Tape 5, 2000 April / Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 40th anniversary conference videocassette tapes, 2000 / Duke Digital Repository

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Tonal quality to get a good one going,

0:00

and all I'm saying is

0:03

we have to understand...

0:05

(audience laughing)

We must consciously understand

0:07

that we must do both simultaneously.

0:10

That's all I'm saying.

0:13

See, and I think the point that was left hanging

0:14

by what your statement was,

0:17

what we did in the movement was politicize the movement.

0:19

You said Jim Lawson's a good man.

0:22

We know he can step, we let him into Congress.

0:24

We check on him every two years

0:26

and we'll stop teach-ins.

0:27

We'll stop mobilization.

0:29

We'll stop mass political education.

0:30

We'll stop supporting the rise of local leadership.

0:32

We politicized it.

0:37

Now what we've got to do

0:38

is take governments back from the government.

0:39

That's what we gotta do.

0:40

And we do it neighborhood by neighborhood.

0:42

Speaker

Yes ma'am.

0:47

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[Female Audience Member] Yeah,

0:48

this business about whether racism has changed,

0:49

I think it is really important to note that

0:53

there has been, I think, some shifts in meaning,

0:56

and a lot of racist agendas get perpetuated

0:59

because people do not agree on what words mean,

1:05

and they don't agree on what issues mean.

1:08

For example, this whole thing about school vouchers,

1:13

which I think is both an assault

1:18

on the public school systems,

1:20

an assault on the public sphere of life,

1:22

and also a way to begin reinstating

1:26

class and racial differences,

1:32

but the reason why this isn't that clear

1:34

is that a lot of working class blue collar black people

1:38

feel exploited, manipulated, and cheated

1:43

by the public schools,

1:46

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Mm-hmm.

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and are therefore perfectly willing to go along

1:48

with an agenda which poses itself as being democratic

1:51

about educational empowerment and so on and so forth,

1:58

about resentment of arrogant teachers unions

2:01

and so on and so forth,

2:06

but which in fact also has another agenda.

2:07

And I think until we can somehow disentangle this question

2:10

about meaning and language,

2:14

it's a lot of racism that's masquerading

2:16

under facially neutral stuff.

2:19

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That's why I'm saying it has to change.

2:24

That's what I mean when I say

2:25

it has to change.

2:28

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Right.

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Answering another question on...

2:30

Answering another question,

2:33

I'm trying to answer questions that you have raised.

2:34

We haven't forgotten about those questions,

2:37

and that a question comes up about

2:40

did we do right in the desegregation of schools?

2:44

Did we do right in the integration of schools?

2:48

Do we like the results of what we have?

2:53

What?

2:57

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[Male Audience Member] Oh, that question, really,

2:58

I have asked that question since 1972.

3:02

I went into the fifth grade

3:09

in a segregated school in North Carolina.

3:11

And then I went to college at central,

3:15

but I left college and now I'm back in college.

3:17

Now, private school just shows you basically

3:19

a segregated school,

3:23

and which is better, which is worse,

3:26

and what's the result?

3:30

But I like knowing that if I want to transfer

3:33

from Charlotte and go to state, I can.

3:37

I think it's a personal choice whether you

3:41

want to go to a predominantly black

3:43

or predominantly white or totally mixed, or...

3:46

But the choice, the option, the freedom to do it.

3:49

Yes, it's terrific, yeah, you know.

3:54

But I think the choice if you want to go

3:57

to a predominantly black or predominantly white

4:00

or mixed school or whatever

4:02

is yours.

4:05

But to have the freedom to do that,

4:07

to make that choice.

4:10

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Did you have the choice

when you were in high school?

4:11

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Hmm?

4:12

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[Female Audience Member] Did you have the choice

4:13

when you were in high school?

4:14

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[Male Audience Member] Yes, I could have gone

4:15

to a private school.

4:17

You know, and there are schools in North Carolina,

4:19

many church schools in North Carolina now

4:21

that are basically black,

4:23

you know, predominantly black, and if my parents

4:25

could afford it and could pay for it,

4:27

and if I want, you know, I could,

4:29

I do now have the choice, and I think that's,

4:31

to me, that is what it's all about.

4:34

At one time, we didn't have the choice.

4:36

It wasn't a choice.

4:39

You know, there wasn't an option.

4:40

That's what racist segregation was like.

4:43

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May I say something about that?

4:45

I think that violence, racism, sexism,

4:46

greed, capitalism and greed,

4:50

which in many ways are the same thing,

4:53

have all taught the American people a lot of individualism

4:57

rather than teaching us democratic values of community.

5:03

The issue is more than an issue of choice.

5:10

And I can speak as one who had choice all of his life.

5:14

I have always gone to desegregated schools.

