Civil Rights Activists

"Judge Clayton looks over, and he wants to know why are we taking illiterates down to register to vote. And so, in a nutshell, our answer is, “Well, the country can’t have its cake and eat it too. It can’t have denied a whole people access to literacy through its political arrangements and then turn around and say, ‘Well, you can’t access politics because you’re illiterate.’” And we won that struggle. We won it in the courts. And it was Judge Wisdom’s decision in the case of U.S. v. Louisiana, where he said, well, we can’t allow the State of Louisiana to have authority over the actual qualifications of voting."

"But then the networks decided that this was really an authentic moment, and they replayed what she said that night. And they did flood the credentials committee. And so, I think it was David Lawrence, who was governor of Pennsylvania, who was the chair of the credentials committee. And so, he then postponed the decision, and they went after the delegates on the credentials committee. Johnson went after them, because the issue was whether there would be eleven delegates on the credentials committee who would vote to support the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and thus enable a floor discussion, in other words, that the issue — we’re talking about democracy, right? So the question is, are we going to be able to get a full discussion and debate by the whole convention around this really critical issue? And, of course, Johnson didn’t want that. He did not want this to go to the floor, because once it went to the floor and everybody had to get up in public and state their views, then the Democratic Party would have had to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And, of course, what Johnson was afraid of was that the whole South would then walk out of the Democratic Party. So this was really high drama. Barack Obama could not be running for president if he had not been able to secure a party to run for. And the Democratic Party, from the time of after the Civil War right until 1964, there were no black delegates to the Democratic Party from the South, and it was that action, more than anything else, which opened up the national party structure and allowed eventually what is happening today to happen."

"In our country, I think we run sharecropper education. That is, an education that you can trace, when the judge asked me that question, because in the Delta of Mississippi, sharecroppers were assigned to do a certain kind of work, and so the idea was you only needed a certain kind of education. So, if we carry that forward into the Information Age, then we will have serfs in our cities, just like we had serfs in the Delta of Mississippi in the Industrial Era. And this is the huge challenge facing our country. I think what we need is a movement for our constitutional rights. We need a constitutional amendment, something which simply says every child in the country is a child of the country and is entitled to a quality public school education."

"A SNCC leader who shunned the spotlight, as Ella Baker did, Moses would provide a model of radical activism tempered by a loving spirit that would inspire and sustain those who worked with him."

"There are a lot of young people that came out of SNCC, and not just came out of SNCC, but people who came down in to work in the Freedom Summer and spread out into the country — Mario Savio, right? — people in a lot of the different movements in the country. Bernice Johnson Reagon, who also came out of SNCC, and Sweet Honey in the Rock, that group of singers, all those were inspired by SNCC. And Bernice says the civil rights movement was the “borning movement,” right? It was — and SNCC was right at the heart of that borning movement."

"What happened, I think, was Ella Baker was really sort of the godmother for SNCC. I met Ella in the summer of 1960. And in the spring of 1960, she had taken the initiative to get the student sit-in energy at Shaw, her alma mater, and held off on the big civil rights leaders, to say, “Look, the kids ought to have the opportunity to manage their own insurgency,” right? And so, SNCC was the encapsulation of the sit-in movement, the energy of the sit-in movement, right? And so, that — and SNCC took that energy into the Freedom Rides, because it was the SNCC energy which said to the president of the United States and the attorney general, “It doesn’t matter what you’re saying, that, you know, there’s some danger here. Our lives are in danger, but we’ve decided that, with our lives, this is what we want to do.” Right? And so, SNCC, really, and those students became the example for students all over the country — right? — the idea that students should draw a line in the sand and say, “Look, that’s it. That’s enough. We don’t want to live in this country unless we can change it.”"

"When I think about this, in order to become president of the United States, you have to be nominated by one of the two political parties, so the crucial thing for me was, in reflecting back, was the 1964 challenge of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to the National Democratic Convention, because that was where the stage was set that allowed this to happen, because without opening up the national political structure in the country, this wasn’t going to happen. And, you know, we could have gotten the right to vote without the opening up of the national political party structure. And the party structure wasn’t opened up by getting the right to vote; the party structure was opened up by directly challenging in Mississippi the right of Mississippi to send an all-white delegation to the 1964 National Democratic Convention. And it was Fannie Lou Hamer and all the people in that delegation that really forced the national Democratic Party to open up, you know?"

