Transcripts For CSPAN3 Civil Rights And Social Justice 20141

CSPAN3 Civil Rights And Social Justice November 2, 2014

Posted by the American Folklife Center at the library of congress. It is about an hour. I want to express our collective gratitude to the men and women who engaged in the struggle as members of sncc or naacp half a century ago and continue to keep the fires burning in the present day. We had the privilege of interviewing several of those remarkable individuals who joined the initiative known as the civil rights history project. We are indebted to them in ways that have not been fully acknowledged or articulated. I know some panelists are here. We have one or two other members also part of the freedom struggle. Mulhollandand joe joan mulholland. The recordings are now available online. At halftime [laughter] at lunchtime, the sports metaphors, oozing out of every pore. At lunchtime, as we say in the library, you can check out some of the interviews. They are all live and available to you. If you have not done so, please avail yourself of that. It is great to have one of our lead interviewers to be the moderator for the final session. He will end the proceedings as he began them in february with glenn piercy. It is the organizing principle of having these people articulate what they went through in this symposium, so without further ado, let me introduce you to betsy peterson, director of the American Folklife Center. [applause] as he mentioned, the name of the program we are doing is called many paths to freedom. Over the past few months, we have been able to introduce people who have walked their own particular paths through the Civil Rights Movement proper in the 1960s and beyond. It has been a pleasure to hear these stories and remind ourselves that this is an ongoing, longterm struggle. As he mentioned, this is part of this is part of the sorts history project. I know he has given a bit of background about that we have done a lot of programs over the last year at the library of congress coalescence around a couple of large programs. One is the civil rights history project. The others have been exhibits that have been up or about over the last year looking at the march on washington and most recently the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To offer this invitation from the library of congress and Interpretive Program office to go over to the Jefferson Building if you have time, at halftime, lunch, or afterwards. Lease go over and look at the Civil Rights Act exhibit. I think you will enjoy it. We enjoy it for many reasons. Material, many of the oral history interviews are featured throughout the exhibit. Before i move on to introducing our keynote speaker, i have many people to thank for putting on these programs, making these things happen eggs many people. Start out by thanking the cosponsors of our symposium today emma the librarys hispanic division, the hispanic cultural society, and chapter of flaccid government blacks in government. Our partner in the larger civil rights budget has been the Smithsonians National museum of African American it history and culture. We thank them very much. Our cosponsors for the rest of the series throughout these last few months have been the veterans history project, the National Audiovisual conservation center, and the princeton photographs division. I would also like to thank many of our staff who have been the guardians and heavy lifters of the civil rights history project. I also want to thank several and the restembers of our events team. Thank you for making all of this work smoothly. Heroes, those unsung the sound folks sitting in the back, mike and jake from the music division. They have worked on the sound. V. Technology throughout the series and have been real champions. Afc is very thankful. Important the more and main event of this symposium introduce maria in l. A. Maria varela. The committee from 1963 to 19 city seven 1967 promoting organizers with educational materials and the like. Edited and authored things ranging from manuals to organizing farmworker unions. She will share with us today her in the how her work freedom struggle she and anna Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968. She alsoking for sncc, sought on assignment for black star photo agency. To new mexico in 1968 to help started Agricultural Cooperative and a Community Health clinic. She went on to support local farmers and weavers to preserve their land, water, and culture by creating culturally. Ustainable Economic Ventures in 1990, she was awarded a Macarthur Fellowship for this work. From 1982 to the present, she has continued her organizing work and has served as an in collegesessor such as the university of new mexico and the colorado college. Appeareder photography in numerous civil right Movement Books and photo exhibits. Two exhibits featuring her images and those of other activists in the struggle have traveled extensively throughout the u. S. Of is also the coauthor rural Environmental Planning for sustainable communities and a contributor to across the great divide. So you see this path continues on. Today, i want to welcome maria varela. We are so thrilled to have you with us. [applause] for the imitation and introduction and the hard work of the staff to put this on. I concur with the need to give them all thanks on this. Actually, that sounded like the blogger fee of a dilettante in some ways. We are not going to go into all those corners unless you have a question afterwards. If i dont go off into the ether, we will have time for questions. Whether i said anything about it or not, just ask and we can spend a little time with it. I wanted to set the tone for going back in a way. Of whato explore part happened within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that leaves us lessons about interracial and intercultural coalitions or efforts, some of which i think examinedeen adequately or reflected upon. Lets go back. Im going to read to you a little bit from an essay. A bookan and i are in called hands on, the freedom plow. Womenk 50 years for the to finally have our publication about the work we did. In thearts of it classroom is powerful, especially for many of the women i teach because it opens their eyes to a whole different sense of the movement and what it did. I am so short wasted. I looked down at the speedometer. 