5:20

I grew up in Ohio.

5:23

So I'm not talking about whether or not

5:26

choice is important or not.

5:29

That was the only thing available to me in Ohio.

5:31

I'm talking about the fact that it is the responsibility

5:34

of a democratic society to have quality education available

5:37

for every child whether they live in Ohio

5:43

or Mississippi or in Guam,

5:45

and a quality education that is accessible,

5:49

that helps them to become literate human beings,

5:52

human beings who are able to tap the resources

5:58

that are in them to accept life and to grow in life

6:02

and to become life.

6:07

That, it seems to me, is the fundamental question.

6:09

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[Male Audience Member] Literate and human beings.

6:13

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Yes, literate and human beings.

6:14

Capitalism since the 60s

6:17

has directed the educational system of America

6:20

towards: stay in school so you can get a better job.

6:23

Well, we are not just people who get jobs.

6:29

We are human beings.

6:31

We bleed and hurt and cry.

6:33

We love, we hate.

6:35

We're human beings.

6:37

Education should be about helping to enrich children

6:39

so that they can take full advantage of the gift

6:43

of life that is in them.

6:47

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[Male Audience Member] Say amen.

6:49

Audience

Amen.

6:51

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So that does mean we have to find some ways to help

6:52

we the American people to develop a sense of community,

6:56

a sense of democratic community,

7:01

that looks at these issues not from my personal situation

7:05

only or primarily,

7:09

but from the point of view of the whole people?

7:12

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And a system that deals with racism in the school system.

7:16

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No way.

7:22

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See some...

Let me, let me, let me, let me see if it can go

7:26

to your belly.

7:29

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Okay.

All right.

7:31

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Can you understand why

7:33

a black man would not want a white man

7:37

or a woman beating on his children,

7:42

disciplining his children?

7:45

Huh?

7:47

Can you understand why a white man

7:49

would not want a black man

7:52

or a woman beating on his children?

7:58

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[Male Audience Member] I wouldn't want nobody

8:02

beating on my children.

8:03

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All right, all right, you might say that,

8:04

but there's got to be some discipline.

8:07

We can argue over that,

8:08

but I'm saying why is it easy for us to accept this?

8:10

The stopping of all discipline in our schools?

8:16

There's got to be discipline in our schools.

8:20

There's got to be some discipline in our schools,

8:24

some kind of way.

8:26

And I'm from the old school.

8:27

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Yes sir.

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I'm from the old school, yeah.

8:30

I'm saying, I'm saying...

8:32

(laughing)

8:34

Audience Member

I'm sitting next to,

8:36

between your foot and your head.

8:37

(laughs)

8:39

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Yes, I know that.

8:40

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I'd like to speak from my side,

8:41

or my point of view.

8:43

I mean, I'm a young black man,

8:43

and I was in school when you were punished by your teacher

8:45

'cause I used to get some serious whoopings from my teacher

8:48

with rhythm sticks or whatever, whatever,

8:52

and it also curbed the appetite of anybody else in class

8:53

that would want to act up because the teacher had the power

8:57

to keep them from acting up

9:00

because this is what you're here for,

9:02

you're here to learn and you're here to do this.

9:03

And then, on the flip side,

9:05

I went to school where you couldn't do anything.

9:07

The teacher's hands were tied,

9:09

and I see the teachers getting hit with chairs,

9:10

and all different types of things going on

9:12

in the public school system that don't need to be there

9:13

for the simple fact is the discipline is gone

9:16

and also the whole community is gone.

9:18

I mean, the breakdown of our community

9:21

and our people as it takes.

9:23

It's an old African proverb:

9:25

it takes a village to raise one child,

9:27

and the whole thing is our whole community is broken down.

9:30

Now you see little black kids walking down the street.

9:33

Before you couldn't go down the street

9:36

and do something wrong without your parents knowing

9:37

by the time you got home.

9:39

You would get three whippings.

9:41

You would get a whooping from the person

9:42

that saw you doing it,

9:43

then you'd get a whipping from your pops

9:45

or your mother when you got home,

9:46

and then you'd get another whipping from the other person,

9:48

your other parent when they got home.

9:50

You know what I'm saying?

9:52

And that's what happens.

9:53

And that's what's wrong with our people today

9:54

because our kids are so lost and so mad

9:55

because, okay, well, naw, you can't touch me,

9:58

you're not my father, you're not this, you're not that.

10:00

And then here come the parents trying to defend that

10:02

but yet they don't understand that we all need to help

10:05

discipline all the little ones

10:07

so when they get older they understand.

10:08

It is a community, and it's all of us together.

10:10

Man On Right

But may I say

10:13

we need to stop bashing our children and young people.

10:15

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That's right.

10:18

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Mm-hmm.

