Transcript of “What Can You Do?”
A speech by Lillian D. Anthony
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0255a
Description: Lillian Anthony, Director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department,
delivered the address in the morning of May 15, 1968 as part of “One Day in May” at
Aug... Show more
Transcript of “What Can You Do?”
A speech by Lillian D. Anthony
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0255a
Description: Lillian Anthony, Director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department,
delivered the address in the morning of May 15, 1968 as part of “One Day in May” at
Augsburg College (now Augsburg University). Students, faculty, and administration
canceled class to invite leaders of Minneapolis’ Black community to speak about system
racism and related issues.
Duration: 00:54:32
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:00
[Augsburg President Oscar Anderson]: I'd like to have you know a little bit
about our guest this morning, the one person that all of us wanted to be
here to begin our “Day in May.” She was born in Indianapolis and received
a Bachelor of Science degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City,
Missouri and holds a master's degree in religious education from the
Pittsburgh Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
00:00:20
She has traveled extensively in Europe and in the Middle East, has
conducted leadership training classes for the Commission on Ecumenical
Missions and Relations in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and the
Philippines. She has been a director of the Bureau of Work programs for
the Department of Labor and has done volunteer work with disadvantaged
youth in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Minneapolis. She has served on the
Governor's Human Rights Commission, she's on the board of Directors of
Volunteers Unlimited and is a member of the Urban Coalition, as well as of
the Minnesota Council for Civil and Human Rights.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 1
00:00:53
She presently serves with distinction as the Director of the Minneapolis
Department of Civil Rights and I'm very happy to present to this audience,
to the Augsburg community, to begin our “One Day in May,” in order that
we might indeed be sensitized to the problems which confront us: Miss
Lillian D. Anthony. Miss Anthony. [applause]
00:01:21
[President Anderson says something inaudible to Anthony, and she
responds by chuckling,]
00:01:27
[Lillian Anthony]:Thank you very much.
00:01:31
I'm particularly very pleased that you can still give me such a warm
welcome after I have kind of goofed up your program! But I really kind of
goofed it up because I got up this morning at 6:30 [she laughs] going to be
on time. You know, we Black people have something called “CP Time,”
and they, that's called “Colored People Time,” [she and the audience
laugh], but I'm trying to get rid of all those stereotypes you understand.
[audience laughs]
00:02:02
So I would not have been here late had I not really read. I thought that I
was supposed to be here at 9:15, and so I would like to start right away,
and I hope that I can have my extra 15 minutes because now, as I'm
speaking to audiences around the country, I am convinced that talking is
of little value. You know everybody has said everything, every book has
been written in terms of racism, race relations, civil rights and human
rights. There is nothing new under the sun! [she laughs] But I think I have
something new to tell you. [she and the audience laugh] Oh! Yes.
[audience laughs]
00:02:38
I would like to make it very clear that I speak from many points of view
today. I speak certainly as the director of the Civil Rights Department, but I
also speak as a Black woman, I also speak as an Afro-American. And I'm
sure there's some of you who will then get in that bag and say “well we
don't understand what Black people want to be called. Some say Black,
some say Afro-American, some say colored, some say Negro.” You know,
“What do you really want to be called?” You know that's one of those
changes you're gonna have to go through with us cause we haven't
decided yet. [she and the audience laugh]
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 2
00:03:14
Ossie Davis said very recently, in Washington DC--in a conference on the
treatment of minorities in the textbooks--Ossie Davis said “we fought for
100 years to get them to spell N with the capital N, and now we want them
to stop using Negro all together.” And I'm very serious about this one, and
I would like to start off by reading a poem by a young 17-year old
Afro-American young woman. It's called "Black."1
00:03:41
“I am a Negro--and I am ashamed.
Chemicals in my hair to make it other than what it is,
Bleaches on my skin to make it more . . . non-black.
Cosmetics on my face to be like the ‘other’.
Why must I try to be other than what I am?
“The French say that they are French from France,
The Irish say they are Irish from Ireland,
The Italians say they are Italians from Italy,
And I say I am a Negro--from where?
Is there a Negro land?
“The French, Irish, Italians all have a culture and heritage.
What is My land? Where are my people? My culture? My heritage?
I am a Negro--and I am ashamed.
Who GAVE me this name?
Slaves and dogs are named by their masters . . . Free men named themselves.
Must I be other than what I am?
“I am Black. This is a source of pride.
My hair is short and finely curled.
My skin is deep-hued, from brown to black.
My eyes are large, open to the world.
My lips are thick, giving resonance to my words.
“My nose is broad to breathe freely the air.
My heritage is my experience in America . . . although not of it;
Free from pretense; open to truth.
Seeking freedom that all life may be free.
I am Black. America has cause to be proud.
1
The author of “Black” is Barbara Wright. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Equal Educational
Opportunity. Quality and Control of Urban Schools: Hearings before the Select Committee on Equal
Educational Opportunity. 92nd Cong., 1st sess., July 27; 29; August 5, 1971. Prepared Statement of
Arthur E. Thomas (5937).
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 3
00:05:08
I'd like to read one more. This one has been written by an Indian recently:
“All the wars since the Indians fell.
I think the country is going to hell!
They talk of giving it back to us.
If they do, we'll raise a fuss.
Politics, wars, racial riots!
Sorry, white brother, we wouldn't buy it.
00:05:31
[audience laughs] It’s a pretty terrible indictment on the condition in the
United States of America, but I have found that this condition is not
peculiar to the United States of America. I found wherever there were
colored people or Black peoples in the world that this condition then was
the usual.
00:05:49
I found after working in Egypt for three years that an Egyptian could have
a child and if that child was ugly, in terms of the physical features, that that
child was called beautiful if it had fair and light skin. It could be very
beautiful in terms of physical features and if it was Black then it was ugly. I
found the same thing was true in Japan where they like to be called those
who are fairer in complexion were the ones who were called beautiful. I
found the same thing in China, which was Hong Kong. And so I'm
convinced that there is something wrong with our psyche in the United
States for America. There is something that it's perpetuating us to look at
one another in terms of color.
00:06:36
So I have designed a little piece, and this piece is called, "Take a Look in
the Mirror". How many of you know Aretha Franklin? Yeah. Well Aretha
Franklin has a record called "Take a Look in the Mirror," and it says:
00:06:51
"Take a look at yourself,
But don't look too close,
‘Cause you just might see
The person that you hate the most.
Lord what's happening
To this human race?
I can't even see
One friendly face.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 4
Brothers fight brothers,
And sisters wink their eyes,
While silver tongues
Bear fruits of poison lies.
Take a look
At your children, born innocent every day.
Every boy and every girl
Denying themselves a real chance
To build a better world.
Dear lord, dear Lord
What's happening
To your precious dream?
it's washing away
On a bloody, bloody stream.
Take a look at your children
Before it's too late
And tell them nobody wins
When the price is hate."
00:07:29
And I think throughout the history of the United States, where the Black
man and the Indian and other minorities have come into this country, we
have all been taught that we must get rid of Blackness, and all of us who
were then Black and had some pigmentation regardless of the degree
were taught that all you white folks were nice and good. [audience laughs]
00:07:54
And I would like to say this to you: Racism is something which is very real,
and many people have said "I'm not a racist. I've never discriminated. I've
never segregated, don't put me in that bag!” You know, “No, I don’t want to
hear about all those things that happened years and years ago, I wasn't
even here!" I'm sure that's what you'd say. You know, “I don't even know
that some of my ancestors had anything to do with this mess.”
00:08:19
All right this color here for you way back there in the back, this is yellow,
this color here is it's really more pink but it's supposed to be red. The next
color is black, the next color is white. Now those of you who are up here
real close, did you notice something that began to happen? There are
some words written on each of these colors. Yeah, alright. Some of you
got that 20/20 vision can even see.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 5
00:08:48
It's a word on each one of these pages. Notice the space that those words
take up on those pages. Alright now let me read to you what these words
say. These words are from the 1967 Webster's Dictionary, and young
bright college students I know that you're gonna check me out so you just
go right on. I'm going to read to you what it says here.
00:09:13
[presumably holding a yellow paper] "Having a yellow like pigmentation of
the skin is that characteristic of Mongolians or Asians. Jealous or
melancholic, cowardly or untrustworthy. Cheaply sensational to an
offensive degree. Set of certain newspapers. Any of several fungus or
viruses. Diseases of plants causing yellowing on the leaves, stunting of
growth. Jaundice, especially for farm animals. Bad humour, jealousy. to
make or to become, yellow."
00:09:37
Red. I'm not reading all of it, just the parts that are really important for us.
"North American Indian. A red object. A red space in various chess
games. Having or being of the color red or any of its hues. Having red
hair. Having or considered to have a reddish or coppery skin as the North
American Indian. Politically radical, revolutionary, especially Communist of
the Soviet Union. In the red: losing money as a business, in debt. Paint
the town red: to have a noisy good time, that’s by visiting bars and
nightclubs, see red; become or be angry."
00:10:09
Black: “Opposite of white.” [Audience laughs] “Dark complexion. Negro.
Totally without lights. All dirty. Wearing Black clothing. Evil. Wicked.
Harmful. Disgraceful. Sad, dismal, gloomy, sullen." Now you can see why
we never want to be called Black!” [Audience laughs] "Dark clothing as for
mourning. Black villain."
00:10:31
Now, white: [adjusts microphone] "having the color of pure snow or milk".
[audience laughs] Couldn't be plain old snow or milk [laughter] gotta be
"pure snow or milk". [audience laughs] Unbelievable! wait you're gonna
get sick. [laughter] "Free from evil intent. Harmless as white magic. A
white lie. Happy. Fortunate. Auspicious set of times and season. Having
light-colored skin, Caucasian. Of or controlled by the white race, as white
supremacy.”
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 6
00:11:14
Right after this, listen to the next thing: “Honest, honorable, fair,
dependable.” [she and the audience laugh] Unbelievable! [laughter]
"Purity, innocence, white or light-colored, specifically the [inaudible].
Something white, nearly white in color." Goes on, "White wine. White
pigment." Goes on, "White bread. Fine flour. A person with a light-colored
skin. Member of the Caucasian division of mankind."
00:11:36
Did it say that the Negroes were a division of mankind? Did you say the
North American Indian was a division of mankind? [Inaudible] yellow one
was a division of mankind? It's a kind of insidious subtle kind of teaching
of racism. Now, children first learn color, then children learn how to spell
those words, and then if it's a good teacher, you know, she's trying to
involve the class and so she sends him to the dictionary to look it up, then
she goes into those little things like you know we want you to share with
the class.
00:12:08
And so now here we have an Asian in the class, and have a Black person
in the class, we have an Indian in the class, we have Caucasians in the
class [inaudible]. Then it says "Share your, you know, the definition of
you." What do you think would happen? And I'm gonna get up and tell all
these things? Am I gonna feel proud about it? Am I gonna feel good about
it? So now we got a job to do with the dictionaries and the encyclopedias,
just in the basis of color. For instance, people have said to me time and
time again, "Why do you have this hang up on color?" I said, "Because it's
your hang-up, you know,life to hate what I am."
00:12:14
In my family, the worst profane word you could say was Black. We never
heard any profanity anyway. If you slammed the door mama had a fit, but
you call somebody Black somebody or described him as Black somebody,
that was the most profane thing you could say, to the point that daddy
would come home and daddy was mad at somebody. He's saying, "He
was the color of that stovepipe!" [audience laughs] Wasn’t going to call
him black. So this is the kind of hang-up we have.
00:13:13
Or secondly, I will make a presentation and after I get through with the
white audience somebody invariably says, "But Lillian! or “Miss Anthony
you are different.” That's one insult. The worst one comes when it says,
"But I didn't even see your color! I didn't see you as a Negro!" and that's
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 7
really bad news because what are they saying to me when they say that?
They saw me only in their image, only in their image.
00:13:55
And this is what Kenneth Clark did with these young children--four years
old when he first got them--gave them all dolls, Black dolls and white dolls,
and says you know, "Pick any doll you want." All Black children, every one
of them, picked a white doll. A year later Kenneth Clark took that same
group of children and he said, "Who are you?" and they grinned and they
beamed, and he said, "Are you colored?" and they said no. "Are you
Negro?" No. Are you a n*****?" No. "What are you? Black and beautiful!"
and they picked Black dolls.
00:14:30
What we're trying to say is that the whole business of racism is very
complex and Kenneth Clark said something else and I would like to read it
verbatim from his book on the "Dark Ghetto". I don't know how many of
you might have read it I'm reading from the introduction now to the
epilogue, and he says here:
00:14:51
"For many years before I became an involved observer, Harlem had been my
home. My family moved from house to house and from neighborhood to
neighborhood within the walls of the ghetto in a desperate attempt to escape its
creeping blight. In a real sense, therefore, “Dark Ghetto” is a summation of my
personal and lifelong experiences and observations as a prisoner within the
ghetto long before I was aware that I was really a prisoner. To my knowledge...*"
00:15:22
And this is important for those of you who raised many questions, it's very
important for you who are in social sciences.
00:15:28
"... To my knowledge, there is at present nothing in the vast literature of social
sciences and textbooks, and nothing in the practical or field training of graduate
students in social science to prepare them for the realities and the complexities of
this type of involvement in a real, dynamic, turbulent, and at times seemingly
chaotic community, and what is more, nothing anywhere in the training of social
scientists, teachers, or social workers now prepares them to understand or to
cope with the changes that are going on. These are grave lacks which must be
remedied."
00:16:12
It's a terrible indictment again in our total educational system in terms of
our colleges and our universities because I'm convinced now, that one of
the reasons that we do, that he can make such an indictment, and I have
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 8
made the same; is that you and I have not been taught to be human
beings. We have every possible course in the university, but we are really
taught how to be non-human beings and one of the major hang-ups we
have is being taught to become technicians, to develop a technician
mentality. And I call that one of my first “Middle-Class Hangups”.
00:16:51
Leading the list of the middle-class hang-up is the technician mind. This is
the belief that everything can be solved if we have the right people with
the right skills. Technology has the answer to everything, people and time
are not given space in the problem, and right skills mean the same thing
as insight. And those of us who are of the minority races have found out
that this is all a lie.
00:17:11
Example: 1965, when I came to this city, I was attempting to find housing,
and could not find housing because of discrimination, finally was able to
get an apartment but it was only because the Department of Labor, federal
government, had made it very clear to the management of this particular
building that I would get an apartment or that there would be some
consequences. So I got the appointment with some persuasion, but I had
had a white minister who went around with me for two days. He would go
and he would be told that the building, or the room, or the apartment, was
available, and I would go and it was not available, or we would both go
and they would say well I must call the owner, I'm only the manager.
00:18:09
So finally, I got this apartment and then a young man came to the city, and
the Urban League called me and said, "Lillian you were able to find a nice
apartment, and we would like for you to help this young man." Now this
man had all of the credentials, this is my point, had all of the credentials,
responsible citizen, had an education. His education went beyond even a
PhD. He had a post doctorate degree from Carnegie, and was--how many
of you know what Corningware is? He helped invent it.
00:18:44
Black man. Came to this city and I said alright, and I tried to help him find
an apartment. He had two children. I ended up, by saying to him, "Well,
I'm living in the YWCA, my furniture isn't to come for another week, that's
alright. I will cancel it.” You take this apartment." It was two bedrooms and
a bath and a half and with two children this would've been fine.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 9
00:19:04
Called up this agency and the agency said, "We're sorry Miss Anthony, we
were perfectly willing to let you have it, but we're very sorry we cannot let
him have it," on the basis that he had two children. And I did interrupt him
to say “But you did have children there. The lady who opened the door, we
knocked on the wrong door, had a baby in her arms and he said, "Oh yes,
but we can't do anything--we don't put people out when they have babies."
But he interrupted me too soon. What he didn't know was the lady also
had a three-year-old child on the tricycle. The building was one year old.
[audience murmurs] This is very disappointing, and so what we're saying
is: color is important, and you must understand that. You must begin to
appreciate it.
00:19:55
Another thing, and since we are in a … [long pause] This is a church
school isn't it? [she and the audience laugh] [she clears her throat]
Theologically, the middle class person [she and the audience laugh] is
conservative and he believes that all social ills can be solved by the
church through preaching and praying, and he uses theological jargon that
is well known and continues to use well use platitudes, and I feel that the
church has failed more than any other institution in this country next to the
educational institution, because the church has said that we you know
profess and hold all these things to be true from a higher intelligence and
a greater power, and we rely on this power to give us humanity and to give
us the guts and the courage to do what we have to do.
00:21:05
And I think we profane and blaspheme in religion and Christianity. I say
religion and Christianity remembering that there are Jews, and there are
Muhammadans, and there are others who do not believe in the saving
grace of Jesus Christ. This I believe in, and I have seen miracles happen.
I've seen them happen since I've been in this job. Mike Gaines, who is a
Jewish man who is the deputy in our department, said to me the other
day, "You know it was almost like it came out of Acts. He said, ""Almost
you persuadeth me." [she and the audience laugh]
00:21:44
So many good things have happened to us that was just unbelievable!
With the City Council and other things has just been unbelievable. And
one of the good things is that, since our department has been in business
since December the first, we have some 50 cases of allegations of
discrimination and segregation in this city. About half of them we have
been able to conciliate.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 10
00:22:08
Example: I don't know how many of you saw the Saturday paper. On
Friday, we had gone to review a film, and this film was an ad for an
insurance company. The insurance company had an Indian shooting a
bow and arrow with some fire on the end of it into a house. There was
another one at the same time, taking clothes from the lines, stealing
clothes from the line. And so, an Indian had come to us and said that they
found this very offensive and "why, they don't want to use you people
throwing Molotov bombs at houses and things, so why should they use us
using bow and arrows? Showing arson and theft and there were some
other things.” [Inaudible] we said to them you know, "We would like to
have that film to show today at three o'clock to the Human Relations
Commission."
00:23:06
We wrote them a letter to this effect. On Saturday, I picked up the paper
and it said that "This film has been taken, this advertisement for this
insurance company had been taken off the air!” Now they hoped, you see,
that this was going to keep us from showing it to the Human Relations
Commission today--and it didn't. [audience laughs] We're going to show it
and then bring about establishing probable cause, because unless we
continue to let people know how offensive these things are to another
human being--how this demeans, and how this thing takes away one's
human dignity. You know, we're not getting anywhere.
00:23:42
Also you might have read in the paper also on Friday or Saturday, that we
have a case against the City Attorney's office. This is a real bad one. It's
bad because if we really get up against the wall I'm supposed to be able to
go to City Attorney's office but hell [she stammers in exhasperation]. [the
audience laughs] These are the kinds of complexities that we were
beginning to deal with [inaudible] very exciting and some of them are very
sad.
00:24:08
We have a young Indian man, a young boy 14 years old, who was brought
in by his mother, severely beaten, and he alleges that a policeman did this
to him between elevators. We're trying to establish probable cause here,
but this is very difficult, because we cannot investigate--the only case that
we cannot investigate is the police. And we're trying to do something today
to begin to find a way to have the right to investigate allegations in terms
of police brutality. At this point, whenever we get a complaint against the
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 11
police department we must give it to Chief Hawkinson and he investigates
it.
00:24:59
I would like to say that in terms of the civil disobedience--notice I did not
say riot--that has occurred across the United States is a revolution, and I
would appeal to you not to condone it but to understand it.
00:25:23
When Watts, when the riot, or the civil disobedience occurred in Watts, I
happened to be flying in that very evening. These are one of the things I
don't call these miracles. I really give God a hard time about this. I don't
know why he puts me in all these peculiar situations which make people
say, Oh Lilian you exaggerating and you are lying," but I arrived in Watts
the night it hit. I arrived in Harlem the day after. I was working in
Wisconsin out of Chicago and arrived in Chicago when it hit. That begins a
smack of something doesn't it? [the audience laughs] I didn't have
anything to do with it.
00:26:12
But I was sitting on this plane feeling much annoyed at having to sit next
to this white man. The reason I was feeling much annoyed was because I
had been working with a group of Presbyterian white people, about 500 of
them, for a week and they had given me a nervous rash. And I got on that
plane and I thought “God I just cannot go through this one more time! I
know this man is gonna start looking at me and smiling and he's gonna
want to be cordial. He's gonna want to be friendly. He's gonna ask me,
gonna introduce himself, he's gonna ask me who I am, then he's gonna
get into the whole business about the problem. Now I cannot take it.” And
so I was just kind of shriveling up over here in my little seat, [audience
laughs] like, just don't say anything to me.
00:26:55
Well luckily, it was the one of the first times I'd been on the plane where
they showed the movies, and they showed a movie that I hadn't seen.
Started looking at that movie the next thing I knew--I'm a terrible person
going to movies with--I was beating him! [she and the audience laugh] I
was having a good time in that movie and he was laughing and we were
talking. [the audience laughs] So in spite of myself, here I am getting all
involved, and then the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen we would like to
say to you: if you would look on the left-hand side of the plane, you will
see fires, you will see smok--they are not the usual kind of California forest
fires. It's a riot."
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 12
00:27:44
Well, have you ever been aware of some--for instance, we've been told if
we go to a theater and there is a fire: don't stampede, don't mob, you
know we've been taught that, but when it happens that's what you do?
When this man said “riot,” I just sat there, I thought, you know, “...riot...” It
didn't even--I didn't understand! I thought, “riot?!” Didn't make sense.
People fighting people or what. Then I heard a man, the whole plane
begin the buzz is one of these planes where everybody, there's no first
and second class. I heard all just buzzing buzzing I heard somebody said,
"Well what do they want next? We've given them everything!"
00:28:24
I thought, "Oh... oh! [the audience laughs] Ah-ha-ha! They're talking about
us!" [she and the audience laugh] I thought, “well, well, well.” I
thought...riot? I remembered that there had been a riot in Detroit, and
some years ago they'd been a riot in Chicago, and I thought “Mmm!” So
then they kept this up. You know the seats are so tall, you just can't turn
around and see who's doing what and so I just got up on my knees and I
said, "We want everything that you have and evidently they intend to get
it." And I sat down and the plane went [she makes a hush noise and the
audience laughs].
00:29:08
And believe it or not, as I grew up as a child and as a young adult,
youth--I'm still young though--I was shy! Didn't talk, and here I had the
nerve to get up and tell those people--and they didn't even know me--what
I thought. So when the plane landed, it was almost like a parting of the
waves when I came in here but it's kind of letting me on through. And then
I became alarmed because I hadn't seen my brother for some years and I
was anxious to see him. They had a new baby I had never seen, and they
were not there. That was unusual for my brother.
00:29:45
So I went to the phone and I called just knowing that they were a part of
this whole business, and my sister-in-law answered the telephone. She
said, "He's on the way back, but we were at the airport and they
announced that everybody should leave, and so we've come home and
he's on his way back to you," and I said, "Where is daddy?" and she said
"Marshall is on his way after you, you better look for him, he's right--he's
probably there now," which meant then that my father was in the area,
when the riot was. So then my brother came and he could not talk, and as
we drove all the way to his house, tears were just rolling down his face.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 13
00:30:21
Finally, he said [...] with a horrible, broken voice, he said, "This is gonna
set us back fifty years!" Man, you'd have to know my brother he's really a
miniature Dick Gregory--he's a beautiful Black man. And when he said it
like that you know, it's a lot of feeling and a lot of hurt. For him, my brother
was the kind of an individual who graduated from high school a D-plus
student. Never felt he could go to college and I persuaded him to come to
school with me, and he did on one condition, that I wouldn't tell anybody
here my brother. [she and the audience laugh] We found out throughout
high school the teachers were always saying to him, "Well you certainly
don't act like you are a brother to Lillian Anthony or Amanda Anthony, you
don't you know perform the same way."
00:31:17
That hurt but he came on that campus and that's what he did, he
graduated cum laude. He graduated University of Lincoln. He then went
on and got his master's from UCLA. And so he's made it, and
suddenly--he's the kind of man who lived, he and his wife, in an apartment
for three years with only a bed, a bureau, a stove, a table, and two chairs.
He said, "I will not be in debt the whole business of the stereotypes of the
Black man being in debt. I will not have a child until I can buy my own
home". And so for eight years, they did not have a child. "I will not buy a
car until I can pay cash for it, and he wanted a Cadillac, and he bought it,
and he paid cash for it. And so suddenly all of this is going on around him
and he is sick at heart.
00:32:03
He is saying, now what is going to happen, man--all the Black people have
to do is work and save and get educated, mmm! And so he sat up all
night, and I was going to do some work in the Pacific Palisades--again,
with white people. Now I really am torn up about going to them in the
midst of this riot, so that my brother took me the next day. We could not
get to my father. We could not get to the telephones. They would not let us
through the barricades, which I went on to the Pacific Palisades and my
brother drove me in his brand-new Cadillac car.
00:32:40
We were stopped five times with policemen with helmets and not only a
gun but the bayoneted gun, "What are you doing in this area?" And each
time I had to show them the correspondence of my invitation to teach at
the Pacific Palisades. And finally, we got there my brother by now is really
upset. So he left me, and the next Sunday, I was looking for a church to
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 14
go to, and I went to a church because the bulletin board said “Playboy
Revisited.” [she laughs] I wanted to see what they gonna preach about, in
terms of the Playboy. [the audience laughs]
00:33:19
But when the man got up, he looked out at the congregation and how I just
looked at him, and he had the same it seemed to me, look that my brother
had and he said, "You are responsible for the civil disobedience! You are
responsible for the riot!” And he told them, one after the other, the things
that they had done historically and the things they've done in that city
recently. He says, “you, in this congregation will not be off the hook. Either
you, as members of this congregation, leave this place, this day, going
into Watts to take food, to help, to clean up, to administer to the needs of
the people, or you need not come back to this church. This is what this
church is all about."
00:34:02
I-I couldn't believe it! That's what I mean by miracles. I needed something
to give me hope again. And as we went out of the church, people were
beginning to form car cavalcades, caravans, and people are coming with
food, and so then I went back and I asked the group that I was working
with if they would take up some money and they took up immediately
something like one hundred fifty dollars. Now how am I gonna get it into
the area? So I called up my brother and I asked him if he would come and
get it, and he said, “you must be out of your mind. I'm not going any place
to do anything about for those people,” I said, "Daddy's in there!" He said,
"But daddy isn't a part of that riot. It's a bunch of hoodlums and young
punks that I create all that trouble.”
00:34:47
So I said "You come get this money right now, because this is to help
Black people and you're Black," and I hung up. This time, my brother
came in his old, raggedy [...] 1954 Volvo! [she and the audience laugh]
Took the money, didn't say anything to me, and just dashed on off. To
make a long story short, my brother is deeply involved in the whole
redevelopment of the Watts area as a result of going in there that day,
going in there with anger, going in with fear, and going in with tears. He
now is helping to redevelop the area.
00:35:35
My father was safe. He said he just said on his porch and watched them
go in there and loot and carry on, and I said “daddy you didn't take any of
that stuff, did you?” And my daddy is not beyond that. [the audience
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 15
laughs] And I think all of the things that have happened in terms of: Watts,
Chicago, Harlem, Chicago, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, Newark, New
Jersey. It's important for you to understand it was never in a retaliation or
a vindictive mood. It was the same kind of hate being turned in on oneself.
00:36:10
And I say this from the historical perspective that the Black people in the
colored peoples of this world do not have the murderous criminal records
of white people in this country. And that's why you will hear Black people
and other minority groups saying that the white society is sick. And that's
why you hear Black separatists saying that we want our children apart and
out of that sick society. And that is why you hear the nationalists say the
same thing.
00:36:38
That is why I will say to you that if this world and if this nation is to be
saved--I'm totally convinced it will be saved by Black people and colored
people. And I say that because we have not taken on that mentality. We
have not taken on the mentality that human life is not worth anything. We
have not taken on the mentality that the almighty dollar means that
anything is expedient and you can do anything with anybody. And I'm
saying the whole business of property and ownership, it's basically the
sickness that’s in this country, and we have not been able to get over it.
Since the Portuguese in 1442, brought out the first slave from Africa into
Portugal and on into Spain, we have had troubles. And since it was the
papal bulls of the church which said “it's fine for you to go in there and
take other human beings and make them property.” The church has been
and has endorsed this activity. Was only some of the few abolitionists in
our period, in our time, who began to say this is not right.
00:37:59
And I would then like to quickly turn you--and I'm not going to be able to
use but a few because so many of you are standing up you won't be able
to see it anyway--but I will show you two pictures of two Black scientists
that I think are important. I had fourteen. [there are sounds of her
arranging items] Let me just use one. You and your school, and your,
whether it's University training, college training, or elementary training,
have not really been taught the history of people in this country who were
different from yourselves. And very few of you, if I named these names
can tell me who they are. But I want to tell you when people have spoken
of getting an education, becoming a responsible citizen, forgetting slavery.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 16
You can't do that because then you're denying the whole total historical
perspective.
00:38:57
This This man's name is Lewis Latimer. Let me just read what it says
about Lewis Latimer, "Lewis Latimer was an associate of Thomas Edison
and experimental work in the field of electricity. To him goes the honor of
having solved the problem of transforming the electric current into light to
the invention of incandescent light. He's superintendent the installation of
electric lights in New York City, Philadelphia, London, and many of the
large cities. He was also chief draftsman of the General Electric and
Westinghouse Companies. He also drafted plans for Alexander Graham
Bell. He drafted the plans for the first telephone.”
00:39:42
How many of you know who Charles Drew was? [...] Oh. How many of you
had a blood transfusion in here? Here's one, any others? You're a healthy
group! Charles Drew is the inventor of the conservative for blood plasma.
And Charles Drew died in Atlanta. [she is arranging items] I’m going to put
it on this side maybe it'd be better, I just put them on the floor. Charles
Drew had an accident in Tuskegee, Alabama. Here it is. Then 1950. He
had this accident and as a result of it he should have received medical
help at a hospital and they refused to give him medical help. The man who
is responsible for setting up banks throughout the country, he set up the
first blood bank in 1942, was called by the United States government to
take charge of the blood conservation by setting up these banks. As a
result of his work many millions of lives throughout the world have been
saved. Here this man, just because he was Black could not receive
medical attention and he died.
00:44:17
These are the kinds of terrible things that have happened. Did you know
that it was a Black man, every time you've been on a train... How many of
you have been on a train? You know, you've got to ask those kind of
stupid questions these days? You got airplanes and you fly everywhere?
How many of you been on a train? Woo! Very good, very good. [the
audience laughs] But every time that train knocked itself together, that was
invented by Black man, Beard, called the coupling device. He saw men
jumping over things and losing arms, and hands, and feet, and he said,
"Look somebody ought to be able to design something to prevent that,"
and so he designed something that when the train hit, it locked, called a
coupling device.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 17
00:42:01
How many of you know about the drip cup, most of you young men should
know about that. Elijah McCoy, have you heard somebody say if that's the
“Real McCoy?” This man invented, Elijah McCoy invented something
called the drip cup every time you go 60 miles an hour and over, you're
able to do that because of this lubricating device that Elijah McCoy, a
Black man, invented.
