Tape 8, 2000 April / Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 40th anniversary conference videocassette tapes, 2000 / Duke Digital Repository

(crowd murmurs loudly)

0:02

-

Where is

0:05

(crowd murmurs loudly)

0:06

-

About the sit-ins.

0:27

I'm pretty sure a lot of people didn't know the song.

0:29

It's called Ballad of the Sit-ins.

0:32

It was written by Guy Carawan.

0:34

Hit the chord, hit the chord.

0:39

-

Hit the chord.

0:40

-

Tell me if it's too high.

0:41

♪ The time was 1960, ♪

0:42

♪ The place the U.S.A., ♪

0:43

♪ February 1 became a history-making day ♪

0:46

♪ From Mobile, Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee ♪

0:50

♪ A time of (hums) at noon and take a seat with me ♪

0:55

♪ Heed the call, Americans all ♪

0:59

♪ Side by equal side ♪

1:04

♪ Brothers, sit in dignity ♪

1:10

♪ Sisters sit in pride, in pride, in pride ♪

1:14

♪ In pride, in pride, in pride, ♪

1:20

♪ In pride, in pride, in pride ♪

1:21

♪This is the land we cherish ♪

1:23

♪ The land of liberty ♪

1:28

♪ Our cans are made of many qualities ♪

1:32

♪ The Constitution says we can and ♪

1:35

♪ As Christians we should know ♪

1:39

♪ That Jesus died that morning so all mankind would know ♪

1:41

♪ Heed the call, Americans all ♪

1:45

♪ Side, by equal side ♪

1:49

♪ Brothers sit in dignity ♪

1:54

♪ Sisters sit in pride ♪

1:59

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:03

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:04

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:06

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:08

♪ No mobs of violence and of hate shall ♪

2:09

♪ Turn me from my goal. ♪

2:11

♪ No Jim Crow law or police state shall ♪

2:12

♪ Stop my freebound soul. ♪

2:14

♪ 3,000 Souixs bound and dead ♪

2:16

♪ Lift your heads and sing ♪

2:18

♪ We are drawn to freedom ♪

2:20

♪ Like songbirds on the wing ♪

2:22

♪ Heed the call, Americans all ♪

2:24

♪ Side by equal side ♪

2:29

♪ Brothers sit in dignity ♪

2:34

♪ Sisters sit in pride ♪

2:39

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:41

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:43

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:45

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:47

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:49

♪ In pride, in pride ♪

2:51

♪ Sisters sit in pride ♪

2:53

(applause)

3:03

-

Charles Jones?

3:27

-

I think he was there until a few moments ago

3:31

-

Charles, is Charles Jones in the back?

3:33

-

Oh there he is

3:35

-

And Mr. McDew?

3:42

The next panel today is about Ella Baker and the actual

4:12

birth of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

4:18

And three of the people with us on the platform were there

4:22

for the actual creation of the Student Nonviolent

4:26

Coordinating Committee.

4:29

I'm not going to say much except to introduce them.

4:32

Our first speaker is Lonnie King who was the founder and

4:37

head of the Atlanta Committee on human rights,

4:43

One of the several student groups that came together to

4:46

form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

4:49

Let's start with Lonnie King.

4:52

(applause)

4:56

-

Thank you very much Ms. Norman.

5:01

Mr. Chairman.

5:03

Chuck McDoo, my good friend Joyce, and my very good friend

5:07

Charles Jones, and Connie Curry and Sean Surod who was our

5:11

first feel, unpaid feel.

5:20

Secretary who created a revolution in this country by

5:24

wearing blue jeans.

5:29

A lot of you people don't realize that Charles Sherod was

5:32

the first person to really start wearing blue jeans as

5:34

work clothes because he had to go down to Alabama and

5:37

Mississippi and other places to help us register voters.

5:40

And I see Jim Foreman out there and a number of other

5:44

people, and I have nostalgia about this whole weekend

5:47

because I was in Atlanta two weeks ago for our 40th

5:51

and Reverend Dr. Otis Moss ended his eloquent presentation

5:55

by talking about the fact that it's been 40 years and I

6:01

may see some of you again, and you may not see me again

6:06

and because of that eloquent presentation, moving

6:10

presentation, I agreed to come, to be very honest with you.

6:18

Because we may not see one another again and the struggle

6:24

that I have been involved in, that you have been involved

6:29

in and I'm hoping that many of the young people will

6:32

become involved in, continues.

6:34

Background of SNCC, in 1960, as you already heard, on the

6:39

first of February, four young men sat down in Greensboro,

6:47

at Greensboro.

6:51

The following morning, I was at Gates and Milton's drug

6:53

store in Atlanta, Georgia at the AU Center and I had

6:57

breakfast every morning there with a guy named

7:02

Julian Barnes, and a guy named Joseph Pierce.

7:04

I had met Julian in the registration line at Morehouse.

7:08

I don't know how it was at your college, but registration

7:12

was the longest, dang it was long.

7:16

And you could tell your whole life story to the person

7:20

behind you or in front of you.

7:24

So when I came back from the war, after having served in

7:26

the Navy for a tour of duty, I met this young man, skinny

7:29

young fella, we spent about eight hours together talking.