115. Vered at my 1957 packard conquered down and propelled the three of us down in mississippi interstate 55. Saw ang to the side, i twotone chevy with the white occupants trying to pass us. A long gunbarrel of poked up between the men in the front seat. It seemed like an eternity since we left memphis and got on the interstate. Earlier that day, my companions, an older black woman and her daughter, and i, had left a sncc gathering intimacy. We were on our way to the mississippi delta. Traveling in an integrated car in daylight had left us tense. When we stopped for gas in memphis that evening, i thought the cover of darkness meant the worst of the journey was over. Then i turned from the gas pump and saw the white male occupants of the chevy staring at us. 1964, openfault of season on civil rights workers. Effortlesslyoved up to 120 miles an hour. It ran as if it was made for this speed. Not a shake oration the. My companions were deathly quiet. I closed my mind to thoughts of danger, gunfire, a collision, a flat tire, a blown ride. Or what would happen if the chevy managed to pull in front or stop us. Moonless night and my eyes were glued to the black strip before us. One thing i knew for sure. I would sooner risk pushing the cart to the end of the speedometer than to stop on this desolate stretch of road in the far northern reaches of western mississippi. Up ahead, we saw a semi truck. The lack of traffic since memphis had made this pursuit lethal. If i could stay with the semi, perhaps the pursuers would not make their move. We were now at one to five shooting down the road trying to catch up with the tractortrailer. As a pulled alongside the truck, the chevy was on our tail. It was a delicate maneuver slowing the packard enough to slip me in front of the semi, it going fast enough to shake off the chevy. In front, the trick was to stay close to the semi so the chevy could not come in between as per the trucker slowed down and so did we. Then the trucker tried to pass us. Staying as close to his front bumper as i dared. Chevy tried unsuccessfully to move ahead of us both and then finally moved behind the semi. We hovered close to our guardian for more miles. The panic in my throat was held at bay by my companions silent and closure. I sat back up to 125. I made the exit with neither insightore chevy and floated down the ramp into welcome darkness. The semi and chevy lord over us into the night. There was not a word spoken as we continued on our way down to the delta. Then the terror gradually subsided. Finally, in small murmurs with a few tenuous chuckles, we dared to believe it was over and we were alive. I thought the Packard Company must have been gods chariot maker. And there she is. [laughter] [applause] how did i end up on this highway . It is kind of a life of responding to invitations. Yet there are shoulders we all stand on. For me, i think the most formative was the shoulders of those young people after world wouldand world war ii who basically work under pope leo the 13ths call to race to construct call to reconstruct society at all levels. This organization was created in france, belgium, gradually filtered to the united states. Its english name was the Young Christian workers or Young Christian students. It was founded to train people to see, reflect, and act. There was very much and ella baker approach to organizing. The intent of the method was to move catholics out of the ridges ghettoy or gato to bring about a more just society in partnership with others. Radical concept in the early part of the 20th century. This method required that we look at the reality of our community by looking, the last learning how people felt, saw, believed, and acted. Now that i reflect on this process, it trained as for the fundamentals of community urbanization and research. It is the reverse of the Traditional Research with the hypothesis to test for this starts with local knowledge trade through reflection and action, the structural roots of community dysfunction are revealed. I joined ycs in high school and collegeto find it in and then was recruited to the National Staff in 1961 to eventually organize on campuses and support ycs groups across campus. In the process of working with the organization, i met latin american and african activists who are also part of the movement, and many of whom were in really dangerous situations. The students in brazil i came to know, many of them disappeared and i never heard from them again. Movement was successful in smashing Young Christian students in brazil and other places. I had that connection during formative years in my life. As a part of ycs, we were trying to get out of the socalled catholic ghetto and would often show up at National Student association meetings. Is where i met students for a Democratic Society people and the sncc folks. Were headedks shoulders above anybody in terms of Student Leadership at the time. I was truly in all of them in awe of them. More in depth about what the organization was doing. A few months later as i was working for ycs, i get this letter from casey saying, wouldnt you like to come down and work with me in the sncc Atlanta Office . I am reading this and saying, no, i dont want to do this. [laughter] are you crazy . Because i had listened carefully to these stories chuck, and tim, and everybody told about the meetings, the chasing down the highways, the firebombings. What sane person would do this . I held that letter in my suitcase for about three months. This was the days when snail mail was truly snail mail. Nobody expected you to answer right away usually. Finally, good old catholic guilt took hold