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Because our children and young people have been birthed

10:19

into this American environment,

10:22

and they have gained from the environment,

10:26

no matter where there's a birth,

10:28

whatever that environment is offering.

10:30

Their values have been taken out of the environment

10:31

in which they have been birthed.

10:34

And if there's violence in the schools,

10:37

that is because we have a violent society

10:41

that nobody really wants to deal with.

10:44

And it's equal to the issue of racism.

10:46

Racism was a violent institution.

10:49

What do you think lynching came from?

10:51

Who do you think went after escaped slaves?

10:54

The sheriff.

10:56

The sheriffs and the militia,

10:59

that's what became the police.

11:05

Who do you think have been a major vanguard

11:08

to help keep black folk in their place,

11:12

especially black males, but the police?

11:14

I mean, the system has been from day one a violent system,

11:18

and the children did not learn the violence

11:24

from the man on Mars.

11:26

They drank the milk of violence here in the United States,

11:31

which is one of the reasons why you cannot be against racism

11:37

and then for the Iraqi policy of bombing in Iraq.

11:40

You cannot be for racism,

11:44

you can't not be against racism,

11:46

and then be for police forces that are able

11:48

to batter or torture people in jail

11:51

or kill them on the street though they are unarmed.

11:54

And you cannot be against racism

11:57

and then for an economy which says that it's fine

12:00

that some people work for nothing,

12:03

and few have the wealth from the poor

12:06

switched over to them.

12:10

It's why these issues are interconnected and interdependent.

12:12

And what one of the things that the movement

12:16

of the 60s came to and what one of the reasons

12:18

for a non-violent perspective was to recognize

12:21

fundamentally human problems are interconnected

12:25

and interdependent.

12:29

And you cannot become myopic people

12:32

who see race as a kind of a singular task

12:36

and don't see the way in which the...

12:40

What's the octopus?

12:46

Uh, tentacles?

12:48

The tentacles of racism are everywhere across this nation,

12:49

and you can't cut one off.

12:57

You've got to deal with all of them to stop the stuff.

12:59

Speaker

Reverend Lawson, I agree with

13:03

the broad vision that you have is beautiful,

13:05

and I love that vision.

13:08

I wish everybody could embrace it.

13:10

Can I take us back to the point where we were before,

13:12

which is on a smaller scale?

13:15

Think about a specific school.

13:17

Think about being in a school at the time of desegregation,

13:19

and I've read about communities where

13:22

when schools were desegregated,

13:26

one of the big problems of course was that the surrounding,

13:28

the majority society, the white society finally was forced

13:31

kicking and screaming to desegregate schools.

13:35

When they did it, they didn't do it

13:37

in the best way possible.

13:38

Usually what they did is they just threw

13:39

some black kids into white schools

13:43

and expected them to deal with the majority culture

13:45

and the way the white kids would respond

13:47

and all of it any kind of reciprocal way.

13:48

But, that having been done, in that bad way,

13:51

a lot of teachers both black and white would say

13:55

that some things that had been present in the old school

13:59

maybe got lost in the old black schools,

14:02

have been lost as far as teachers supporting students,

14:07

letting them know that they were loved

14:11

as well as disciplined,

14:13

because all of a sudden you got white teachers

14:15

and black teachers having difficulties figuring out

14:18

how to still express that concern that goes beyond

14:21

academic concern for students that they feel

14:24

like they don't know,

14:26

and I think that, you know,

14:28

the expressions that I've heard from many African Americans

14:29

who experienced segregated schools

14:31

and remember them as being nurturing places,

14:34

despite the fact that the books were old

14:37

and they were torn up and the desks were old and whatever,

14:38

remember them as being nurturing places.

14:41

What they feel was lost was some of that nurturance

14:42

that was there in the segregated setting,

14:45

and I just, you know, leaving aside the questions of Iraq,

14:49

when I think about desegregation of schools

14:53

and maybe what was being lost,

14:56

I wonder if you could respond to, you know,

14:58

the idea that what could schools do to sort of regain

15:00

some of that feeling of community that was present

15:06

before desegregation?

15:10

Male Speaker

We got to go back to the basics.

15:15

Male Speaker

It seems it comes down

15:19

to human relations, right?

15:20

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[Female Audience Member] Yes, it does.

15:21

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[Male Audience Member] We're talking about teachers having

15:22

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We got to reclaim our schools.

15:23

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Yeah, I'll just tell you.

15:26

I've been very involved with these school issues.

15:28

I worked for a desegregating school system

15:30

when I was right out of college,

15:32

and participated in the desegregation.

15:33

We were really excited at the time.

15:35

We thought, this is great, we didn't realize

15:38

all of these issues that were emerging.