"In Mississippi, in the '60s, what we worked was the demand side of the problem, right? You weren't going to get this country to change the balance of power between the federal government and the states, without the demand from actual citizens saying, “Look, you’ve got to treat us as citizens of the country,” right? So, what we did was get the sharecroppers, by the hundreds, to demand their rights. Now, what every reporter came up to me and said was, “Well, Bob, isn’t the problem your people are apathetic? Isn’t that the problem?” Right? And so, I had to wrestle with that question. But it became clear to me that our problem was: How do we tap into the energy of the sharecroppers and get them to make the demand, because as soon as they make the demand, that question disintegrates, right? It’s no longer something that people — if the sharecroppers are standing out there by the hundreds and the thousands demanding the right to vote, then where’s the apathy? So, we have a similar problem today with the kids. I mean, what is said is, “Well, the kids are dysfunctional. They don’t have fathers who are really…” So, as soon as you get the kids by the hundreds and the thousands themselves demanding what everyone says they don’t want — right? — then that problem disappears. That’s not the problem, right?"

"We struggled with it in our generation. What were we willing to do to force the country to live up to its ideals, right? There’s this big gap. Talk about gaps. The big gap is between the ideals the country has and the practices it condones. But so, we had to do that in the ’60s, and this generation is going to have to do the same."

"All I heard and all I saw was Fannie Lou Hamer giving her testimony. I had no idea that while she was giving her testimony, that the President, Lyndon Johnson, was so afraid of this woman, who had been raised and lived her life as a sharecropper and had been working on the Marlow plantation in Sunflower County, outside of Ruleville. He was so afraid of her that he went — you know, at that time, we just had the three networks: ABC, NBC and CBS. And he went to — notified all three networks that he had a special announcement, because he was terrified that her testimony was so powerful and she was so authentic that people would flood the convention, the credentials committee, with telegrams demanding that her party be seated. And so, he went and interrupted her testimony."

"In his Harlem apartment in New York, a young Negro teacher of mathematics named Bob Moses saw a photo in the newspapers of the Greensboro sit-inners. "The students in that picture had a certain look on their faces, sort of sullen, angry, determined. Before, the Negro in the South had always looked on the defensive, cringing. This time they were taking the initiative. They were kids my age, and I knew this had something to do with my own life.""

"I've lived most of my life. What I would like to see happen in this country in my lifetime is the next generation get ready to launch the next lurch forward."

"if you think about the civil rights movement, what we were able to do was get Jim Crow out of three very distinct arenas in the country: First, there was public accommodations; second, there was voting rights and access to the political structures of the country; and third, and not well known, access to the national party structure itself — that is, to the Democratic Party. And that was Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 convention of the Democratic Party. And remember, Kennedy had been assassinated. Johnson had been moved into the presidency, but he hadn’t been nominated yet, right? And so, we won those struggles, but what we didn’t win was getting Jim Crow out of education, right? And that was actually the subtext of the right to vote."

"And Fannie Lou Hamer, when she testified — and, you know, Martin Luther King testified, but President Johnson wasn’t afraid of him. He was afraid of this sharecropper from Louisville, Mississippi. And when she went on to testify, the president said, “We have an announcement to make.” And he took over the TV, right?"

"Education is still basically Jim Crow as far as the kids who are in the bottom economic strata of the country. No one knows about them, no one cares about them."

"It is so obvious that to treat people equally is the right thing to do."

"I wondered why people made speeches in favor of something so obviously right,...Women breathed the same air, got the same education; it was ridiculous, spending so much energy and elocution on something rightfully theirs."

"Social welfare—that's the chief interest I have ever had. People are wrong in thinking that the best incentive is competition. Competition is good, but only as the instrument for the common good."

"every...act should be an expression of the God, or goodness, in us."

"men should look into their own lives, see their many doings, their sins (if you will), repent of them, [and] lead bettter lives than [in] their past."