7:35

And we became friends and when it was time for, I guess

7:38

for this movement to get started, I got the newspaper and

7:43

I said Julian, Joe, look at what they been doing in

7:46

Greensboro, we ought to do that here.

7:51

And Julian said "well somebody's gonna do it" and I said

7:55

"well why not us".

7:58

And from that we went on and we started organizing on

8:00

these different campuses.

8:02

At the AU center.

8:04

Then I got a telephone call, not a call, I got a personal

8:07

visit from Dr. Maise's secretary, asking me to come to the

8:10

third floor of the administration building at AU for an

8:15

important meeting at three o'clock one afternoon.

8:22

And I learned that all the rest of our leaders were also

8:26

having to come to that same meeting.

8:28

Uh oh.

8:30

So we walk into the room, here were all the six college

8:33

presidents, most of whom you read about in the history

8:36

books, Maise and Clement and Manly, and so forth and so on.

8:39

And we really thought that we was going to be put out of

8:45

school because of what we were doing and all we meant to do.

8:47

They tried to discourage us, but when they saw that we were

8:51

not going to be discouraged, they then had one suggestion,

8:56

they said well why don't you do this, if you're not gonna

9:00

stop, why don't you set forth a petition for why you are

9:02

attacking this system.

9:06

For our historical purposes as well as putting the world

9:09

on notice as to what you're all about.

9:13

And so with that in mind, we wrote something called "An

9:15

Appeal for Human Rights".

9:18

Which many of you may have seen or read about in the

9:21

history books.

9:22

On March the ninth, it was published in all three major

9:23

papers in Atlanta and the New York Times the following

9:26

week published it for free for us, full page.

9:28

But we set forth in there our petition which represented

9:33

not only what we felt in Atlanta, but we felt this

9:37

represented Georgia, the South, and the nation.

9:40

And one of the lines that I want to bring forward to yall

9:44

and that is that we felt that the time was out for

9:47

African-Americans, or Negroes as we were called at that

9:49

time, to continue to have our rights metered out to us

9:53

one at a time, one at a time.

9:57

And that the time for action was now, and that we were

10:02

gonna use every legitimate, nonviolent means to bring

10:05

about a change in this system in Atlanta and in this nation.

10:10

And we moved forward six days later to attack several

10:13

places in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and we went to

10:19

jail on that issue.

10:22

While this was going on, Nashville was hopping and Knoxville

10:26

was hopping, and Burmingham was moving, and almost in every,

10:32

in almost every state in the Confederacy,

10:36

former Confederacy, well I think I was right the first time.

10:40

(laughter)

10:44

In the Confederacy, where there were HBCUs, young people

10:45

rose up.

10:52

And what happened was that we were fighting the system

10:55

concurrently all over the South.

10:59

And the normal kinds of reactionary tactics that the

11:02

guardians of the old order had used, did not work.

11:08

Because even though they had put down that Lonnie King,

11:14

18 years of age or 20 years of age and put down my

11:17

home address, my home address might have been in California,

11:21

as opposed to there in Atlanta.

11:25

So what happened is that the normal way of stopping a

11:28

movement in the South, had been to kill off the leaders.

11:33

Either to shoot them, or to make sure they didn't have

11:36

any jobs, or so forth and so on.

11:39

And so therefore, that particular tactic couldn't work

11:42

against us.

11:45

And so I think that was one of the important things that

11:48

helped us succeed.

11:50

I also want to tell you that the Atlanta movement said that

11:51

we had a meeting and we decided that we could not fight

11:57

this battle without there being some organization.

12:01

And contrary to what you read in all the history books,

12:08

I want to straighten out something for you.

12:11

Julian Barnes, Mary White Eddimon, who I'm sure you've

12:14

heard about, and I went down to see Martin King in late

12:17

March, middle March, right after those sit-ins when he

12:21

had just come over from Alabama, to ask him to call this

12:24

meeting at Shaw.

12:28

Martin King was reluctant, but we gotta put the record

12:32

straight, Martin King was reluctant but he said

12:35

I will get Ella Baker to do it after we argued with him

12:38

about it.

12:41

Because Ella was his secretary at that time, executive

12:43

secretary, and Ella was a graduate of this university

12:44

here, so she called and got this thing set up here at Shaw.

12:48

The telegram went out and Charles, I think it had Martin's

12:51

name and Ella's name on it, didn't it?

12:54

To all the leaders that we could identify from newspaper

12:57

accounts, we didn't really know all of you, we just

13:01

read about you.

13:02

And because the white newspapers were so good at putting

13:04

your names down, we knew who to call.

13:06

(laughter)

13:10

And so that's how you got here in 1960.

13:11

Now once you got here, well before you got here, let

13:14

me also say this to you, that was a little bit of a

13:17

discussion.

13:20

Some folks thought that we shouldn't organize, and I won't

13:21

get into all of that.

13:24

But we felt in Atlanta that there had to be an organization

13:26

because if you were gonna battle this system, you couldn't

13:29

do it with unorganized troupes.

13:32

Let me tell you what was happening, briefly.

13:35

Virginia passed the first Anti-trespass law, and within

13:38

a matter of a few weeks, almost every state had passed the

13:43

same, almost identical, word for word law.

13:47

Which meant that if you went into a lunch counter and the

13:50

manager asked you to leave, and you didn't leave then the

13:53

John Damme, the police could come in and take you away.