15:40

And, of course, part of what was happening

15:42

was that black teachers were losing their jobs.

15:44

Black principals were losing their jobs.

15:48

These community institutions were being shut down.

15:50

A lot of times the schools were sacrificed.

15:53

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Let's not make a mistake.

15:57

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And you know

we did it wrong.

15:59

I mean, that's the reality, is that

16:00

is was done wrong.

16:02

-

Well, it wasn't done according to the wishes

16:03

of the African American community.

16:05

It was done by the school board

16:08

that had maintained segregated schooling

16:10

and who thought that segregated schooling meant

16:13

that the black folk were inferior

16:16

and that the black folk got the second hand

16:18

textbooks if they got textbooks and all

16:20

the rest of it.

16:22

It was, it was the passion

16:23

of the teachers in the segregated school systems

16:25

especially, primarily in the South.

16:31

It was the passion of the teachers

16:34

and the educators who in spite of

16:35

the circumstances caused the school

16:40

to become a productive community for learning

16:43

and for becoming.

16:46

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[Male Audience Member] Let us please not make a mistake

16:48

of trying to enhance segregated schools

16:51

Audience Member

I know.

16:57

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But let us look at what we're not talking

16:59

about, what we have to go back to

17:01

and that is stability, order, the respect

17:02

that education was given by the black community.

17:06

I lived in a small town.

17:09

I knew everyone in that town.

17:12

Everyone in that town knew me,

17:13

and from the time when I was 10 years old

17:15

until I left at 17 to go to community college,

17:17

I was told by everyone in that town,

17:19

whatever you learn cannot be taken away from you.

17:21

The land can be taken away from you,

17:24

your property, everything, all of your money,

17:25

so I'm saying, I'd say this,

17:28

I was buttressed by an entire community

17:30

that knew that I was going to be the first

17:32

one from my family to graduate from college,

17:34

that I was going to do that,

17:36

and it was, it became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

17:38

We don't have that anymore.

17:41

Let us understand that we do not have that.

17:43

And if we start looking at the school system

17:45

without that social underpinning of a community

17:47

that says, in my day and age, it would have been

17:51

treasonous for someone to say that

17:55

because I'm trying to get As

17:57

I'm trying to be white.

17:59

Young blacks faced with that in the

18:01

educational school system today.

18:02

So let us when we romanticize,

18:04

let's put a little pragmatism

18:06

in that romanticism and say

18:08

we need to build that culture that supports

18:10

and gives credence and credibility to education

18:12

and not to a segregated school system.

18:16

Jim

Yes, sir, in the back?

18:20

I see a hand.

18:21

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Okay, thank you, first off, I want to say

18:22

that it's a real privilege to be here,

18:25

to actually see, to actually connect

18:26

names to faces and all the people

18:27

that you've been kind of reading about

18:29

and hearing about.

18:30

I'm a student in Charles Paynes' class over at Duke

18:32

and so I'm really excited to be here.

18:34

I have a question kind of related to

18:37

some of the things that we have talked about

18:40

in terms of in terms of education

18:42

and people's relationship to education

18:44

and also kind of a democratic response

18:47

to undemocratic initiatives, mainly this voucher,

18:50

voucher program.

18:54

Here in North Carolina

18:55

I know there's a lot of you who could

18:56

probably do this better in terms of

18:57

there's a large number of African American

18:59

families and children who are moving into

19:01

charter schools in the state of North Carolina.

19:03

I think the state of North Carolina

19:06

has the highest per capita percentage

19:08

of African American students from all income

19:10

levels in charters schools.

19:13

It's pretty high

19:15

if not the highest in the country.

19:16

And one of the phenomenons that's going on,

19:18

one of the things that's happening

19:20

in places like Durham and in Charlotte

19:21

and in other cities in North Carolina

19:25

is that low income families are being approached

19:26

by charter schools and by charter institutions

19:29

and are being told, look, your schools,

19:32

the schools that your kids are in right now

19:34

aren't providing them with the things,

19:37

with the basic essentials that they need,

19:39

and here's an opportunity for you

19:42

to take your kid out of that school

19:44

and come into this charter school.

19:46

And so my question is, and it seemed to me

19:48

that this, um, I'm thinkin' a lot more

19:51

about these things, my wife is pregnant

19:53

with our first kid and so I'm already thinking

19:56

about okay, schools, what's up?

19:58

Where are we going to have to move to?

20:00

What are we going to have to do?

20:01

Who am I going to have to smack?

20:03

I'm not above smacking somebody if someone

20:04

wants to mess with my kid.

20:05

Um, I'm not there yet, Reverend Lawson,

20:07

I'm getting there.