00:42:27
These the kinds of things that have not been a part of the history, and had
you been taught these things you could not then think that a Black man or
anyone else was less than you. When we have used this in a class, Black
children just sit there in their eyes sparkling they just stick out their chests
and white kids look a little bewildered. [the audience laughs] [she laughs]
It's great! [they laugh]
00:42:55
I think we have something very precious and very fine which I hope we
don't lose, and which is called “soul.” You've heard a lot about soul. It's
very hard for us to define, but it's the ability to feel. It's the ability to be
emotional, and we've always taken this as a criticism. And young women
when young men say to you you know, "She's emotional," Then say,
“thank God I am!” That means that you still can feel things, and we're
taught in this society not to really show feeling.
00:43:29
I sat with three groups yesterday in training sessions. I sat with a group at
Beth-El Synagogue. I sat with a group at Munsingwear. I sat with a group
from General Mills. I'll use the last group, General Mills. I asked them
when I came in. I said, I couldn't do it with you because you're too many, I
said, "You will know who I am. You know something about me. Tell me
who you are." Well, they went around and told me, there were eighteen,
what their names were. Then I said, "Okay, tell me just a little bit about
yourself." One man said, "Will you tell us about yourself?" All these people
are white, sat one Black brother, and I said, "No, he's going to introduce
me. Tell me about yourself."
00:44:18
We sat there. They sipped on their cocktails. They ate their salad. One
man began to talk about... "Well I have... this is off the subject but, would
you tell me is the Poor People's March a Poor People's March for Black
people or all people or is it really a civil rights march?" I looked at the man
next to me and I said, "I wonder how long it's gonna take him to tell me
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 18
who he is or something about himself." You know, we timed it. For thirty
minutes, thirty minutes! Not one human being around that table except
finally the Black cat said to me, "I don't think maybe you knew, I went to
Lincoln University the same school you went to. So we talked about that a
little*" bit.
00:45:05
Finally the man next to me on this side said, you know, "I came from a
farm background and I have a brother who has a turkey farm and he's
very poor. So we know what poverty is." Another man, two men over from
him said well, he said, you know, "I used to work for a Black man and we
called them “N***** Man,” and we all perked*" up. He said, "I work for him
for $2 an hour every night. He bootleg whiskey and a man was supposed
to come in that had three fingers on it, and if any other hand reaching in
there, I was supposed to come down with a knife." He said, "Because
those three fingers belong to n***** man who was bootlegging it."
00:45:56
So somebody said to him, "Where was that?!" And he got very red and he
said, "Come on, tell us, where was it?!" He wouldn't tell. Only three people
around that table was willing to give me a little bit of themselves, and yet
they wanted me to come in and do all that I'm doing here with you. Hm?
Didn't want to give up anything! The night before, with the other group I
had asked them to tell me where they lived. One man said, "I live in
Homewood, one said Edina, once at Golden Valley." I said, Where do you
live? Each question I asked three to four times. Finally one man said,
"Well I really don't want to tell you where I live. Fine brother, at least you're
being honest.
00:46:41
What I'm saying is: you've got to learn to give, and you've got to learn to
give up, and one of the things you've got to give up--and it's gonna be
hard. You have got to learn to give up your decision-making for another
human being. You've got to permit the Black man, the Indian, the Puerto
Rican, and others, and Africans to determine their destiny. You've got to
permit us to make whatever mistakes we're gonna have to make. You're
gonna have to go through this total catharsis with us of getting ourselves
together, and secondly, you have got to, as white people, get yourself
together and research yourself, and study yourself, and understand that
you are the problem.
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 19
00:47:37
The problem is not the Black man, the Indian Puerto Rican, and others. All
of the oppressive things that are happening in this country were not done
to other people by Indians, Black people, et cetra. "Et cetra," that what my
teacher would say. It's by the white system.
00:48:01
Don't get hung up on being an individual in this system, it's the white
system and every white man, woman, and child is a part of it, and so you
need to study yourself and work on yourself--without Black people, and
this is gonna be hard. As long as we're there that you cannot cast your
own shadow. I have been working with twenty white people to go out and
do this very thing and they're not coming back saying they don't want to go
out anymore. Mr. Faulk at the University of Minnesota said, "Lilian I had
never felt the hostility and the anger as I have felt from groups as I had
been attempting to do this."
00:48:40
They're using this instrument called, “Take a Look in the Mirror,” and
others. Another one called from the Presbyterian church and said, “you
know, I've never been so ill and so sick as I was when I left that group up it
Clearwater." He said, "The people were just sick I've never felt such
hatred in my life."
00:49:02
What they said to them was, "How can you talk to us this way? You are
white like the rest of us.” And I'm saying if you begin to take a stand, and
you begin to point out that this is a racist society, and if you say “I am a
white racist,” then you're in trouble. Then you just are going to begin to
feel what Black people in minorities have felt in this country ever since we
put our foot on that first gangplank [she thumps the podium] unwillingly.
00:49:29
It's another thing people don't understand. That we’d rather, some of us
rather, would rather than to be going to slavery, threw ourselves
overboard and killed ourselves.There was one Black strong man who was
able to get just a hammer off of a ship and he made them turn that ship
around and take them back and many of you don't know the strength and
the beauty that came out of Africa.
00:49:56
You've never been taught about the great empires of Sanga which is
Ghana. You haven't taught about the great empires of Ethiopia, which was
then called Abyssinia. You haven't been taught that the greatest library in
the world was out of Timbuktu.You haven't been taught that there were
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 20
great medical men who left Africa to go and to take care of people in
Europe. You haven't been taught that we were a part of the beginning of
the invention of glass, and in Egypt, paper. The [inaudible], the first
machine in the world. We've been only taught about the dark continent,
and so I'm saying learn about white racism in the United States.
00:50:39
I would recommend one book in particular, “A Sign for Cain" by Dr.
Wertham, a white psychiatrist who talks about how white people act out
their violence on other people. I would like to close quickly with a piece
called, "A Parable from Another Country."
00:51:06
"A monkey heard this while going to visit python one Christmas Day.
When he arrived, python called aloud to his mother like this, ‘mama,
mama, bring us some food my friend the monkey has arrived,' and
monkey was tired and he was hungry and he thought I am so lucky. I will
eat myself to death and so he rushed to the floor where the well-cooked
meal was placed and monkey said, 'Python,' monkey said, 'Python, go
wash your hands nobody eats with dirty hands," and so he went and
washed his hands and he hurried to where the food was. 'Do you call
those hands washed?" was what python said, 'Have some sense. Use
soap and warm water."
00:51:41
Monkey went and did so and he returned with clean hands and palms up.
‘Now monkey, where were you raised? You come to the table so dirty, and
so smelly, and so black. Get that blackness off of your hands.' So monkey
took a butcher knife and he skinned away the Black skin on his palms.
The palms turned red, red with blood, and tears dropped from his eyes as
the blood dropped from his hands. He was still hungry. He had come to
eat. 'How can you be so uncultured, so unintelligent? Don't touch my food
with your blood. I'm no cannibal.'
00:52:13
Those were pythons words. And monkey started for home, and he heard a
dove singing: ‘Accept him as he is, accept him as he is.” Another
Christmas Day came, and python was going to visit monkey and he too
heard the dove singing, 'Accept him as he is, accept him as he is.'
‘Countryman,’ said monkey to python, 'you are most welcome.' Python
spread his 20 foot length on the floor filling almost every space. 'Mama
monkey,’ her son called, 'bring us the feast,' and food was brought and
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 21
placed on the floor and monkey said on his hunches and he laid his hands
on his knees.
00:52:48
‘Now python, my countryman, get seated.’ Python coiled himself into a
heap like tires of different sizes, 'Mister we don't call that sitting,' said
monkey, 'Now get seated like other folks see what I mean,' and so python
uncoiled himself and he pushed the greater part of his twenty feet outside
the hut. His head was near the pot of food. 'I didn't tell you to lie on your
belly you must sit and to sit properly inside the house,' said monkey like
that.
00:53:17
So python assembled all of himself inside the hut. He started to sit on his
tail and his hand went up, up, up till he pierced through the roof and
monkey ate the food. He took a cutlass and he chopped off python's tail,
and python hurried with the bulk of his length and they both heard the
dove singing, 'Accept him as he is, accept him as he is.' The dove will
sing, 'Accept him as he is, as he is.'"
00:53:44
Many of us have become like the monkey and the python and few of us
sing like the dove. Accept him as he is. Thank you very much.
00:53:54
[the audience applauds]
Lillian Anthony, “What Can You Do?” (transcript), page 22
Show less
Transcript of “Christianity and Bigotry”
(afternoon session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0124b
Description: Reverend Robert Evans, Revered Orpheus Williams, and Ron Welch of
Minneapolis discuss issues of religion and race in an afternoon panel mod... Show more
Transcript of “Christianity and Bigotry”
(afternoon session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0124b
Description: Reverend Robert Evans, Revered Orpheus Williams, and Ron Welch of
Minneapolis discuss issues of religion and race in an afternoon panel moderated by Dr.
John Benson. The panel was part of a day focused on speaking and listening to issues of
racial injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 00:53:53
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:00
[The recording cuts in as John Benson is speaking]--you are moving up to
fill up the front chairs. I will introduce our panel this afternoon discussing
“Christianity and Bigotry.” [inaudible conversation from the audience]
Okay.
00:00:24
On my left is Mr. Ron Welch from the Southside Way, is that what you call
it? [Inaudible] To my immediate right, is the Reverend Orpheus Williams
from Grace Immanuel Baptist Church, not Lutheran as you have indicated
in the program. [audience laughs] We apologize a second time for doing it
twice. And the far right, Reverend Robert Evans, the American Lutheran
Church--Prince of Glory Lutheran Church, both of the latter two men serve
churches on the Northside, near Northside.
00:01:16
The morning session we began by having short statements by the group,
but I think perhaps we'll dispense with that this afternoon and move
directly into questions from you, now this will be the format. We will
entertain any question that you have related to our topic--people related to
the topic somehow. We're interested especially in the church, what the
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 1
churches have done to encourage racism, bigotry, what they can do about
it, what the Black community thinks of white churches, anything that you
would like to hear these men discuss.
00:02:00
[Audience member] Yes I'd like to ask Reverend Williams if he feels that
the history of the Black church, it's history has in any way helped to
decrease the dignity of Black people. Has it fostered with this attitude in
some ways the white church has.
00:02:19
[John Benson] Just checking, could all of you hear that question?
Probably not. The question is has the Black church helped decrease the
sense of dignity of Negro people? Decrease.
00:02:33
[Reverend Williams] I would like to say, I just want to say that Black
church really has been all that the Black man could lean on to keep and to
hold up his dignity, although the Black church has not been what it should
be instead of not, but this is what has brought us thus far. We have always
been taught to look up and not around us, therefore, we have looked up
and by looking up we could lift our heads and say as, I would say Christ
taught us.
00:03:22
[Augsburg President Oscar Anderson, asking from the audience] What is
the feeling now with respect to the Black church, do they want to remain
as Black congregations stronger and better, or is the desire for integration
among the Christian members of the church?
00:03:41
[Reverend Williams] Really I don't believe in a such thing has a Black
church, no way, I would like to rephrase that to God's church. And God's
church could be made up out of many different colors. It's like a flower,
various beautiful flowers, all mixed up in one beautiful bouquet of flowers. I
think when you speak of God's church and not a Black church, I think this
is what's really wrong with speaking in terms of Black churches and a
white church but we ought to speak in terms of God's church, because we
are Christ's followers, or Christians that we're supposed to be then we
would say God's church. At Grace Emmanuel, I welcome everyone.
Whosoever will, let them come, and often I'll tell them this is not my
church, this is God's church. I think this is the attitude that all churches
should take.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 2
00:04:38
[Audience Member] I'd like to ask Mr. Welch if he thinks that the church,
organizational church, still has, could be effective in the whole movement,
and if so how or is it too late?
00:04:49
[John Benson] The question is can the institutional church be effective in-what kind of movement?
00:04:57
Well, the whole issue [Inaudible].
00:05:01
[John Benson] The whole racial issue.
00:05:06
[Ron Welch] I'll answer that by saying who I am. I was a Catholic priest for
five years until last summer. And I quit for the reason, the answer that I'll
give to your question. I think some-somewhere along the line the
organizational church might wake up and realize what it's supposed to do.
I would say it's too steeped in money. It's too steep with material criteria.
It's too steeped in buildings to be able to make the significant change that
it has to make to meet the needs today. Now if they're willing to give over
what they have in great quantities to the people who have some ideas as
to what might be done, without always having strings attached, I'd say
then we might get back to the very notion of church.
00:05:56
When church gets to be such a big business and such an organization as
it is today, be it Catholic, be it Episcopalian, be it Lutheran, anything else
it's no longer church. It's business, and I think when, in 313, the problem
began, with Constantine, where you had church and state. Where you
have power connected with church. I think there's an awful lot of power
that can and ought to be connected with the very notion of church if you
understand group dynamics. I think that you have to have church involved
with politics, but I think when church becomes an organization that
becomes an entity in itself, as it has now, and uses the power that it has to
lobby as it has and doesn't think about the people that it's serving; black,
white, red, whatever color you want.
00:06:39
I think that you've got a church which is not able to serve. And I think that
organized Christianity has been colonial, has been paternalistic, it's been
any of the--whatever you want to call it in terms of treating people, and it
has not thought about humanism it's thought about materials and if it gets
over the big basic notion of materialism that it has, these criteria which it
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 3
has used for its success symbols such as your school here or anything
else, you know, we build schools we got so many kids and all that sort of
thing, that's not religion. If it gets over that, then it can serve. But as I
started out by saying, it's so steeped in money, buildings, and quantity that
I question whether or not, in our day and age, in my generation, in your
generation, it's going to be able to make the significant change.
00:07:21
Last statement: I believe that if the changes take place in two ways: from
inside institutions and outside institutions, the church is an institution that
will not change from the inside, the only reason it will change is because
it's forced to change from the outside.
00:07:37
[Audience member] From this would it follow then, at the most effective
means for a person who considered himself a member of the church ie.
the body of Christ is to opt out of the institutional church?
00:07:44
[Ron Welch] The question is, then should a person who feels himself a
follower of Jesus Christ opt out of the organizational church? I can only
speak for myself and say that's what I decided to do. I can't tell someone
else that that's the best thing to do for them. If enough of us put pressure
from the outside, hopefully there's somebody inside who the guys at the
top will talk to. They don't want to lose face and talk to us, so they got to
talk to somebody inside and so it's like the Black man who stays in the
institution, because we on the outside or The Way or somebody else
pressure, somebody will finally talk to that man inside the institution.
00:08:17
They won't talk to us, that's embarrassing, so if there are people inside the
institution, who understand what's taking place in the world, then I say
fine, stay there. Because we'll fight like hell on the outside, you fight like
hell on the inside, but make sure you're ready and willing to put your job
on the line when that guy at the time asks you what should be done. Then
I'd say, okay, then you can serve a purpose too, but if you're
establishment minded, get the hell out.
00:08:41
[John Benson] Bob, what do you think about that?
00:08:46
[Reverend Evans] [Laughs] Well I decided to stay on the inside to fight it
out. I think speaking in relationship to the role of the church in a whole
area of human relations and racism, you know, there's a lovely phrase that
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 4
says we become agents of reconciliation. I really don't buy that, I assume
that to be in this position you have some ability in relationship to
communicate with both sites. I think white, as a Protestant church, we've
lost this relationship. I think they're perhaps isolated instances where this
is not true but in terms of the image, the Black man has the white church. I
don't think we have that trust relationship.
00:09:30
We have a lousy image, and I think, and perhaps sounds pessimistic, but
to me it's realistic that, at this point, we can in no way really serve that role
in terms of some kind of reconciling agent between the Black and the
white church or Black and white people. This gets into the area of racism
and this may come up and perhaps we ought to speak to it then, but I
think maybe we're paralyzed, but we're not dead, and hopefully the
combination of pressure from the inside and from the outside, some
exciting things could happen and I think are.
00:10:14
[Ron Welch] Jesus Christ said, If you want to live, you have to die.
Remember? All the way through his gospel, said if you want to live you
have to have the guts to die. He wasn't just talking about individuals, he
was also talking about institutions, and if the church wants to live, it has to
be willing to die for every generation, and for every big circumstantial
change in history. Sad to say that churches have not understood good
theology.
00:10:42
[Reverend Williams] [Exhales into the microphone, possibly indicating
irritation] Well, I can say that I have died one time, some say I really don’t
have to die [inaudible]. Really, I feel kind of like the old saying said with a
country boy, young minister come to the big city with a big, beautiful
church and he kept [inaudible] that church and he said, I sure would like to
get in there to preach. So he asked one of the officials that, ‘I've been
here,’ said ‘I've been here five years and I've never been able to get into
this church to preach.’ He said, ‘don't worry with the church been built 20
years and God hasn't been able to get either.’ [Laughter]
00:11:26
Remember if God can't get in the church they're gonna be problems
anyway. The big beautiful building with God left out, and God is important
so when we leave God out we got problems. So I advise you, when you
go to church, try to take a little part of God in there with you.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 5
00:11:52
[Audience member] There are some studies that show that--I don't want
the mic--there are some studies that show that there is racism in the
church, and that not only that there is racism in the church, but that the
church as an institution has very much been a part of promoting that
racism, and my question I guess is, you know, if we can legislate doctrines
[…]legal doctrines in the church, why can't we legally doctrinize the
priesthood of all believers and include all colors and all races, and all this
sort of thing.
00:12:36
I mean, it seems to me that we have all sorts of doctrines, but that doctrine
sort of should include this sort of thing but it doesn’t. And why can't we
force our white congregations into believing that doctrine as we, you know,
force them into believing all others.
00:12:59
[Reverend Evans] I think the documents all have been there just as the
Constitution of the United States has always been there offering justice
and equality to all people. The point is we don't practice it. I don't think we
need more doctrines, or even the clarification of the doctrine of man. I
think we simply have to live out what we supposedly believe, a question of
racism in the church. I don't think you have to do studies on this anymore
than to do it a study to determine if they're Eskimos living in Alaska. I think
it ought to be a basic assumption, and I don't even have to think you have
to believe at the point that racism has played a great part in the history of
the church in the United States.
00:13:54
Double kinds of baptisms that we had way back then were, we had two
orders of baptism. One for white one for black people because when you
talk about, you know, baptism, dying, and being born again and set free
you know you really have to be a little careful how you, in those days
explain this to non-white people. And I think the racism bit is done not in a
overt, even aware way today although that's present. I was at the Nicollet
Hotel and couple nights ago a guy was passing out tracts, supposedly in
behalf of human relations in the church, and it was it was poorly done in
the first place, but it said, you know, ‘we ought to be together’ and they
had a picture on each page and one was a white man giving a blood
transfusion to a Black man and all the way through it was a white man you
know helping this poor Black man.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 6
00:14:48
And really it was a racist tract under the guise of an attempt to talk about
human relations so it's there and it's in all of us. I think deeply ingrained,
and I think maybe it's the thorn in the flesh that we have to deal with daily.
We're saturated with the sense of superiority, and this is true in the
church, not because it's the church, but we're human beings in the church
and in spite of what we ought to believe we don’t, and I think there are a
lot of reasons why. I think the doctrines are sufficient now. We just don't
believe them. We don’t live them.
00:15:32
[Ron Welch] You used two words that really bothered me; legislate force.
You were talking about legislating doctrine and you were forcing people to
believe something let those--
00:15:42
[Audience member] --I mean by tradition, I mean, you know we aren't a
part of the church unless we're baptized. We're not a part of the church--
00:15:47
[Ron Wlech] Oh all right you want --
00:15:49
[Audience Member] That kind of traditional sense of legislation
00:15:51
[Ron Welch] Alright, but I think what you're getting onto is the basic
problem that would come up with in religion, which is when you start
theorizing that much on religion and you start figuring how many angels
can dance on the head of a needle all that sort of thing, you know. This is
when you get into the problem of what religion is or isn't.
00:16:07
Religion is a way of life and there probably are as many religions as there
are people, and yet people will come to some agreement and end up with
a movement such as Christianity, or Muslim, or whatever it might be
whatever it might be, but when you come down to legislating, and when
you come down to using that word ‘forcing’ something, those two words
right off the bat as I say, bespeaks something that I don't want any part of.
I'll never be part of an organized religion again. I'll be part of The Way. I'll
be part of the Black people's movement, despite the fact that I got a white
face, and as far as I'm concerned that's religion, but I'll never be part of a
religion that gets so defined that it does what you said.
00:16:48
Do I make any sense?
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 7
00:16:51
[Audience member] Yeah.
00:16:51
[Ron Welch] You know that's, as far as I'm concerned, what got religion
into the problem it's in right now, and how is it undefine itself. To fit in
society which is so complex, which has so many differentiations, so many
different circumstances, which is cybernetic, which is technological, go
right down the line it can't fit all those unless it's become so non-defined
and yet it has some basic goals about humanism and as Reverend
Williams said, when you go to church, bring God in the church, you know,
how do you bring God in the church? By understanding and believing what
you are or another person is, that's God. We put God way up here, we've
defined him, we've defined God's organization, quotation marks, and we
end up with a church which is all screwed up.
00:17:39
[Audience Member] Yes, I would like to direct this question to the
Reverend Evans. You mentioned earlier that you would rather stay in and
fight. I'm wondering if what happened to Bishop [James] Pike, Father
Malcolm Boyd and, to a lesser extent, Father Groppi would be any kind of
discouragement to the men of cloth, who really speak out against the
institutionalized [inaudible] in their stand.
00:18:11
[Reverend Evans] Repeat the question.
00:18:18
[John Benson] The question is directed to those, like Pastor Evans, who
have decided to stay within structure, the organizational church and fight
from there. The question is: isn't gonna rather discouraging thing, people
like this, to view what has happened to people like Malcolm Boyd, Father
Groppi in Milwaukee, and who else did you name?
00:18:40
[Audience member] Bishop Pike.
00:18:41
[John Benson] Bishop Pike.
00:18:41
[Pastor Evans] You could also add the name of Jesus Christ to that one
too, and maybe that's where things kind of fit together. I don't think we're
called to succeed or you know an easy way of life but they're called to lay
it on the line, and if we can't be honest and if we can't be open, then we
don't even have any business in the organized Church. I mean that's, I
think, the name of the ballgame.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 8
00:19:05
Whether in a church or in a human relations game, or whatever it is, if at
this point you're not, I mean this isn't a movement that will, you know, be
resolved in the next two, or ten, or fifty years. If you're going to commit
yourself to even the movement, in respect of the church, I think you have
to be ready to lay your life on the line, and if it's anything less than that,
then I would say, you know, you're really a phony. And these men only
remind us of the fact that this is a game, that that isn't a game, it's for
keeps. You bet your life, and that's it.
00:19:46
[John Benson] I feel like this question goes deeper, though, and asks
whether in your opinion, the institutional church is capable of doing
anything worthwhile here. That is, whether the suffering and giving of
oneself, and so on it you just described, really would be worth it for those
that stay inside the structure. As it--is the church really capable of doing
anything here?
00:20:17
[Reverend Evans] Well, I think only to the point that it recognizes power
that comes from beyond itself. I think we've lost this. The church has
become, in many cases, an institution, period. In and of itself, but I think
there's always the remnant, and I think this happens constantly in the life
of the church and we're seeing maybe an acceleration of that kind of
constant death and renewal that's taking place right now.
00:20:48
I don't know, but I don't worry too much about the institutional church. I
think as a guy who happens to be a Christian and involved in the church,
you know, you go out and you do your thing and that's it. You feel called to
do it. If you spend all of your time, you know, analyzing the institutional
church it's kind of fun, you know, to examine your intestines and you can
get all hung up in that too, but you forget about that, and you go out and
you be with, you'll think the church ought to be. And, you know, I'm not
gonna reform the church. I think you can become so, you know, paralyzed
with this little business that you will become totally inactive. and I think you
go about your work in and I see pockets and communities of people, in the
church, that I think are really being the church. I think this is exciting and I
see more of these people than I do the images that you mentioned and I
am not discouraged.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 9
00:21:52
I think it's a very encouraging thing to see, for the first time, people, you
know, talking very honestly about the institutional church. We used to talk
this way, but always in secret, now it's in the open, and I think that's
healthy.
00:21:10
[Ron Welch] I think the question comes down to whether the church is an
organization, an institution, or a movement. You read Eric Hoffer’s book,
The True Believer, and I don't know if you agree with Eric Hoffer, but I
think he at least defines the movement fairly well and I think he defines
Christianity as a movement that was, with emphasis on past tense.
00:22:29
Within Christianity, there've been certain people such as Agustin, or
Francis of Assisi, or Francis Xavier, Ignatius of Loyola, or Martin Luther, or
John Calvin, or other people who have taken this movement, the basic
rudiments of the movement and have gone off for another tangent, have
done something with it. And if that same thing can be done today, then I'll
agree that the institutional Church has something to offer, but then I would
guess that you're going to end up with something which looks completely
different from the institutional church, so what I'm saying is that if the
church is going to serve people, it's got to be a movement. I still don't see
that type of thing happening, and that's why I, myself, am very pessimistic
about it.
00:23:06
Until the church really dies, until people are really frustrated with the fact
that they don't have something more than just the material things that
we've got and I think we need more than that. Until they get to that point,
they aren't going to start a groundswell which is going to produce a
movement and I see as long as we've got clergymen with good salaries,
as long as we got the people who are supporting the clergymen having
enough to eat, you're not going to have a good solid movement within
Christianity.
00:23:36
[Audience Member] […]says in there how Pastor Evans has mentioned
that [inaudible] that he wasn't really too concerned about institutionalized
church, and yet at the same breath he says he's going to stay in there and
fight out. How can you fight something that you have already [inaudible]
just said? And also, you mentioned that everyone has the lay his life on
the line.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 10
00:24:01
I think every individual these three that I mentioned have, and they had
one big risk of being excommunicated, of big fired for heresy, and if you're
not too familiar with them three men [inaudible] Reverend William
Youngdahl, who despite all the cover-ups, was driven out of town because
of his aggressive stand on racism.
00:24:34
[John Benson] Bob, why don't you tell us something more about your
particular congregation and especially the way in which the, we say the
American Lutheran Church receives you. How do they look on your work
00:24:48
[an audience member, perhaps the person operating the microphone,
laughs]
00:24:51
I can't speak for the American Lutheran Church. I think my relationship is
with people in the public housing area in the north side of Minneapolis.
When I say ‘I don't, you know, care about institutional church,’ I don't have
time to get concerned about, you know, institutions and hierarchy and
anything like that. I feel I have a calling to serve people and I get involved
there. I just don't have the time and the energy. I think there are people in
the church who have more influence than I do to do that, but my thing is
working in an area of poverty and in a racially mixed area, and
congregation and I've come close, I suppose, at times of being chopped
down and I know some of the pressures and the lack of funds and all that,
that have happened. We're in a church where the Roman Catholic Church
checked out, and we took over, and recognize that we're there, called not
to success, but to faithfulness in a church that I think and in a society, I
think here we have to say if we have a sick church we also have a sick
society.
00:26:05
But you know, you don't check out a society today because it's sick, but
you can't jump out of your skin. You can out of the church, but I think
there's a similarity here too, that you hang with it because you're a part of
it and [...]
00:26:22
[John Benson] Is your congregation self-sustaining?
00:26:24
[Reverend Evans] No. No.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 11
00:26:25
[John Benson] You get money from the whole mission, Department of the
ALC?
00:26:27
[Reverend Evans] Right. And this is always subject to, you know, pulling
the rug out from under your feet and I think.
00:26:36
[John Benson] Are they trying to tell you what to do?
00:26:40
[Laughter]
00:26:43
[Pastor Evans] Well, in a way.
00:26:44
[Laughter]
00:26:46
[Pastor Evans] This doesn't bother me. I can fight them, but I think there's
some more, there's some very real challenges in the community that our
church has nothing to do with it.
00:26:55
[John Benson] Apparently though the church headquarters supports you
rather than opposing it, right? Otherwise, they wouldn't give you this
money.
00:27:05
[Pastor Evans] Yeah they do financially, but I've been in a meeting the last
two it two days in which our urban men are coming together and are in a
sense ready to the blow it wide open if they can, in terms of the whole
urban ministry of the church.
00:27:20
[John Benson] What do you mean blow it open?
00:27:22
[Reverend Evans] Well, the policy, the attitudes, the investments of the
church, many many things in which I feel, you know, they're just not being
realistic in relationship, you know, the life in America today. I would rather
see this a dialogue within the group. This is getting to be a duet rather
than a discussion unless you want to pursue it.
00:27:48
[John Benson] I could change the subject a little bit with a question to
Reverend Williams. Malcolm X used to say that, the same time that he
gained his respect for himself as a Black man, he left the white man's
religion behind. He was referring to his conversion to Elijah Muhammad's
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 12
Black Muslim religion. The question is raised sometimes, has Black
Christianity really sold out to the white man? Is it a kind of an ‘Uncle Tom’
institution, therefore unable to really provide the Black man the kind of self
respect and song that he needs?
00:28:54
[Reverend Williams] I must say that the majority of the books that the
Black churches have the white man was the author of the book. One of
the things that I've always said that you cannot destroy is that no part of
Christ, that soul, that’s within the spirit. Often, I've said you can destroy all
Bibles but then our men can teach Jesus and crucify those that have so
believed that. I believe in the supreme. I believe in the hereafter, but I
must say, although it breaks my heart to say it, but I must say it. We
cannot be serving the same God and have this much confusion. If there is,
then it’s taught differently than in the book, because I'm sure signifies the
some of the people are good so-called to be Christians.
00:29:51
Christians were taught to love one another so somewhere down the line
somebody slipped and fell or something, I don't know. But there's one
thing about it that, the little part of God that's in me that I believe in, it
covers [inaudible] it gives me strength in the determination although it
takes my life, you know, you can be alive and yet dead. You just a walking
around body, and when we're the Christians get where they don't stand up
with justice, will they be Black or white, they're dead. I couldn't believe that
the church pattern, the church system because the churches have not
stood up for justice and for rights the close ones they're then brought out,
or bribed, or scared out, to stand up, to speak out that made of other
people turn from the church. People need a little bit of church and get and
tried hard to help poor people.
00:31:03
The people that they so-called the unreachable. I don't believe in
unreachable. We all have problems. I was thinking what he just said, he
had pulled away from the church. I think, his effort, the job that you're
trying to do, is really done more than the church because he is trying to
help people who need help. And this is what I like to see the church
[inaudible], so I called him, Reverend of The Way church! [inaudibe
chatter and laughing].
00:31:34
[Ron Welch] Odds are backslapping.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 13
00:31:38
[Ron Welch ]I know Robert Williams, and he does an awful lot with the
people from The Way.
00:31:43
He and Syl Davis are very good friends, and Syl takes an awful lot of stock
in what Reverend Williams says. By the time Malcolm X was just about
killed, he had also pulled away from the Muslim religion for lots of reasons
which he alludes to in his book his autobiography, the Black Muslim
Religion.