13:56

Now that kind of system was there.

14:01

So there was a need for SNCC, you may not have called it

14:04

SNCC, but there was a need for something where we had

14:08

some coordination and Tim Jenkins just showed me the first

14:11

issue of the Student Voice, which I'm sure he'll tell you

14:15

about later on.

14:17

And in that Student Voice it talked about all these things,

14:20

most of these things that I'm now talking to you about.

14:21

But that's history and Tim had a part of the

14:25

history back then.

14:27

When I came here in 1960, I don't know which building we

14:30

were in, but it was a little bigger than this one I think.

14:34

It was a very large place and I met lifelong friends there.

14:36

You came to Atlanta to start your headquarters there,

14:41

Ed King, James Denbridge, Connie Curry, Ella Baker, my good

14:45

buddy Donna McGinty.

14:49

We all were there during that time and trying to make these

14:54

things go.

14:56

Let me give you my concluding remarks about the birth of

14:59

SNCC and the idea and why did it come about.

15:02

I'm about to finish a PhD in history and I'm, after having

15:05

read all this history now over the last four years, I'm

15:13

really beginning to get a better appreciation for what

15:17

we did.

15:19

You see, we were so busy in 1960 we didn't have time to

15:20

think about the historical significance of what we were

15:23

doing because we were so busy trying to get it done.

15:25

But when you go back and you take, you flashback over

15:29

history you will find the significance of that movement and

15:33

let me just quickly say it to you.

15:35

There have always been some movements in America, ever since

15:40

African-American, or Africans came over from Africa, to

15:43

try and get out of bondage.

15:48

Contrary to what you've read in some of these early history

15:49

books about we were all happy and happy-go-lucky and loved

15:52

being in slavery, you know that really wasn't true.

15:55

But what happened was that we did something that the

15:58

historians call slipping the yolk.

16:02

Have ya'll heard of something called slipping the yolk?

16:08

Alright and what essentially meant was that we found a way,

16:10

hundreds of years ago, to try and escape the bullet.

16:13

To try and escape the whip, to escape the kinds of

16:20

oppression that we knew the plantation owner was

16:22

going to put on us.

16:27

So that's what we did.

16:29

So we weren't really happy.

16:30

Even though we might have been singing, we weren't really

16:32

joyful, but we were conning the man.

16:34

However, while some of us were conning the man, some people

16:37

planned revolutions.

16:39

I'll just mention two for you and then Imma move on.

16:42

Denmark Visi in this next state down, organized a really

16:45

strong insurrection in the 1820s in Charleston.

16:49

And he was a free man by the way, free Black man, but he

16:56

was betrayed and he was executed along with some of his

17:00

friends.

17:04

And you know, as they call co-conspirators.

17:05

Then from 1830 to 1833, Nat Turner also, in Virginia, next

17:08

state over, organized a revolution, and he too was killed,

17:13

as you know.

17:18

And in almost every instance, in history, we find that the

17:19

people who try to organize a way of getting out from under

17:22

this bondage, they were killed.

17:26

And I won't go too much further on this end, except to say

17:28

that in 1909, the NAACP was organized with DuBois and a

17:32

number of other people there in New York.

17:35

And they embarked on a legalistic approach.

17:39

Now why did they do that?

17:43

Because it was safer to do that.

17:44

If we had the mass movements, we found that the Billy clubs

17:48

and the guns were drawn and we would be killed.

17:52

Whether it was a hundred, a thousand, it didn't matter.

17:58

Kill the people who were trying to be the insurrectionists.

18:00

In the 1920s, after African-American men battle in the

18:04

first World War, as DuBois said, let's fight abroad so

18:08

we can have some democracy at home, our men came home, and

18:15

they came home some were killed in uniforms.

18:19

And especially in the state of Texas, really bad on

18:22

African-Americans who came back from the war.

18:25

So there was this thing, we cannot afford to actually

18:29

confront this system the way it should have been confronted.

18:34

But then a man named Mortecai Johnson, who was the president

18:39

of Howard University, Joyce's school where she had it,

18:43

decided in 1922 to 1923 that Howard University ought to

18:46

become the law school to train African-American lawyers

18:50

on how to argue constitutional cases on behalf of

18:56

Black People.

18:59

Dr. Johnson's position simply was that white lawyers are

19:01

well intended, but when Supreme Court justices are asking

19:04

them questions about how does it feel to be denied these

19:08

rights, many of them somehow or another flunked the test,

19:11

because they'd never been denied.

19:15

So he asked Justice Louis Brandeis, would he help him

19:17

form, move Howard from a night law school to a day law

19:21

school, to train Civil Rights lawyers.

19:25

Justice Brandeis told him I will do it on one condition,

19:28

that you not tell anybody about it until after I'm dead.

19:32

(laughter)

19:35

So they formed this union, and they put together Howard

19:38

University Law School as a prime law school, day school,

19:40

and you know the rest, Judge Hasties, Spotser Robinson,

19:44

you can call off a number of people, Thurgood Marshall,

19:50

they went through there.

19:52

So the NAACP was prepared for this legalistic approach, and

19:53

it was gonna take about a century to get us free, folks,

19:55

we still be fighting.