20:09

And so I guess

20:10

my question is, is in with this phenomenon,

20:11

what is the kind of the democratic response

20:15

to this phenomenon, which to me seems like

20:18

one of those, one of those really serious

20:21

intersections of personal and political?

20:23

You know, when I don't have any kids,

20:25

you know, yes, I'm an avid supporter of public

20:27

schools, and I'm an avid supporter of this,

20:31

but what happens when it comes down to the comedown.

20:33

When I'm given an opportunity

20:36

you know when I'm given an opportunity

20:37

to make this move, my question again

20:39

is, what is the democratic response,

20:41

what should be the democratic response

20:43

to that phenomenon?

20:44

Jim

Yes, sir.

20:48

Audience Member

The, um, I want to say two things.

20:49

One is we're, we can't go back to where we were

20:56

because we're not the same people.

20:59

We're no longer a Southern people.

21:00

We three generations removed from the South.

21:02

It's not a question of whether or not

21:05

some black schools were nurturing

21:06

and some were strict and some of us

21:08

who went to integrated schools got the

21:10

rattan like your white confreres did,

21:13

we cannot recreate those situations.

21:18

But part of the discussion revolves around symptoms.

21:21

When Jim Lawson talks about

21:25

we have to change the culture in the White House

21:26

and the prison system, one of the developments

21:28

that came out of the movement is we began

21:32

talking about systems.

21:34

We were fighting a system.

21:36

We are still fighting a system.

21:38

It doesn't, as Jim Lawson, says it's all connected.

21:39

It doesn't matter

21:44

whether it's the, what is vouchers?

21:45

When Jim talks about the names of people

21:48

the Republican party is the organized

21:51

expression of reaction in this country today.

21:53

They define conventional discourse.

21:56

Vouchers are simply one of their fundamental

21:58

tenets which is raid the public treasury,

22:00

privatization, that's what vouchers and charters are.

22:04

They want the public treasury

22:07

whether it's privatize the schools,

22:09

whether it's privatize the prisons,

22:10

privatize the sky, air, earth or water.

22:12

It's to raid the public treasury, and that's

22:15

where WTO comes from.

22:17

Who funds the IMF who funds the group?

22:20

-

World Bank.

22:21

Audience Member

It's no longer something

22:23

a question of surplus coming from the labor, we must,

22:24

the times are different.

22:27

Audience Member

Can I just say one thing about charter

22:31

schools that, that?

22:33

Audience Member

Well, our people are not the same.

22:36

If we used to say and it was implied

22:38

it was very clear, we had to be twice

22:41

as good as white boys to make it.

22:43

That was clear.

22:45

That was how we were taught,

22:47

but now you have a situation where a little

22:48

12 year old kid on a crew being a lookout

22:52

for the gangbangers makes more money

22:56

than his daddy if he has a daddy.

22:59

So the myth of America that it's about education

23:02

when it was always about power, the myth

23:05

of education no longer holds, no longer obtains.

23:08

It's not the way in fact, it's not the golden road.

23:11

You can be as ignorant as you want to be

23:15

vis a vis George W. Bush Jr.

23:16

(laughing)

23:19

(clapping)

Audience Member

Or Ronald Reagan.

23:24

With the air of confusion in which they are

23:27

continually being misinformed, disinformed,

23:29

given false explanations, false rationales,

23:32

false analyses, and our task is to try

23:34

to see through a glass darkly.

23:36

-

Okay, uhuh.

23:45

-

I think, I think one response to your

23:46

question is, we have got to, the way

23:47

to stop violence in schools is to bring more

23:50

creativity and more involvement of parents

23:53

and students into the curriculum

23:55

and into the day to day activities of schools.

23:57

It, the freedom schools, proved that.

24:00

The success of the freedom schools

24:01

was people felt a sense of ownership.

24:03

And unless we can work that kind of

24:05

the labor unions and the parents and the students

24:07

into that equation because we can't argue it

24:11

for the sake of arguing.

24:13

They're gonna want to

24:14

look at test scores because oh, we gave

24:15

the charter schools test scores, we gave

24:16

your school some test scores, and look at this.

24:18

And the mistake we shouldn't make is

24:20

using good will and altruism as an argument.

24:23

-

Well, I think right now the most exciting union organizing

24:28

in the country is in Los Angeles

24:34

where a number of our unions that are waking up

24:36

to the necessity of organizing the poor workers

24:39

have discovered that it can't be done 10 by 10.

24:42

It has to be done one by one

24:45

because the management is harassing

24:47

and making people fear for that little bit

24:49

of money so badly so there has to be a one

24:52

on one process until that person at the New Otani Hotel

24:56

where we've had a struggle

25:03

going on now for four years, until that one

25:05

person in fear who needs that money for his

25:08

household or her household gains from

25:13

that one on one relationship enough courage

25:17

to recognize, I can do something about this,

25:20

and I will do something about it.

