization

54:15

where people 18 and under run their own organizations.

54:17

So from that perspective, I understand

54:19

this whole deal of racial separation

54:22

as far as the work that we do, on some level.

54:25

Not to say those young people shouldn't

54:28

collaborate and coalition with other people,

54:30

but they gotta run their own organization,

54:32

I understand that.

54:34

Also, I'm really, really curious

54:38

because I haven't lived in the suburbs

54:39

that I grew up in in a number of years.

54:41

I'm not particularly excited to go back there,

54:47

but I understand that --

54:49

Who's gonna organize white suburb folks

54:52

but white suburban kids?

54:56

So I'm really, really, really curious to see

54:58

what that really looks like, you know what I mean?

55:00

It's ideal if we can figure out a way

55:03

to bring this all together, right?

55:05

Most of the world's people are not benefiting

55:07

from this system, so we should

55:10

work together to overthrow it.

55:12

But what does white organizing look like?

55:13

Hollis

Overthrow.

55:18

(laughter)

55:19

-

No, but really.

55:21

I guess that's my main question.

55:22

What does white organizing really look like

55:24

and how does that work?

55:28

Because this is an important question,

55:31

because I do realize that a lot of this stuff

55:32

of dismantling racism, you folks

55:36

are coming from a really unique position.

55:38

You're coming from a history of where

55:39

the white folks that were involved

55:42

were involved in a black-led organization.

55:44

That's not the reality of most

55:46

of the white organizations that exist today.

55:48

Most of the organizations with white folks in it

55:51

at this point were started by white people

55:53

with a vision by white people dominated

55:55

by a white racist culture and all this kind of thing.

55:57

And that's just very different.

56:00

So. I don't know.

56:02

Hollis

First Jimmy and then you.

56:11

-

My name is Jimmy Rogers and I worked SNCC

56:15

and led in Lowndes and Macon County, Alabama.

56:18

I've worked previously in Alabama.

56:23

I started working SNCC in 1965

56:28

and the thing that most people

56:32

don't realize or they don't talk about,

56:35

the only civil rights workers in Lowndes County

56:38

to get killed were white, at least

56:40

during the time that I was there.

56:42

The first one was Viola Liuzzo,

56:44

who was the wife of a union official from Detroit

56:47

who came down to the Selma to Montgomery march,

56:53

and she was transporting people back and forth

56:56

from Montgomery to Selma and whatnot.

56:59

And in the middle of the night,

57:02

she was riding with a black man

57:03

and the Klan just happened to be

57:05

galloping behind and shot her.

57:07

Okay, the next one was Jonathan Daniels,

57:09

who worked with SNCC in Lowndes County.

57:12

One Saturday, we decided that we would

57:19

go to a town called Fort Deposit.

57:23

It was me, Jonathan, a number of other people,

57:26

and some of the local people, it was their idea.

57:29

They were very disturbed, because when black people

57:32

went to this one restaurant, they had to go

57:36

through the back window to get served.

57:39

You couldn't go inside, you know,

57:41

they hand you stuff out of the window.

57:43

We weren't allowed in the restaurant.

57:45

That Saturday, we got arrested

57:50

I think it was something like 15 of us or so,

57:52

thirteen blacks and two whites.

57:56

Well, two weeks before that time,

58:00

I happened to be in Hayneville City Hall

58:02

and this man walked up to Jonathan Daniels

58:09

and he said, 'I could understand why he's here,

58:13

'but I don't understand why you carpetbagging Yankees

58:17

'coming down here stirring up all the good black folks.

58:21

'We're gonna get you.'

58:24

And sure enough, two weeks later,

58:26

we had a demonstration, we were arrested,

58:31

we were put in jail, we stayed in jail for a week,

58:33

we got out the next week.

58:36

He walked to the store that we were all

58:38

used to going to, the people in there

58:41

were always very nice to us.

58:44

But on this day, there was a guy

58:47

standing inside the door with a shotgun,

58:48

and when he walked up, he just blew him away.

58:51

And I don't have any idea --

58:54

I mean, I don't have any doubt

58:56

that the reason why he got shot

58:58

was because he was white.

59:00

To sum it up, what I'm trying to say is,

59:04

during that time, I think that a

59:06

white person working in Lowndes County or Macon County

59:09

and whatnot for SNCC, had much more of an impact

59:14

than black people going around

59:17

and registering people to vote.

59:20

-

I want to speak to this young man's question

59:25

to tell you how I'm using some of the best

59:28

that SNCC developed, not that I did,

59:31

but the best SNCC ideas to work with white young people.

59:33

I'm part of a project called Education for Liberation,

59:39

and my assignment is to take Charlie Cobb's concept

59:42

of freedom schools and see if there's something there,

59:45

a model there to use to teach white young people

59:48

that in giving up what they perceive as white privilege,

59:52

they won't actually be much enriched and gain from that.

59:55

And that's a tough assignment, Charlie.

59:59

If you have any ideas, I'm ready for them.

1:00:01

I think it's my job to talk --

1:00:06

I thought it was always my job to talk to white people.

1:00:07

I never thought that black people had anything

1:00:10

to learn from me, except perhaps

1:00:11

that all white people are not unified.

1:00:14

My job is to try to figure out a way

1:00:17

to explain to white people that

1:00:20

white society, white culture, European culture's

1:00:23

played its hand, it's done its thing.

1:00:26

It's been dominant for a long time.

1:00:28

There's nothing new or --

1:00:30

rl10136mdv0003.dv

Transcript

File Info

John Hope Franklin Research Center