00:32:02
I think Reverend Williams is an example of a man who is a follower of
Christ as he himself keeps referring to, and yet would not follow to the
generalization which we call Christianity. I would put him in, you know, he
follows Christ like he follows Gandhi, like he follows all sorts of other
people who had strong convictions about human beings and about God in
people. And so, in this sense, knowing Reverend Williams and the type of
work he does and he does stand pretty much alone in these towns, the
question that you directed to him I would say fits him and yet it doesn't fit
him, because I think he's a very unique Black clergyman in these times.
00:32:48
[Audience member] In your opting out of the church, maybe this is too
broad a question--I'm directing this to Ron Welsh--In your opting out of the
church, and maybe it is too broad a question, but what Christology have
you retained or could you wrap up your theology in just a few short
statements. I'm interested to see if, you know, what you're retaining in this
religion that you referred to as your individual religion.
00:33:14
[Ron Welsh] Christ was a radical revolutionary who understood group
dynamics and politics as well as, if not better than, Mahatma Gandhi and
Castro and Lenin and Stalin and lots of other people. Now I don't say that
he was working for the same things necessarily Stalin or some of these
guys working for, but Christ was basically a revolutionary. Christ basically
started a movement. And so when I talk about what I retain from in my
Christology, I say that Jesus Christ talked about the beauty of creation.
Jesus Christ was God incarnate. Now we can talk for the next twenty
years about what that means, but I'd like to think that Jesus Christ was a
person who demonstrated, by his own being what it meant to be beautiful,
what it meant to be a human being who wasn't afraid to look at life and live
it, and I'd like to think this is pretty much what I think of in terms of God,
what I think of in terms of Jesus Christ.
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 14
00:33:58
Now if you're gonna, if you want to ask me, do I believe that Jesus Christ
the son of God, yeah so am I. I don't know what he is more than I am. I
don't worry about it. When it comes down to the sacraments, and
everything else that you know, that you want to get into the Eucharist, I
say wait a second, the Eucharist, and Baptism, these are all group
dynamic methods that you've got to have in every good movement.
00:34:22
[Audience member] How about the doctrine of salvation?
00:34:22
[Ron Welch] Doctrine of salvation, I don't worry about it.
00:34:25
[Audience member] How come?
00:34:27
[Ron Welch] How come? I don't know, I just don't worry about it. I worry
about living, I'm terribly existential, I suppose. If there's a hereafter, I'm not
the least bit worried. I'm doing my best.
[00:34:44]
[Audience member] I think Bishop James Pike has more or less answered
this question. about salvation. I think he was preaching a kind of heaven
on earth, and for this very belief that he thinks is right, he was threatened
with a trial by the Church bureaucracy, and that is why I brought the
question. If, at all, a person can lay down his life for his beliefs, can he
successfully and realistically do it within the church confines? Recent
examples are very discouraging, I have to say.
00:35:30
[Orpheus Williams] You must bear in your mind that if we speak enough
Christians, but if we are really speaking of Christ’s followers, then we must
be willing to die for what we believe. I think every Christian must be willing
to stand up for justice and if it takes their life, then so what? You're better
off dead! We talk about heaven, we can't go [inaudibe] we must die
anyway so it's no wrong to die by what's right. I think this is a blessing to
be able to die for a good cause. And all Christians should be willing to die
for right, but make sure they right. It's no disgrace in dying for what you
believe in. I don't think so. The doctrine that I preach, I'm willing to die for
it. I'd rather be dead anyway. It can't be no worse than here. Even if
there’s no hereafter, it can't be no worse than here. So I would rather be
dead. I wouldn't have the problems that [inaudible]. Problems everyday,
my hair’s beginning to turn white, some problems--unjustice. Bruises from
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 15
being scorned, missing wheels, so I'm willing to die for what’s right, what I
believe in.
00:36:56
I believe in Christ, I believe in being a follower of Jesus Christ, and if
someone shoots me down, good.
00:37:10
[Ron Welch] I ain’t so willing to die, Reverend. [Reverend Williams laughs]
00:37:13
But I agree with what you're saying. Come back the salvation thing, which
you bring up, and which you bring up. You read Frantz Fanon's book on,
"The Wretched of the Earth," when you read C. Wright Mills or you read
anybody who tries to analyze again the dynamics of religion, you always
notice that religion or any good movement will always have something out
here to shoot for which is almost unattainable. And what Christianity did
after Jesus Christ, I don't think Jesus Christ did this because he worked
with the lepers, and he worked with the prostitutes, and he worked with
the pimps, and he worked with all the people in the streets and tried to
alleviate their sufferings now. But what Christianity did, when it sold out in
313, was it said, well, you'll get in the hereafter suffer now.
00:37:55
And I think this is what Pike was attacking, and I think this is what a lot of
the people today are trying to attack. And I don't think Pike denies the
possibility of the hereafter. I want to believe in the hereafter, whether or
not is there, I don't know. But I think what we've got to get down to is to
tear this whole business of Christianity, the Salvation pill or whatever you
want to call it, and get rid of that, And start working out what does it mean
to live according to the tenets of Jesus Christ or God [inaudible] any of
these people now. Then you've got the real notion of salvation then you're
saved. As Reverend William says, then you're alive. If you don't have that
you're dead anyhow, you'd be better off physically dead. If you don't have
that beam in your eye, you don't have something to live for now.
00:38:44
[Reverend Evans] I think we're talking here about a road with two ditches
on the side that are pretty close together. I think we've been hearing an
ethical, that Christianity is ethics. I think ethics are involved in Christianity,
they've been left out. A kind of humanitarianism which I can't be a part of
because I don't have the ability. I'm just not the kind of guy that can, of in
my own accord, find the kind of strength and power that I feel necessary. I
find this in Christianity. That's my crutch or my bag, you know, you accept
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 16
me like that and just as I accepted someone else in their position. But I,
you know, I come back to a doctrine of the word which I think the Roman
Catholic Church is finally coming back to, and I take my cue not from an
intellectual kind of interpretation that I have to society.
00:39:40
I think as a church we've been in the ditch on the other side of the road
where we, as a Black church, which really was in a sense the tool of the
white colonial people. You know, this is how you kept the Black people in
line. The organization was the Black church and then a white man kept
him there. I'm talking about pie in the sky, and I can't buy this either and
somewhere there's a kind of tension between the two. I think as a church
we've been in a ditch on both sides of the road, but I think we find through
a shifting of emphases, from the time way back when, you know, it was a
relationship between God, the Father, and nature.
00:40:22
Some of the old colleagues of the church most of the horns of the unicorn,
protect me from, you know, all the storm and stress and the dangers of
nature. And I think we shifted to Jesus Christ sole relationship and the
whole thing in life which ultimately, to me, is extremely selfish if that's your
only concern about you know my salvation that's a part of it but it's not all
of it. And I think we were hung out there for a long time important as it is.
To neglect the third area which I think we find ourselves in right now or
coming into hopefully, that is a relationship between the Holy Spirit and
society. Our concern is not, you know, primarily for myself. I think, you
know, that my [inaudible] is taken care of that I don't have to worry about
that but I am led by the spirit now to serve the needs of people and and
this, to me, is not a humanitarian, ethical position only, but it's a total
relationship that I see, and this is where I find myself. I am comfortable
there, and I don't say this is where you have to be.
00:41:34
I think with a relationship to the word and the spirit at this point, cause I
can't make it by myself I don't think society can. I think the whole
humanitarian bit you know we don't have the time, we don't have the
ability, because we're, I think, pretty selfishly oriented and, you know, pull
ourself, you know, out of that bag, I don't think we can, and this is where I
sit.
00:42:11
[Audience member] Mr. Welsh, after Reverend Evans said, about the
strength that we simply do not get on our own accord, but that some
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 17
realized that they could only get through Christianity. You've gone to
seminary, and spent five years as a Catholic priest, obviously some
changes must have taken place in you. What I'm wondering is, did this
happen while you were a priest, or they did it happen all of a sudden and
caused you to leave the church, established Church?
00:42:58
[Ron Welsh] It's awfully hard to define or put right now where something
took place. My father's the greatest priest I've ever met. I'm the last of ten
children. I've got 47 nephews and nieces. He knows how to make people
happy. That was my basic notion of what it meant to be a priest, so I
wanted to be like my father, only I thought that to be clergyman, I could do
this on a grander scale, until I became a Catholic priest and realized the
politics involved. And I realized that two years before I was ordained when
I was down street preaching in the South. This was back in the, about
1961 or ‘62 when the Freedom Riders began so there was-- I went down
there to preach Jesus Christ as a Catholic and came back a Christian or a
follower of Jesus Christ on a much different version than I went down
there.
00:43:45
When I was living as a Catholic priest, I was sliced up and down one side
and another by the hierarchy in town here. As Bob says, they have a right
to stand what they stand for, I have a right to stand what I stand for. I
stand for the type of priest my father is. I couldn't be that, personally
speaking, and remain a Catholic priest without either becoming an insane
person and I mean that in the sick sense of the word, or a person who
would end up going out and killing because I thought something was doing
that much harm which I saw organized Christianity doing. And so it was a
process which began when I first thought about becoming a priest but
which climaxed when I saw the crystallization of the Catholic Church
especially, and saw that it was about to break down and move at least in
my time, when I had good years to serve.
00:44:37
[John Benson] I suppose you've asked this question with regard to
comparison between yourself and Father Groppi in Milwaukee. Do you
know him and could you tell us what his thinking is? Why has he decided
to remain within the institutional church?
00:44:58
[Ron Welch] So they said before, if you've got a situation inside where you
can be heard, and if you've got a power inside which can be used, you'd
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 18
be a fool to move outside of it as long as you're working at the same base
of things that we're working in. And Groppi is not as much a Catholic priest
as he is a national figure who happens to have a Roman collar. Now you
may say that which comes first, the chicken or the egg, I don't know, but
I'm saying for Groppi to pull out now, we would be losing somebody in the
movement. And so I wouldn’t want to see Groppi pull out if it gets to the
point where Groppi personally speaking can't take it as a Catholic priest,
then I want to Groppi to pull out, because I think too much of Groppi.
00:45:33
[John Benson] Does this mean there's a difference in the hierarchy in the
Milwaukee area compared with here?
00:45:40
[Ron Welch] Sure, they're scared. Our guys aren't scared yet. They don't
even know we got a problem in Minneapolis!
00:45:54
[John Benson] We have time for one or two more questions.
00:46:06
[Audience Member] I'm not, this can be addressed to anyone on the panel,
but I'm not exactly sure when my sentiments lie in regard to the
institutional church, but I do think that an institution in some cases is a
necessity and perhaps, maybe some degree, to the churches and
institutions is a necessity too. Now we can attack the church all that we
want to, but I would like to ask any of the members of the panel this: what,
basically, is wrong inside the institutional church which makes it, you
know, such a big block to anything that can move? Is it fair to say that
perhaps we have such a poor leadership that this is why the church isn't
moving at all?
00:46:48
[Ron Welch] I'll go all day and let them start. [laughter]
00:46:59
[Reverend Williams] I would like to say to, to try to answer that question. I
could talk about it the rest of the day, but to try to answer that question:
the good Christians of the church have failed to stand for what's right,
what's just. I don't know somehow or another, we get too much involved in
the beautiful building, we get too much involved in material things to
remember that we are all God's children. And I think when the church get
why it refuses to answer to the call of the poor, of the oppressed, to
answer to the call of any unjustice that’s being used or being done on any
individual. If the church refused to stand, it's dead anyway. So all you have
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 19
to do as one individual is to encourage others when, doesn't have to be
the Black, it could be the red, the white, but any unjust. The church don't
take no part, they don't concern me.
00:48:10
So the church is dead because don't nothing concern them but beautiful
buildings, beautiful pews. Well, I like beautiful things, but you must be
more concerned because the Church should be a service to the people,
and not the people serve the church.
00:48:32
[Reverend Evans] I think the church has always been dead, and in
unrealistic ways. I think we think of the church as institution, you know,
institutions aren't alive, buildings aren't alive. Only people are alive, and I
think using the church as the body of Christ and I think scattered
throughout the church, I think there are many, many people who are very
much alive and very much concerned. I think there are those who are not,
but I think the church tends, the institutional church, tends to take on the
kind of climate that, you know, we call Americanism or the American way
of life which says, you know, what really counts is that you produce.
00:49:14
I see my status symbol as one who can produce, you know, more bricks,
more dollars, and more people, and I think we measure people and we
measure programs whether they're inside or outside of the church
according to these kind of success stories, and I think we have to
recognize that the worthiness of people is not the fact that, you know, they
produce but rather that they exist. And this is my worthiness and I don't
think the church, I think it understands this, but it loses so easily the whole
concept and the commitment of people, period. And we get hung up in a
commitment to white people, and nice people, and successful people, and
good people and this is very comfortable and you end up, you know,
manipulating people.
00:50:03
I think it's a matter of commitment and you can't--I think there are
committed people in the church and there are many in they're in positions
of leadership, and yet and somehow it's so easy to get in the ditch where
we fall prey to the to the kind of materialism that permeates our society.
You see it in racism and everywhere, and I think it'll always be with it to
curse it and to damn it is to be unrealistic too. You call it, you know, a
spade a spade and yet we know a lot as Luther says, you know, don't
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 20
forget that, you know, there are only sinners in the church and I take that
pretty seriously because then I kind of fit.
00:50:55
[Ron Welch] [Inaudible] you got to know the hills. Before he knew the hills
he had to know the people. Before he, and along with knowing the people,
he had to also know his enemy. Castro listened well. The first good quality
of any leader is his ability to listen and to perceive. One of the problems
that's happened with Christianity is that the leaders have isolated and
insulated themselves, the people who run the churches. They've isolated
and insulated themselves from the people who they are to serve.
Remember the Last Supper, where Christ said, ‘now do you see what I've
done? You no longer call me master. I am your servant.’ Alright, if I am
really your servant, that means I listen to you and I speak for you if you
can't get up here.
00:51:34
You can't go talk to somebody up here. I speak for you, well that means
I've listened to you. Alright, I think we need institutionalized church,
meaning people coming together to form a body of power. Alright, then if
they have a spokesman that spokesman hopefully is well attuned to those
people. Then you've got a real church. That man is serving those people,
those leaders are serving those people.
00:51:58
Let's see, it comes down to what these two men said, we got into the
bricks and mortar thing and we forgot that the church was people. We
forgot the whole dynamic of a movement and we got into the
organizational, power crazy thing, and forgot what it was all about and
that's why what I said before it's got to be broken down so that you finally
get down to what we call the grassroots level. And then it will come again.
[Inaudible] institutional Church again I think it's beautiful.
00:52:21
It's happening all over. The hippies are part of it, the true hippies, the
Black Power people are part of it, the people of the far east are part of it,
the people in Cuba are part of it. It's happening, and I think that the last
word is what's important.
00:52:34
If you'll never notice Black people, they'll walk around and say, ‘what's
happening, brother?’ Alright, that's, when you ask people what's
happening, then you've got some reality of church taking place because
people are listening to people. Gwen Jones Davis, who was one of my
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 21
bosses, can listen to at least three conversations at one time, she's a
leader, she listens.
00:52:58
[John Benson ] The time has come for us to stop. We are all deeply
indebted to you for being with us, and before I give you a chance to
express your appreciation with a round of applause, I have these two
announcements. The Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop is going to
present a one half-hour specially written particularly for this day at Melby
Hall 4:30, so about a half an hour. I emphasize that this is written by them
by, whether it's him or his group, especially for our day, so I would
encourage you all to go. And this evening the session with Milt Williams
[Mahmoud El-Kati] will begin at 6:30 out in College Center lobby, so again
thank--
00:53:53
[The recording cuts off]
Christianity and Bigotry (afternoon session) (transcript), page 22
Show less
Transcript of “Christianity and Bigotry”
(morning session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0255b
Description: Reverends Robert Evans, Rollie Robinson, and Orpheus Williams of
Minneapolis discuss issues of religion and race in a morning panel moderated... Show more
Transcript of “Christianity and Bigotry”
(morning session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0255b
Description: Reverends Robert Evans, Rollie Robinson, and Orpheus Williams of
Minneapolis discuss issues of religion and race in a morning panel moderated by Dr. John
Benson. The panel was part of a day focused on speaking and listening to issues of racial
injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 01:04:09
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:00
[John Benson] Good morning, my name is John Benson. I'd like to
introduce two of the three members of our panel today. Irvin Orpheus
Williams probably found out that he was being billed as a Lutheran rather
than a Baptist so he decided he wouldn't come. [laughter] If he comes
later, we will introduce him again that time. On my right is Reverend
Robert Evans of Prince of Glory Lutheran Church in the Plymouth Avenue
area. On my left is Reverend Rolly Robinson, a Methodist Calvary
Methodist Church in the same area.
00:00:47
I've asked each of them to lead off with a brief statement and as they are
speaking you might respond to something that they say, or you might want
to ask them something about their work, or you may have a question of
long-standing about the general subject of racism in the church. So after
they are finished, we'll open up the floor to questions from you. First of all,
let me call on Pastor Evans.
00:01:19
[Pastor Evans] Thank you John. Racism is a kind of frightening word, but I
think it's a very subtle word. I don't think I'm going to say a lot here, I
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 1
would rather open it up for some kind of dialogue that might happen here
in any [inaudible] and chemistry. I was on Nicollet Avenue not--well--two
days ago and I saw the Nauga1 there, if you know who the Nauga is,
you've seen him on TV, but a great big guy in a Nauga suit and all of the
little kids were scared stiff and this guy was you know walking down
Nicollet Avenue, a kind of advertisement and I got the idea that most
people have this image of racism, that the racist is a guy who has no
horns and a forked tail and is a terrible kind of guy that speaks out
violently against black people and so forth.
00:02:27
But I think this is a cop-out in terms of our understanding of what racism
really is. I think racism is very subtle. I think it's a part of all of us of the
white community. I am convinced that we are saturated with a sense of
superiority, and even a lot I think that goes on in the church today and in
our white society, in behalf, behalf of minority groups is a kind of
expression of this subtle racism that we have.
00:03:01
Typical example: I was at a meeting yesterday, and again on Nicollet
Avenue, we had a some delegates at a meeting who came in from New
York, they stayed at the Pick-Nicollet. There are also a lot of Presbyterians
in town and--and we were handed a threat by someone, I don't know if he
was a Presbyterian or not, but it was a--it was a pitch in behalf of
integration on a religious level and there were a series of pictures I wish I
had the thing here, but in every picture, there was a white man helping a
black man. Even to the point where he gave him a blood transfusion.
00:03:44
And the idea was they are as good as we are, and it was really a racist
kind of position. Which literally assumed paternalism, a kind of benevolent
love from the second-story window as I would call it, and what came out
really was meant to be a very positive thing, and yet, some of our black
people who were there, a man from Chicago said, "this--this is a, this is a
racist trap." And I think this thing becomes extremely subtle, I don't think
our task today is to prove that you know there is racism in a church, I think
historically it has been there, not because of the church, I think, but in
spite of it, and you may want to get into the historical background, I know
Dr. Torstenson here has made some interesting studies of what has
happened in the church.
1
The Nauga was a monster character used in advertisements for Naugahyde vinyl fabrics.
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 2
00:04:44
Two sets of baptismal orders of service, one for white people and one for
black people because you have to be careful, when you talk about in
baptism, setting a person free. I don't think the point here today is to
belabor the point of the historical church, and to argue whether or not
racism has been there, that's you know--that's like discussing whether or
not they're Eskimos in Alaska or not, that's obvious and I would hope to
think that our task today is to try and say, what do we do about the overt
racism that exists in the church and also the very subtle kind that
permeates me and you, and the white society and how do we get at this,
it's not like taking the speck out of the eye through a little exercise of doing
something good for black people, or confession, but I think it's maybe for
us, it's our thorn in the flesh that we're going to have to live with, we're
going to have to work it constantly, daily.
00:05:49
I think we're going to have to be sensitive to the fact that our culture, our
white society is in fact saturated with a tendency of white racism. I think it
calls for real honesty and particularly in the church where we do have, we
have the principle, we have the philosophy, we have a power I think to
overcome this. I think in the past, we have neglected this and--and maybe
now, we ought to be what we were meant to be, what we are called to be,
and maybe the greatest task right now is to face honestly and openly. You
know, “how am I handling the racism, it is a part of me?” I suppose we
could list a whole variety of examples and reel these off all morning.
00:06:40
I could just mention one, I have a young negro boy in my confirmation
class now, he's thinking about making his confirmation, we do it on an
individual basis not as a class, but his mother tells me, I don't want my son
confirmed at Prince of Glory. I don't want him confirmed a Lutheran. And I
said, “why?” She said “well, I know that he will be and has been accepted
there, but she said, I've been in other churches, I've been in other
Lutheran churches, and I know that he and our family will not, because we
have been there and felt not--not a kind of dismissal, but the kind of subtle
thing that--that kind of says without words, you know, why don't you just
kind of drift away.“
00:07:35
She said, “For this reason, I'm very concerned about my son and I'm not
sure I really want him confirmed in a Lutheran Church.” That's racism, and
that's us. And I hope that we can open some kind of splitting ourselves
down the middle, and take a good look at this, this morning.
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 3
00:08:08
[Reverend Robinson] Last Sunday, I was confronted by a long-standing
layman in my congregation, and being president of The Way,2 he asked
me some very pointed questions about The Way and he said, what's this
about The Way? what's this about looting, all sorts of questions came
flooding out of his mouth, and he said, “people have no reason for looting
and they should be shot if they're caught looting.” And I said, “I'm sorry if I
take the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill’ much more seriously than that.”
and he said, “I'm sorry I can't understand that, I think if someone has
broken the law, they broken the law to be punished accordingly.”
00:09:00
And so goes, not the kind of racism that was evident in the fifties, when
mothers could spit upon, white mothers could spit upon black children
and, black mothers and fathers, or a white father and a white mother
bringing their white children to an integrated school.
00:09:19
That kind of racism is--is not around in that form, it's a much more subtle
kind, and I think that you yourself are going to have to be aware of that,
and I think, the kinds of questions you may ask this morning, as the kinds
of questions are going to be awfully pointed to yourself. I think Bob has
made it clear, we think of racism in our own projection on somebody else.
I am a racist. I say that in the sense, and when I do say that, I recognize
that play a little game because that's a kind of confessional, it comes only
at moments in one's life, but as Paul said that when “I'm one of the
greatest sinners,” he only can speak from a standpoint of grace, or
forgiveness.
00:10:12
Could he ever even come to understand the depth of his orneriness. I
hope we will come to understand the depth our orneriness this morning, I
don't know if Lillian read to you in her beautiful manner, Mr. Gordon Parks,
did she read anything from Mr. Gordon Parks?
00:10:32
Okay. One of the best ways of talking about racism I don't even call it a
definition. I don't think there is a definition there's only a style of life when
we talk about racism. But he said “What I want/what I am/what you forced
me to be/is what you are.” Did you get that?
2
This suggests Reverend Robinson was President of The Way, a Black community center in North
Minneapolis.
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 4
“What I want/what I am/what you forced me to be/is what you are.
For I am you, staring back from a mirror of poverty and despair, of revolt and
freedom. Look at me and know that to destroy me is to destroy yourself. You
are weary of the long hot summers. I am tired of the long hungered winters. We
are not so far apart as it might seem. There is something about both of us that
goes deeper than blood or black and white. It is our common search for a better
life, a better world.
I marched now over the same ground you once marched. I fight for the same
things you still fight for. My children's needs are the same as your children's. I,
Too, am America. America is me. It gives me the only life I know, so I must share
it in its survival. Look at me. Listen to me. Try to understand my struggle against
your racism. There is yet a chance for us to live in peace beneath these Restless
skies.”3
00:12:07
Surprisingly enough, the editorial in March 8th of Life Magazine when it
was reviewing the Kerner Report4 had a very interesting article. I’ll just
quote briefly from it.
“What the Kerner report accomplishes ultimately is the destruction of a litany of
comfortable assumptions long-held by white Americans--namely that bigotry is an
exclusively Southern infection; that Negroes have been held down by poverty not
racism; that hard work and good luck will bring success for anyone; that some
outside force is responsible for urban uprisings; that Negroes have the same
opportunities as other American minorities; and most basic of all, the report
questions the assumption that we are fundamentally a decent and humane
people.”5
00:13:09
I don't know how much theology and if you have read. But since we're
talking about the church and bigotry, I want to turn to a particular
theologian his name is Reinhold Niebuhr, to give a sense of presence on
what we're trying to talk about today, because I know once the questions
come in there beautiful way will become very specific and we'll lose sight
of some of these kind of insights. But so I shared them now. Niebuhr wrote
many years ago:
Gordon Parks, “A Harlem Family.” Life Magazine, March 8, 1968.
A 1967 report published by The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, named for its chair,
Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Jr.
5
Donald Jackson, “Racism, Not Poverty, or Cynicism, Caused the Riots” Life Magazine, March 8, 1968.
3
4
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 5
“There are times when the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children and
new social forces rise up as the ‘Vengeance of the Lord’ against traditional
injustice. We are living in such a time. This is a period of judgment in which the
structures and systems of community which once guaranteed a tolerable justice
have themselves become the source of confusion and injustice.”6
00:14:11
He has a whole section in some of his writings called “The confusions of
an inadequate culture.” Our culture is inadequate because we have never
appropriated the black experience and what that is meant. And till we do,
we are going to have a culture that is going to be less than what it can be.
Part of the problem of the crisis of our times, as Mr. Niebuhr points out, is
that every culture which is the spirit of a civilization always confuses its,
it's, it's own way of life to be eternal truths. And so, during a time of
cultural crisis that we live in, life comes to, very close to meaninglessness,
because the ideas that a culture once regarded as eternal are actually
being destroyed in the crisis.
00:15:21
And of course, this is further compounded because the illusions which
were thought to be eternal, in the heavens somewhere, are the ones that
are being questioned. that which is not to be questioned is questioned. It
is clearly that we have inherited from our parents, and we ourselves are
falling trapped, to the same kind of historical optimism of our culture. I
don't care where you ideologically stand, I think it's awfully hard to
transcend what that means. The historical optimistism failed to measure
the full dimension of the human spirit and its historical achievements. It
never radically took seriously the matter of human freedom. And so the air
and illusions of white culture, and so racism is that, we have thought either
by education, or by evolution, as the soft utopians would have it, that we
would have, we would overcome the difficulties of human life.
00:16:27
It's very clear that this was an understatement and underestimation of the
difficulties of relating life to life, will - will, interest to interests. We have too
often regarded the achievement of justice and social peace and human
society as a an easy task. Our parents didn't do it, but we will. It is, as a
matter of fact, a very difficult task which can be accomplished with
tolerable success only if its difficulties are fully recognized.
Niebuhr, Reinhold and Ronald H. Stone, ed. Faith and Politics: A Commentary on Religious, Social, and
Political Thought in a Technological Age. Braziller, 1968, page 106.
6
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 6
00:17:10
[John Benson] Thank you very much. Let, let us entertain questions from,
from you. Immediately I can start over here.
00:17:28
[inaudible question from the audience]
00:17:32
[John Benson?] Do what?
0017:33
[audience member clarifies question inaudibly]
00:17:36
[John Benson] The question is: what are some of the specific things that
the church can do to combat bigotry? Pastor Evans.
00:17:48
[Pastor Evans] I think we have to come back, maybe first of all, and say
I'm not the guy to ask this. I think the point of our saying “we're now going
to come and help, and by doing this, resolve our racism,” is maybe the
wrong streak. I think the point is perhaps to ask the Black community, you
know, “how can we help?” Or, “what can we do?” In a sense, for you to
ask me, it's somewhat like the blind, you know, leading the blind. and I
admit that I do think there are some things we have to straighten out in
terms of the basic position of the church, its theological and biblical
understanding of man.
00:18:44
I think the the hang-up with--the American way of life, for many people, is
synonymous with Christianity, and the measure of a man in that context, is
according to how he produces. “I am worthy because I produce.” And if
you meet two men, and one's a doctor and the other is a garbage
collector, you make some kind of status, you know, symbolism in your
mind in terms of the worth of these two people. And yet, I think, biblically
and theologically, I am worthy not because of what I produce or because
I'm a good guy, because I do nice things, but because I exist.
00:19:26
I think that's maybe one place to begin, is to understand, you know, the
basic position of the church in terms of its anthropology and its
understanding of people. And, granted, there are many things we can do,
but I think it begins with a kind of introspection. And I recognize that it's
kind of fun, you know, to examine your intestines for a while, and you
could get all caught up in that too, but I think it's a place where we have to
begin. Not simply in order to rearrange our racism, which I think we often
do, and very comfortably hide behind walls that we build and behalf of
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 7
human relations, which are really walls were we're hiding behind, but to
somehow become very honest as a human being to recognize our hubris
and maybe to take seriously, you know, I think the theological position of
the church.
00:20:30
And then, maybe it's interesting to come back to the theological positions
in terms of the doctrine of man and maybe secondly the doctrine of the
Incarnation, really the emptying of ourselves and identifying ourselves,
you know, with others. But I think we really can't do that until we take, you
know, this careful and honest look at ourselves, in relationship maybe to a
document like The Kerner Report. And I think that's where we begin. In
discussion groups, in in a kind of maybe it's an honest kind of confession,
that this isn't something that we simply get rid of, but we learn to maybe to
gradually overcome.
00:21:15
Now, there's a ditch on that side of the road, where you become so
introspective that, you know, you never get any farther. I think you live in
that kind of tension and maybe this is what life is all about. And the other
aspect, I think, is to somehow lose yourself in the involvement--the phrase
“now is where the action is” and that might be in a white community as
much as the black community. And to lose yourself and you know in a
whole variety of little things that can't be programmed. I think you have to
gain this kind of sensitivity and that's the big freeze it seems these days
there are all kinds of sensitivity trainings. Some do it for an understanding
of the self, some have to do with behavior, some have to do with group
dynamics but maybe to begin there.
00:22:14
And then the final thing. I think a lot of people say before I know what I
want to do, I want to make sure just you know how this is going to happen,
I want it to be a safe kind of involvement and I think you kind of throw
yourself into the breach and and with some faith, which I hope is still a
theological word. You cannot dump yourself in and commit yourself to
involvement that is not programmed for you by anybody, but as you're
sensitized I think you begin to find where these places are, who these
people are, that that need the kind of relationship with you and maybe
much more you need the relationship with them and and you kind of grow
together in understanding.
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 8
00:22:55
I don't think it's a big massive program, but it's it's little people doing
terrible things, and sparked not by some proclamation from the mayor or a
pastor, but maybe the Holy Spirit still moves people into these kinds of
positions and the program that maybe is was to kill it. Rollie, why don't you
clarify? [he chuckles].