25:23

And they join the cause.

25:24

So we have rediscovered the importance

25:26

of that one on one business for the terrible

25:29

organizing we have to do, so focus in and get started.

25:32

Do something.

25:37

That is in large measure what many people

25:38

did in the 50s and the 60s

25:42

that produced the movements of the 60s.

25:44

Focus.

25:49

Work at it.

25:50

Research it.

25:51

Develop strategies for acting.

25:53

Train people to do it, and go to work on it.

25:56

-

And please, before you use the Freedom Democratic Party

26:00

as a justification for not acting, please listen.

26:03

-

No, that's something--

26:05

-

Please listen,

all of you, to Linda May Johnson's tapes

26:08

for the two weeks of the convention.

26:11

He spent his entire time

26:13

stopping that movement.

26:15

-

Exactly.

-

And he pitted the entire federal government--

26:17

Audience Member

Yeah, that's right.

26:19

-

There are tapes to demonstrate.

26:20

Audience Member

Exactly, exactly.

26:21

-

And incidentally, that is one of the historic tools

26:22

of non-violence,

26:28

to create a parallel institution.

26:29

(laughs)

26:33

the Freedom Democratic Party is a classic one,

26:35

it's a beautiful example

26:37

of creating the parallel institution that caused.

26:39

-

But you came through that, son.

26:43

Quiet time.

26:46

You came through that just when you get off of work.

26:48

Audience Member

Between classes.

26:50

-

Yeah, between classes.

26:52

-

That's right. (laughing)

Audience Member

Stop assigning so much reading.

26:54

(audience laughing)

26:56

-

You need people to commit themselves

27:01

and drop out and fight.

27:05

You need that.

27:09

Now, where is it going to come from?

27:11

I don't know, but when it comes,

27:12

I'm going to be supported.

27:16

Audience Member

But you also need to have

27:19

the type of relationship between the local issues

27:21

that you're fighting on,

27:23

and the national debt--

27:24

-

Exactly.

Audience Member

Because there are people sitting

27:27

around little rooms, smaller rooms than this

27:28

well, plotting has been about the Heritage Institute,

27:32

or the vouchers in the charter schools.

27:34

People sitting around plotting,

27:36

their plot may manifest themselves,

27:37

impact a variety of institutions in a variety of ways,

27:40

but they are plotting to take over, in fact.

27:44

The right wing now controls the house and senate

27:50

of the United States.

27:52

They've appointed two thirds of all the federal judges,

27:54

this is why Kenneth Starr kept winning all those deals.

27:56

And if Bushy-wushy wins the White House

27:58

there will be a control of all three branches

28:00

of the American government.

28:02

-

Mm-hmm.

28:03

-

Exactly.

Audience Member

I will say as long

28:05

as we say Donald Trump.

28:05

-

I'm just saying my assumption is

28:07

that these guys here,

28:12

whoever under the hearing of mount recourse...

28:16

Audience Member

Well...

28:22

-

Will commit themselves.

28:24

Drop out.

28:28

(audience laughing)

I'm not talking about dropping out of school.

28:30

I'm talking about in the sense

28:33

of dropping out of society.

28:35

Don't be touched by the golden apples,

28:38

the $200,000 house.

28:44

Something's got to wait.

28:47

Audience Member

You'd get caught now.

28:49

(audience laughing)

28:50

-

He's right though.

28:53

He's absolutely right.

28:54

We must have no loyalty to racism, sexism, violence,

28:55

greed, capitalism as this present shows for sexism.

29:00

Man On Left

We, in a group like this,

29:05

if there's a group...

29:07

-

Withdraw all loyalty.

29:08

-

If you got 10 guys

29:09

that committed themselves to go further,

29:13

and all you're doing is going for it

29:18

like we used to do,

29:20

you've got time to read,

29:22

you've got time to get on the internet,

29:23

you've got time to see what the national issues are,

29:25

and who are acting.

29:29

You've got time to get in a push-mobile

29:31

and go to California

29:35

and hook up with them guys,

29:37

and go to Minnesota and hook up with those guys,

29:39

and go to Chicago and go to New York.

29:42

You've got time to do it.

29:45

And that's what it's going to take, the hook-ups.

29:49

The hook-ups, I mean.

29:52

I just hope I'm alive,

29:53

because my dream is that

29:56

in about 15 years, emerges...

30:00

That some magic's going to happen in our country,

30:08

number-wise, and it's going to be possible

30:13

for some political things to happen,

30:17

because it never happened before

30:20

in the history of our country.

30:22

And I hope that I'll be alive when it does happen,

30:24

20, 25 years.

30:28

Group leader

Yes, sir.

30:29

Audience Member

Just a couple of things...