19:58

However, along comes the second World War, and at this time,

20:00

if you ever get the chance, I'm gonna digress, if you ever

20:05

get a chance to go to the Library of Congress, go and

20:09

look at the NACP files over there.

20:11

They have millions of letters and correspondence over there.

20:14

But look at what happened in the 40s.

20:18

I just looked the other day while I was there.

20:22

There are letters from African-American soldiers complaining

20:24

about how they were being treated.

20:28

One man talked about how he was shot in the leg by his

20:30

commanding officer because he had a minor disagreement

20:34

with him.

20:36

Another man was in a traffic accident down in Opalacka,

20:38

Alabama with a white man, they took him to jail in uniform,

20:40

beat him up, kept him in jail for six months, took

20:44

off his uniform.

20:47

The man had to, he literally had to escape in order to

20:48

save his life.

20:51

And I could go on and on and on about the kind of things

20:52

that happened during the second World War, but I did find

20:55

through most of those letters though, was that the African

20:59

American soldiers kept talking about the big dichotomy of

21:02

fighting for a democracy overseas, while we're being denied

21:05

a democracy in America, even in uniform.

21:10

Having said all of that then, those men had children.

21:14

I'm one of those children.

21:18

So when they came home,

21:20

they talked about some of this stuff.

21:22

And so by 1960 I ended up at Morehouse College, and I was

21:24

like thousands of other young Black kids around this country

21:28

who's daddies, who's uncles, who's brothers had served

21:33

in the military.

21:36

And they came home talking about this dichotomy.

21:38

Now there's nothing that one man said on Earth more power

21:41

than an idea who's time has come.

21:47

And the time had come, in 1960, for African-Americans to

21:50

change the way they were trying to get their rights.

21:53

No more metered out one at a time.

21:57

You had to get a movement together and bring in as

22:01

many African-Americans and whites.

22:05

Bring in people of good will who wanted

22:08

to change this country.

22:11

And then if you look at this movement, you will see that

22:12

change, as Anne Braden said, not just this country, but

22:14

this movement changed this world.

22:17

You can look at almost any discipline, whether sociology,

22:20

whether it's public administration, whether it's history,

22:24

psychology, you name it, 1960 has been a watershed for

22:27

reexamination for that particular discipline.

22:30

Why is that?

22:35

Because we caused people to think, re-think, and take

22:37

a second look at what are we doing.

22:39

Let me conclude by saying that we had this meeting in

22:43

Atlanta, Georgia two weeks ago and only 30 students came.

22:48

30.

22:55

Now we published a second appeal for human rights two weeks

22:56

ago, full page ad in all of the newspapers, updating

22:59

where we are today.

23:03

And what we found when we did the research is that forty

23:08

years ago, 99% of African-Americans, or Negroes as we were

23:11

called, were in the same situation.

23:16

40 years later, over half of our people, are still in

23:20

grinding poverty.

23:25

The same situation, either the same people, or their

23:27

descendants.

23:30

What have we done though, what has Martin King done for them

23:32

in the last 40 years?

23:34

I made a lot of money, I've gotten some more degrees,

23:35

moved into the suburbs, so forth and so on.

23:39

But I have not done what I should have done over the last

23:41

40 years.

23:43

And what I'm saying to you is that we all need to think

23:46

about what it is that we can do as we go forward.

23:49

But let me go a little further.

23:52

Our universities, Shaw University, Morehouse College where I

23:54

went, our colleges have not kept faith with the movement.

23:59

The young people who came through there 40 years ago,

24:03

revolutionized them too, but I think that they had the

24:07

responsibility for the institutional memory, to some extent.

24:11

At least to the history department, to begin to say to the

24:15

people coming through, that you have two responsibilities.

24:18

One to yourself, to get the very best possible education

24:22

that you can, to repair yourself.

24:26

And two, to give something back.

24:28

And the second back, to give something back,

24:30

is what's missing.

24:33

(applause)

24:36

My final point, final, final point, we were so moved by

24:39

this paucity of people in the audience who did not have

24:45

gray hair, and so we decided that we are going to organize

24:52

the communal appeal for human rights which is what our

24:58

group was in 1960 until 1980.

25:02

Non-profit corporation and we're going to go and ask the

25:06

AU Center schools all of them down there that you know

25:09

about, to let us then begin to teach African-American

25:14

history, to every freshman class from now on ad infinitum.

25:17

(applause)

25:23

WE believe that we can do this, and we all, a lot of us

25:28

have academic credentials so the Southern Association is

25:31

not gonna be upset, we have got enough PhDs and MDs and

25:34

Masters in all these different areas.

25:36

So nobody's accreditation is going to be hurt by it.

25:40

But we need to go back and recognize that benign neglect

25:43

has not worked for the last 40 years.

25:48

And we were young enough when we started this movement for

25:51

us to still be available and one more time, thank you.

25:55

(applause)

26:05

-

Our next speaker will be Charles Jones, who already

26:14

introduced himself to you, one of the first field

26:17

secretaries for SNCC to enter some of the most dangerous

26:21

places in the South and he's gonna tell us more about the

26:25

birth, the actually coming together of SNCC.

26:29

(applause)

26:32

-

A very gracious good morning.

26:39

Audience

Good morning.

26:42

-

And in the spirit as I stand here I want to give all of

26:43

the respect to Ruby Darsis, to Ella, to Steptoes, I want for

26:49

a moment, to radiate and reflect those giants.