00:23:20
[Pastor Robinson] Out of my own personal reflection--you asked the
question “what can specifically the church do?”--I think one is that we're
going to have to understand very clearly that the source of power is from
the standpoint of community, not individuals concerned. If you are going
from that standpoint, you're going to get knifed, and killed, and you're
gonna die. Well that's fine, that may be a place where you want to put
yourself in I--don't mean die in the funeral taker sense, but just you sort of
die out, wilt out. I think it's very clear that at any time that there have been
even any movements in this country, movements, communities, always
come from the black community.
00:24:01
The time now has arrived. I believe that, and I think you understand much
better than an older generation will ,and that is that community is
extremely crucial. That is a source of power. The day of individualism is
gone. If you've got to be to more than one meeting in one night, that's just
a very clear kind of example. The sign of the times that individualism is
dead. Now community--what what does that mean? It means that some of
you're going to have to covenant together and are going to have to hold
one another accountable in other words keep one another honest and also
sustain and support one another in this struggle now you got to
understand this is no longer an extracurricular activity this is for keeps it's
a whole lifetime venture.
00:24:53
And if you think it's anything less than you, indeed have not passed the
Red Sea and you want to go back with the pharaoh. And I think it's very
clear that that you're going to have to covenant in some form however you
decide that is to be and say we choose we're not only chosen but we
choose to be these kind of people who are going to stand over against
white racism wherever it occurs within people and institutions and so forth
we just dedicate our lives and we will then work out strategies and tactics
to get on top of whatever that means. Now, there have been some efforts
in this line, and some of you may already know about it, there have been
created what we call “civilizing communities” throughout the metropolitan
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 9
area for white people to work not in black ghettos so to speak but in terms
of white ghettos, and this kind of task is having some success.
00:25:42
Well, you see the problem with most of us is that we want to organize. You
cannot organize a community, that's a misnomer. We set up our little
Newtonian kind of models, you know, there's a box up here, then we got
those subcommittees, and sub-subcommittees, and what you do is you
define out of existence even before you start any sense of movement.
You've killed it all. We don't live in a Newtonian world anymore, but an
Einsteinian world, and if you don't believe me--you're all of your lives are
like an exploding star, and I have to do a spin point on all the points of that
exploding star. All your involvement and somewhere in the center, you
are. Because you may try to find where that center is.
00:26:25
The community's got the same kind of model, and the only way you're
going to hold together all those kinds of involvements, and make them
significant, with any kind of power, you're going to have to have a sense of
community that says “who says you could be involved in such and such?”
“Well, I said I'm going to be involved in such and such.” Well, that's still
sense that you count more than any sense of community. I think we have
to enter into families that thing. Also, if you're looking for specifics
regarding the church, the Friendship Press has now published a study
action booklet, some of you may know about it, in terms for for small
groups that outline some action that can be done as far as church of
concern.
00:27:08
Richard Niebuhr had a very penetrating thing to say, years ago, when he
said the church is a social pioneer. And as a social pioneer, it first has to
exercise and cast out the demons within itself. One, the demon of racism
and discrimination, wherever it occurs in the church. And until it does that
it cannot with any honesty turn on society and exorcise society. I'm part of
a Methodist Church that has been segregated for many years. And we
have over a million Black Christians in the Methodist Church that have
always been part of a sort of a church within a church. And the Methodists
have not taken this seriously enough. And I'm sure other churches have
not either, but this is one of the roles that that I think as a church--I use a
word “exorcism,” casting out demons now maybe you feel you don't like to
call racism a demon, maybe you like to call it a social problem, but
whatever terminology you like--to lock onto it this is the kind of role and
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 10
that means just as Christ exorcised demons was that, you are the new
man, you are the new woman. And because of that, you stand over
against all those kinds of forms of discrimination, forms of bigotry, that
appear in yourself appear in others.
00:28:29
[John Benson] Another question over here.
00:28:33
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:29:19
[John Benson] The question has to do with the problem of apathy in the
church. The example is given of a special meeting in the Methodist
Church of three hundred members and eight showed up. And, as I take it,
those that did couldn't understand what the problem was. Who would like
to speak? [Both panelists speak at once and the audience laughs] Let the
Methodist speak first.
00:29:45
[Pastor Evans] Oh I just had a comment.
00:29:47
[John Benson] He should really answer this. This would never happen in a
Lutheran church because there would be six people instead of eight! [the
audience laughs]
00:30:00
[Pastor Robinson] Let's be aware of so we don't fall into an idealistic bag.
Sartre says there's only really three bags you can operate out of: one as
an idealistic bag and a second as a materialistic bag. And if you're
deprived of idealism and materialism then the only other bag you have is a
revolutionary bag. And sometimes idealists think that they're
revolutionaries. I state that because a revolutionary would understand that
he would not be surprised by that kind of turn out. I think the revolutionary
is not concerned by talking to huge gobs of people and convincing them
by his oratorical skills. He's a man who works in the shadows, and I think
there are Christians who have to work in the shadows and work in terms
of their local congregation.
00:31:02
If this--I think that there's a hidden remnant in every congregation, I'm
sure. Be it eight Methodists, or sixteen Lutheran's, or whatever it is. And I
think I think we have to be aware that one we do not fall into despair. You
see, the problem with idealism when he gets frustrated it falls into despair
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 11
or you can even be a realist and you get pushed that too far and you
become a cynic.
00:31:30
Be aware of your own deep sense of alienation. Be aware of that. In that
sense you share something very deep, as young adults, and as students,
with the black community, with black people. I think it's very easy to fall
into that kind of despair. Now, don't be overly shocked when that happens.
We’ve got to understand that history oftentimes catches people up. Yaweh
didn't come down to these people and say “I got a ten point program for
you [audience laughs] and if you agree to my ten points, I'll get you out!”
00:32:09
Undoubtedly, all of the--many people got caught up in the historical
moment and they they moved out. They were just tired of laying down
bricks. And I think that in that sense a lot of them, for all kinds of reasons,
joined. I think the thing is you have to understand that there will only be a
few who will really become part as I said earlier a community, but from
there you can find many kinds of allies. People who say “well, you know,
white people are decent people,” and so forth. And they'll join you in some
tasks. Well you take that very seriously and swing with that and
accomplish the kind of tolerable justice that has to be accomplished.
00:32:48
And not be overly concerned by your successes and failures. In fact, no
longer will you mark your life by that kind of pattern. Because you--if you
did that, then Christ would be an utter failure. I think that our stance as
Christians in this struggle is a victim/victor stance. You can play the victim,
but you always know the victory is already won. In other words, you can
throw and thrust your life anywhere you so choose, even be used if
necessary, because you stand, and the resources that inform your life are
much deeper than that particular moment.
00:33:32
[John Benson]Joining us just now is Reverend Orpheus Williams from the
Grace Immanuel Baptist Church. Now, if you look in your bulletin I'm sorry
that they put you on as a Lutheran. [audience laughs] Since, since you
come after our discussion has started, perhaps the best thing to do would
be to try and direct one or more of your questions to Pastor Williams.
00:33:39
[inaudible question from the audience]
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 12
00:34:38
[John Benson] The question is a complicated one. What I think she's trying
to get at the problem of integration or separation, how this would be
spelled out in the church. That is, separation meaning that the Black
community tries to draw on resources from within itself to increase its self
understanding, self-awareness, pride in self and so on. And, in general,
how this can be aided by the churches, is this…?
00:35:12
[inaudible response from the audience]
00:35:14
[John Benson]...and how it can be resolved. Inside of let's, say the black
churches?
00:35:26
[inaudible response from the audience]
00:35:30
[John Benson asks Reverend Williams something inaudible]
00:35:12
Well, I hear, what I really, I hear what she’s saying but I don't understand
really the problem that she trying to address. Could you make it just a little
bit simpler where really I can understand, see I hear about four different
questions. [he laughs] So I'm trying to understand [inaudible]
00:35:58
[audience member begins asking a question inaudibly]
00:36:09
[John Benson] Maybe I can just bring this over to you. [sound of the
microphone being moved]
00:36:12
[Audience member] It seems to me lately that there’s been an increased
emphasis in developing the Negro’s pride in his own race and his own
history, which of course is needed. And it seems to me this would cause a
conflict around, between this and what we've emphasized before. That is,
integration into the white community. And, I'm not sure which should be
our goal, because it seems to me that the emphasis is on the pride within
the Negro race. There has to be some kind of equilibrium between the
white community and the pride in the Negro community. And this would, I
think that causes conflict. In other words, should it be a development
toward integration, or should have been a development in toward pride of
the Negro of being themselves?
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 13
00:37:09
[Pastor Williams] I really, I feel that if the Negro really knows the exact
disabilities where he came from, it would make it easier to work with him.
Truthfully, this is my feeling. After all, you must bear in your mind that you
would take just to look at yourself and say “what do I want of life?” So the
Negro, he takes a look at himself, says “what do we want?” We talk about
equal opportunities, three qualities I think again, that maybe you're
speaking somewhere in terms of--when you say integration, intermarriage,
and so forth if I'm hearing you're right. That's, that’s the term that you was
slightly speaking on again. I’ve said that, often I’ve stated that what God
joined together let not man put asunder.
00:38:15
What I'm trying to say, if this is what the two individuals want, then good
luck! Always you have to bear in your mind go back into your history. The
Bible teaches from one blood come all, so when it all winds up we're still
brothers and sisters whether it's accepted or not. I believe in human rights
and this would be “do unto others what you would have done to you.” This
is a human right. Whatever you would like to be done to you in any race.
This also applies to the Black man. He likes that too. You like to be able to
live wherever you choose? So does the Black man.
00:39:08
You wouldn't want him to come out in your community shooting, so he
don't want it here. Because we are all human beings, you may not accept
it, but we are all brothers and sisters and we think somewhat alike we
don't think alike but somewhat alike. Because again the system of
teaching wasn't exactly alike. All our lives we have learned that we must
understand you in order to survive. You didn't have to understand us to
survive, therefore we really now understand, you should try to understand
that.
00:39:46
And working together, all of us for one color I think will solve the problem.
Look at you saying “what do you want to do?” “What can you do?” And,
“What will you do?” Do you really believe that’s what you're trying to do?
Sometimes you do things, you don't do it because you believe it. You do it
cause he did it or she did it. But within yourself, examine yourself, be fair
to yourself. And whatever you attempt to do be fair. And I think people will
solve the problem. Did that answer your question?
00:40:30
[Pastor Evans] I think one of the things that you said alluded to the fact
that integration means an integration into a white society. This is not
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 14
integration. This is assimilation. And I don't think the Black community
wants this. And if you'll hit me on the head for 200 years, I probably don't
want to become like you. And I think again this is one of the healthy
tensions within the whole human relations struggle now is a tension
between separate but equal and integration. I think we have to understand
that the Black man is caught up in this tension too. I think this is positive
and it's healthy but we here again we can't judge this, we can't condemn
this, we have to accept this. Again, it's a climate that we have created, and
I think we have to understand the meaning of integration and recognize
that this is this is not assimilation into you know our society.
00:41:29
I think too often we assume that that's what what integration really means
and “I don't want to lose my culture at the expense of someone else.” And
I think that's it's an equal feeling of any people. I think the the the cry now
is that for you know equality, and a kind of sameness, but the the chance
to assert oneself as a person as a culture and as a race. Although I think
that word is probably obsolete also. There’s a human race and maybe
that’s it. But this the understanding and the hang-ups I think that we still
have the idea of the word, the concept of integration means different
things to different people.
00:42:19
I think, here again, to read, to study, to understand, what some of these
phrases mean that touch off again, the racism that we have. Integration,
black power, interracial marriage, has been mentioned it automatically
keys some of the deep feelings that we have we like to pretend that we
don't have but they're there and they come out and define for us a lot of
these phrases that we kind of kick around without understanding what
they really mean for us into the rest of society.
00:43:03
[inaudible question from the audience]
00:43:39
[Pastor Robinson] Let me rephrase the question. The question is how
does a white minister feel when you prepare a sermon on love and
brotherhood and justice to a congregation, I assume, of white people. And
they nod their heads and you smile at them and they smile back and they
shake your hands and then you go home and then on their way home they
see a black man they say they're getting closer? Does that capture what
you?
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 15
00:44:11
I have the same sense of phony, of phoniness that you have. I think that
I'm in a congregation that has been going through confrontation between
two cultures for about ten years now, and I know there have undoubtedly
been a lot of words said from the pulpit in that congregation, including by
myself, that may have been pretty phony. Or, no matter how it may have
been said, it's been received in that in a limited kind of way. I think
however when a congregation that I serve is living where it is and affecting
it, at this moment, God has all kinds of ways of communicating some very
deep things. In God's troubling I guess there is more mercy than
judgment. But what I'm trying to say is is that I usually never have a frontal
attack on the problem of race and really, really hit it obliquely and
indirectly.
00:45:31
And I find that there may be several Sundays nothing is said and some of
the people comment “I wish you would quit talking about the race problem,
you know there's some of the black people who come here and they don't
want to hear about that they they they don't want to hear.” Well, of course I
go talk to my Black brothers and they “we should say a little bit more.” I
say that, as a minister, you are entrusted to speak a word and that word
brings freedom, but we've got to understand as well that that word may not
be received, and doubtedly it has not been received.
00:46:18
However, I find that if God gets frustrated in one way, he has a beautiful
way as a Black man, years ago talked about how God confronts man in
the Adam and Eve story. This was a black man hearing this story. He was
saying that after Adam and Even fall, you know they cover their fronts,
with with fig leaves, you know, covering, but God comes up from behind!
[the audience laughs] Never underestimate God. God shall even use the
wrath of man to praise him.
00:46:54
[John Benson] I'd like to direct a question to Pastor Williams that is: do you
think that Christianity is really a religion for the Black community? Do you
do you think that--Malcolm X used to say that when he began to gain
respect for his Blackness he also decided he was going to abandon the
white man's religion. Do you feel that Christianity is so much of a white
man's religion that it cannot be a real part of the new self-understanding of
the Negro?
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 16
00:47:42
[Pastor Williams] I feel that Christianity this day and the way it has been
for 460 years should die. And a new Christianity should come. You cannot
tell me that the church has done its job or that Christianity has been totally
as it should, and find too much hatred. You cannot, I can’t buy that. So I
think really it's got to be a change in somewhere. I won't say that the way
it's have been talked through the 400 years was altogether wrong, but it
was something that they forgot to teach.
00:48:23
And they should teach that something. You look at Christianity.
Christianity is the people of the church, I don't know--I'm always a little
hard against that because they are supposed to be Christ’s followers, and
they are so quick to say “this don't concern me.” Now, this is not what I call
Christianity. Whether it is in your door, in your block, or whether it's five
thousand of five hundred miles away. If injustice is being done, it involves
all Christians, all priests, and all people.
00:48:58
So I think really Christianity has been whitewashed and watered-down, to
make a long story short. It’s the way I think. It's been--too much water put
in, you know how they put water in something to make it more--Christianity
having watered down. It's not the type that Christ talked about. And I
would say we'd all go back to the type of Christianity I once--I won't use
that word again--Christ’s followers, go back and begin to follow Christ the
way he taught. It’d be a better world well after tomorrow. Does that answer
your question?
00:49:40
[audience member] I'd like to direct my question to the Methodist minister.
You talk about community and how individualism is dead, and you say that
it has to be done now through the community. Well, I mean when you say
community [inaudible] community involves individuals who decided, you
know, to act in the same way today. Prime example, the word of the loving
mother church. And like, this summer I was in Jersey City, and they had a
Norwegian church, Lutheran Church, in a changing neighborhood, it is a
neighborhood starting to change. They thought “oh, well, we’ll be nice and
wonderful, you know, allow these Negroes to come into our church, our
wonderful church, and so they did this. It got to be that the Negroes are
now up to 70% and the old Norwegians, they couldn’t understand this. So
you know what kind of community action is this? We're a community and
we all should live and love together and work together. You know, if
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 17
individuals don't accept other individuals as on the same ground that “here
we are a group of individuals and we all are doing this.”
00:50:56
Like, another example: you come into a church as a stranger, and you say
“oh, we're the church,” and then “we're glad to have you here.” And you
get a thank-you note back from them for attending their church, and you
got the coldest reception from the people who attended this church! And
you wonder “that's a church, they've totally failed.” The church that says
“we're a community of loving, you--we welcome you to our services as a
visitor. And they don’t, the people themselves you know. What's gone
wrong? Where is your community? Then then the individuals haven't
driven to belong, partake, and given themselves, to the community, to the
stranger as they come into their community.
00:51:39
[Pastor Robinson] I don’t see any other Methodist ministers onto the table,
so [the audience laughs]. It’s strange that a Methodism--Methodist
minister would address himself in the question of community, with our
heightened sense of individualism. Christianity has never been, it is it has
never been one for individualism. Personal--for persons, yes, but not for
individuals. If you only stand for individuals, then somehow you just knock
out what church is. When you're baptized, you immediately become part of
a body, and you are always part of that body no matter where you go.
00:52:15
In that sense, there's a community. As a, even outside of the church, one
of the encounters that we--even today, we, we’re, you're having people
here, Black people here primarily, not because you're particularly
interested in them as a person, but because they are Black people. And
this is the time that--
00:52:37
[The audience member begins to speak]
00:52:39
Okay, let me finish my point, and that is that we have to be aware that, in
this time, we're meeting one another as groups, and not as individuals in
one sense. But going back to community and individualism, I mean to say
that there--for me and Christianity, there's no such thing as individualism.
Part of persons, part of the community, great. You're not satisfied.
00:53:06
[Audience member] Not quite. You mentioned the body, and you say that,
you know, you're in a body. Well how come there's so many lame dead
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 18
cells in the body, is what I want to know. [Pastor Robinson laughs] They
welcome you in, you know. The church and the unit can say “we will do
this,” but the congregation will say “well, the church says we have to do it
therefore we have to do it.” And “we're doing it because the church says
we have to do it. [a panelist and the audience member each says
something inaudible] I know what I mean uh, I just can't say it. The church,
like, the church council says we will have an integration Sunday, or we will
have a building fund, and we can hear this thing going on at Holy
Community. They have a building fund and they're going to build high-rise
towers over there for the old folks and you know the whole church has
decided on this.
00:54:03
But you always get this one faction that says well we'll do it all right
because we have to do it there's no excuse, no way to get out of it. It's just
a general coldness you get from the church that says, you know,
“welcome! Glad to see you!” And everybody in the church really couldn't
give a care whether you’re there or you’re not. Oh, hey…”
00:58:27
[Pastor Robinson] Are you ever cold with anyone?
00:59:30
[Audience member] Me? Oh, I imagine.
00:54:29
[Pastor Robinson] So, yeah there's coldness in the church. There's the
sense of duty that is misplaced servanthood. They're all those kinds of
things. If a Methodist--may I, I'd like to quote from Martin Luther about our
kind of alienation and since we have about the church maybe. The church
is a whore, but she's my mother. Remember, Martin Luther? [the audience
laughs and claps]
00:55:03
[Pastor Evans] I respond to a previous assertion and that is that the
people you meet in church on Sunday or or the Church Council this is this
is not necessarily synonymous with the body of Christ which is invisible.
And I think we get caught up with the idea that the people you meet the
church on Sunday and, you know, “this is the body.” This is not
necessarily so. I mean coming into the building, this doesn't make you a
member of the body or a Christian any more than going in a hen house
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 19
makes you to chicken. It doesn’t work that way. [laughter] And I think you
talked about-- that was said by John Wesley [loud laughter and applause]7
00:55:57
But I could say I could say the same thing about my reception here at
Augsburg. You have, you know, you have official hosts here who are
meant to be nice to the guests who come, and no one said “hello” to me or
greeted me. And this is this is society today. The rat race, you know,
existence that--I don't think it's a desire on the part of you not wanting to
meet me or people in church not wanting to meet you, but this is a kind of
the unfortunate game we’re involved in now, and and it's very unchristian
really.
00:56:40
[Audience member] Well this can be directed to Reverend Williams as
well. The example that I want to bring up has to do with a Black person
being white church and that we have people in our church that--we had a
Nergo family coming in and they were in the church, and some people just
thought the world of them because there are really wonderful people. But
there were others that, they would turn or they would stare, you know,
make snide remarks or something like this. And, later, when we had a
discussion about this the attitude of the people they’d say “No! We love
these people, you know. We, you know, we think they're really great!” And
all this and that. And they cannot see when they're doing anything wrong.
How do you combat people in the church that have this attitude and yet
they think that they are Christian, and they cannot see their thoughts as to
their attitudes in the way they react to different people?
00:57:44
[Pastor Williams] Well as, you all just said a while ago, everyone that's in
the church don't make them be a body of Christ. A lot of people can go to
the church can, as the Baptists teach, proclaim that they are following
Christ, but that don't make them be following Christ. I think really the best
way to combat that is to: you take your stand as a Christian. And, by you
taking your stand, see really whether you'll ever accept this and that a
Christian is nothing but like a tool for God anyway. So you take the stand
and, do your job, and encourage others. This is about the best way in that
this one [inaudible] we pray for them. I was taught prayer changes things. I
can say prayer brought us a long ways. I think this is why we were able to
7
John Wesley was the founder of Methodism, and Pastor Evans likely misquoted him as a
self-deprecating joke.
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 20
come this far, through faith and prayer. So, you as an individual--just stand
as a Christian and encourage.
00:58:59
See, you really don't know the authority within your body, with Christ, until
you begin to use that. And I also said if you use what you got, sometimes
Christ will subsidize it and gives you a little more. [laughter] So this was
these one of the greatest things that you could do. Does that answer your
question? [he laughs]
00:59:17
[Pastor Evans] There's a word that Jesus makes very clear about loving
the enemy. And the enemy, boy I tell you, that that's a real difficult one
these days. Maybe your parents may be your enemies. And it may be
these white Christians that may be your enemies in this situation where,
for them, you know you are the enemy and the kind of threat that you
bring upon them. And I'm saying that you must love them and, as
Reverend Williams said, pray for them. Pray without ceasing.
01:00:08
There's a group of us from around the metropolitan area which have
organised an Interfaith Emergency Council that, if a human disaster blows,
the church can become present to that disaster. And some of us were
becoming extremely hung up with somebody, I don't know, some person.
But, it's very easy to harangue. You know with all the compassion that we
have, in ourselves and the rightness that's within ourselves, and at the
same--someone said “well, why don't you just pray for them?” Well, I think
the if you’ve ever had to pray for an enemy, I think then you're really
tasting something about what prayer means.
01:00:51
And I think that as one generation, they oversell a certain style of prayer
which we don't feel we can buy, there's you know I think Malcolm Boyd in
some way has caught for us what prayer is. And, in that sense, Malcolm
Boyd's book “Running With Me, Jesus” or “if Jesus I,” however it’s said
[another panelist says the correct title] “Are You Running With Me,
Jesus?” That is prayer without ceasing. He is running without ceasing, and
all the situations that confront one. I just say that in that situations that as
Reverend Williams said, that you take your stance, and I think sometimes
we think that we, out of our optimism, can manipulate and work around
conflict. No.
01:01:40
[John Benson] We have time for just one more question.
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 21
01:01:44
Maybe this isn't a fair question to ask, but I wonder what and you know we
come to the safe we ever could completely be integrated, what would this
be like? You know, I've heard some people say that it would be like white
people looking at the Negro indifferently as they look at at the way other
way people are and vis-versa. What--is this right?
01:02:08
[the audience laughs after a silence]
01:02:14,
[Pastor Williams] Seems like no one want this one, I don't know. Truthfully,
if we would ever be integrated in love I would say it would be a happy
world, but integrated because society says so, we would still be in trouble
because that little chaos would still be there. But integrated in love,
integrated in love, then everybody would be happy. I doubt that will
happen in my lifetime but hope in some way that--you known as we said,
ah Christians I can't understand again. I'd like to look at everyone as a
human being and I like to look and see a little part of Christ and every
every human being.
01:03:05
And I would like to feel that Christianity, I should say religion, is not
segregated. It's a little part of Christ I would like to see in all of us. I also
remember the book “God is Dead,” and, when I see our confusions,
injustice, I said this is when God died, in that place. When I see love and
happiness, well there is God, he's alive. I think we'll be able to have a
beautiful world once everybody has integrated love and they heart, not
because Sarah’s done it, Jack does it, but because they have love within
their heart. It would be a happy world.
01:03:52
[John Benson] Did that answer your question?
01:03:58
[Pastor Evans] Here again, a definition of what is integration, I think we
usually see this as racial. I think, for me the racial bit is not half as--
[The original tape cuts off]
Christianity and Bigotry (morning session) (transcript), page 22
Show less
Transcript of “Green Power: Economic Crisis in the Ghettos”
(afternoon session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0342
Description: Evan Anderson and Vern Bloom, of the Office of Economic Opportunity;
Gleason Glover, of the Minneapolis Urban League; Cli... Show more
Transcript of “Green Power: Economic Crisis in the Ghettos”
(afternoon session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0342
Description: Evan Anderson and Vern Bloom, of the Office of Economic Opportunity;
Gleason Glover, of the Minneapolis Urban League; Clifford Johnson of the Twin Cities
Opportunities Industrialization Center; and Harry Davis discuss economic
disenfranchisement and racism in a panel moderated by Dr. Norma Noonan. The panel was
part of a day focused on speaking and listening to issues of racial injustice, known as "One
Day in May," 1968 May 15. The panel was part of a day focused on speaking and listening to
issues of racial injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 01:05:47
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
[The recording cuts in following introductions]
00:00:00
[Harry Davis]--the use and the force of green power. You will not be
basically equal. So what must be done in the Black Power movement is to
get into the mainstream of green power, to be able to exercise and to
appreciate the loans and the banks and the investments, to know about
the stock markets, to know how to put the squeeze on various political
figures when they are out of line, and you can do this of course with green
power. It must basically have support from people in the community and
people in business and industry. The church itself depends on green
power. As you know, the church is the largest holder, the second largest
holder, of green power. The United States government is the first, but the
church is second, so whatever point of life that we enjoy, or we participate
in, we must from some time at some time become involved, and the
reaction results the influence of the green power.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 1
00:01:03
You, right today, are not enjoying green power as much as some of the
gentlemen on the panel are, ‘cause these are professional men. You're in
the process of learning so you don't have too much green power at the
present time, but I'm sure that in the very near future, and you get your
degrees, and go out into the world, that you'll be a part of making green
power effective. It's pretty hard to say what green power means to
everyone, and some of us I'm sure don't appreciate it too much because
it's an everyday thing, but as a Black man, I know the green power,
must--means to me that I must have it in order to play an important part in
the community. If I don't have it, then I'm not too well respected in the
leadership capacity. If I don't have green power, I can't go to the store and
pay my bills and buy food and clothing for cash.
00:01:52
If I go into the store, the man would look at me and say ‘he is the one that
does not pay his bills because he doesn't have money.’ Looking at--I'm
looked at suspiciously. So until I can go in and pay my bills, buy for cash,
then he will ask you to come back again. This way, I can gain respect to
him, and to others that I do business with. The effect of green power is
very important, very important to the Black movement, or we must get into
the mainstream of green power, therefore, we must utilize our resources,
not only in our financial wizards such as Mr. Johnson, but in our resource
wizard such as Mr. Evan Anderson.
00:02:33
Collectively, we can get into the mainstream, teach and preach about the
effectiveness of savings, of investments, of mutual funds, of many ways
that we can become, we can get the use of green power. I'm sure that you
don't want to listen to me speak all day, and these gentlemen have given
you some background on their philosophy of green power so let's get to
the point and let you ask us some questions to get a good discussion
going.
00:02:59
[Norma Noonan] Before we open it up to the floor, do any of you want to
say a word or do you want to just get your question. You're speaking.
00:03:07
[Evan Anderson] No, I'll wait on it.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 2
00:03:07
[Norma Noonan] Okay, let's get some questions going and go from there.
Come on let's not all be shy. [Inaudible remark from a panelist] [Noonan
laughs]
00:03:20
[Audience member] Mr. Davis, I heard one of the panelists say this
morning--well, first of all let me say that I interpreted your remarks to say
that the use of money and the availability money is very important to the
solutions of that Black problem. I heard one of the families say this
morning, that if America is going to be saved, it's going to be saved by
Black America and it will be saved because Black America is not hung up
on the almighty dollar. In other words, they don't see everything in terms of
economics, you know to the extent of exploiting people, this type of thing.
00:03:56
I seem to sense some conflict between what he's saying and what you're
saying. It's hardly fair for me to try to tell you what he said [inaudible].
00:04:08
[Harry Davis] Well I can appreciate what he's saying, because I believe
that what he's trying to say is that we are not experienced in the tie-ups of
using other people for the value of a dollar or the benefit of the dollar to
us, but we must realize too, that to become effective and to get into the
power structure that we must accumulate and control a certain part of
green power this is a necessity, we have to, and until we can control and
accumulate some of this green power, then we're still going to be in the
rear, because we're going to be used for our money instead of using
others for their money.
00:04:42
You see, if we're not on the boards of banks, if we're not on the advisory
committee of banks, if we're not associated and stockholders and big
corporations, we have--we don't have too much to say of what they do
with our money, you see. And until we get on these boards, until we
become stockholders, then we can control and tell them what to do with
the money that we accumulate. We can control a certain amount of that
money. By controlling a certain amount of that money, we can become
powerful. Now, if we stay away from the banks, you see, we're not going
to be able to force banks to give us loans to finance homes and things of
that sort, and this is where the tie-up comes.
00:05:21
Many Black people do not have the opportunity, and are turned down by
banks, because they do not have good credit ratings or they have
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 3
established no credit whatsoever. So the banks will not give them money.
Now how are we going to force the banks to give them money if we don't
get into the mainstream and try to control some of that money in the bank?
So, we would have a voice in saying, ‘look you're you're not lending or
you're not encouraging Black people to come and use the facilities of this
bank, and you must do this because we are stockholders in this
corporation and we are stockholders in this bank and we want our money
used to benefit our people.’ This is only done at the present time by a
small part, a small segment of the Black community, but the more people,
the more Black people, we can get functioning on these boards and
controlling money, the better chance we will have to tell them how to use
this money.
00:06:18
You can take this from the Jewish movement. As an example, when they
went down to Miami Beach not too many years ago, they were told that
they weren't wanted. They couldn't be, they couldn't rent hotel rooms and
they couldn't go into certain restrooms, so they utilized their green power
and they bought the hotels [audience laughs] and then when they went
back and they told the man, the man said, ‘well you can't use you here,
we can't give you a room.’ They said ‘well no we can't, you don't have a
job either! Because I own this place.’ And unless we're just going to take it
by force, I'm sure that we realize that this is really necessary or possible
that we must get into the mainstream of controlling a certain model green
power.
00:06:56
[Clifford Johnson] Norma, may I respond to that as well? I see a
dichotomy in what Dr. Johnson says, but it's not the dichotomy that he
brought up, that he pointed out. The first dichotomy is the way you look at
the situation. First of all, he feels the problem as a Negro or a Black
problem, which is not the case at all. It has long since ceased to be a
Black problem, it's not a white problem. You know, it was a Black problem
as long Black people were unable to get from under the heel. Black people
are now insisting on being let from under the heel, so, therefore, it
becomes a white problem.