and i thought, what a hypocrite. You going around on campuses and asking catholic students to support sncc, right congress, and do all this stuff. And you are not going to go when they ask you . I found myself on a bus going south. And was diverted by a request from tom curry and paul potter who were putting together a Summer Program for young kids enroll areas in rural areas. That was when he would have television in one house and a sixblock area. The kids would go and watch it and see the citians and all of the action going on. These kids would up and do their own action. Some were really hurt. They were beaten, put in jail. The youngest at this gathering was 13, gilbert from selma. I will never forget him. To pull theseave kids in and give them indepth training in nonviolent strategy, black history, and all the things you can think that would help someone organizing in isolated way in these small towns in rural areas. This was quite an experience for me. Up and move, by the time i was in fourth grade, we moved five times. Observing is a big tool in your toolbox because youre always on the outside. I would be picking up peoples way of saying things, their accents, just to gauge the territory. Was doing the same thing i was listening to these young people ages 13 to maybe 22 or 23. And they are from alabama, georgia, mississippi. I could hear different accents. I could hear different ways people articulated what was going on. The afroamerican culture across the black belt was not monolithic. There were distinct ways people express themselves and negotiated their territory, which was really helpful. As a part of this, frank smith who worked for sncc, came in to talk to the students about what was going to go one in selma. We had lunch. He asked how did you get here. I told him i was going to work in the Atlanta Office with casey. He asked where i came from. I told him about working with students. All of a sudden, he got this intense look on his face and i wondered if i said something wrong. Andnext day he invites me, bernard levy at had just showed up. He said we have been talking and think you should go to selma. I was like, no, i am not going to go to summer. He said there is a Catholic Priest there. This man in selma is often overlooked in the selma movement. E was french canadian descent he himself had experienced discrimination because of being of that dissent. Very much on that side of the movement. He opened his church to meetings with other ministers, many of whom had to work in the white economy, could not risk it. Father maurice did that. He said we need you to support this man. We are baptist. Hes catholic. We dont understand. We need you there for that. And, they said, he has been asking us for a couple of years work we do some literacy around Voter Education so we can get people up to speed to at least go down and try to register. And we dont have time to do that. Kind of like trying to do a book club in a fox hole. You know. I thought i would try it out. I went and met the father. I was totally struck by his way of being. He was a humble man but had a charisma that was really quiet. So i ended up in selma. Before i got there, i did a lot of research on literacy materials taking i could snatch up a few books and take them down, and we will start working. Literacy materials at this time were childrens books that were morphed into adult texts. They all had pictures of white middleclass families baking pies, dad coming home from work, all this kind of stuff. I am thinking this is not going to work. With the help of some people i met in new york when i was doing this research, we put together a project where we would recruit afroamerican students to come to selma for the summer of 1964 and we would begin working with local people in terms of how what was going on with voter registration, and their desire to vote, and what that could do for selma. Out of those words, create reading texts that may help in growing literacy. About what was going on with bob moses and out loewenstein planning this huge summer project because i am stuck in selma with instructions not to go down to the Atlanta Office, to stay close so i would look like a missionary from the paris. So i developed this proposal and took it to Doris Robinson in the sncc office and said i am thinking i would like to do this. Is this ok . She was very enthusiastic and highly supportive, which surprised me. But i did not know within sncc there was a simmering discontent with this idea of bringing 1000 white students into mississippi, which is why perhaps this project got supported so quickly by sncc. Recruited and trained students. Meeting justaff before the summer of 64 and found there was tremendous turmoil over the idea of this summer project in mississippi, especially with a lot of local afroamerican staff who were very resistant to it. Me in terms of the logistics of four students to go to selma and the training necessary so people would not get arrested, which they did anyway, i cannot imagine how you would do this with 1000 students. Plus in my brief tenure in sncc up to that point, i could see local black staff had found their voice, had competencies in organizing, and did not want to be taken over by waitstaff white volunteers that would come down. It was pretty sticky. Charlie cobb and i were on a panel in chicago commemorating freedom summer in february or march. We both articulated how we were against the summer project. Misshaimer came up to him and said, charlie, there is no place in this movement for segregation in terms of white folks coming down. That just does not belong. We need you. He said, that is our job. Our job is to support local staff and be there with what they needed and wanted, so people kind of swallowed their issues and the project will forward. A lot of what we were concerned about did happen. White students took over functions and sometimes created issues due to lack of sensitivity and experience wi

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