26:57

Who, when faced with the possibility of being here,

27:04

stood tall.

27:12

I want to honor that because I know that only on their

27:15

shoulders, only on those shoulders do we now stand, and

27:21

while my emotions will communicate the depth of my respect

27:26

and appreciation and love, I make no apology for these

27:33

tears, I haven't cried for Ruby Daris yet.

27:36

I haven't done.

27:41

I haven't cried for many of our brothers and sisters, I

27:44

was too busy surviving the trauma of a war where people

27:49

were shooting at you, physically and otherwise.

27:55

I'll never forget Charles coming down the doors and after

28:01

the Klan had shot up the house.

28:03

I was by myself, I don't know if I told you this, but it was

28:05

about two o'clock in the morning, and somebody shot at

28:08

the car, and at that point I didn't know and I had to call

28:11

on whatever it was we call on, Charles.

28:16

Grandma, who told me, "Boy, don't you, don't you sit there

28:19

and apologize for no man for who you are".

28:24

I had to come to grips with that man who was gonna.

28:29

If he had been in front of me, he would blow me away, and

28:31

that's my confrontation with nonviolence in a most spiritual

28:34

way that came with when I had to deal with what would happen

28:39

when he was standing in front of me and I was standing there

28:41

and my grandma was telling me what to do.

28:44

And I have to tell you, I'd have

28:47

taken him out in a heartbeat.

28:50

And I have to say this to you because of this,

28:53

my grandmother would not have allowed me to have someone

28:54

destroy her hope.

28:56

You mothers know what I'm talking about.

29:00

Grandmothers, that, is he gonna be the one?

29:02

And Chuck I never said this and maybe it's a confession,

29:05

but given that intellectual and actual confrontation, I made

29:08

a choice that as for between him and I, I knew that if

29:13

he was gonna kill me, I couldn't let him do it.

29:17

And we wanna brought America's Georgia and all of that, I

29:20

don't know how I kept from being confronted by it, but

29:24

thank God.

29:28

Alright, but I want to honor now, all of those people.

29:29

You all know them, you walked the backroads with them, you

29:34

motivated people who were scared as hell, and who stood up

29:37

and got beat and shot.

29:41

You know that pain.

29:42

Thank you Chuck for that movie man, telling a story, man.

29:44

I was just as proud to tell you, I hope ya'll saw

29:49

Freedom Song.

29:52

It was an accurate composite of our effort.

29:53

And 40 years later, seeing it on my television, with some

29:57

of my neighbors watching, I stood tall I felt like all of

30:02

the gods who had come, perhaps sacrificed, but I don't

30:06

want us to lose, as we talk about these people that have

30:13

gone on, particularly Ella, Ella is still in my spirit so

30:16

totally, I can remember when we were, Diane and I, we were,

30:22

and Marion, we were, talking about it, and Ella would sit

30:26

back calmly, hear each of us, but would not let us turn

30:30

each other loose.

30:35

Until we had come, not to a majority, one more than, but

30:39

until Diane and Charles and Chuck MacDoo, and Tim, and felt

30:43

a common community.

30:47

We would not go forward.

30:51

So of the uniquenesses that that period brought, this sense

30:54

of the beloved community, and Charles I was thinking of this

30:59

when Jim was talking.

31:01

Charles Sherod and I were in jail down in Rock Hill, South

31:04

Carolina, we had chosen to go in at that point when the sit

31:08

ins had taken place throughout the South, and we thought

31:12

we needed a focal point to organize the efforts of the

31:16

students, and to dramatize that we needed to work together,

31:19

and to keep it going.

31:22

And Charles and I had been conducting devotions.

31:23

I see my brother still doing that, bless you man.

31:28

Bless you.

31:32

And we got put in solitary confinement because we were

31:33

having devotions and at that point there was a white

31:37

section of the jail and a black section of the jail.

31:41

But it was a big compound.

31:46

So we'd be up singing and praying, Charles you know still

31:47

does that so well, thank God.

31:50

And it so infuriated the guards, there at the place, who

31:52

were charged with not only keeping us prisoners, but

31:58

keeping white prisoners and Black prisoners apart, and

32:01

somehow maintaining some kind of difference, of deference

32:05

to the white prisoners, and trying to deal with us.

32:11

But at any rate, Charles and I got put in solitary.

32:12

Four or five days wasn't it.

32:14

No blankets, on the concrete floor.

32:20

We did have some of the brothers though slipping us food

32:25

under the door, I remember eating up.

32:31

I remember several of those folks.

32:33

And Charles and I lay there and talked about how we were

32:34

going to the theological basis, he was in divinity school.

32:37

I was too I guess.

32:41

The theological basis, and when I saw, when we talked

32:42

about Gandhi.

32:47

When Charles and I were in solitary talking about Gandhi,

32:49

not only was it a practical, tactical approach, but he

32:51

and I felt that the only way we could change the South, the

32:55

only way was to change it through the force of our very

32:58

commitment embodied, but also with the force of love.

33:01

We believe that.

33:05

So when we left and the guard, the main guard, came up

33:08

and spoke to us.

33:10

What he say, "you boys did pretty good" or

33:13

"good luck to you".