00:07:35
How do you deal with this new dilemma, this new situation, that you find
yourselves in? Do you permit the Black man to get a share, his fair share
of his birthright, or do you attempt to keep him under the heel and
therefore destroy the society? Now, this is precisely what the man was
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 4
talking about today, in this earlier session, that the salvation of this society
as it is, and I honestly cannot believe that it can survive as-is, but the
salvation is dependent upon the Black man.
00:08:15
Moving into the arena of the society, so far as economics are concerned,
the black man who is not accustomed to handling the dollar exploitatively
will be put in a position once he has it, to use his dollars, rather than to
exploit, to help people because having come out of a genesis in which he
recognizes the value of helping, rather than exploiting, he will, therefore,
use the dollar in a different means or manner than it has been used by the
white society. And so, therefore, we will get a total reorientation of our
society, so far as the value structure et cetera of our society is concerned,
so this is what I meant by the society not surviving as presently structured.
Because once we get an equally sharing on the part of people regardless
of what race, and you know that whites are about one-fifth of the
population of the globe, you're by far in the minority, so once we get all of
these other four-fifths of the world sharing equally in this economic state
that we're talking about, we're going to get a re-orientation.
00:09:39
And hopefully through this way society, the American society will survive,
but it is in this country, because the white man in this country is pitted
against colored people all over the world. So, once, through the process of
mobility of the Black man, demonstrating to the rest of the world that white
America knows how to live in an integrated society, and to permit its
colored people to partake in the society, then, of course, the vis-a-vis the
rest of the world, America, and the society might survive.
00:10:25
[Norma Noonan] Yeah. [presumably pointing to a member of the
audience]
00:10:28,
[Audience member] I'd like to ask the question to you, Clifford. Why does
the federal government require most of the anti-poverty organizations to
be non-profitmaking organizations, and do you think if this were different
that Black people could be able to help themselves more?
00:10:43
[Clifford Johnson] I got -- answer -- first part of your question, why? I don't
know, other than the fact that the government is a quote-unquote
‘nonprofit.’ But, I do agree with your contention here that we've got to get
out of this nonprofit bag, you know, got to get out of it. Everything that
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 5
Black people head up is nonprofit. Hell, look at the society it's
profit-oriented, we're a capitalistic society! So you got to permit that Black
man to get into some kind of operation in which he can make dollars off of
dollars, you know. Now we have, of course as I said this morning, the
most wealthy, the richest, the [inaudible] billionaires in this country are
people who produce nothing. Not one screw, not one nut, in our one bolt.
They produce nothing.
00:11:33
Their money go out and have babies, and make more money for them, so
we've got to permit Black people to get into the same bag! Where once
they can make a million, they can reinvest that million and make four or
five million, you see, and this is the bag they've got Black people wrapped
up in today or they can't make money because they don't let them have a
profit status corporations. Yes, I fully agree.
00:12:04
[Evan Anderson] On that matter of [inaudible], I happen to work for the
federal government. I, you know, studied quite a bit, but to me it's a type of
way like Mr. Pillow just spoke about. Our congressmen and congress
[inaudible] and so far and, as a gentleman here at the table, and myself,
we've come up with beautiful ideas and programs that could very easily be
incorporated into, you know, profit-making things. But you take for
example, we're limited so far. I think the type of situation is, you see
something happening, so let's go down there and be cool, you know, with
the riot starts, he comes running down and you might call it you fire
insurance policy, you might call your guilty conscience, or else you just
might call it, you know, security. But I think that, like he said, it could be a
lot of profit making things, a matter of fact, we'll always run into this
problem, whereas the federal government will give a grant to some type of
program and at the end of the year, if things didn't go to cool, or a lack of
interest is something to put in [inaudible] and a lot of times even if it's a
good program it just might not get funded.
00:13:04
It all the depends how they happen to feel that day, when they're voting in
Congress. But if this type of program could get funded right off the ground
or else if we had, even a small loan, you know, corporation we have that.
I'm talking about a large corporation loan. After that one year, I can't see
any way in the world where a person come up with a good, you know, a
program or an idea that will work to make money for people in the ghetto
that it couldn't take care of itself, and I agree with you 100%. I just want to
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 6
let you know that’s what Mr. Pillow meant when he said, let's start calling,
you know, if you believe in that [inaudible] congressmen and let them
know as, you know, you might even get your student body here to do it,
you know, and you might say ‘well what can we do, you know, half of us
aren't even of voting age,’ and I think there's 1,400 kids -- about students,
not kids, that go here. How many are here?
00:13:52
[Norma Noonan] 17 [hundred].
00:13:55
[Evan Anderson] Okay, well, seventeen hundred votes. They’re going to
start listening to that. That means 1,700 students, approximately, it means
that you also have double your parents at home. This is, you know, great
[inaudible] your strength. Why do you think that, you know, like if you ever
heard, it used to be when you wanted to become president, you go out to
the coal mines you go out to the factories, you shake hands and laborers.
Now where are they going? They're going to the campuses. Cause that's
where the strength is, and that's where the political view is because
they're trying to get you, because they know [inaudible] a year or two,
you're gonna be of that age. They'll be coming up for reelection, and and
that's the issue. You know, you are a power. If you believe in that, get
some people together and help us out, you know, [inaudible]. We need
your help.
00:14:32
[Unidentified panelist] I just make one quick comment. I think this is
entirely right that stop and think now who benefits? Who benefits, for
instance, from the employment of Black people, Indian people who
benefits from having them on welfare? Who gets that money? Well, it's a
guy who owns, you know, the big stores. It the small entrepreneur within
the inner-city area. It's the landlord, now who are these people? These are
all white people. They're the ones to get the money, flow of money, in
other words, you know, is out of the Black community, out of the Indian
community, and in the white community, so actually they're the ones that
benefit. And Cliff's entirely right that what we've got to do is reverse that
flow so that the white dollars begin to go to the minority communities, so
that they can begin to, in a sense, if you want to call it exploitation, okay,
but at least, you know, we've got it going one way, we have to, I think it
seems to me, reverse it.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 7
00:15:23
One good example of that, and this is a little bit different area than we're
probably talking about here, but I think it's parallel to what would be going
on in the inner city, the Black community made more obvious. Take a look,
for instance, at an Indian Reservation. Red Lake Indian Reservation would
be a good example of this. Now there is little or no industry on the Red
Lake Indian Reservation. There are some stores, the stores are owned by
white people. There's a community next door to it called Bemidji. The
outflow of dollars from the Red Lake Indian Reservation to Bemidji is
fantastic, in fact, if they, you know, one of their cheap tools that they can
use is a boycott of Bemidji. It throws everybody into an uproar in Bemidji
because the white man isn't making his dollars anymore and that threat
was used here a year or so ago.
00:16:11
There's a regulation, you can't have liquor stores, can't sell liquor on
Indian reservations. I think, generally accepted, that Indian people like the
rest of us drink once in a while. Well where do they go to drink? Where
they spend their money? In Bemidji. So who gets rich off of them? The
white people that owned the liquor stores in Bemidji, cause they can't own
any.
00:16:29
Well, you know, maybe liquor stores is only one example, but there's a
whole, where the dollars are, you know, are being taken out of here and
they're going into the pockets of the entrepreneurs who are all white and
that has to be reversed.
00:16:42
[Clifford Johnson] Norma, if Harry doesn't want to make a comment to
that. I'd like to make one other--draw one analogy here, and that is you've
got to compare your ghettos, whether particularly your minority group
ghettos and I'm speaking of Negro and Indian now, to a underdeveloped
country to use an international terminology. They are totally dependent!
They are totally dependent. So, part of the solution for getting out of this
bag is to make that ghetto self-sustaining. Put some business in that
ghetto, profit-making business.
00:17:20
Put some industry in that ghetto. What I mean is profit-making. Put some
grocery stores in there, and all of these things must be owned and are
managed by minority group people. And here you change in part, anyway,
the ghetto psychology that has created the problem. Here also you build
respectability for anyone. Because everybody respects John D.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 8
Rockefeller. You know, he's got the money, and we've got to do the same
kind of thing in the ghetto. Maybe not only John D. Rockefeller scale, but
the same process where we make those ghetto residents self-sustaining,
where they have dignity for themselves a great self-image and the kids
growing up in that ghetto can see symbols of success which they can't see
now. Only symbols of success in most instances is that pimp and that
prostitute.
00:18:26
[Harry Davis] I think a parallel can be drawn too of realizing that the core
city is much like the ghetto.
00:18:31
[Clifford Johnson] Right.
00:18:31
[Harry Davis] The majority of people that take money from the core city
move to Edina and St. Louis Park, spend their money there, improve their
schools, while our schools here go to pot, but they still depend on coming
here and taking our resources back away. That's just the same way as a
ghetto.
00:18:53
Now one thing that is, one movement that's being made in the very near
future of course, is the bank going in North Minneapolis. On that bank we
will have Black people running the bank, and owning a great deal, or the
majority of the shares in that bank. What will happen there, we'll put up the
shopping center with twenty or thirty different businesses, and then we’ll
train Black people in those businesses and after they learn the business
we'll sell the business to them at a small interest rate. So then the fact it's
sure there then we Black people there. It'll be Black businesses and you'll
say there would be separate businesses. They won't be integrated into the
community, but at least it'll be a starting point, so some of these
suburbanites that come into the city can buy something from the Black
people, and that they will benefit by it, because they will be there and
remaining there, not going out into the suburbs.
00:19:41
[Evan Anderson] This is the point I was going to add. Once you get those
businesses set up, then you know everybody in this room and a whole lot
of other people come in there with their dollars in their hands, you know, to
purchase what they have to offer in these stores. Same thing we do
anyplace else. Then you begin to reverse the flow of dollars and put it
where it's needed instead of taking away.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 9
00:19:58
[Harry Davis] You know, like one of those good soul food restaurants
where you can come in and eat. [audience laughs]
00:20:00
[Evan Anderson] I might also point out you've heard examples in how it's
gonna do. It is also, if you take for example, if you take Japan in the
Second World War. Well, I mean let's face it. You know, we went in and
we wiped them out, annihilated them, dropped it, you know, that bomb,
and then we came back and we said now we have a guilty conscience
after it's over, and we came back in and rebuilt that baby up, and now, and
I hope everyone here knows [inaudible] Japan is in today. They're one of
the leading countries in the world! Financially independent because we did
what, you know, we came in and gave them that hand, you know, and this
was just federally, you know, if these small business places would just
break down, I'm just saying small business, you know, you could just take
care of itself.
00:20:40
You might get into this analogy, ‘okay now I've heard everything you had
to say, but tell me, you know, why do people who drive Cadillacs and live
in raggedy houses?’ Well, they don't home that house and they really don't
own that Cadillac. The bank owns it, but it's theirs, and they'll go out and
get it washed and get cleaned and when they break out they'll be clean
too because they own that. Now why can't you see it, you know, why
should one, you know, drive through the ghetto he lives why shouldn't he
throw a beer can out in the street? He don't care, it ain’t gonna get
cleaned up anyways until they give, you know, ready for it.
00:21:07
Take, for example, the storms last year, you know. We had little kids on
the north side, nine to ten years old, cleaning up their parks, because they
were out cleaning up everywhere else. This is just the type of thing we're
talking about, is that once you give these people pride, you know, giving
this money get their own thing going. We ain’t going to have to go, right
now, our community [and write] ‘soul, brother’ on our windows, so we don't
get burned out, we worried about that, and this will--this creates this
problem, you know, we [inaudible] gonna have it. Well then there's
something of, you know, you own, it's something you have pride in and
that young brother out there is gonna see that, said ‘well dig, man,1 Evan's
1
“Dig,” used here is a reference to expressing support or interest, as in “I dig it.”
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 10
got a motorcycle shop’ or something, you know. Well cat2 says, ‘well I'm
going to school and give me a car dealership down here.’
00:21:42
That seems like a big joke, but that's what you do. You identify with those
white people, and you said ‘I dig that.’ Now, when you give us something
to identify with, outside you, well then we'll start doing it. Cause it's just like
when you look at it, you say, oh man that colored cat, right away you
turned off and when we see that white cat, it's the same thing, but every
time, you know, that, you know, that's why we have we have so much, you
know, admiration for the Black people that do get ahead that we claim,
you know, that some were militant people that are not Uncle Tom. Now we
just love them to death and, you know, if you gave the example, where
you take a hardcore person, and like Harry said, yeah, we get a cat that
he says, ‘Harry, I'm interested in clothing business,’ you know, so he
dresses clean on time.
00:22:23
He gets this opportunity to get this shop. Can you imagine what this would
do for a young cat to say, ‘well look man, there goes, a man I used to play
pool with this man, we played football together, he’s got his own clothing
store.’ This is what inspires people to go on. It's something, you know,
they can relate and identify with. It goes through the whole things of Black
history in the schools, the whole works. We gotta have our own identity,
you know, and we can't get it from you, you know, and that's just it. You
know, a real fair shake--
00:22:50
[Harry Davis] --I think one other comment on that, it just to make the
parallel again, about going back and billing up Japan after you tore it up.
We spend billions of dollars going in fixing up Japan, and they were our
enemy, and they would have annihilated us if they had a chance. We
spend billions of dollars repairing their country, and we let some of our
country even our own capital, where the Black people were living, still,
look like it was bombed, you know. Without offering any assistance
whatsoever.
00:23:19
We're doing that right here in the city of Minneapolis, because your park
board here, if you look at the park system, the parks in the ghetto areas,
the parks where the Negro people, the Black people live, are the lowest on
the priority list. They have new buildings put on it. Twelve blocks away
2
“Cat” used here is a reference to a person.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 11
from Nicollet Field is Powderhorn, and they needed a new building like I
need a hole in the head, but they got the new building and Nicollet Field
still has the old one and they won't get a new building for three years, you
see, and there are three times as many children using Nicollet Field as are
using Powderhorn. And if you look at Longfellow, the priority would have
even over Sumner Field in North Minneapolis.
00:23:58,
They had the same shack there at Sumner Field when I used to play at
Sumner Field when I was a child. I can't say how many years ago that
was. [Audience laughs] But it's the same building! It's the same building,
and they have made no attempt even to put any paint on it! And that's right
in the multiple dwelling unit section of town, where there are all kinds of
kids, you know--
00:24:19
[Evan Anderson] --Rats, roaches, outdoor bathrooms--
00:24:20
[Harry Davis]--everything else. See that this creates resentment and
people have no value at all what you care about what the dollar means.
Doesn't mean anything to them, because they never had it. You're talking
about examples. Well, right here in the City of Minneapolis, when I was a
kid, he's talking about something to look forward to, something to go to
college for, the only successful Black man I saw was a pimp, and the ones
that did have a college education were working in the post office.
00:24:45
[Evan Anderson] Right.
00:24:47
[Harry Davis] See? You have a lot to look forward to. Even your fathers
too. It may be possible for them to become president of the country, of a
corporation, to make millions of dollars, to go anyplace and every place
that their money can send them. But we may have the money, but there's
still places we can't go, right here in our own country, and this is what
creates resentment, and this is what has to be changed.
00:25:11
[Norma Noonan] Yeah. [presumably pointing to a member of the
audience]
00:25:12,
[Audience member] Evan said that Negro people need someone to look
up to. You know, ‘this person made it, so there's chance for me.’ I was
wondering if a Negro person who does make it or the professional, does
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 12
he stay right in the community or does he move out to the suburbia with
the rest of [people who make it or are professional]?
00:25:35,
[Evan Anderson] Let me tell you, we used to have that type of problem I
might say but, I think a lot of the brothers that moved out there, they were
off in that dream. I think a few of them are coming back. I don't know if
they'll move back, but let's take for example, we have people that made it,
you know, in a little teeny, teeny, what you could say that I made a
financially for a while. I'm not coming back to go to school and stuff. I
haven't moved out of the ghetto. Now Harry has, and I'm pretty sure that
Cliff has, but I don't know. But we're still in there, you know, we're there all
the time. You take for example a friend of our, mine, he happens to be a
professional athlete and, he's made it, you know, he doesn't have to come
back and they're coming back to help.
00:26:16
It's a cause now where like Gleason said this morning, you know, even the
cats that have made it, you know, that they haven't made it. What sense is
there in making it when you have to give up your own identity to make this.
And when I talk about identities, see, let me give you an example, you
know. You turn on the TV and I see you're John Wayne, you know, in
other words Walt Disney just ate it up. That just don’t get it. It has to be
violent. If you don't see John Wayne knocking a cat over a bar stool, it's
boring. Or, if you don't go to a show and see James Bond shoot 40 cats
off the mountain, then it's boring, you know, but you still dig this, because
you can identify with him.
00:26:47
That's a white man, see? But when I go, for sake of the identification, see,
but I tell you, one of these new movies, like I just dug to death, was this
one with Ossie Davis and Burt Lancaster. I had never seen no colored
man fight that long with a white man. [Audience laughs] No, look here, I
know people that went down--and it thrilled me to death. He didn't whoop
this colored cat, he tricked him a couple of times, and finally Ossie Davis
put the brick upside his head, man. This was great to me. Now, it wasn't a
violent thing that I dug, but this black cat [inaudible] just traded blows and
they were equal. See, and that's something that means something to me,
and I know that Ossie Davis they're coming back into the ghetto.
00:27:27
You take on your wall, for example, these pictures of Godfrey Cambridge.
Can you imagine that the schedule that they have, you know, it's just go,
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 13
go, go, and they're still helping their people. It's not the point that you have
to live on 38th and Fourth [Avenue South], or you live on Newton and
Plymouth over north, but the thing is that you keep your identity and you
help your people. When Cliff said about getting some money up and
helping the people, okay now take Harry, for example. One of the means
of us getting this bank was Harry. Okay so, you know he’s staying with his
people, he could have said ‘well, wait and I got my cousin here, and he'd
be good in his clothing store here, and mother's sister she'd be rich, but
no! We're bringing opportunity to the ghetto, and the, you know, residents
get it. You don't need fourteen years of college to get this type of thing.
That's what we're talking about.
00:28:12
See I can identify with Harry, you know, now you can't you dig this, you
know I come to your bank, I see you. Now I'm gonna go to the bank and
see me, I don't believe in banks too much, but I'll go to that one, because I
identify with them.
00:28:22,
[Audience member] It used to be that they’d say that the Negro who has
made it, kind of like the white exploitation [inaudible] the Negro has made
it also [inaudible] the lower class because, you know, they look down on
[inaudilbe] not help him--
00:28:42
--[Harry Davis] Let me think what we're trying to do what we hope to do,
what we hope to do and what we are doing. Doing right now. We're
making the Black middle class man and woman realize and recognize that
he must accept the pledge of the three T’s. And we’re going out to the
suburbia where he lives, doesn’t make a difference where he lives, cause
as long as he accepts this pledge and he will pledge to help Black people
with his time, his talent, and his ties.
00:29:14
He has to do this. He has to do this or he isn’t identified with us, so if he
doesn't spend some time with us, and give us his talent ,or shake in some
cash, he's not Black. He may be Black as coal, see, he's still not Black, so
we have no association with him. So this will bring them out of their little
parishes.
00:29:40
[Clifford Johnson] Harry, let me, let me--you can't understand the
movement of the Black individual who quote-unquote--1956 or there
before had made it away from the ghetto unless you understand what
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 14
white society did to the Blacks who lived in that ghetto, you see. Search,
for a moment your own repertoire of association of ‘Black.’ Bad, evil, it's
dirty, you know, on and on, blackball, you know the whole bit. So, it's all
evil, so there has been, there had been, until very recently schizoid
tendencies within the Black people, and Mr. Glover drew the analogy this
morning. They hated themselves!
00:30:37
Of course the moment they made it they got out of that ghetto because
this was associated with dirt, filth, evil, ugliness, on and on and on, so they
wanted to get away from that. They wanted to get away from--so they did
leave. Nobody had anything to do. They're never gonna reach back and
grab that brother and pull him up because by his residency in the ghetto,
he was identified with something dirty and evil and ugly. But coming back
to the ghetto doesn't necessarily mean that he's moving back into the
ghetto either. This is a kind of psychological identification with the Black
people who live there, though, I might have ‘made it,’ in so many words I
haven't because I can never make it as long as my brother hasn't.
00:31:29
As long as he's oppressed by the establishment. So, what has happened
here is that this racist country finally, the Black people have gotten over
this kind of schizoid tendencies and are being fused into one. We have a
Black community, I don't care where they live now. He's Black, because
he knows by virtue of that pigmentation, he could only go so far. He can
only go so far, but if, together, you become a nation you become, united,
you become strong and then you have Black power. These are some of
the things that Carmichael's3 advocating.
00:32:08
[Harry Davis] I think to clear up some of the suspicions in your mind and
what Evan was talking about, about the Black man fighting on par with this
cat in the movie, you must be realistic too. You must be realistic, you know
because you know Burt Lancaster didn't beat this guy, because there's
nobody, no white man ever beat Cassius Clay4 and he's the greatest
fighter that ever lived, you know, he's Black. Regardless of what his
philosophy is. You talk about strength and athletics. There's no way in the
world, physically, that you can say that you're superior. So you've got to
get this fiction, this out of your mind, too, when you advertise your super
3
4
A reference to Kwame Ture, then known as Stokely Carmichael.
The former name of Mohammad Ali.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 15
cereals and stuff like that, that's gonna make you powerful like Superman
and then you put a second class athlete on there.
00:32:52,
I mean this is dreamy, you know, you're dreamy. So you've got to be
realistic. You've got to be realistic, and you've got to spend some of that
green power on that man that's making it, you know, because you'll spend
five hundred dollars just to go down and see Cassius Clay fight. Or you
see Bill Russell play basketball. Some guys run around the end on the
football team, but you wouldn't invite him into your house for dinner, you
know. So, you gotta be realistic when you're talking about power, physical
power, mental power, green power, whatever you're talking about.
00:33:22
It all is together that you're gonna have to realize that you're not superior,
that you're not superior. Regardless of what phase you're talking about.
Even if it's your green power, see, that can't buy you strength, it can't buy
you health.
00:33:40
[Evan Anderson] I think another thing, on that on the same line, is that you
give up your own myth and your old bag to a fighting but you turn that
‘good Negro,’ you know, the one that comes up is nice to you and tells you
what you want to hear. Because, like I'm saying, you know, you have to
hear it told like it is. You never be in a world of trouble if you get out here
through these so-called what you might call a typical ‘good Negro,’ and
you get involved with someone that knows what's happening. You go into
that ghetto, you will be in a world of trouble.
00:34:05
Most definitely, you know, I know so-and-so, or something. But this is the
type of thing, you know, that's what I'm talking about. Cliff said we're
getting together and that's why, you know, you talk about some people say
‘we're afraid of Black power because,’ you know, ‘you identified with
violence,’ but a lot of intelligent white people are afraid of Black power for
the main reason he said that the Black people are getting ourselves
together. Look, you had us fighting among each other somewhat long ago
now he's ‘Uncle Tom’ he's Milton.
00:34:31
He's getting himself together, we don't know about him, but now we're
saying, ‘okay you don't dig me, I may not dig you we're gonna get this
cause,’ and see in this city it's really starting to move a lot of people
because you've got people like myself on that TV talking you got people
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 16
like friend of mine and [inaudible] we got [inaudible], then we got the Harry
Davis's and the Ed Pillows and we're all talking the same talk and you
people are starting to realize one thing. That's Black Power.
00:34:58
[Harry Davis] I think we are realistic too. I know that I am becoming
realistic of what my values are. Like Cliff said, yeah I could very well
disassociate myself with Black people, but the place that I'm employed at,
when they had the riots in ‘66, the first person they ran to is to me. What
happened? Now I'm supposed to know what happened, you see, because
I'm Black. You know, I'm supposed to have been one of the fellas that
threw the brick, threw the Molotov cocktail because I'm Black. Alright, so if
they identify me with that one that threw the Molotov cocktail, then I'm with
you, you see, because I never lose that identity, because I'll never be
anything but Black, so I must associate with him.
00:35:45
So I realized too that I can't disassociate myself with him, and in order for
us to advance, I've got to reach back and hold his hand, so that, wherever
I go, I'm gonna pull him right with me. I've got to hold his hand too, so he
don't drop back down into the bind that he's been in for a long time. And
we've got to help each other, and that self-help. See because we've
waited 400 years for you to help us. You haven't helped us yet.
00:36:11
[Unidentified speaker] You suggest one other specific thing it seems to me
needs to be done. I'm talking about this profit-making kind of thing where
Black people, Indian people, can begin to make profits. You've got to
make profits.
00:36:20
If you're going to make profits, you've got to make profits off where the
money is and the money is with the white community, it's where the
money is. So that you know you go in there and you begin to help them
make a profit. Some people say, well, you know, ‘this is a hard thing to do.
I don't even dare go over where these place -- I don't dare go to North
Minneapolis, I don't dare go to South Minneapolis, I don't dare go to
Franklin Avenue,’ but I think this has, this kind of attitude has to go, in fact,
if I may just be so presumptuous that if you go in there you know with
$100 in your hand you're probably more likely to get in, go with nothing,
you know. I want to spend this money here to help this guy make a profit
on his business, you know.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 17
00:36:54
[cross talk from the panelists who agree and laugh] somebody's gonna get
taken to the cleaners. Big deal, you know. I get taken to the cleaners all
the time by white insurance salesman, white auto mechanics, and the
whole thing, you know, so do you. So it's about time it's, you know, some
other people start to take people's opinions if that's what it takes.
00:37:16
[Inaudible question from the audience]
00:37:56
[Evan Anderson] Talking about our own stores?
00:37:57
[Clifford Johnson] No, we don't have any.
00:37:58
[Audience member continues asking question]
00:38:06
Let me give you an example. You take your little disturbance you had
here, you had some places on Plymouth [Avenue]. They ran by, they know
who to touch up, you know, Black people that own places, like I said, didn't
have ‘soul brother’ written on it, you know, you take anywhere you want to
go in the country, if they even had a good majority of Black people working
there they didn't get burned out. Those places in Watts that stood after all
that burnt, there's places in Detroit that stood after all that burned. Look
here, I’m talking about--if you understand what I'm talking identifying with
one another.
00:38:42
Now let's say that Cliff, and Vern, and Harry happen to be in the shopping
center, and I know they're the only three in there. It's me and my boys, say
‘look here man, I need some bread man. I can't get a job, and the cat next
door, Cliff got TVs, well I can sel] them TVs and sell them to nice white
people.
00:38:58
I also heard it said a while back that we weren’t there stealing Cadillacs
and Buicks. Dr. Ralph Abernathy said that we're not doing that. What are
they stealing when they riot, then I’ll get back to this. Food, clothing, TVs
where they can make some cash, things that they need, but when I go
through that shopping center, you think I'm gonna get him? I might need
him to get me out of jail. [laughter from the panelists] There's a whole
bunch of reasons I'm not gonna be, cause I identify with him. He knows
me, I know him. I'm not gonna do any harm to him. You're the one that
does harm to me.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 18
00:39:29
You know, in other words, you know, that's the same reason saying if you
come in your house, you know, and you're mad at someone, you don't go
up and slap your mother. You might go out and slap somebody you don't
know, but you don't take, you know, this physical type of attention on
people that, you know, you care for and you identify with and, you know,
that be the same type of thing saying if I go out and get jumped by white
boys in Edina, I'm gonna come back over south and start whipping all the
colored dudes. It just don't work like that.
00:39:53
[Clifford Johnson] Just a brief addition to what Evan said. What we're
talking about here is how to eliminate, prevent the explosions you're
talking about in the ghetto. The reason we happen--now, Negroes don’t
own a damn thing in the ghetto. One or two stores, you know, and Evan
said, they passed them by and what I am, what we are saying here that if
you give those residents of the ghetto an opportunity to own these things,
whether they are in the ghetto or not, you provide hope for the young guys
today who are burning and destroying, older too, who have no hope, you
see, and once they own that out, hell there hasn't been a house in the
ghetto that's been owned by a Negro since there was a ghetto, you know,
these tenement houses are owned by rich Jews and rich white cats who
live out in suburbia.
00:40:51
This is what we're talking about we're talking about. We're talking about
putting them there so that those kids growing up will have some identity
and some hope for the future where he can go, What, if he does this and
this and this he can also achieve. These are the things that we're talking
about.
00:41:11
[Norma Noonan] I think we have one more question, yeah.
00:41:12
[Audience Member, possibly LaJune Thomas Lange (née Johnson)] Isn't it
also that they didn't own these places, but also they were being cheated in
these places too. It wasn't that just that a white person owned this store.
The white person was charging higher prices for inferior merchandise and
other things that brought out other injustices and one example that we
have at Augsburg is that we own Larson’s.5
5
Larson’s Fairway, a store at 2129 Riverside Aenue, was purchased by Augsburg in 1967 (Echo,
5/17/1967). It is now the site of the Oren Gateway Center.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 19
00:41:35
But the Augsburg community does not support that store, but no member
of the outside community, especially the Indian community, is employed
there. Only white people are working there. It's supposed to be a
community store. So, we can start right here, breaking out this green
power problem because we're not hiring any Indians and they live all
around the area and go to the store, and we own that store, totally now.
00:42:02
[Unidentified speaker] Dr. Johnson has a question.
00:42:04
[Norma Noonan] Yeah, Glen…?
00:42:05
[Glen Johnson, speaking from the audience] Clifford, if I understand you
correctly, you’re saying that one of the solutions for the problem is to make
members of a Black community or ghetto capitalists.
00:42:15
[Clifford Johnson] This is what the society is all about, doc.
00:42:19
[Glen Johnson] I don't have much confidence in the capitalist society.
00:42:21
[Clifford Johnson] Well, nor do I but we're talking about sustaining the
society as best we can as it presently exists.
00:42:28
[Glen Johnson] You're suggesting that once they become members of
capitalist society, your soul brothers will act in an enlightened way
because of all the suffering they've--
00:42:36
[Clifford Johnson] Now, wait a minute. Your terminology is confusing me,
what's enlightened?
00:42:43
[Glen Johnson] Well you used the term, I believe or something like it. They
wouldn't exploit people after they
00:42:47
[Clifford Johnson] Humanistic is the term I used
00:42:49
[Glen Johnson] Humanistic way? Alright.
00:49:49
[Clifford Johnson] Yeah.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 20
00:42:50
[Glen Johnson] How many generations will this continue?
00:42:54
Depends on the establishment. I say that we can make some major
strides in this direction in the next five to ten years. The establishment
willing, the establishment recalcitrant and unwilling as it is today. We don't
have any time. Time has almost run out. I say that America must take a
definitive stand and provide significant demonstrations of its willingness to
grapple with and solve this problem, otherwise we're out of time already.