30:31

Speaker

Oh, I've got to see some women's hands.

30:33

I haven't been really.

30:34

Okay, I've seen one.

30:36

Men are talking too much.

30:37

Audience Member

Well I just wanted to--

30:39

Speaker

And I'm talking too much.

30:40

Audience Member

My name is Wally Rather.

30:41

I worked in Mississippi and Safety Corp,

30:43

and one of the things that I learned

30:45

and I still carry with me

30:47

is that freedom is a constant struggle,

30:48

and there's not little solutions that solve it,

30:51

like integrated schools,

30:57

that can solve the problem, right?

30:59

The problem is there.

31:01

It's a system, like Bill said,

31:02

and you may have a victory, or you may have a defeat.

31:05

But that's not the end of it--

31:09

-

Right.

31:11

-

You know?

It's there and it's going to take the rest of our lives

31:12

to straighten it all out.

31:15

-

Yeah.

Audience Member

And you've just got to keep on going.

31:17

-

Keep at it.

31:18

Audience Member

And for you, with the kid on the way,

31:19

go into that community where he's going to go to school,

31:22

and start running for the school board now.

31:26

Or better yet go to the people who've lived there

31:28

for a long time and get them working on it.

31:30

Audience Member

Gotta organize first, see where

31:32

the school board's at.

31:33

-

Yeah.

-

Yes, please.

31:36

-

[Female Audience Member] Yeah, and this sort of piggybacks

31:37

on what was just said because it think

31:38

part of this young person's frustration

31:40

that I was hearing was this idea that no matter how hard

31:45

people fought the system didn't respond in the way

31:48

that it should have,

31:51

and then I think when we say things are the same

31:52

it might give the impression that no progress was made.

31:53

I mean, that, you know, Vincent Harding said this once,

31:56

I think it must be in a movie or something,

31:59

but if you think things haven't changed,

32:01

you don't know how they were,

32:03

and we have to understand

32:05

while struggle is eternal and constant,

32:07

each generation has a destiny to fulfill, what's the quote?

32:10

Strichlan knows all the--

32:15

Audience Member

This is supporting Fanon,

32:16

"Each generation must, out of relative obscurity,

32:18

"discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it."

32:20

-

[Female Audience Member] Thank you.

32:22

Where's that page number again?

32:23

(audience laughing)

32:25

You know, there has been progress and there has been change,

32:27

that while there's still racism

32:30

it is in a different form today,

32:31

and each generation has to figure out

32:33

the particularities of injustice and oppression.

32:34

I mean, I teach, I'm a historian,

32:37

and one of the things that I find comforting about history

32:39

is that things don't,

32:42

I mean, things don't stay the same.

32:44

They do change.

32:45

The one thing you do know about the future,

32:46

it's going to be different than today.

32:47

It can be better, it can be worse,

32:49

but it's going to change,

32:52

and human agency plays a role in that.

32:53

Human beings and what we do or what we don't do

32:55

really does matter,

32:58

and that's the ultimate source of,

33:00

not that we're going to achieve some utopia,

33:02

but that what we do matters is what keeps me from being

33:04

terribly, terribly cynical.

33:07

So I think that, you know, I mean,

33:09

things that people in the 60s did was absolutely heroic.

33:11

It made a difference.

33:15

It didn't solve all the problems,

33:16

but it did make a difference,

33:18

and that's part of I think what we have to understand

33:19

in order to give young people confidence,

33:21

and the last thing I'm going to say is

33:23

there are student struggles going on,

33:24

and you mentioned the sweatshop movement

33:26

which is very active.

33:27

University of Michigan just had a,

33:29

What was an 18 day sit-in

33:32

over a racist club that exists there,

33:34

and I'm always getting emails about struggles.

33:38

I think one thing about understanding the new situation

33:40

is that our enemies,

33:42

and I think we ought to say it like that.

33:43

-

Yeah.

33:46

-

You know, and I've gotten

more sophisticated measures

33:46

of not allowing movements to spread.

33:48

I mean, one of the ways a sit-in spread

33:51

was partly through word of mouth

33:52

but also was through the media,

33:54

through the black press, et cetera.

33:55

Media doesn't cover a lot of struggles

33:58

that happen on campuses and so forth,

34:00

so we have to develop other networks to do that.

34:01

-

Yeah, to be fair, we need...

34:04

I need to say to you what many of us from the 60s

34:08

have said about today,

34:11

that everything has changed,

34:13

and nothing has changed.

34:14

There are sort of two parts to the picture.

34:18

-

It's dialect.

34:20

-

Yeah.