33:17

This was the guard at the Rock Hill, really it was the

33:19

Yaw County chain gang, who had been such a racist,

33:23

aggressive person, who because of this energy, came over

33:27

and shook our hand actually, didn't he.

33:31

And I think that, to me, is one of the essences of how

33:36

approaching this thing from a much broader spiritual context

33:40

Jim and I totally appreciate and I read again our calling

33:45

statement, at the preamble.

33:49

That issue we wrestled with, and I do remember, I remember

33:52

the session, I remember the words.

33:54

You know and so when I read them again the other day, I said

33:58

wow, and much of that was your own seasoned development of

34:00

the concept.

34:04

And I understand you also spent some time in India so that

34:07

this was not just an academic concept, you saw some

34:11

of that happen.

34:14

So as I give these honorings, particularly to Ella, who

34:15

helped us grow up, who helped us come to a point of

34:22

understanding that the only way you're gonna do this is by

34:26

respecting the very individual person, and if that took you

34:30

some time then darn it, you stood there, and you did it.

34:32

I also want to honor my grandfather, and great grandfather,

34:35

and mother.

34:41

I came to this in a little different context.

34:43

My father who is the youngest of 11 children, he was born

34:49

in 1910, all of them graduated from college.

34:51

Hear me now.

34:54

Because you hear all this stuff about how Black people

35:00

are this, that and whatever.

35:02

My father's family, his father had come, was born a slave,

35:04

married my grandmother, who was born a slave.

35:09

Both were teaching at something like 12 and 13 years old

35:15

because they were the only ones who had learned how to read

35:19

in the community.

35:21

They came to South Carolina, set up a church, set up eight

35:22

parochial schools, we are in 1870, 1880, 1890.

35:26

Eight parochial schools, our pastor is incidentally my

35:34

grandfather, I was a student pastor at two churches

35:39

my grandfather set up.

35:44

So all of my uncles, finished Johnson Smith, my Aunts

35:48

finished Barbara Scosha, so by the time I came along, I

35:53

mean I didn't have much of a choice.

35:56

My family looked at me and said of course you're going to

35:59

contribute.

36:01

My grandma told me " boy, yeah you the one".

36:03

So for me, coming to the meeting here, for me coming to

36:05

the lunch counters, I was just trying to say Ella's, hey

36:08

I'm here.

36:15

I know I have no choice, I know I must keep the faith

36:17

as you did.

36:21

Through the middle passage, through the earlier part of

36:22

slavery, through all of it.

36:26

They kept the faith, they survived, they taught us

36:28

how to survive.

36:30

Of course we're gonna go pick up a gun and

36:32

take on a preacher.

36:34

How absurd.

36:37

But we had a source of power so much stronger.

36:39

And I, now, sitting her 20 or 40 years later have you

36:41

any idea how nurturing this is for those of us who didn't

36:44

know what we were doing but stood there man.

36:47

I tell you.

36:52

Who wrestled through, jumped off the cliff and learned

36:53

how to fly on the way down, didn't know if we were gonna

36:55

crash but goddanit our brother, our sister was there and

36:57

we were going to get there.

37:00

There was no discussion, no articulation of anything about

37:03

why am I here, why me?

37:05

We learned to fly on the way down.

37:08

And landed really rather gracefully.

37:12

Chuck does that so well he's still going down.

37:14

So I come here as a continuum of the struggles of human

37:20

beings, not only for their own dignity, but to assert it.

37:30

Not in an arrogant, but in an extraordinarily strong

37:34

way that says that you will deal with me.

37:39

Because really I am the best of you,

37:43

you haven't discovered yet.

37:47

Right, and I could not set my bar to be equal to you.

37:51

I had to set my bar much higher, because the manifestation

37:58

of your behavior not only with slavery, sexism, you know

38:03

it all, but if I'm only striving to be that, Jim, then what

38:11

do I bring to the discussion.

38:12

So that's what we struggled with.

38:13

To bring the best of the human experience, the human

38:14

capacity to each and every confrontation we had.

38:18

And God knows we stumbled from time to time, but I tell you

38:24

there were times we stood so tall, I'm proud of that.

38:27

So I'm honoring all of those people, who came before us.

38:31

All those folks who walked with us.

38:42

Those of us who are here, but all of those

38:46

who didn't make it.

38:49

In your own spirit, honor, honor that.

38:50

Because this was rough this is bad, this wasn't just a nice

38:57

intellectual discussion, we were dealing with the power, the

39:01

total political and military power of this country.

39:03

So we fashioned a way to survive it.

39:09

Tim Jenkins.

39:14

Let me put a quick context of 1960.

39:16

Tim and I had been working through the United States

39:19

National Student Association.

39:22

Tim was a national officer.

39:24

Indeed he was.

39:27

And these were the bright minds.

39:29

The presidents and vice presidents of the student

39:33

governments throughout this country.

39:35

I put myself in nomination for the chairman of the

39:40

Carolina Virginia region against a fellow from Wahlfort,

39:45

and won the thing.

39:48

So I was the first chairman of the Carolinas Virginia

39:51

region of the National Student Association.

39:54

Tim did you go to Europe?

39:56

I went to Europe in 59.

40:00

Tim and I went to Cuba in 59.

40:01

And attempted to organize and work with students there.

40:02

But by the time 1960 came, we had had some communications

40:07

with a lot of other of our peers.