00:43:39
[Evan Anderson] You know I might say Cliff too, that you know Cliff says
five to ten years. Well getting back to the aspect that I would like you to
love me, you know, I'm humanistic too, but the thing I will and must have is
your respect. And saying about ‘how soon can it be done,’ well we've just
gone over ways of helping each other, organization that Cliff is with,
TCOIC,6 we have OEO,7 we have [inaudible] programs, not only do you
have Harry involved in the vast majority of programs. If Congress wanted
to, well let me give you an example, then I'll tell you what Congress would
do.
00:44:14
They go over to Vietnam and like Mr. Pillow said, they take a person that
can't even speak English language, you know, and they take him and
within a month he's trained to do whatever they want him to do, you know.
So why couldn't Congress say okay and we face this and come down with
a blank check and say now do the job that would do away the rioting and
everything else. We can, look, we can build up our own communities.
We've got programs. I've got ideas. I'm sure that you probably have some
Doctor Johnson, that in some way, would help us.
00:44:47
You can even help yourself here at Augsburg. You don't need that federal
[inaudible] to come down and help the Indians, see but we're talking about
if we could get that or the door, the establishment. I don't want to get hung
up in a type of thing where we want you, you know, to love us so much.
That has to be a known fact, you know, because sparrows will still stay
with sparrows and crows with crows.
00:45:06
That's human nature, but the thing is it could be attacked tomorrow, it
could be attacked right now, if they've read out that blank check. Now,
6
7
Twin Cities Opportunity Industrialization Center.
Office of Economic Opportunity.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 21
we're not talking about thirty zillion dollars or something like this, you
know, but we're talking about a rough number, one hundred million dollars,
paid over a period of ten years.
00:45:21
We could do it ourselves! But what they want to do, you know, there's
such a violent nation they're gonna tell us not to be violent, in the
meantime bomb away in Vietnam and everything else, but that's the
hang-up. They realize the problem up there, they just don't want to get in
position to spend that money. And if America, if the citizen was gonna
stand up and say, ‘now look here baby, our security's being risked, I may
not dig color people either, but I do happen to dig being, you know, a
human being. I appreciate the fact of security for my children given what
they need, you know,’ and would be done like tomorrow we could be on
the trek because we're on the trek now, we just don't have that green
power.
00:46:00
[Harry Davis] You're talking about getting rid of your animosities, you
know. The Black man did some rioting within the large cities of our
country, but see you get rid of your animosities, your successes, and
failures and so forth, you do that by tearing somebody else's country up,
you know. You go over and tear up Vietnam, go over and tear up Korea,
go over and tore up Germany, Cuba, and every place else. You tear their
countries up, you don't do anything here.
00:46:26
We don't have the green power to go up and tear up somebody else's
country. We gotta care for our own country before you realize that we
want to get rid of our animosities that you have created in us, you see, and
that we are human enough to store these animosities and want to get rid
of them. See we're not some animal, we're just like you. You get rid of
your animosities in somebody else's backyard. We can't go to somebody
else's backyard, because we don't have the green power to get there.
Maybe we'll get rid of some of our animosities, you can let us get some of
that green power. We'll get rid of it over in Germany or Cuba, someplace
else.
00:47:00
[Norma Noonan] I'm gonna let it go [inaudible]
00:47:04
[Audience member, possibly Glen Johnson] There's an essence in our
[inaudible] question I think that needs a little more development here. If I
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 22
understood it [inaudible] we’ve been sold, in part, a bill of goods--I’m not
saying it’s good or bad, true or not, but a bill of goods that the salvation of
the country is within the Black community. And this is based, in some
respects, on humanistic tendencies, that is is not a matter of a materialistic
point of view [inauduble] The questions [inaudible] is this essence within
the community, within the people? How many generations will it last? If the
Black community is within the capitalistic society, will they get away from
their history so that they also become [inaudible]. Or not?
00:48:00
[Clifford Johnson] You have been, hopefully, sold a bill of goods. I hope
you buy the whole package. Not that the Black community has any
humanistic tendencies. This was not intended. This--what was, what is, in
fact, intended is that, unlike you, unlike any other nation, except maybe
the Jewish nation, the Negroes know what deprivation means. They know
what exclusion means. They know what suffering means. Dr. Martin
Luther King's theory of turn-the-other-cheek was nothing new to Negroes!
They had been turning the cheek for 400 years! All four of them, you
know, so this is nothing new. Now what we are saying here and back up a
step.
00:48:56
Unlike the Jews, the Jewish people, of olden days of Europe and fifteen
sixteenth century, they had the economic resources with which to buy less
suffering, with which to buy certain privilege, with which to buy certain
exclusions for themselves. The Black community in America's never had
any of this. Now, the point being that because the Black community has
endured in the greatest of depths of deprivation that they will be more
inclined to be humanistic, you see. Are you with me now?
00:49:34
Not that there is any inclination in each ordination of Black people to be
humanist, not at all. This just has to do with that culture that you keep
saying we don't got.
00:49:49
[Audience member, possibly Glen Johnson] How many generations will it
last?
00:49:52
Well, that was the other point that I wanted to make. It's hard to say, it
depends. Now, the position that I take here, is that we will get as a result
of this integration, thorough total integration, of Black people into the
economic society, will get a reorientation of that total society, you see. We
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 23
can say that it took us four hundred years to get this far. Four hundred
years ago, someone had asked you that same question, you wouldn't
have been able to answer it. So we don't know. If we are successful in
reorienting the totality of the society, it might last as long as the society
remains in that particular strata or structure.
00:50:46
[Unidentified person] Can I say--
00:50:46
[Norma Noonan] No, use your hand.
00:50:46
[Audience member, possibly LaJune Thomas Lange (née Johnson)] Do
you think that the white man has, really any right to ask the Black man,
does he feel qualified to participate in a capitalistic system when the white
man started participating in the capitalistic system he was exploiting
human beings from the beginning? So I don't think he is right to ask the
Black man whether he's going to exploit in five generations because he
started out exploiting people in the beginning so --
00:51:15
[Clifford Johnson laughs]
00:51:17
[Evan Anderson] Yeah. [applauds]
00:51:21
[Unidentified panelist] I think there's, see, there's another thing going on
here, too, which I think probably people within the college/university
setting are aware of, maybe painfully aware of at times, but there's a kind
of a cultural revolution going on, I think in this country in addition to this,
and which I would see even as you know closer joining of forces the
farther goes along here. Primarily led by young people, you know, who
have had it up to here with the system as they see it. The whole system,
the college system, the capitalistic system, the unions, the business, the
whole thing, and they are saying in effect that the system, you know, is
basically sick.
00:51:58
It doesn't recognize people's basic human qualities. It doesn't allow for
these to come forth. Instead, it treats people as things rather than as
people, that type of thing, and I think joining of these forces that I don't
think we can help but see some changes in the system, whether it results
in a collapse of it as we've known it, or total revamping, I'm not prepared
to say. I think, though, that we have really only a couple of choices: either
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 24
it collapses entirely or you open it up at all levels for everybody. Open up
at all levels, and then hope that once this gets infiltrated by people who
are not hung up in this thing about manipulation all that type of thing and
treating people as things, hopefully, that they don't lose their human
qualities.
00:52:39
Now sometimes that happens, I recognize that, but hopefully by infiltrating
the kind of thing we're opening up and so that it does have some effect on
the system also.
00:52:44
[Norma Noonan] Don't you think too that it would take many many
generations to forget hundreds and thousands of years of suffering? You
don't forget suffering overnight. The Jews if you, except for the Hitler
interlude, have had it good for a long time, they haven't forgotten.
00:52:59
[Inaudible question from the audience] I’d like to ask one question of Mr.
Davis, you--ah, or Doctor Davis, correct? Doctor Davis?
00:53:06
[Harry Davis] No. [audience laughs]
00:53:06
[Audience member] You were talking about banking in the sense of, you
know, using a bank in the Black community to buy and build a shopping
center, and then selling the shops to the proprietors eventually. Now, what
are the possibilities of the Black community in Minneapolis or any other
city withdrawing their money from the white banks and filling their own
bank and controlling this bank or setting up a target bank within that area
and buying that bank? Like, well what's a fairly [inaudible] alright, the
Northwestern Bank system. Buy out a majority of Northwestern Bank and
use that money. You'd have a majority of Negro money, you'd have a
minority of white money, but you'd be able to use the full resources of that
one bank, so buy out the thing. What are the possibilities of the Negro
community using a bank system to bring up their green power potential?
00:53:58
[Harry Davis] This is exactly what we are plotting to do, you know when
you're on the bank board, you get paid for every meeting.
00:54:07
[Audience member] Yeah, a hundred dollars.
00:54:08
[Harry Davis] You know. Right some of them get more. Yes, much more.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 25
00:54:13
Yes. So as a bank board member, you see, and if we had fifteen Black
men on the bank board every time they'd have a meeting they just turn
their money back to the stock, you just keep purchasing more and more of
that stock. The first thing you know they'd own the bank and then, of
course, they could buy out some other bank, you know, go buy out some
other business or invest--
00:54:32
[Audience member]-- or buy out the white man's ghetto
00:54:32
[Harry Daivs] -- right, or else loans money to some white people building
homes and then foreclose the mortgages, you know. [audience laughs] It's
the same thing, actually and what's good for the goose is good for the
gander if we can do this, this is where we'll improve.
00:54:49
Right, there's nothing wrong with it, you see, that's right, you see, if you
can't beat them, join them.
00:54:57
[Audience member] In my hometown, I live near the ghetto in my
hometown, I’ve associated with Negroes since I was little kid. And only in
the last five years, not five years, last ten years have I gotten any
prejudices because when I was a little kid, prejudices, you know a thing
that I didn't even know the meaning of, and then I moved to a Jewish
neighborhood, and I found out that the idea of prejudice against the Jews
was false and I found out when I, later on, in these past five years or so,
that the prejudice against the Negro neighborhood is also false, or
prejudice against any people, individuals yes, but as a group of people no.
The Jews have--oh, my track is that, through the money power of the
banks that the Jews have done and I’ll list some of the others: Krugers,
Rothschild originally were Jewish people and probably still are. [audience
laughs]
00:55:54
They have received social equality through their banks and I believe that
green power of the Black community, this green power of social equality
through the banks is what will eventually predominate over any other
power you just have done it before in history.
00:56:07
[Harry Davis] Green power controls political power too [inaudible].
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 26
00:56:1
[Evan Anderson] You're saying that also that you found out that people are
not prejudiced towards a mass of like Black people, is that what you were
saying?
00:56:20
[Audience member] No, I'm finding that the prejudice against a group of
people because of their background like a Jewish Community, Polish
community, Norwegians, Swedes, anything is false. I found out that
prejudice against a community saying that, you know, all Blacks are bad,
or all Jews are you know, money grubbers is completely false. Individuals
in each group [inaudible] bad individuals are good.
00:56:42
[Evan Anderson] I would say that suggests that instead of you moving
into your Jewish community that you move over northeast for a couple
weeks. I believe that you will be put in [inaudible] prejudice if you don't
believe that a segment of a community is prejudiced against another
community
00:56:59
[Audience member] No I found these prejudices are false, I did not find
that they are
00:57:05
[Evan Anderson]-- Well
00:57:05
[Audience member]-- I just find that they are false.
00:57:06
[cross talk among the panelists]
00:57:08
[Norma Noonan] Now listen, I'm getting all kinds of signals that we should
break up, but this is too good to break up so if you want to leave to go to
Dudley Riggs, leave. The rest of us will stay.
00:57:19,
[Audience member] I'd just like to say one thing in terms of, I've heard
[inaudible] expression that by having the oppressed have power over the
oppressor that some way or other we are going to [inaudible] humanity
and I don't think that this historically, sociologically, or psychologically true.
I think only as we deal with each other as human beings, one to another in
solving these problems will we solve them. I don't think if you whip a dog,
and then make the dog the boss, you're taking a very good risk.
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 27
00:57:56
[Clifford Johnson] I will only have to say you've heard incorrectly. This is
not been what has been said. You misheard what was said.
00:58:07
[Harry Davis] I don't think the oppressed want to take advantage of the
oppressor, they just want to have an opportunity to have the same
advantages that he has and then we're on equal terms.
00:58:14
[Audience member] Harry, I was just talking in terms of this humanity that
one is supposed to gain by being whipped and by being mistreated and it
doesn't hold much water. If you're mistreated you may learn to turn the
other cheek, but when you get a chance to punch back, you probably will.
00:58:33
[Clifford Johnson] Your statement here is quite correct in individual
instances.
00:58:39
Take the military forces during World War II, for example, hell that was
nothing more desirable than from a Black boy out of Georgia to get up in
Washington DC and catch one of his white oppresses in that camp. Beat
hell out of it, you know. But that doesn't change the fact that that Black boy
out of Georgia would still be humane toward other Black people who are
still down in Georgia suffering. This is the point.
00:59:14
[Audience member] There are white people down in Georgia suffering.
00:59:13
[Clifford Johnson] Give less than a damn, [someone in the rooms laughs]
you know, this isn't hang up. Whites, regardless to whether they're
prejudiced or not, regardless of whether they have been part of this
institution that has been oppressive, our representative by virtue of the
fact that you have a white face. You represent the establishment!
Therefore, you are an oppressor, you know, and Evan made point earlier,
you talking about blame it on your mother, and your grandmother, you
know, and your great grandmother.
00:59:42
[Inaudible response from the audience member]
00:59:48
[Unidentified panelist] Let me make a comment, and I think this is what
you know it's brought home to me by by one of the Black people on our
staff, when he and I were talking to a church group never came through.
We know what's going on now in our society, talk about the white society
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 28
for a minute. The fact that, you know, some guy can, this actually
happened, it happens all the time. Some guy, some white fellow, will be
laying out on the street, you know, just laying there, and people walk
around, you know, look at what the hell's matter with that guy laying on the
street. The very most they do is call the police.
01:00:18
That's a very most they'd do, or the incidents that are going on in New
York City that have gone, you know the whole bit. Somebody gets
murdered, they don't want to get involved. It was pointed out by this fellow
on our staff to a group of white people from this church, said, that is
inconceivable that a Black person would be laying on the sidewalk
anyplace and Black people would walk around and passing by and look at
him like that. Now, that says to me that the white community has lost
something, if they ever had.
01:00:41
I think maybe they did it on time.
01:00:43
[Audience member] Well I’ve see it on the Southside of Chicago, maybe
inconceivable--
01:00:46
[Unidentified panelist] That it's going to occur--
01:00:48
[Audience member] That it's going to occur, but I've seen it occur.
01:00:51
[Unidentified panelist] Okay, alright. But would you agree that it's less
likely to occur in the Black community, I asked these guys.
00:01:00
I don't know the Black community. I don't know every individual Black
person's relation with every other that much, but I know, I have a good
friend who's a principal in the Black high school in Chicago that it took him
three years before he could leave school after dark.
01:01:15
[Clifford Johnson] Sure because he was identified with the white
establishment, he'd become a white n*****. Sure that's right. No, but have
you ever been with the Negro riding or walking in a completely strange
Black community. One thing that you will notice, if you ever do it. Strange
Negroes walking down the street will smile or wave. Smile or wave
because they have this in common they know that they have all endured
something because of the color of their skin. This is what we're talking
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 29
about here. He's going to identify with and reach back--now today, ten
years ago it wasn't, weren't the case, but today, reach back and help that
negro.
01:02:07
[Audience member] [Inaudible] I see a contradiction in what you're saying
now. These people were not smiling and waving at this Negro principal,
maybe because he was a white n*****, but still took him three years to
perform the kinds of relationships where he could go through the territory
safely after dark.
01:02:28
[Clifford Johnson] You've missed the total genesis that has taken place in
Black America in the last ten years. There's been a whole psychological
reorientation and re-identification that has taken place in the last ten
years. Harry Davis, ten years ago, wasn't identified. Hell, he might again
stoned had he walked into some Black community, you know. This is a
fact. We are dealing with a different set of values, a different type of an
orientation in Black America today.
01:03:09
[Audience member] You mean Harry has to make his commitment
[inaudible] and has made his commitment--
01:03:11
[Clifford Johnson] Well, Harry had to make his commitment, yes!
01:03:1
[Evan Anderson] Harry understands the [inaudible] realized one thing and
no matter where you're at when the stuff comes down you can't run, you
can't hide cause you're still Black and you might have a whole legion of
white people there with you, but the first thing--you know the thing we did,
we understood this whole bag, you know, someone said this is what's
happening, but see we didn't come out and attack you right away we
attacked our own selves. We got ourselves together and we got the cats
that could hurt us now see, now I just think what Harry could do.
01:03:45
The position he's in now if he wasn't with us. We wouldn't be talking about
any banks, we couldn't get them. Well we got, we get organized and
ironed out these differences. We said ‘now look here baby. Either you get
in touch and walk with us or you're not gonna walk at all and you will be
the first one to fall,’ cause Malcolm X said the first man you have to get is
that Uncle Tom and that's the situation. That is the situation. We're gonna
make it together. Look here, you know, we're gonna make it together or
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 30
we ain't gonna make it at all. We're gonna bring everybody with us. Shit
Harry don't have to bring nobody with him.
01:04:13
Man he could sit up [inaudible] and just get filthy rich and he could run off,
and get on to St. Louis Park and have a big old castle and everything and
sooner or later we get to hear it. He's not stupid. He's realistic. You have
to be realistic and he still loves his people, that's all.
01:04:34
[Inaudible question from the audience]
01:05:41
[Evan Anderson] Just keep catching yourself.
[The recording cuts off at 01:05:44]
Green Power (afternoon session) (transcript), page 31
Show less
Transcript of “Our Forgotten Neighbors”
(afternoon session)
A panel discussion with Ada Deer, Rev. Harold Andrew, Reginald Berry, Gary Hines,
and Ronald Sample moderated by Myles Stenshoel
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0011
Description: Ada Deer, The Rev. Harold Andrews... Show more
Transcript of “Our Forgotten Neighbors”
(afternoon session)
A panel discussion with Ada Deer, Rev. Harold Andrew, Reginald Berry, Gary Hines,
and Ronald Sample moderated by Myles Stenshoel
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0011
Description: Ada Deer, The Rev. Harold Andrews, Reginald Berry, Gary Hines, and
Ronald Sample discuss residential segregation and racism in a panel moderated by Dr.
Myles Stenshoel. The panel was part of a day focused on speaking and listening to
issues of racial injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 00:55:20
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:00
[The recording cuts in while Myles Stenshoel is speaking] Affairs
Department University of Minnesota. She informs me that she's got to be
at another commitment at 4 o'clock and we're going to give her there for
the first opportunity to say something today I don't know exactly what she
wants to say our general topic is listed as “Our Forgotten Neighbors,” and
has the subtitle “Inadequacy of Public and Community Services in the
ghettos.” Now, this at least is a starting point, and perhaps we can go on
from there and again I'm going to have to say told, said to me that we'll
have to speak rather loudly because there are some noises particularly at
that end of the room. We’ll let Ms. Deer spark at this time. Do you want
this…?
00:00:45
[Ada Deer] This is quite a switch for me, because usually the Indians are
last and so I have a chance to get my words in first at this time. First of all,
I'd like to commend the Augsburg College and all of you who are here,
and who’ve had a part in planning and carrying out this program. I think
this is a very exciting opportunity for you to meet people in the community,
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 1
to hear speakers of various backgrounds, and to know firsthand what
some of the problems are. I'm sorry that I'll have to leave, but I hope that I
will stimulate you to think about our forgotten Americans. This is the
phrase that President Johnson used in his State of the Union message
last year, when he talked about us. And I should say it always annoys me,
and pains me to hear this, and I keep thinking that if more of us speak up
and speak out that eventually this will change.
00:01:50
Now, in 10 minutes, I certainly can't talk to you and give you all the
information that you need on American Indians. First of all, because I do
not myself have a global knowledge of Indians. I think that when you do
hear people of minority groups, you should bear in mind what the
background is, what their frame of reference is. Because I certainly cannot
pretend to speak for all American Indians. I speak for myself, out of my
own background and experience and professional training. I myself am a
social worker, I'm interested in community in social action, and this is a
type of involvement in the community that I spend most of my time doing.
Occasionally, I do make speeches but at this point, I should say I'm a little
tired of talking about the problem, and I'm interested in talking to people
who are wanting to get involved and who can help.
00:02:51
Now we should talk, especially in terms of Indians, about the philosophy of
helping. I myself have been here in Minneapolis since 1961. I've worked in
several different agencies as the program director of Waite Neighborhood
House, a three years in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and a year now at the
University of Minnesota. And I have many people calling me, different
times during the day, on all aspects of Indian Affairs. Once, a one young
man called me up and said ‘hello,” he says ‘’I have some clothes for the
Indians and what shall I do with them?’ So I said ‘well, I'm sorry, I'm not in
the clothes business’ and I tried to refer to another place that might be
able to handle this. This is what I call the ‘old clothes approach’ to helping.
You know, clean out your closets, and then you've done your good deed
for the day.
00:03:39
I think that, with Indians, this has been particularly true. We want to help,
and we end up doing for rather than doing with. Now, I know that we've all
heard these phrases over and over, but I'd like to challenge each of you to
think about this. What do we mean when we talk about help? In my
opinion, when we talk about help, we mean helping people help
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 2
themselves. And, all too often, with Indian people this has not occurred. I
meet many well-meaning people sitting across the table from me in
various committees who want to help, but then when you really zero in
and try to find out what they want to do, they don't really want to help at
all, they want to make their own guilt feeling so less and proceed on that
basis.
00:04:29
Now, I would like to outline briefly for you some of the problems as
suggested in the first presidential message on Indians made to Congress
by President Johnson the first week of March. This will give you a basic a
frame of reference from which to discuss. I should say that one of the big
disadvantages is that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is the
governmental agency in charge of administering programs for Indians, has
no research division, and so almost everything that you hear about Indians
is based on approximations and guesses. And this is very unfortunate
when you are out in the field, trying to develop programs and solutions to
some of the problems.
00:05:11
Everyone wants to know how many Indians are there in this country. Well,
according to that information they're approximately 600,000. This is
approximately the same population that was here at the time that
Columbus quotes ‘discovered’ America. [audience laughs] Then, how
many live on reservations? Approximately 400,000 live on reservations,
200,000 live in urban areas, or outside of the reservation areas. 50,000
Indian families live in unsanitary dilapidated dwellings. The unemployment
rate is nearly 40 percent, and this is more than ten times the national
average. 50% of the Indian school children, double the national average,
drop out before completing high school. Indian literacy rates are among
the lowest in the nation. Thousands of Indians who migrated into the cities
find themselves untrained for jobs and unprepared for urban life. The
average age of death of an American Indian today is 44, and for all other
Americans it is 65. 10 percent of American Indians over age 14 have had
no schooling. Nearly 60 percent have had less than an eighth grade
education, and even those Indians who are attending school are plagued
by language barriers, by isolation and remote areas, by lack of a tradition
of academic achievement.
00:06:38
I'm not going to go into all the points that I have here on my cards, but I
would like to mention a little more about health. The health level of the
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 3
American Indian is the lowest of any major population group in the United
States. The incidence of TB1 among Indians and Alaska Natives is five
times the national average. I think you can get the picture in terms of
health, education, and social conditions. On a national average the
Indians are at the bottom, and I should say that this is also true here in
Minnesota. There are approximately 21 to 24,000 Indian people here in
the state of Minnesota. Nobody knows exactly how many there are here in
the Twin Cities, but the estimates are from five to ten thousand. I could go
on talking about the problems of urban living, but I will summarize them by
saying that the Indian people are isolated in the reservation areas, are not
oriented the city life, come here with improper education, inadequate
orientation, and due to the residency barriers, have very difficult time for
the most part.
00:07:59
Now, there are many Indians that make it, but at this point we don't hear
much about them. Our press continues to feature the negative sides, and
very often does not emphasize the positive contributions. And because
Indian people are a small population group, and are, at this point,
relatively unorganized--we don't have an NAACP, we don't have an Urban
League, we don't have any of the other organizations--you don't hear
much from the Indian population. Now, I've outlined the social problems on
a national level, and, to summarize, we have some of the same problems
on the state level and in the city level, and what is being done about it?
00:08:39
We have a multitude of agencies who are now beginning to address
themselves to some aspects of the problems. I have many requests for
in-service training sessions from the teachers, social workers, and others.
We're beginning to organize Committees of Indian people concerned with
education and other matters. But this is a long haul, and much will have to
be done by everyone concerned. Now, where is this in terms of you? First
of all, attitudes. I see a sign-up there in the dormitory which says ‘white
racism must go.’ And I'd like to echo this: the attitudes that minority people
are confronted with are very difficult and they're very disheartening. This is
also particularly true of American Indians. Oftentimes, people look at me,
and others like me, and say ‘you're not an Indian.’ And, by this, they mean
I'm not weak, dependent, poor, inarticulate, backward, and out of it. If you
stand up and speak, speak out, and are a little aggressive--you know, if
1
Tuberculosis.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 4
you're, too quiet you're too passive. You know if you're too aggressive,
you know, this isn't acceptable either.
00:09:43
And so, this is a very difficult situation for many of the minority people
ought to be in. So, the first point here is for you yourselves to become
better informed, more knowledgeable, and also to look at your own
attitudes, the attitudes of your family, the attitudes in your neighborhood.
Now, I think I've used up more than my 10 minutes, I've tried to outline
some of the problems and I hope that this will stimulate you to further
discussion. Thank you.
00:10:12
[Myles Stenshoel] Thank you, Miss Deer. The two gentlemen here to my
left are, my far left: Mister, the Reverend, Mr, how’s that? The Reverend
Mr. Harold Andrews, who holds a great many positions, more than I could
suggest, he's consultant to the Minneapolis school system, he is an
assistant pastor at Sabbatini Church, he is involved in the DECOY
organization, and many others. The gentleman to my immediate left is a
student who will be graduating this year from Central High School, Mr.
Reginald Berry, who has has been quite active in the DECOY
organization, and perhaps would like to tell you something about that.
00:11:04
This morning, at our session, we began, not with any particular address,
and we didn't really have an Indian representative--except ¼? Mr.
Andrews also claim some Indian blood, which made him a spokesman to
some degree, also for the Indian communities this morning. But we are
asking ourselves here about the particular problems that exist in our
ghettos with respect to social services and community services. And I
think it is clear--I don't think we have to be told an awful lot about the fact
that there are deficiencies about the fact that schools are often not as
adequate in these communities as they are elsewhere. That playgrounds
are less adequate, that swimming pools are probably few and far between,
and if they are available, not in good condition.
00:12:06
One of the things that that also comes up is the thing that was
emphasized by our speaker just before this discussion. Namely, the
problem of the--of social service, particularly aid to dependent children, or
aid to families with dependent children. Where we tend to break up the
community, rather than to then to strengthen the family. We break up the
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 5
family rather than strengthen it. Now I think we have some kind of an idea
here of some of the problems.
00:12:39
I'm going to ask each of these gentlemen to say whatever he wants to say
this afternoon, after which I think will open it up to a rather general
discussion, and perhaps ask ourselves some more questions about what
we can do, and more particularly that we in the Augsburg community
should be concerned with. Do you want to--
00:13:01
[Reginald Berry] Well, considering the fact that Ms. Deer is in a hurry, I
would prefer that we answered--ask some questions, if they have
questions, in regards to what she has already said, with reference to the
Indians, and the Indian Affairs, and after which then we could--
00:13:21
[Myles Stenshoel] All right that would probably be a little bit better, we'll
give her a chance then [inaudible]
00:13:29
[Audience member] They’ve got a program on CBS that [inaudible] the
forgotten American, and the point they made right at the end that’s the
basic dilemma about--that the Indians that go off of the reservation often
come back. And you have a basic dilemma in that the Indian can’t find
work on the reservation and they’re too poorly oriented to go off of the
reservation. I just wonder about your personal opinion, where you think it’s
going to end up. Is it going to be better to try and get them off, or are you
going to try and bring employment to the reservation?
00:13:59
[Ada Deer] Well I'd say it's both. It's not an either/or proposition. I think
there should be adequate minimum standards of living in all areas of our
country, for all of our people. And, for too long, in the rural areas,
especially among Indian people, among the Negro people in the Delta
country, they've been denied basic services. This of course is a function of
the appropriations and the way the services are delivered by the various
agencies. Now, in terms of Indians, I would say, due to the isolation and
the real domination by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, many Indian people
don't really have adequate choices. They don't understand; if they don't go
to school at 16, there'll be dropouts and then be condemned to a very poor
existence.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 6
00:14:50
So, what I would like to see would be: adequate housing, adequate
schools in these areas, and then, if a person wants to leave the
reservation, they'll be adequately equipped. Now, at this point, the budget
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is 250 million dollars. That's a lot of money.
17,000 employees for approximately 400,000 people losing out or near
reservations. Then, of course, they'll be coming to the cities, and there's a
big dilemma here because Congress has authorized money for
expenditures on the reservations, but has not really given authority to
expend for services in the cities.
00:15:25
And so, when the Indian people come into the cities, they're needing all
kinds of services. Many of the agencies say ‘Indians? Oh, well they're
taken care of by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.’ And so, here the person is
caught in this dilemma. And this is where we need to change, these
policies changed, and we need additional money for some of the
programs.
00:15:46
[Myles Stenshoel] I'd like to raise a question at this point, Ms. Deer: a few
years ago, I was sitting with the Advisory Committee from South Dakota to
the Civil Rights Commission, and we ran into some really difficult
problems out there. We were trying to come to grips with this with some of
the things that, some of the problems of the Indians in South Dakota. We
made one--discovered one thing, and that was that there were some
communities, Rapid City was the most obvious example of this. When an
Indian family, or another poor family, but it was primarily the Indian
families, when they would move to Rapid City, they would be served by
the local authorities with what was called a certificate of non-residency
which said, in effect, that the social services that we provide for people
here, are not available for you, because you are not a resident, and if you
stay here for years you're not going to become a resident for purposes of
receiving these Social Services. Is, do we have any, any such problem
say, in the state of Minnesota that you're aware of?
00:16:59
[Ada Deer] I think it would be better for you to talk to someone that was
actually involved in the welfare department. I know that there are
subtleties that exist. For example, there's a certain allowance in the
budget for lights. Some families don't have lights, then they don't get an
allowance for lights. And, so actually, in many ways there is some--well,
additional lack of money. And there is, I guess you could say actually
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 7
some types of discrimination that exists in the way the budgets are
administered. But these are very subtle things, and you have to be kind of
a detective to try to track them down. And I am not an expert in public
assistance, so I think to adequately cover this particular aspect, you really
should have someone here for public assistance.
00:17:52
[Myles Stenshoel] Well, I thought it was a...do you know of any--
00:17:54
[Harold Andrews] It’s available. There's no discrepancy at all in, you know,
as far as the Indian is concerned. You say public assistance, the AFDC
[inaudible] if they’re living in the city, they can receive it.
00:18:08
[Ada Deer] I was talking about up into some of the northern areas where
they get less money.
00:18:14
[Myles Stenshoel] Are there other questions from Ms. Deer, yes?