"Being finite ourselves, we human beings cannot know God directly, but only through the phenomena, or manifestations of God in our universe. These manifestations range from the distant world of the milky way to the tiniest blade of grass, from the vast oceans to the dew drop, from the grandest mountain to the soft skin of a baby's cheek; they include every act of kindness and generosity and sacrificial devotion of a human being to another human being, the love of a man for his wife, the love of a mother for her child. They include our very search for God—They include all the beauty and the glory and the mystery of the universe around us and within us. The more we grow in wisdom and in the understanding of these things, the more nearly we can approach to a knowledge of God."

"In discussions throughout the country of the problems of immigration it is significant that few, if any, of the men and women who have had extended opportunity for social contact with the foreigner favor a further restriction of immigration. (chapter 16 p290)"

"During the two decades of the existence of the Settlement there has been a significant awakening on matters of social concern, particularly those affecting the protection of children throughout society in general; and a new sense of responsibility has been aroused among men and women, but perhaps more distinctively among women, since the period coincides with their freer admission to public and professional life. The Settlement is in itself an expression of this sense of responsibility, and under its roof many divergent groups have come together to discuss measures "for the many, mindless mass that most needs helping," and often to assert by deed their faith in democracy. Some have found in the Settlement an opportunity for self-realization that in the more fixed and older institutions has not seemed possible. (preface)"

"The planting of roots in the new soil can best be accomplished through an intercourse with the immigrant in which the dignity of the individual and of the family is recognized. Heroic measures may be necessary to establish a satisfactory system of distribution, and these measures must be based on a philosophic understanding of democracy. (p292)"

"Musicales, private theatricals, and the varied undertakings that bring gayety and zest into the social life are successful with us. We are fond of saying that next to nursing typhoid fever we love to give a ball!"

"It is good from this point of view that the patient should know the home of the nurse, and that the nurse should be intelligent about the housing conditions, the educational provisions, and the social life of the neighborhood in which she works and lives."

"The state, as employer, alone determines the terms upon which its new canal shall be built. It defines in great detail its standard of materials and workmanship, but takes no thought for the workmen who must operate in great transient groups. It does not leave to chance the realization of its material standard, but sends inspectors to make tests and provides a staff of engineers. It does leave to chance (in the ignorance and cupidity of padroni) the quality and price of foods and care of the men. It takes great care to prevent the freezing of cement, but permits any kind of houses to be used for its laborers. (p296)"

"Women more than men can strip war of its glamour and its out-of-date heroisms and patriotisms, and see it as a demon of destruction and hideous wrong — murder devastating home and happiness. Women are here to reaffirm their protest against war, to restate their unalterable faith in the righteousness of Peace, the practicality of mediation — a protest against the outrage upon the moral convictions of long developed social sentiments, and to offer their profound sympathy and compassion for the victims of the European war."

"The immigrant brings in a steady stream of new life and new blood to the nation. (p306)"

"The movement for public playgrounds is now well known. They have been valiantly fought for and their need wonderfully told by Mr. Jacob A. Riis, that best friend of, and most lovable fighter for, the children of the poor."

"The final abolition of war and the establishment of permanent peace must depend upon the convictions of men and women, who are equally responsible as they must be in the final analysis for all measures affecting Society. But never before, during the time of any great conflict, have women been so organized or so self-conscious as now, and it is fitting that the world should ring with their outcry against this blasphemy upon all the things that they hold most sacred."

"Suddenly, without the consent of the people involved, all the structures of civilization, so painstakingly built upon, are swept away, and hatred, destruction and contempt for human life take their place. Multitudes of men and women and children in the countries at war are helpless victims, and their judgments concerning wars, and this war, can not be known, at least not until they are recorded in history. We, the fortunate dwellers upon a neutral land, are, through sympathy and actual suffering, involved in their tragedy. Those who suffer call across the waters, and their cry is heard — the cries of little children and those yet unborn."

"Men who love their homes and their children are roused to war fervor “to protect their homes’ ‑but to destroy other homes; “to wave their wives and children” – by starving and impoverishing other women and children."

"Patriots all, who have forgotten or deserted the higher patriotism with which they had lived and from which their art drew its strength."