40:12

I was actually I was asked by the House Committee on

40:15

UnAmerican Activities to come as a friendly witness.

40:21

And the reason for that was that in Vienna, Austria in

40:26

1959, I guess it was, I had been in attendance to an

40:33

international conference where the Soviet Union was trying

40:37

to say to emerging African countries and third world

40:42

countries, we the man, we the one, ya'll don't worry about

40:46

the United States, we're the people you need to go with.

40:48

And I went with about 300 students from the United States.

40:50

And found myself from time to time, I guess debating, was

40:53

a good word, with Paul Rosen Jr. about not only what was

40:56

happening in this country but also positive things, slave

41:02

rebellions, other parts of the picture.

41:05

So the House Committee, remember asked me to come, because

41:09

they knew I was one of their boys.

41:12

And I heard something, the chairman said "Mr. Jones, don't

41:16

you agree that we are better than the Soviet Union because

41:18

they indoctrinate our children to, their children to believe

41:21

in Communism?"

41:25

And I said "With due respects, my brother, it is easier to

41:26

be anti-communist than it is to be pro anything, but

41:29

particularly pro-American.

41:36

I see you as anti-Communist, I haven't heard you say

41:38

anything about my interests.

41:41

So let's discuss".

41:43

And for the next two and half hours, all them Ls and oh

41:44

I'd love to get a copy of that.

41:47

One of the things that I've done is not to read much of

41:50

what happened during that period.

41:53

And I'm not sure why that is.

41:56

I'm beginning to do it now.

41:59

Joanne, thank you for Ella.

42:00

All of you folks that have done this.

42:03

Thank you so much.

42:04

Who have, I've chosen not to read much of what happened.

42:05

Might just be an ego thing.

42:09

Maybe I want to remember my own experiences and perhaps

42:12

if I can be honest with them, that is as an accurate,

42:14

if not more-so expression of what went on than many of

42:22

our historians and there are a lot of folks who have

42:26

written good stuff.

42:30

But there are also stuff out there that is absolutely no

42:31

resemblance to what I remember in being there.

42:33

So now I think we probably gonna start writing stuff.

42:36

Ms. Davis with Ms. Smith, Ms. Bumgardner Davis is gonna

42:40

help us perhaps put something together and I appreciate

42:42

that, I do appreciate that.

42:44

So I'm gonna do that.

42:46

But Tim, it was once I was coming back from this session.

42:48

And my paper covered, Charlotte Observer covered, both

42:54

when we were in Europe, "Colored Boy Does Good, Defends

42:58

Democracy".

43:02

And we, were coming, the mayor, I ran into him on the

43:03

street, he said "Mr. Jones, we're proud of you man.

43:08

You're a credit to your race, and you did a pretty good

43:12

job for the rest of us too".

43:17

I was coming back from the House Committee's testimony.

43:20

Four o'clock in the morning, up here near South Boston.

43:24

And I heard, "Today, four students went down to Wolsworth at

43:27

Greensboro, sat at the lunch counter and did not move".

43:33

And I said "Yes!"

43:37

(laughter)

43:39

Finally there was a handle for all of us who were trying to

43:44

figure out, how we gonna deal with this monster.

43:50

Obviously we can't take up arms, obviously we can't, what

43:54

can, and when they sat down and didn't move, I said, "okay"

43:58

Party's on, let's jam, let's put it together.

44:02

And I got home, went to a meeting of the student council,

44:06

announced that I was gonna go downtown the next day.

44:11

And I thought that maybe there would be a core crew.

44:14

There were 322 JCSU students waiting to go down and party.

44:17

(laughter)

44:23

And when we got on the street, interestingly enough, the

44:29

guys at Greensboro had not said anything.

44:33

They had done, they knew the press was reporting.

44:38

What and how and when, but no one was saying anything

44:42

about why.

44:46

I ran into the mayor, the first day.

44:49

The same mayor

44:52

(laughter)

44:54

I must tell you, he kind of looked down and walked out a

44:57

side street.

45:04

I spoke to him, Brother Al, how you like me now?

45:05

IT was that liberation of a spirit penned up by all the

45:13

history of my generation, we were ready, we just didn't know

45:19

how and the sit ins and ice cream so from that moment on,

45:24

totally convinced that Gandhi as I read him, was a saint.

45:27

I wasn't quite sure I could always turn the other cheek,

45:34

but I felt the soul force, the force of the power of the

45:37

spirit to stand in front of the bullets, to stand in

45:40

front of the machinery, to put your body in the machinery,

45:43

and I said wow, good stuff.

45:49

So we went about putting our body in the machinery.

45:50

I had met Ella, I am pretty confident, at a YMCA gathering

45:55

before 1960.

45:59

I'm sure I had.

46:02

And there was something about this woman.

46:04

Always had a big pocketbook, always had a hat, very quiet.

46:07

There was something about her quiet confidence.

46:12

You know Ella, you never got the feeling Ella didn't know

46:19

how it was gonna end.

46:21

You know, I mean you always had the feeling that she was

46:25

going to help us pull it through.

46:27

And when we stayed up all night at Highland.

46:30

Was it Highland when we were trying to Diane and the

46:32

Nashroots group, the pure nonviolence, as it was called

46:35

then, and the voter registration together, and there were

46:40

all these, Ella made us stay up and I said made, just

46:43

her quiet presence.