00:18:17
[Audience Member] The gentleman from DECOY, I think, some of the
ways they’re doing, educating the Black person to his African culture.
Correct me if I’m wrong. Are the, does the Indian, American Indian, on his
culture, does he want a kind of modern Indian image, or something, or
does he want--how do you feel about culture and the Indian, the American
Indian? Do you think they should [inaudible] do you want to relish in that,
or do you want to…?
00:19:04
[Ada Deer] I think this is a very interesting question. It gets into this whole
area of identification. And a person is designated an ‘Indian’ by the Bureau
of Indian Affairs for services if they have one fourth degree Indian blood.
Now, because a person has one fourth degree Indian blood does not
necessarily mean they're Indians. In the old days, traders got on, and
various other people got on them, so that's part of this whole definition.
Now that's a legal definition of Indian. A social definition that I find helpful
is a person is an Indian who identifies himself as an Indian and who is
identified by the community as an Indian. Now some of the Indian
communities in this country have still a great deal left of culture.
00:19:49
By this, I mean the total way of life. They speak the language, for example
the Indians in the southwest, they speak the language, you still carry on
some of the ancient religious practices, their family and kinship systems
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 8
are still in operation, and so on. Various other groups, this is not true, and
there's still a lot of interaction/interchange going on. I think lots of people
think that you know we have ‘pure’ Indian culture here, and then we have
the non-indian culture, and this is not the way it is. Here, in this area,
we've had traders and others making contact for 300 years, so we have
people who are driving cars on television, and and all these things and this
is one of the big problems.
00:20:37
Trying to help people define who they are. And, I should say, that in this
society if you're a minority person nobody lets you forget it at all. And I
think that one of the things that all of us have to do is remember that we're
human beings, together. And that we do have some similarities and that
we do have some differences. Now, with Indians much of the culture and
the history has has consciously been destroyed. There is no teaching of
Indian history in the schools, or Indian culture, and as I mentioned earlier,
at this point we don't have a strong pan-Indian movement in the country,
providing the type of leadership that SLIC, 2 and SNCC,3 and the NAACP,
in all this the host of organizations among the black community is doing.
So, it's kind of a long answer to your question but these are some of the
points involved.
00:21:25
[Reginald Berry] Another thing: you know, I think that sort of acts as a
catalytic agent to this stereotype image of the Indian, even more so than a
Black man, is that there are many people who definitely are ignorant to the
contributions of the Indian up to our modern-day society. I don't mean
historically in this country, I mean, since they have become Americanized,
or westernized to the white man's ways. And I think this goes more into
your question, as to whether or not the Indian, and teaching minority
history, are we going to consider also the contributions of the Indian, or
are there any such contributions which I know I heard it, but this is more of
a nature of interest, I would assume, as to education at the Indian, and of
everybody else in the society. So, if you could even relate, now, to some
such contributions you see, I think it would more or less...
00:22:38
[Ada Deer] Well, there are many Indian individuals that are making
contributions right now. For example, we have Ms. LaDonna Harris, who is
a Comanche Indian. She is the wife of Senator Fred Harris from
2
3
Possibly intended to mean SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 9
Oklahoma. She has been appointed chairman of the Woman's Advisory
Committee to the OEO.4 She was the first congressional wife ever to
testify before Congress on behalf of legislation. She testified recently on
behalf of the OEO legislation. We have Mr. Robert L. Bennett, who's a
commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We have, I'm sure you've
heard of congressman Ben Rifle from South Dakota, who not only works
for Indians, but for all people of the state. And, at this particular point, I
don't have time to go into all the other ones, but yes there are
contributions. And one of the sad points here is that, in Minnesota, we’re
in Indian country. There--we look on the map, we can see many towns
that have been named after Indian names. And if you study history from
an objective point of view, you could really dig into this and see.
00:23:43
Oh, and I want to really relate to your question about being a ‘new Indian,’
there's a book out called the ‘New Indian.’ And, I think it's rather cool book
myself, but, anyway, this is I think the challenge to to all of us. Many
people, as I mentioned earlier, have a stereotyped idea of what it means
to be an Indian. You know, you have to act a certain way. And we are in a
democratic society, and I think that the choice should be open through
each of us as individuals--what type of person we want to be. And, I feel
that there are Indians in this country who speak the language and who
carry on some of their practices, but at the same time, can have an
adequate standard of living. This is particularly true among some of the
Indians in the southwest, that live in Albuquerque and some of these other
places they take part in their tribal affairs, but still they come back.
00:24:33
Each person has to make up their mind as to what they'd like to do. Now
again, I'm expressing my opinion in my frame of reference we should
really hear other Indians. You should hear people from the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, we should hear tribal leaders, and then you'd get a full
scope of picture.
00:24:54
[Myles Stenshoel] All right, a question over here yes.
00:24:56
[Audience Member] Yes, do you believe the Bureau of Indian Affairs itself
needs a major revamp.
4
Office of Economic Opportunity.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 10
00:25:05
[Ada Deer] Yes. [Stenshoel laughs] I worked in the Bureau for three years,
so I know.
00:25:08
[Myles Stenshoel] I think it's interesting that--I was living in South Dakota
and I was in Ben Rifles district, and it seemed to me that we in South
Dakota somehow felt that we had proved that we were doing right by the
Indian by electing Ben to Congress, and that somehow it was a sort of
therapeutic, cathartic--
00:25:28
[Ada Deer] --you did your duty, you solved the problem.
00:25:29
We did our duty, our problem was solved. It's very easy to get this feeling.
Here's a here's a man who's of some accomplishment, who’s a good
Episcopalian, and half-German--
00:25:43
[Ada Deer] --Meets the right standards.
00:25:43
Meets all the good standards and Ben Rifle was our Indian.
00:25:46
[Ada Deer] That's right.
00:25:47
[Myle Stenshoel] Another question here I saw, yes.
00:25:50
[Audience Member] I was wondering what organization were [inaudible] in
the city [inaudible].
00:25:58
There are a number of organizations. There's the Department of Indian
work of the Minnesota Council of Churches. There are several small
Indian organizations that are social and cultural in nature. We have a
couple sewing groups, and we have the Upper Midwest Center, we have
the Four Winds, we have a teenage group, and so on. But at this particular
point, we don't have one particular agency, such as an Indian Center, that
is fully staffed and fully financed it could really meet some of the basic
needs of the Indian people. You know, such as the Urban League does for
some of the other minorities.
00:26:33
I also wanted to say, as long as I have the floor. As far as I'm concerned, I
feel that, with the small minority population that we have in this area,
which is like, about I don’t know, 3 or 4 percent, it's just inexcusable that
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 11
there should be the extent of problems that we have here in terms of
housing, education, and discrimination. And I feel that, if we are not able
to do something about this here and now, with this small--here with this
population, in this urban area, that is going to be--you know, if we can't do
it here, what--where, who is going to do it? And this is why we need, you
know, your help. I'm sure my colleagues would have something additional
to say.
00:27:18
[Myles Stenshoel] Are you rested up sufficiently now, so we can get Ms.
Deer a break and can let you take over?
00:27:22
[Unidentified panelist] Yeah.
00:27:26
[Myles Stenshoel] All right, yeah.
00:27:32
[Reginald Berry] I am NOT a Negro. I wish not to be addressed as a
Negro. Let me shock you: I am a Black man, a proud Black man. I am an
Afro-American. I belong to an organization called DECOY: Determined
Ebony Council of Youth. ‘Determined,’ I think we all know what determined
means. ‘Ebony’ means we are Black, no white belong to our group. When
I say ‘Council,’ right, I belong to the council, but we have like a congress.
At least 500 to 700 students in the south side of Minneapolis, some north,
that belong to DECOY. ‘Youth,’ I say we are youth, we are young adults.
That's because we prove that we can think for ourselves. We feel we need
no person 60 years old, or 50 years, old to tell us what we need at our
age. We can think for ourselves.
00:28:22
I'm in the 12th grade. We feel that one of the major concerns of the
community is Black power. I've realized some of you tremble to the word
‘Black,’ since we, the community, gives the name ‘black’ as being bad,
and ‘white’ is being good. Black power is political, economic, social, and
psychological advancement for Black people in America. I'll talk about the
political and economic part, because it has it all has to relate to the
community, but this--especially politically, black people in their community
should control politicians in the community. In the politics. Economically,
we could control all the businesses in the community. We--they--Indians
were put on a reservation, we were put in a so called ghetto, which is the
same thing as so-called reservation. Put away from the rest, what made
the ghetto was an economic, something like a cycle
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 12
00:29:25
When I say ‘control the economics of community,’ I mean control the
businesses. It's like when you take your money, which you earn a little bit
from the white man ,and you go spending in his store. The white man is
not gonna live in that tore up neighborhood, so what does he do? He goes
out from his suburban, not to say suburban, in his suburban neighborhood
and spends it there. Therefore, the suburban neighborhood gets richer
and richer, and that so-called ghetto gets poorer and poorer. See, when
we talk about so-called ghetto, we got to get an understanding between all
of us in here, what a ghetto is. The dictionary says it’s a group of ethnic
people in a certain area.
00:30:02
Therefore, all over the United States, we have Polish ghettos, Italian
ghettos, Swedish ghettos, but you give us his name ghetto. Anytime you
said ‘ghetto’ at school, everybody knows what they're talking about.
They're talking about Black people. I am NOT a minority. I am a majority.
When you start calling yourself a minority, you can go so far. Minority
tends to think minority, think small. I'm not small. I said before, anything
that happens in this community at Augsburg College should have--affects
the city. Anything that affects the city affects the state. Anything that
affects the state affects the country. Anything that affects the country
affects the world.
00:30:41
Therefore, there are more Black people in the world than there are white.
Communication is too great to be just talking about a certain district, a
certain area. Because anything we do in Minneapolis well have--if we set
good examples in Minneapolis, which we are starting to do, then that's
gonna do good for the whole country. I can say I am not a minority but I
am the majority. One of the things that white people can do, and they're
the communities--I live on the south side of Minneapolis. The south side of
Minneapolis is no ghetto, so-called ghetto. Black people are spread out all
over the south side of Minneapolis. White people, after the death of Martin
Luther King, and after the so called grants which we call economic
revolutions, political and economic revolutions--
00:31:30
--first thing white people do they say ‘what can we do for you?’ That's not
the problem. It’s what can you do for yourself. If white people weren't
racists in the first place, there wouldn't be no problem. So what you do?
You don't come over and join our organizations, but you get your own
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 13
selves together. That's where the problem is. You get in your own social
gatherings and start figuring out why does the black man have a tail, it's
something you put on us. You get--like I say, Black people have the
biggest problem with getting themselves together. White people get
yourself together. Then, when white people get yourselves together, then
you can truly integrate. When one’s stronger than the other, like the
American system is based on, the one on the top is always going to be
exploiting the one on the bottom.
00:32:10
But it shouldn't be because the person is black, or a person is yellow. It
shouldn't be because he has a different culture than yours. One of the
biggest hangups that America has, if a person isn’t, culture isn't like to
theirs, they say he's ‘culturally deprived.’ They say the Black man in the
ghetto is culturally deprived. He is not. He has a culture of his own. He has
a heritage of his own. We came from Africa. One of the things you could
do to help communicate better with Black people all over the city, all over
the country, is learning the history of Black people. Learning the history of
so-called minority groups. There--then you can coincide with them, you
can get along with them, you can know something about them. Now, you
can't respect somebody who you don't know nothing about. To get to the
problem, you can't start at the top and cut it off. It's like, it's like a tree. To
kill a tree, you don't get at the top cutting them off. You get at the root of
the problem.
00:33:11
So what I'm saying is: before you can get through with the problem, you
have to know what started the problem. You gotta know back during
slave--you gotta know all the contributions that black people have made in
America. I'm not all, but there's quite a few. It's not hard to look up. I like to
say that Patrick Henry said ‘liberty or death.’ When a Black man in the
so-called ghetto says ‘liberty or death,’ he's a militant. That's another word
we get hung up on, ‘militant.’ In means ‘able,’ by a dictionary definition
‘able and willing to fight.’ President Johnson is militant, since he is sending
us to Vietnam. So what we do--Black people and white people, like, we
worry about getting our own selves together. White people get Black
people together--white people together, and Black people’ll get Black
together, like we've been doing.
00:34:00
[Reginald Berry] Well, that’s about it [laughs].
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 14
00:34:04
[Myles Stenshoel] Okay. Mr. Andrews?
00:34:06
[Harold Andrews] Well, I'm a lot like Ms. Deer. I don't know how many of
you were here this morning. I don't care to be repetitious. I didn't come out
here to be eloquent either. I speak, I don’t know how many times today, I
have to speak again tonight. There aren’t enough hours in the day for me
[a panelist coughs] he doesn’t know all of them himself. I’ve got to fill
[inaudible] if not, get out of the way and let somebody else do it. The
reason I'm doing so much is because I found that there's so many good
meeting people who says ‘let me help.’ When I go home I can't sleep at
night, wondering if they will. And when I see them on the next day, I say
‘did you take care of that?’ ‘No, I'm doing it right now.’ And I can't wait like
that. Consequently, I'm like one of these guys in a small town where he
pulls you over for speeding and takes you to court, he's a judge, and then
he takes the fine, and he gives you a haircut--he's the barber.
00:35:16
I’m doing so many things. But until enough people stop talking, start doing
things, I'd rather rust out--I'd rather wear out, that is, then rust out because
this is a very serious matter to me, and one to which I have dedicated
myself. I'm so dedicated because I have anxieties. I have fears. I've been
where you can never go, I've heard what you can never hear, and I know
what can happen if we don't do it now. And I didn't need the Kerner Report
to tell me that, matter of fact, the Kerner report is only a repetition of what
was proposed in 1919 in Chicago, Illinois. Same report. Matter of fact, it
looks like they just quoted some of it. And this is the thing that--I-I couldn't
say that, perhaps you hear the youth haven’t been aware of, but I'm sure
the adults have. This is why I have lost a lot of faith in the preceding
generation.
00:36:22
What I think I would prefer to do now is to give you a little background on
just one organization and what we're doing. And maybe then from this,
you could get some ideas of what you can do. DECOY and the United
Southside. My capacity at the time of this, of my getting involved in
this--previously I should say, to get involved--was as a social worker at
Central High School, at which time I was working on a one-to-one basis
with the students, and then something happened. The kids, after getting a
little educated about Blackness from The Way on the north side, decided
‘well, why don't we, you know, ahve one on the south side?’ This is where
it’s at!
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 15
00:37:13
So, they got together and said ‘we're gonna [have] a South Side Way. And
man, when they said that, their parents and the whole community were
aroused. And they said ‘well, wait a minute, let's have some sort of
confrontation before you do this, now. Let's have a meeting. Let's meet
and discuss this.’ And that meeting was packed. And, as I said this
morning, we are just the people who respond to violence. And this is why
they packed the house. And the minister himself got up and said ‘if I could
get half as many people here on Sunday, [Stenshoel laughs] I’d have to
call this a church.’ But instead, it's a community house, because that's
when everybody comes, when there's something, you know, controversial.
And this seemed to be quite controversial.
00:38:01
And I can remember Syl Davis himself5 standing there and saying ‘you are
here because you're uncomfortable. Because the word ‘Way’ was
mentioned. And The Way moves people.’ And, boy I couldn't deny that!
Because they were there for that purpose. And so, after a lot of dialogue,
a lot of eloquence, a lot of, you know, showing off who knows what about
what, nothing was being done. And I stood. And I asked--I faced the youth
who were organized. They were attacking the adults and the adults were
fighting back, but nothing happened and I said ‘Now, what do you want?’
And they specified some of the things they wanted. And I turned around
and looked the adults and I said ‘would you deny your own child anything
that they just asked for?’ They said ‘no!’ ‘So, let's do something!’
00:38:52
Then, as it was--and this is since quite a picture, I even see the picture
now. It was like this table. I don't even like to talk behind a table, [knocking
his hand on the table] It's a psychological disadvantage to talk behind a
table. I face one of the kids, said ‘stand up, son.’ He stood up. ‘Which
direction is right?’ He pointed to my left. I said ‘no. This is right.’
[presumably Andrews points to his right for the audience] And I looked at
the people, I said ‘now, who's right?’ They said ‘you both are.’ I said,
‘yeah, but we're pointing in different directions!’ I said ‘Let's get around on
the same side of the table.’ And what I was really trying to do was, get the
philosophy behind it, is that as I--in our communities, institutions, and what
have you it seems that we all face opposite sides of table.
5
Davis was the first director of The Way in North Minneapolis.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 16
00:39:34
We're both right, and the community suffers, because it's always in the
center. As far as the schools in the community are concerned, the school
is looking out their window, at the family, the residences, and saying ‘that's
the community.’ And they're looking out their window at the school and
saying ‘that’s the community.’ Now it's the issue of Black and white. We're
looking out our window at you and saying ‘that's the problem.’ And you're
looking out yours, at us, when you look at you see riots and things and say
‘that's the problem.‘
00:40:07
And we both think we're right. We, when we really have to be able to come
around to the same side of the table and look at it together through the
same window, where we would be very surprised to discover that we're
both in the same community. We're both in the situation together, and it is
not a Black problem, it’s not a white problem, it is an American problem!
And when we become, come to the pond to realize this, then perhaps
there can be some pursuance. You see, as he was talking about the
effects going from state, to a national, and international level, as other
countries look at us, they look objectively. They look at America.
Particularly those who are using propaganda as a means of exploiting
other countries and influencing others to become--
00:40:56
--like communism socialism. It's easier now! We're the most--we have lost
the Cold War. And these are such things that have caused us to lose it:
when we say we are in a non-aggressive country, nation, we love the
world. And we fool enough to think that with money we can compromise.
We'll go over--and then this came straight from the horse's mouth. I talked
to a congressman he said, ‘sure we send many, many countries are not
really allies of ours. We give them money, and we'll give them this money,
what do I want in return? Well when we want to vote on an issue at the
UN, we expect them to vote.’
00:41:34
Now, if I did that right now, if I was running for office, and I gave you
money, and said ‘vote for me what would you call me?’ Particularly if I
were Black? I'd be a Black one-of-those wouldn’t I? [audience laughs] All
right! Let's stop being hypocrites! Let's look at ourselves as a family. We
are, whether we like it or not. I know, ah [he chuckles] I had a brother, we
fought every day, we--sometime nothing to fight about, we’d look at each
other and say ‘well, we ain’t had our fight today.’ [he slaps his hands]
There we go. My brother. As much as a lot of Black people hate to say so,
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 17
we're still brothers, they’ll say ‘now I didn't say we’re your distant cousins.’
They don't want to say brothers. [audience laughs] They say we’re
brothers.
00:42:18
But we must--its virtues, love, respect, integrity, whatever you call them.
You don't demand them. You earn them. No man can make any other
man, or any individual, love him, but he can earn it. But that doesn't go
one way. It goes two ways, and it comes out of sincerity. As they say in a
church, ‘that which comes from the heart, reaches a heart.” And I hope it
does. This is the thing I'm talking about. From this point, I got with the kids.
They organized, and they said ‘we're gonna have a Southside Way.’ Then,
they decide ‘well, there’s so much controversy, and we want them to know
that we have the strength among ourselves. We don't need to lean on
anybody. We're not gonna be affiliated with anybody. We're gonna change
our name. We’ll change our name to DECOY.’
00:43:03
Well, I never questioned them about that word, and it represents
‘Determined Ebony Council of Youth,’ but you know what a decoy is?
Those of who have been duck hunting. It's a false--well you know it's the
little duck that you buy at the store, and you put him out there to draw the
others, and when he draws them on then, boom! This is not the
connotation though. [audience laughs] But, still! It is in a way, even if they
were not aware of it. Right now we've got this, the South Side Way. We
had it before even The Way moved there, because the concept is in these
kids. The concept is in me. I believe it. But a concept is like..anything, this
ashtray6 was designed for one purpose: putting butts in, and putting out
ashes, and putting out cigarettes. I can take this and make a weapon in
probably, very-very, definitely to kill somebody with it.
00:43:55
And anything else, a pen, anything. It's how you use it. Even in a concept.
This is what has created, I believe, the reluctance, not only in white
people, but in Blacks who fear even the word ‘Black power.’ You hear
‘Black,’ and you hear ‘power,’ you eradicate power, you say ‘supremacy.’ I
heard a man speaking one time. A Black man. He said, we don't want
‘Black power.’ I said ‘man, how do you know you don’t want something
you never had before?’ There’s never been any Black power in this
country. It may be better than white power, but no one has ever said--no
6
Smoking was common in indoor spaces at the time, including the College Center (now Christensen
Center).
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 18
one has ever inferred, even that by having Black power that we would just
totally eradicate white power. What they're really saying is equality! And so
much so, that the National Conference on Black Power, about two weeks
ago in Washington DC, set out, and we decided we're gonna even change
the word to ‘equality.’
00:44:53
There’ll be fighting just like DECOY, you know. the same concept, but just
changing words. It's terrible how words affect people. The organization
was founded, and then we had to get adults to work. Out of sixty teachers
at that particular high school, I got forty seven to volunteer right on the
spot [snaps his fingers]. Every social agency, every institution on the south
side, we got them all together in one organization: us. The United
Southside. It was from there that we began to move, and this is how
DECOY was able to effectively get the things on the school board like the
20th for Malcolm X Day, for parental release. Like a school holiday for Dr.
Martin Luther King. Like just going to school to history books, throwing
them out.
00:45:41
We don't need black history, we don't need minority history, we need to
tell it like it is. And this is what we're gonna do: we're gonna build that
book up properly, and if we have to go back to the publisher--if we don't
buy it, he don’t print when he's got to sell. We're not gonna buy it. Then,
as a sensitivity training, we need people staffed. You want to know what
can be done? Staffed, and trained properly, to the sensitivity of the
problem of the racial issues. Not only the issues, but to the history. To be
informed. Now we only have a few resource places where we can get
such a thing. We sent three teachers from this area to Fisk University this
summer to be trained at where they have the most extensive resources in
Black history.
00:46:22
Right here in the city, DECOY’s getting another thing now. A library
equivalent two theirs, right here in our own city. A nice conference room
for U.S. to meet in. These are the things of the nature, to bill
constructively, and this can be done by Black and white, because United
Southside, by no means, is Black. We've got people like Nat Ober,
Superintendent of Secondary Schools, [inaudible] DeSantis, [inaudible],
Alderman. I could name a lot of people who are white, who sit down
together. They don't tell us what we should do. We run our show, this is
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 19
our program, we're running it, but they're definitely there to give whatever
aid they can. And this is what I feel we can do.
00:47:08
You've heard over and over again to go home and do your white
neighborhoods and educate yourselves. This is vitally important, but I by
no means am saying that you--that that is the end of it. But we must work
together. We must realize that that wheel that turned, and then built this
nation to be the nation that it is, had both black and white shoulders
pushing it. And if these two shoulders refuse to push, then the world can
no longer turn. The injustice of it is that the black shoulder was doing the
pushing, and the white shoulder was steering. But now we must push
together, because the wheel is too great for either one, a black or white
shoulder, to push alone.
00:47:49
[Myles Stenshoel] Okay, thank you very much. Now, the format this
afternoon varied rather considerably from that which went on this morning.
We've only got a few minutes left let's see if there aren't any responses or
questions that we shouldn't have here to either of these gentlemen. Yes.
00:48:03
[Audience member] Well, I’ve heard a lot of conflicting opinions about just
what role of the ghetto should be in society, now and in the future. And I
was wondering what both of your opinions might be about that.
00:48:16
[Reginald Berry] Why should there be a ghetto?
00:48:20
[Audience member] That's what I say, too, but I’ve heard people say that
there should be a ghetto. Negro people.
00:48:25
[Reginald Berry] One of the problems is: when Black people go to buy a
house in the white neighborhood, they’ve usually had to pay two times as
much as the house is worth to live out there. Over--I know a man who
came here from Mississ--no, Arkansas excuse me--he went to buy a
house in Minneapolis. Now, you know they got that open housing bill, they
always got bills, and human rights, and civil rights to make people human
and citizens. Make Black people human citizens.
00:48:48
When black people are on the docks, lowering the boats, when these
immigrants, white immigrants were coming here. But yet still they got
makes it--make them--special laws to make them citizens. One of the
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 20
things he did, he went up by a house. He had here, he didn't have--you
know, when he came here, he didn't have no car. He went over there on
Hiawatha Avenue. Firs,t he called up before he went there. They said, ‘yes
we have a house for sale.’ He went over there, he walked over there, what
happens? Soon as he gets there, I believe his Undertaker7 said, ‘oh wait a
minute, I have to call.’ he calls the owner, told her owner, he must have
told the owner he was Black.
00:49:23
Soon as he came back, he told the man the house was sold. So, naturally,
Black people are going to be put in the ghetto. Another instance a woman
down the block was gonna buy a house on 28th and Park Avenue. That's
right by my house. They had a for sale sign in the window. She went there
and they took it down and said it was sold. A week later, that for sale sign
was up. That's what's gonna make a ghetto. White people seem to want
Black people to be in a certain area. That's just like when black people
saying ten--not even ten--get behind closed doors. White person got to
know what's behind them doors.
00:47
[Harold Andrews] Well, another thing too, and we went over this this
morning.
00:50:02
[Myles Stenshoel] Different group.
00:50:02
[Harold Andrews] Oh. Well, in defining the word ghetto, it’s merely defined
as “any ethnic group in one geographical location.” So, by such a
definition, St. Louis Park is a ghetto. You see? Now, if this is the type of
ghetto you are talking about, there's no problem to a ghetto. You see, I
don't even want to live in St. Louis Park. I'm perfectly satisfied when I'm
living all by--maybe when I married, and I got a family, I'd want a home,
but I dig my apartment, you understand. But, on the other hand, I want my
ghetto to be as well off as St. Louis Park’s ghetto, you see what I'm talking
about [inaudible] equality?
00:50:45
This is that word, integration. See how you’re defining it in two different
ways. Not individually, but I have listened, and most white guys I talk to
you. And he says ‘say, man what do you think about integration?’ I know
what his next question is, but I usually politely wait to hear. And you know
what it wind up being? The Black man and the white woman. And this is
7
Berry possibly means a realtor.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 21
his fear of integration. This is the main thing that makes the white man
afraid to integrate. He doesn't want the Black man and white woman to get
together. Now that isn't how the Black man interprets--it’s not me. That
ain’t the way I interpret integration.
00:51:27
It's gotta--I have more values. I have more more things that I'm
considering in integration. What I'm saying when I say ‘integrate:’ number
one, in regards to where I live, whether I am satisfied in the southside of
Minneapolis or anywhere else, that I have the right to that pursuit of
happiness. To go there and live there. This is integration. Or if I so desire,
and I am financially well-off, I can go out there and join that country club.
That’s integration. And, you know, when I go I might take off--when I go on
my day I might take all my Black brothers and sisters with me, see. But
still will have that privilege. This is what I mean by integration and not--and
this is another thing, it must be more than token integration, as he was
saying in Dakota they had ‘their Indian.’
00:52:06
And the first thing that struck my mind was token integration. In my
investigation of this high school over here, when I walked in a principal
had three students, then ‘I want you to talk with these, Mr. Andrews.’ They
were Black. Now they can tell you like, just what's going on. Well, I looked
at that one, check the guy’s IQs [inaudible] you've got one of these big
IQs, his brother’s set a record over there that nobody can match, you
might have heard about his brother, who Mr. [inaudible] his brother over
on University, and he’s tremendous, you know. When he graduates from
high school, he was equivalent to, what was it there, Reggie, on his--not
IBM but, computers, the guy's a mathematical genius.
00:52:48
Now if you’re Black, and you're coming out of school and you’re not like
that, no token. And then, I've been here I've been in just a year, and since
I've been here I can, oh I have so many tremendous privileges. I had a
problem one time, financial, I walked up to a gentleman, a white man, say
‘man, I got a problem. I need $400 right [inaudible]’ ‘Sure, Harold.’ Wrote
me a check, beautiful, for Harold Andrews. But until a Black boy, whether
his name Harold Andrews, Joe Blow, anybody, can get the same type of
treatment, we have no equality.
00:53:22
You talk about integration and the ghetto is the same way. Until anybody
can walk out there, and get a house, you see, in that ghetto or any other
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 22
ghetto, then it’s so. And then as--it’s definitely it's nothing wrong with
ethnic groups being clannish, they always have been. Except the Black
man. You see, when you get the Polish American Society and I've seen
them, all--Italian American, Spanish American, they go down and have a
good time, they do the Polka. When we get together, here comes the
press. ‘What's going on here?’ ‘What are you doing?’ ‘A bunch of Black
people are together. They’re going to riot.’ We can, right now, if everybody
Black will get together, and we say ‘it’s nice today, let's walk.’ If we walk
down the street, I guarantee you either a State Trooper or other local
police will be there, and cruise around trying to see what's happened. You
can turn around do the same thing, and not a thing would be said.
Equality? No. Integration? No. You see what I'm saying, in answer to your
question.
00:54:18
[Myles Stenshoel] Our thanks to Mister Andrews and to Mr. Barry. We’re
grateful these two gentlemen were with us twice today. That's--I know
that's over and above the call of duty. We're grateful to all of the resource
persons today and of course to Ms. Deer who had to leave for that other
appointment. I have been asked to make another announcement: it has to
do with Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop that will be a half-hour,
especially written drama for our “One Day in May,” and it's going to be at
4:30 in Melby Hall and there is no charge, which is certainly an
extraordinarily good bit of news. So, at 4:30, you are all invited to be there
then the evening session with Milt Williams8 will be held in the College
Center lobby at 6:30. Again, our thanks to you and our thanks for panel
members
00:55:18
[Applause]
8
The former name of Mahmoud El-Kati.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 23
Show less
Transcript of “Our Forgotten Neighbors”
(morning session)
A panel discussion with Ada Deer, Rev. Harold Andrew, Reginald Berry, Gary Hines,
and Ronald Sample moderated by Myles Stenshoel
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0217
Description: The Rev. Harold Andrews, Reginald B... Show more
Transcript of “Our Forgotten Neighbors”
(morning session)
A panel discussion with Ada Deer, Rev. Harold Andrew, Reginald Berry, Gary Hines,
and Ronald Sample moderated by Myles Stenshoel
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0217
Description: The Rev. Harold Andrews, Reginald Berry, Gary Hines, and Ronald
Sample discuss residential segregation and racism in a panel moderated by Dr. Myles
Stenshoel. Ada Deer asks a question at the end as part of the audience. The panel was
part of a day focused on speaking and listening to issues of racial injustice, known as
"One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 01:10:39
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
00:00:00
[Miles Stenshoel] We're going to try to get going as soon, as quickly as
possible this morning. Some of the people who are on the--on your folder,
are not here and we've been very fortunate that some others have been
able to come in at the last moment.
00:00:19
Let's start over at my left just a brief introduction here. Ronald Sample,
representing TCOIC [Twin Cities Opportunities Industrialization Center].