Now, one of the biggest evidence that things did change

34:21

is the organization of the religious

34:26

and the political right to turn it back,

34:28

still finding another illustration that things did change,

34:32

is that no president since the Civil Rights Bill of 1964

34:36

has ever funded the Affirmative Action entitlements

34:41

section seven, title seven,

34:46

with staff and the educational resources

34:48

because title seven was to convince the American people

34:51

that we do not have a meritocracy,

34:55

that you're getting hired by who you know,

34:58

and to convince the American public and the marketplace

35:01

of the necessity of genuinely desegregating

35:06

and de-sex-an-iz-ing the marketplace.

35:09

Now, that has never been done,

35:16

and that's why the right has been able to say,

35:18

"Oh, reverse discrimination.

35:21

"Preferential treatment."

35:23

All of which are lies.

35:25

But that's what you hear,

35:27

because they have organized so vigorously and thoroughly,

35:29

with a great deal of money from right wing foundations

35:33

for the purpose of reversing

35:38

the changes that the 60s did begin to initiate.

35:40

Everything has changed and nothing has changed.

35:46

Audience Member

The other thing that is

35:47

most effectively is they removed the respectability

35:48

from the senate.

35:51

Audience Member

From the what?

35:53

-

From the senate, and the right to desecend.

35:54

And we must restore that.

35:57

-

Yes.

-

And must regenerate it,

35:59

-

Exactly.

-

and re-fight it.

36:00

We must be very concerned of devaluating social movements

36:01

and organizations by the number of people

36:06

they get involved,

36:09

as well as the objectives.

36:10

And I think once you get someone to join a labor union,

36:13

or to register to vote,

36:17

or to speak out against the World Trade Organization,

36:18

then all of a sudden they retreat,

36:20

say, "I'll never do that again."

36:22

They find other things to do.

36:23

Speaker

All right, yes, go ahead.

36:26

-

[Female Audience Member] I would like to ask

36:27

that they are going to be around

36:28

the rest of the conference.

36:30

I teach at Ole Miss,

36:31

and I advise a student group that's two years old, that--

36:33

-

Yeah, SEED.

36:38

-

SEED, yes.

That hosted a statewide student seminal race last October,

36:41

attended by 180 students,

36:45

all eight public institutes and higher learning

36:48

plus four private schools,

36:51

and some of it is that they had to go back to their schools

36:52

and organize on some of those campuses

36:56

because there wasn't any organizing.

36:57

But there's a core there now,

36:59

and they're interested in reaching out,

37:00

and there are some of those students here,

37:02

and if y'all meet, maybe you can energize each other,

37:03

and then you sort of take this expertise--

37:06

-

Harvard!

37:08

-

and go back to your campuses

so that you can start an organization

37:10

that you're talking about right now.

37:12

Don't wait for somebody else to do it, do it now.

37:13

Audience Member

Currently we've just formed

37:14

a progressive alliance at Duke,

37:15

attempting to network all the progressives.

37:17

-

Let's hook SEED up.

37:20

-

Organizations that exhibit--

-

Let's hook SEED up.

37:22

-

current students against

workshops, so they basically that.

37:23

-

Let's hook up, and then y'all come to Mississippi,

37:24

or whatever.

37:26

-

So despite my frustration,

you still--

37:27

-

[Female Audience Member] You're still frustrated

37:28

but you're doing the work.

37:29

-

[Male Audience Member] We're doing it anyway,

37:30

that's right!

37:31

-

That's why I said it.

(laughing)

37:34

-

It's a good life,

37:36

but it's being frustrated in life trying to do right,

37:36

trying to do that which is just,

37:38

and to fasten it.

37:40

I see any other hands?

37:43

It ends at 4:45 period,

37:45

and it is 4:45.

37:47

Audience Member

I have a reading list here.

37:49

-

Oh!

37:50

-

Oh!

-

I'm leaving this special reading list.

37:51

Those people who do not read the books

37:54

have afflictions, and they go to hell.

37:56

(audience laughing)

37:59

Now, would anyone like this reading list?

38:02

(laughing)

38:04

-

Yeah, please?

38:06

-

Please!

-

And if you don't, if we run out,

38:10

I want to reproduce it because I want you to have it.

38:11

I concentrate on Mississippi and on race.

38:13

I especially refer you to By The Color Of Our Skins,

38:16

and A Nation of Strangers.

38:20

To read those two books is to understand racism in America.

38:22

-

[Female Audience Member] The Color Of America.

38:26

Audience Member

We were talking

38:27

about discipline in school,

38:28

something that was pointed out about showing this,

38:30

welcome this morning,

38:34

and that is that it has, was began in 1865

38:35

and it had a policy

38:38

for non-discrimination in 1865,

38:41

it was one of the few schools in America that had that.

38:44

Tape 5, 2000 April

Transcript

Item Info

John Hope Franklin Research Center