"On the revolutionary battle-field there are no soldiers, called to the front with as little power to resist as the machine guns that they drag with them. There are comrades—men and women, infatuated with freedom, who have risen to establish a home of equal hospitality to all, and to cause the dream of fellowship to come to pass upon this earth."

"For home and country —but all homes are his home, all countries are his too. He has no separate home and country,"

"cowardice is itself a military conception. He does not want to understand military morality. He knows only the courage of principle."

"It is a universal suicide they are committing. In place of the fraternity which yesterday existed, there is distilled to-day the poisonous fumes of nationalistic patriotism which threatens to cover the earth with darkness for another fifty years."

"Internationally the outlook is more disturbing. Despite the united front against war among the plain people of the earth, as expressed through conferences not only of pacifists, but of college faculty and students, of labor bodies, of women's associations, of radical and temperate organizations, the cloud of war darkens the horizon and the German influence cannot be ignored. Many people regard the Chancellor as insane or neurotic, perhaps in part because through all his denunciations and illogical conclusions he has shown no gleam of humor; nevertheless his leadership seems for the moment to sway the German nation. (p323)"

"As I look back, it seems to me that our efforts toward peace, even in the midst of war, bulk large in the story I have set myself to tell; they show, that a small group having profound and selfless interest in the going world is not useless, and its position and its influence may without embarrassing publicity contribute to the clarification of problems of the day. (chapter XII p285)"

"A scientist, humanitarian and of royal birth, Kropotkin is a genius of the age; not only does his colossal intellect cause him to stand in bold relief, but his personality is one of indescribable and unduplicated power."

"The French Revolution brought into the world the conception of society, of the Third Estate. Before that we had institutions, religion, caste, government, but the people did not exist. The Revolution extended the idea of the people as far as the Rhine."

"We intend to continue our own peculiar methods, peculiar they are said to be for “pacifist.” I am told that we are violating the popular conception of this group, and one newspaper which strongly disapproved of our aggressiveness against preparedness hysteria, said that, judging from our belligerency, we were the ones who “put the fist in pacifist.”"

"The small group that directed this committee, and the enormous number of men and women who have affiliated themselves in one way or another with its propaganda, consider themselves true patriots of America, — patriotism that is borne of the passionate love for the best that is in America, not for rich America nor for successful America, but for the America of democracy, of ideals, and the America that stand for the things essential to a world of love and law and order."

"At the base our plan for getting the people of the two countries into instant actual contact with an understanding of each other would always prevent this."

"Militaristic propaganda cloaked under the reasonable name of “preparedness.”"

"The task of organizing human happiness needs the active cooperation of man and woman: it cannot be relegated to one half of the world. And active cooperation for such noble ends cannot be secured unless men and women really work together. The women have been experiencing the growth of a new consciousness, an integral element in the evolution of self government, and as a result many women believe that they can best represent the human interests in government, at least that they can best represent themselves in those measures that immediately concern them and for which tradition and experience have fitted them."

"It seemed to us the sinister reversion to the war system would be at the cost of democracy."

"Militarism is an evil growth which threatens our industrial democracy, our political institutions, our educational ideals and our international relationships. If the good things for which this country stands are to go on, clarion voices must ring out against movements that would destroy those precious possessions. The spirit of militarism has invaded us. It threatens the great constructive up-building, life-saving social work. To stamp it out, to recover the ground we have lost, to build upon them, — that is the task confronting all those who have the true interests of democracy at hear. We believe that militarism is opposed to democracy and that great numbers of citizens everywhere fear not so much an invading army but this other danger so close upon us — militarism. Good and true citizens of the great American Republic are united in this."

"You cannot conquer an awakened people. You cannot Prussianize Belgium and France. You cannot eradicate the teachings of Marx and Engels from the minds of hundreds of thousands of German Socialists. Surely they would find some way of uniting in spirit and in deed with the comrades of other nations in case of such an invasion on the part of a government which they had always understood and denounced. Disarmament is not non-resistance. It is a resistance which must carry everything before it. It is raising the battle-field to a higher plane upon which the nobler and better must conquer, where today almost as surely they must fail. It is to practice a resistance unknown in history. It is a modernism which partakes of the future society which it goes to build up."