46:47

Made us wrestle through that night.

46:49

Marion was arguing big and strong but before the dawn was

46:52

come, not only did we look at each other and smile, not

46:55

only did we embrace each other after some of the most

46:58

vigorous discussions and disagreements, but we came out

47:06

of that loving each other a lot more.

47:09

So that by the time we really got into the reality of

47:13

McComb Mississippi, well McComb said what distinction

47:15

between direct action and voter registration.

47:20

All ya'll going down.

47:23

And we voted over fifteen dollars a week, if we had it,

47:25

a person.

47:30

Ten a week if we had it, a person, living off the land,

47:32

Ella gave us this capacity to respect the dignity of

47:34

each person, whether we like them or not was irrelevant.

47:43

And because of that, I suggest to you that SNCC in its

47:45

beloved community, mean that, mean that from the

47:54

bottom of my heart.

47:58

We mean that we want a community where everybody, all of

48:00

God's children are respected, are loved, protected, and

48:03

we'll fight for your right to be.

48:06

And I am still at this point, at 62, so blessed to have

48:10

that total concept in my guts.

48:14

That's how I live with all the conflicts.

48:18

So by the time we got here, Smith did its thing, we were

48:20

February eighth, the lunch counters I think were open

48:25

in July of that year.

48:26

I don't know the other timeframes of the other places.

48:31

I know Chuck was down in Greens in South Carolina.

48:33

Gerard was up in, still up at Virginia,

48:36

in Virginia, Biesburg.

48:39

So we didn't know each other.

48:41

But we knew the energy, and we had a point of reference

48:44

of knowing what that person had had to do and all the, to

48:47

still be alive, number one, and had successfully carried

48:52

that movement.

48:54

So when we came here, when I walked in, Charles doing

48:55

his devotions, I walked out I felt that same sense of

49:00

power, here's some of these guys, girls, young ladies, wow,

49:03

this is some good stuff.

49:07

I wonder how I would relate to, how I'd fit in,

49:09

but there was this embracing, that was this embracing.

49:12

So we had been given from all of the elders, the wisdom of

49:16

how to survive, the wisdom of the basic love and respect,

49:24

though strength you are, somebody, and don't you let

49:27

anybody, I remember my grandma so well she's right in her

49:34

she said "don't you let anybody" make you apologize.

49:36

I remember several times, we were faced with, middle of

49:41

the night, police officers when we had to say "yessir"

49:44

probably the roughest thing I ever did.

49:48

I did once, between Albany and Atlanta that night when we

49:53

got stopped, whoever that was.

49:59

The police officers enjoyed humiliating us you know.

50:02

And I remember, "Boy, is this your car?"

50:06

Uh yes.

50:08

"Yes? Yessir!"

50:11

And my grandmother's spirit was standing up saying I'm

50:15

telling you that was the roughest thing I ever had to do

50:17

Chuck, because my grandmother was saying don't you do that.

50:20

But I knew if I didn't tactically, we'd have been strung

50:23

out wherever, and what would've happened.

50:27

And so I said yessir.

50:31

And I know you all did that too sometimes, we ain't gotta

50:35

have no public confession, but if that was the only thing

50:35

we had to give up, what the heck.

50:38

So we came to this meeting here, Ella representing the

50:40

best of all of the elders.

50:43

And I think the fact that she was a woman and didn't bring

50:50

a certain amount of that ego baggage that us men tend to.

50:54

With having to win, I think because she was a woman, she

50:58

understood intuitively, something that we hadn't even come

51:02

to understand yet about life.

51:08

I think because she was a woman, she brought the other

51:11

side of the mothers who saw their children separated during

51:14

slavery, and who yearned and who were in pain, having lost

51:20

some of their children, she was the embodiment of all

51:25

those mothers that you don't read about through slavery,

51:28

but I want some of us to do this, who are above all fault

51:31

to keep their families together, even when they were

51:34

being sold away and even when they were sold away, kept in

51:36

touch with their children and family.

51:39

Alright?

51:42

Ella brought all of that in a quiet, cognitive, dignity

51:45

and strength.

51:50

And I remember quite well, and still do, that she nurtured

51:54

us into adults who were prepared, and did take on the beast.

51:58

And for a moment in history, there were possibilities.

52:03

The Kennedys picked up on it, incidentally.

52:10

Remember all them rhetorics and all them.

52:13

Johnson picked up on it, heck, we had.

52:15

But I want to say to you that I think I have been not only

52:17

blessed, but seeing each of you in your faces and picking

52:21

up your spirits again now, and of course it's a celebration,

52:25

of course it's an honoring of us, and then the rest of us

52:28

who evolved from that.

52:32

Because but for key decisions you know we would have been

52:36

bogged down.

52:40

Getting you out of a cone cellar.

52:41

So I simply come as a conduit, as a continuation, of the

52:44

human spirit.

52:51

The African side, the European side, determined not only

52:55

to survive, but absolutely blessed to continue these

52:57

relationships.

53:04

God Bless each of you and in your quest, keep all of this

53:06

alive, keep the faith.

53:10

God Bless.

53:12

(applause)

53:13

Tape 8, 2000 April

Transcript

Item Info

John Hope Franklin Research Center