Ron Edwards was not able to be here, and Mr. Sample was called in, I
guess, at the very last moment, so we welcome him. Reginald Berry is
over here. He is a student at Central High School. Gary Hines, next to Mr.
Sample, a student of Central High School, and Mr. Harold Andrews in the
center here.
00:00:57
[Inaudible sounds as Stenshoel speaks with others about audio
equipment] This is the tape recorder. [Inaudible]
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 1
00:01:13
Mr. Andrews has a number of positions, and I was asking him for them,
and he gave him to me so thick and fast I couldn't get them all down. He's
chairman of the United Southside, he is retained by the School Board for
something else [audience laughs], he's the assistant pastor of Sabathani
Church and I think most of these people probably wear a number of hats
and I don't think we're going to spend too much time with that. Some of
their identity will come out undoubtedly in the discussion and I think the
format which we might use is to ask these people to speak as a panel to
some of these questions, to interact with each other initially for perhaps
the first half of the period that we have, and then we'll try to open it up and
make room for all sorts of comments and questions which could very well
at that time come into play.
00:02:16
The title that has been given to this particular section is that of, "Our
Forgotten Neighbors," and the lede, or the subtitle is, "The inadequacy of
Public and Community Services in the Ghettos." It seems to me that
there's hardly any rejoinder to this bleak fact that in our ghetto
communities our services are much less than adequate. Parks don't seem
to be nearly as common or as well kept up, playgrounds often are very
minimal if existing at all, swimming pools have closed, the quality of our
schools, many of these facilities are obsolescent [sic] or non-existent,
perhaps in area of social work there are problems here.
00:03:04
The problem of absenteeism, I think most of us would recognize
absenteeism of landlords, of teachers, absenteeism of social workers,
absenteeism of ministers. We all go back to our own worlds, we're not
there. Now I think maybe the best thing to do is just simply ask the people
to begin, and maybe it will begin with you Mr. Sample, just you with an
initial statement and then you can all react to each other and I'll try to stay
out of it as long as you keep this thing moving. Alright?
00:03:44
[Ronald Sample] Alright, [inaudible]. You want an initial statement from me
and I just got here? That's nice. [the audience laughs] Well I could do no
more than elaborate a little bit more on what you've already opened
discussion on. We all know that the areas which we're talking about are
greatly neglected.
00:03:55
[Myles Stenshoel] I think we're going to have a problem with that air
system. It's making an awful lot of noise. Maybe I can ask that you speak
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 2
a little louder and possibly it would be a good idea if you would stand for
these people.
00:04:13
[Ronald Semple] I was afraid you were going to say that. [the audience
laughs] There are great deal of problems that we have to overcome in
ghetto areas, you want to call it the ghetto area. This term ghetto, of
course, is being grossly misused, but for sake of identification we do use
the word “ghetto.” At any rate, as you have stated, parks, playgrounds,
other recreational areas do go lacking to a great degree in many of these
neighborhoods.
00:04:46
Also, there's another [Inaudible] to this whole thing that is extremely
important and perhaps we'll get into a discussion on that a little later, and
that is a problem of the welfare of people in relationship to the people in
these areas of we prefer to describe more or less as a poor neighborhood.
Certainly, we have found out in the recent months that the welfare worker
or the social worker you might call them that, have very little time or can
take very little time to do social work and this is had a great impact upon
the relationship between the people in the neighborhood and these social
workers.
00:05:23
A lot of problems to this one, and I think that everyone should become
aware of these problems and also by doing so, whatever means are
necessary I think we can start working out ways and means of correcting
this gross injustice or inadequacy in our social structure so with that I'm
going to sit down because I did not come here even prepared to
participate. I was going to sit out there with you and listen, but somebody
spotted me and I think I have on the wrong shirt this morning. [the
audience laughs] So I'm gonna let these other gentlemen here go ahead
and say what they have to say because I don't want to say anything wrong
here.
00:06:13
[Miles Stenshoel] Yep. Do you want to make a statement now? It might be
a good idea to stand so they can [inaudible].
00:06:19
[Gary Hines] The problems in the so-called “ghetto” are centered around
exploitation. In fact, if not the whole matter of the problem is exploitation.
You see, whenever there's a group of people on top, in order to stay on
top, they must exploit those below them, or else their position of
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 3
supremacy, you know, will no longer preside. So they must prey on those
subservient to them. In the so-called “ghetto” from which I came, in New
York, Harlem, you have to really live with it to know what you're talking
about really. I mean you can go in and look and study and do this and
that, but you don't really know until you live with it, you know, and know
what it really means to have a bottle of pop and one of these little tents
and cakes around here and that's your breakfast dinner and lunch for the
day.
00:07:21
Things like this come home you know, to who? Nobody's home, you know,
your mother's gone. She went, she took the baby to the hospital. You
know, the baby got better by a rat or something in this nature. Your
father's out, you know, playing the numbers doing this and that. All trying
to make some kind of life for his family. You see, Black people have never
really lived in this country we've only survived and it's a matter of survival
in the ghetto, survival of the fittest, and you see, this is why you can't be,
there's no such, I don't want anything about any Black men being dumb.
00:07:56
Undereducated yes, possibly, very possibly, but not dumb because you
can't be dumb and Black and survive in this country. Every Black man
alive today. [Applause] Every Black man alive today has to have some
very high degree of intelligence in order to, you know, survive in this racist
society. So you're looking to get on, what do you see? Vices of every sort,
but why? You know, you see militancy, why? You know, you see
prostitution, pimps, and all this mess, dope addiction, why? It wouldn't be
there unless it was a necessity.
00:08:37
People have to have something to grasp on, something to live with, you
know, and so with that, you know, general statement more or less about
conditions in the ghetto I guess turn it over to Mr. Andrews.
00:08:50
[Miles Stenshoel] We're gonna skip Mr. Andrews just briefly and we're
gonna jump over here to Reginald Berry.
00:09:01
[Reginald Berry] I belong to a group in Minneapolis which is known as
DECOY, Determined Ebony Council of Youth. One of our jobs is to get
Black people together. We feel that the problem for white people, like
Lillian Anthony said, was to get white people together. Our job is to get
Black people our age together. Black people, so that we can, we're the
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 4
ones who know and you can be an adult and think what your child needs,
but we were the ones who were getting what you think we need, so we
feel that we have a better position, because we have, we're in a position to
get it. So we feel that we have enough sense the youth of our age, Gary is
in tenth grade, I'm a senior, the youth our age to think for our own selves.
00:09:42
So DECOY, one of the things we've done was we've had Malcolm X, this
parental excuse, that was through DECOY, Determined Ebony Council of
Youth. Martin Luther King will have that off, that was through DECOY,
Determined Ebony Council of Youth, and we're working on other projects
in the neighborhood. One thing I think that we have to realize is what a
ghetto really is. I think there is a dictionary, maybe the Webster New
World Dictionary says a “ghetto” is a group of ethnic people in a certain
area, therefore all over the country we've had Polish ghettos, we've had
Italian ghettos, Swedish ghettos, Harlem, before the Black man inhabited
in Harlem.
00:10:27
Harlem was owned by the Swedes, by the Germans, by the Irish, and then
came across the Black people. They were the last immigrants, or not
immigrants but people to inhabit Harlem. First, they were in Greenwich
Village and all over. See, Black people are on the boats unloading, I mean
on the shores unloading the Irish running from the potato famine,
unloading the boats for them so that they could settle in such areas as
Harlem before they ran [Inaudible] was the Germans.
00:10:55
Another thing I think we have to realize is whatever happens in
Minneapolis is gonna affect whatever happens in this state, whatever
happens in the state's gonna affect what happens in this country, and
whatever happens in this country affects what happens in the world,
therefore, white people try to get their self together in Minneapolis still be
doing a good justified thing because they'll be helping the state, therefore,
helping the world the whites all over the world.
00:11:30
Another problem that they say in the so-called “ghetto” is what I believe is
Black Power. Black people need power, black powers to control the
politics and politicians in their communities, control the businesses in their
communities, that's what's made the black ghetto in the first place. It's like
when you, a white person, owns a store in a black district ghetto, so-called
ghetto, what happens? You take your money from what you make from
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 5
your little job or what you got, the Black man has got from pimping or a
woman from prostituting or whatever it means they had to survive in its
society.
00:12:05
They take it to that store, what happens? The white person doesn't live in
that community, that poor Black community. He lives out in let's say no
offense on none of you, the suburbs, so what happens? He takes his
money that you give him to the suburbs and he spends out in the suburbs.
While the suburbs is getting richer and richer, the city, the so-called ghetto
is getting poorer and poorer. Therefore that neighborhood is poorer and
poorer. Like I said, it's control the politics and the politicians. You should
get somebody politically so that they can have something to do, so you
can get what you want through politics in that community.
00:12:44
For instance, over by Central High School, the railroad, streetcar tracks
that are still there, it's been ever since the streetcars disbanded. That's
one of the things that we need removed, let's say, that I know around
Central High School. Another thing we should learn in all the schools in
Minneapolis, all over the country, the history of so-called minority. I say
we're so-called because I believe minority, the people that they say we are
minorities, I believe we are in the majority. Because like I said, whatever
happens in the city affects the state, state the country, and the country,
the world.
00:13:15
There are more Black people in the world than there are white, so I
believe that I am a majority, not a minority. We should learn the history of
Black people all over the world, the history of the Indian, the Portuguese,
not Portuguese, the Spanish who came here, and who are also
oppressed. We should learn the history of them so that we can have more
respect for them as individuals and as people.
00:13:42
[Miles Stenshoel] Mr. Andrews.
00:13:14
[Harold Andrews] Well there's so many ways of approaching such a broad
subject as you have here. However, I'm interested in a couple of things.
Everyone has been talking about this word “ghetto” and as we use it, it's
for composing a certain element of people into one geographical area, and
it has its evils and it has it's good side.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 6
00:14:15
I'd like to relate to your story with my hometown which is Gary, Indiana.
Gary was founded in 1906 by Judge Elbert Gary and that city was built
around those steel mills for the purpose of having a community for the
men to live in to work in those mills. Well, we know the story of labor, we
know that even those of us who are uneducated could wield a hammer,
push a wheelbarrow or just scarf which is taking hot steel and throw it
around. This kind of work was available, so you found a lot of Black
people migrating from the South to the great North to get such jobs and as
this began to happen more and more would come. One fella come up,
say, "Well, this is pretty good, I'll send for old cousin Zeke and his eight
kids," and so he sent for Zeke.
00:15:08
Next thing you know, Black people started to just expand in that city, but
there's a peculiar thing about it. Just as they were just mentioning, they
were fused into an area of six square miles in that city and as they began
to diffuse and diffuse, they were spread out within the realms of this radius
and so what happened? We began to look around, and we realized that
out of the nine council medic districts in the city of Gary, Indiana, we were
living in six of them, but we didn't have any representation.
00:15:38
Here's a perfect example of black power. We got together and we decided
well, we've got to make the people aware of their political prowess, that
they have the power at this point, to put into office some of these people.
We're talking about political economies for as black power is concerned.
So the first year, myself and another gentleman ran for office and we
came in second to the incumbents. Then later you know what happened
we have a mayor there are now a black mayor, a black chief of police, a
black chief of the fire department, assistant chief is black, we got a black
echelon in a City Hall now, and it's what it should be.
00:16:12
Because the population there is and I quote, "Fifty-five black, thirty-five
white, and the rest is what they call undesirable." Well they must want to
be bad. I won't even mention who they are. However, this is an example of
black power, of how it can be used and how it can be turned around. The
ghetto can be used against. If the white mayor were really smart, the best
solution to his problem, which is the Black man is open occupancy
because when you put these people together they began to share
attitudes, they began to share frustrations, and it began to unite, and next
thing you know you've got explosions.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 7
00:16:59
Then you say it's an awful riot, but it's not a riot, it's a rebellion it's like a
coil spring. You just push it back so far and that's as far as it's gonna go
and it's coming back the other direction, and this is what's developing and
in that, and in reference to your social agencies there's a great exploitation
there. I thought that in my hometown and fact that I was running for the
office of township trustee, but I came here and found the same thing as
just as prevalent in Minneapolis, Minnesota. People have been exploited
tremendously by such agencies. Number one, your public relief. There we
found that people who had food vouchers would pay almost fifty percent
more than a person who paid cash for food.
00:17:43
Then there are certain stores that you had to go to and these stores are
being fed on the table through the administrator and they had a thing
going. The exploitation. And then if your family is starving. Now this is
supposed to be any immediate necessity in this particular office, this is
why I mention it. You walk up you say, "Well I need for right now. My
family's hungry. We don't have rent." "Well, would you fill out this form and
bring it back next week? and you're*" starving, and this is what's going on.
It would be funny if they were not so pathetic.
00:18:08
This such a thing is prevalent. As far as the welfare is concerned, I work
for the welfare department. I find the same thing prevalent here with your
welfare department and that's this: you give one caseworker a load of
cases. Now he's got to figure out a budget for all these people. Then here
comes food stamps now, so now he's got to make out a pink form for the
food stamps, and certify the family for food stamps, and then expect to
see 271 people out of 365 days regularly, and they all have their dire
needs, their immediate needs.
00:18:42
How can one individual do this? Then the budget is so is strained, why the
guy got a degree in social work or in sociology, why go to a Hennepin
County Social Work office when you get more money if you go to the
school board and you go elsewhere and get some fancy title and a big
salary you sit around and sign papers all day, so it's this thing, number
one, I think there should be more money and this comes to your county
board. There's too much political chicanery involved and these are the
things that cause exploitation. Some of these things are not black and
white issues. They are political issues. The issues that we need to just
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 8
clean up the city, polish it up, go into the administration and see what is
being done.
00:19:17
We're sitting here right now, I doubt if 7% of you are aware of the things
that are going on in your, just in your the Hennepin County Welfare
Department and you look at that poor caseworker and say why in the hell
aren't you doing your job, and they're doing the best they can do under
such circumstances, but you don't start at the top of the tree [inaudible]. I
know nothing about it but I know I wouldn't start looking at the leaf to cure
it. I'd go down at the trunk, go down at the roots, and this way we need to
start our administration as far as alleviating the things involved with our
case work and with our welfare.
00:19:56
Now just on a one-to-one basis, in the community you talk about our
neighbors this word is a word that has been tossed around as much as in
the other word it's a word like I'd say "table", "chair" and that's how I feel
about it now, this is what we feel about it. When you say neighbor it's just
an inanimate object, there's no compassion anymore for neighbor. This
I'm talking about his attitude. You know, one time Christ was asked who
his neighbor was and he told a story about the Samaritans and if you're
familiar with the mosaic dispensation of how things were in that particular
area, the Samaritans and the Jews had no dealings with one another. The
Samaritans weren't Orthodoxed and they were people who were looked
down upon. But he was a Samaritan, one who was an outcast in such
society, such as a Black man who came along and helped this man who's
supposed to be more privileged than he. This is, he said, is his neighbor.
00:20:4
Now you want to know, who are our neighbors? No more are our
neighbors the people offered lip service, no more are our neighbors the
people who shake their heads with sympathy, but our neighbors are the
people who help us as we struggle on this journey, along this road, as a
man did the way [inaudible], who really give us the aid you say what kind
of aid? I don't think I'd have to duplicate what Mrs. Anthony's already said.
That's one way and this is one way to affect attitudes, now what I have
found, as far as attitudes concerned is this, from when in such a meeting
as we are now it is so easy to get anyone of you who are white to stand up
and say such adequate eloquent words about, "I believe," and "This is
what we should do," but when you're among all white company, do you
have the courage to maintain that same attitude?
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 9
00:21:40
I am in such a position to know that in most cases you do not. I have
talked to people who were sincere enough to tell me that when they get
into all-white company and they began to discuss these things, "I might
say well the n****** are looking for a handout," and I'm quoting something
which I'm going to tell you about a little later, and you say well, yeah that's
right, and you get right it with them. It takes courage. What am I saying?
00:22:03
Belief is not enough, belief is not sufficient. It takes faith in what you're
doing, not belief. I often demonstrate to my congregation that I could say
to all of you, and probably convince you to an extent, but I believe that this
chair will hold me, but until I execute my faith, and sit down in this chair,
you cannot say that my belief is worth a thing.
00:22:33
[Miles Stenshoel] Okay very good now we've had a number of things
approached here. I wonder if I might, well maybe we ought to go back
here to Mr. Sample. You did say that you wanted to say something more
about social work. Did you not suggest that?
00:22:48
[Ronald Sample] I said I hoped we would get into it.
0022:50
[Miles Stenshoel] Maybe it would be a good idea, I think that this is time to
ask ourselves some questions about, or for you to interact some on the
question of social work and problems that might be here. Now whether
you have any suggested solutions.
00:223:09
[Ronald Sample] Well Mr. Andrews touched upon it as well, very well. The
point of it is, is it is an attitude or practice, which we don't seem to realize
in our social structure, our social welfare structure, that actually we
criticize the people for being on welfare then penalize them for trying to
get off, and this is kind of ridiculous, not only that, our social welfare
system is based on an intentional seem to be seemingly intentionally to
break up the family. One of the most ironic things is that in order for a
mother or a family who needs the help to get for instance money that the
father cannot make enough money because of the inability to get the kind
of employment in order to be able to take care of his family.
00:23:59
The system is now structured so he has to leave home. He has to sit down
in the living room with his wife and say, "Look, I can't make enough money
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 10
to feed my family, you can get more on ADC [Aid for Dependent Children].
I'm going to leave home, you file for divorce and then go and get on ADC."
In other words, we actually encourage the man, the breakup of the family,
then we criticize his mother for getting on ADC. Now she's on ADC,
maybe she doesn't like to be on ADC and we found and in our experience
that generally, they do not. But if she has the intestinal fortitude to go out
and try to find a job, she has to find a job good enough to compensate for
the losses she's going to experience when she gets that job or else it's a
financial risk for her to take the job and this is what I meant by we criticize
them for being on relief and then we turn right around and penalize them
for trying to get off, so on top of that we are encouraging the break up of
the family.
00:25:09
So to me, this is a very strong part of the necessity of changing this
particular structure in our welfare system. Also Mr. Andrews pointed out
the interesting fact that we have far too many caseloads per caseworker.
These people go to college for 4 years to learn how to do social work and
they turn out to be nothing but an accountant investigator in the home, and
have no time whatsoever to counsel these people and to help them when
they need help. This is my indictment of our social structure.
00:25:44
[Harold Andrews] I mean this is not hypothetical, this is a case, a case that
I had. There was a young lady who had graduated from high school and
had been put in just such circumstances that her husband had left home.
After what she applied for AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children]
upon her application she was accepted and she moved into governmental
housing also. Number one, she was a kind of person, she comes from a
fine home. She liked to live good. she bought a television. They want to
know where she got the money to get a television.
00:26:22
This is just one little minor thing. Then she had been taken a nursing
course but she had completed it, she went down and got a part-time job at
Methodist Hospital, and the money that she was making at the hospital, it
was a supplementary sort of thing, but what did a case what I have to do?
Counterbalance that to her budget what she was received from welfare.
Consequently, she said I may as well just sit home and then just make the
money I'm making no more because they're taking it off of what I'm
making on my relief, you know from my welfare. This is a thing to keep a
person on welfare, to alleviate poverty you should create a system, a
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 11
program within the system, in which you could have people to go to to
graduate until they are off but as it is now you must stay poor to keep the
exploiters in business you got to stay poor.
00:27:13
You guys tell me I'm not a very interesting factor and I've questioned
Congressman Fraser last week when he was here about this. The Bureau
of Labor Statistics along with your USDA statistics United States
Department of Agriculture Statistics state that they consider family of
poverty to be making $3,500. Each year, those of us who are employed,
fortunately, who do earn a living, every year we get an annual increase in
cost of living, but that has not been increased as far as the poor man's
concerns since 1959. In other words, we make more because you know
cost of living.
00:27:53
Isn't the cost of living going up for the poor people? So still, to qualify
even, not only for AFDC, you take the kids. I work with kids in the school,
to get on in the neighborhood youth court to work, your family has to make
this. A family making $4,000 is just as poor as the $3,500 and you know it,
you couldn't live on $4,000. I can't by myself, and this is what I'm saying,
the thing is so structured that the poor, they'd say this about Republicans
but I won't say this by Republicans, I just said generally, the poor get
poorer the rich get richer and this is the way the thing is set up. This is
where the structure of this thing is, and I think if there's something to be
done, if that's somewhere not just a point a finger, but some source in
which we can approach to really alleviate such a situation, and so that we
can't say that people are in poverty and they don't want to get to, you
know, we got a lot of this Calvinistic Puritanism going around too, that
those people are just destined to be that way and we are destined to be
this way, which is ridiculous, but we find it in Congress.
00:28:58
This is why you have some congressmen saying, "We don't want to pass it
more bills on poverty. We have to get to the source," and the source is
getting to your county board or getting right there in Congress, which is
pretty difficult now, let's not be ridiculous, let's look at the county board
level and get such things, alleviate, and as we say, as Reggie has said, if
we can get it done here, then it will affect the state and it will affect other
areas and perhaps it can be done all over the country, but I must also
come in. I want to commend this city, in spite of all of these things that are
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 12
here, I found in my traveling all over this country, Minneapolis, Minnesota
by far is the number one city as far as I'm concerned.
00:29:13
Here, I see progress moving more tremendously than anywhere in this
country, but that has no means or no reason for us to stop, but we must
continue to be, to remain on top.
00:29:50
[Miles Stenshoel] May I ask a sort of a general question here, any of you
want to say more here that's fine, but it seems to me that we often get the
impression that great numbers of people in this country have become, well
the nice word would be disenchanted with the establishment or the various
political establishments and have more or less thrown up their hands and
said what's the use of trying to work through the establishment.
00:30:16
Now. I've noticed, at least from some of the comments this morning, that
that utter hopelessness does not seem to be present here, that there may
be some possibilities. Now can we ask this general question about
whether you think that the means of meeting these problems is, via
various establishments; political, economic, and otherwise. Can we reform
them? Are they reformable? Or is the exploitation of such a sort that these
things have to be shaken, not not just shaken, but perhaps even
destroyed and other forms take their place?
00:31:01
It seems to me that there's been, let me say, sort of an optimistic
conservatism here, representative in what you have said, Mr. Andrews,
and perhaps also Mr. Sample. What do you think about this, panel
generally, I know Gary, you haven't had a chance to say anything since
you started, maybe we ought to not discriminate [audience laughs] against
the youth here either, perhaps give our high school representatives a
chance to say something.
00:31:32
[Gary Hines] Well you said a mouthful, could you put it in one question,
that I could, you know.
00:31:40
[Miles Stenshoel] Well! [the audience laughs] Gary, is there any hope, is
there any hope working through the establishments that we have, that is
the political processes. Can we sufficiently reform the political processes
or meet the problems through the political process, do you see hope here?
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 13
00:32:02
Oh, yes I see hope. I see who has a Black man, and when you see him as
a Black man, that's a pretty broad range because when you're in a
position of subservience and for such a long period of time, you know, 400
years to be exact, you see hope and a whole lot of things, and you have to
differentiate between that which is superficial and that, you know, which is
meaningless, so as for the, you know, going through politics, it's possible
and I do see a certain amount of hope in it, but one thing has to be done.
00:32:40
We have to start getting some black politicians, you know, up in some of
these positions because you just don't do things the way they are now,
you know, have a white man speak for Black people, come in look at the
so-called ghetto and to tell the truth aren't enough black people of
Minnesota to make up a real ghetto, but come in look, observe, you know,
in all this mess, copy down data, data whatever you want to call it, take
notes and come back and report to his little group and all of a sudden he's
an authority on Black people. Nowadays they have such thing, and I don't
use the word, but this is a terminology they use, "Negro psychologists,"
"Negro sociologists," you know, you come in you know like we're some
kind of animals you know things of this nature.
00:33:25
But as we're seeing politics as the direct means, you have to include
politics and naturally, you know my definition of black power is political,
psychological, 0 social, and economical advancement for Black people by
Black people by any means necessary. So if politics is one of the more
pleasant means than so be it. But if politics takes too long like it has been
doing you know passing bills to make people human, human rights bill
taking the country where the red man and then tells them he has to do a
certain thing before he's a citizen that's what your politics is gonna do, you
know, forget it you know give it to us [inaudible], we know how to handle
things of this nature.
00:34:09
[Reginald Berry] You got remember there was no noise made until they
had the so-called riot which we call social, economical revolutions. They
didn't pass things, people weren't congregating in rooms like this all over
the country or until after the so-called riots and then you remember as
soon as the riot happened to Detroit the first thing that this government did
was pas an anti-riot bill. That's gonna stop people from rioting. It was in
the newspaper, in the black, there's a part of the south which they call the
black belt world.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 14
00:34:45
Black people are congregated in a certain area among cities, I think, and
states. Am I correct? Remember when the Civil Rights bill was being
passed in 1964, the same people who are who are trying to stop the Civil
Rights bill from being passed were the people, the white politicians, from
that area of the Black Belt. This is the way our government was set up.
They tell us that the South lost the war and look who we had running for
president, two people from the South. Two. I don't care, two which I say
are more racist; Johnson and Goldwater. You could have a person that's
Goldwater or Wallace right now who is a segregationist and he's almost in
a position where he can announce he's going to run for president.
00:35:27
This is the way this government is built up. Through politics it takes
something like a social economic revolution to bring about the freedom of
Black people in America. When I say Black people I say anything that isn't
white, because anything that isn't white has been exploited by white
people. That's why I say it has to start from the grassroots level, for me I
have to start within yourself. White people, there wouldn't be no problem
at all if white people weren't racist, that's where it all started from the first,
besides the slaves back there. Wouldn't be no problems there one for
people who we got in position as president [inaudible] sell out things like
that.
00:36:07
This isn't our country, this isn't our government. Where everything we say
is America is our country, it's our country right or wrong it should be, is our
country right or wrong, because if you learn the history of the so-called
minority people or Black people in America in the world you find out that
our country hasn't been right a whole lot of times. If it has we wouldn't be
in this predicament we are in today. This is something we have to look
within ourseves and realize is there a solution to the problem.
00:36:35
I find the solution to the problem is right here in our high school in our
colleges. I find talking to high school students and college students, there
are more not really sympathetic more speaking out for Black people for
the impression that they've had for all these years than these older adults.
What can we do, we got like I said, you get the people high schools and
college students you 0 know what the problem is because you see more
of the problem because you're getting a little bit more, like I said,
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 15
communication is bringing a problem to you. So what you got to do, you
got to educate.
00:37:08
You got to look around you and see the situations and you got to do
something about them that work with us work, and you know, be the
leaders of us but work with us side-by-side.
00:37:21
[Ronald Sample] I'd like to speak to this hope bit as well. Naturally, when
you have light there's hope if you feel that there is no hope the person who
feels hopeless gives up, but a person who feels that there is hope
continues the struggle now he takes his struggles as he sees it, as he
sees is necessary to take them. Twenty years ago we were trying to
communicate in that nice easy way [inaudible] almost the prayerful look,
nobody listened. What are you saying about our good old people here in
America we can't do good talk, sweet talk just doesn't get it, only anything
it guesses a girl. But when it comes to rights or it becomes to creating a
situation to eliminate injustice for justice. For some reason or another we
can't listen in America. It takes an act.
00:38:22
It takes the sledgehammer between the mule's eyes in order to get your
attention, and if it has to be the violence which seems to be your means of
communication then that's the way it is. Certainly we have tried to
communicate with you in so many ways to show you that we didn't want to
join the establishment and that many times before I had listened to many
of the Black leaders say they didn't want to change the establishment,
they only wanted to be a part of it, that they wanted to share in the fruits of
the economy. However, today we feel that perhaps it is a necessity to
change a few things, certainly any action that we take in a political action
or any other kind of an action is an action for change whether we can do it
within the structure as it has been pointed out remains a good deal in
white America's hands, in your hands.
00:39:20
It's according to how you're listening and it's according to how well we can
communicate with each other and with how you can communicate with
yourselves. Certainly if you're not understanding what it is that we're trying
to say, by word, then some kind of action has to be taken in order to get
your attention, and so we do think that there is perhaps some hope so that
this can be worked out, but we don't believe now that it can be done
entirely within the establishment. There has to be changes.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 16
00:39:54
[Miles Stenshoel] Do you have any more you can add on?
00:39:56
[Harold Andrew] Well I want to say that I believe indubitably that this is
definitely an era of Renaissance and as Mr. Sample has said, we are a
nation who respond to violence. Our history tells this, the reformation of
industry, of labor and capitalism in the city, capital I meant to say, in this
country was a result of riots, those of us who can recall and it has always
been this sort of spontaneous action that has really gotten attention, but
I'm looking at even something more important. This is a element of a
different texture, one that is so foolish, you see, discrimination, I see
nothing wrong with discrimination.
00:40:51
I discriminate, but it's the thing that you base your discrimination on. Is
there certain people that I definitely will not socialize with because we
have nothing in common, there are people who I can go backwards by
myself I don't want anybody help me go backwards. I discriminate from
those type of people. I discriminate with the man who has no ambition,
what can we meet socially, but he could be black, blue, purple, or green.
It's the thing that I discriminate upon, not his colour. As I walked into us
the high school I was investigating racism, and when I walked into the
door I was discriminated against.
00:41:29
They didn't know whether I was Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, what didn't
know if I was rich or poor, a fool, or wise but they knew one thing when I
hit that door I was black and right away that attitudes began to form the
new animosities began to come as I walked into the principal's office, one
of the faculty say, "Hey, a little civil rights action, huh," tongue-in-cheek
thing, and this is where I'm saying, it's so foolish. If I had two glasses here
a white glass and a black glass and you wanted to drink and there were
holes in the white glass, and the black glasses in perfect condition, would
you refuse the one that was perfect because it was black and drink out of
the white?
00:42:12
No, it was because of what the thing could do, and this is what we we look
so foolish in it so child it's the way we base these little idiosyncrasies on,
our discriminations upon. When we look at a person because they're
black, this is the attitude that we want to discourage. Personality we know
they're people. The other thing I detest is for a white person to walk up to
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 17
me and say, "Man, I like colored people," because it's something I can't
stand. But let's be, if we gotta be [inaudible] let's be [inaudible], let's be
candid about the situation and let's look at it and be more realistic is what
I'm saying as far as the structures concerned, as far as the system is
concerned, there's definite reformation in the system, because at this time,
no more will it be done through legislature, no more will it be done by the
bureaucrats, but by people like us, after all, we are the government.
00:43:03
Originally we were the government, but now it's one individual who goes
and sits in a seat and talks and says things that you may not even believe
in and votes for you. We must begin to put pressures. If we really feel this
as a people that we want such a thing done that we must affect our
legislature to the extent that he cannot go and legislate acts that we do
not, that are, that we feel that we don't want to be legislated. This is why I
must start here, and I have all the faith in the world in youth I believe that
this question will be alleviated and will be brought done by you, will be
done by the youth of today this generation because I see my hope is in
this generation as Berry has said. I have very little faith in the generation
that superseded me, but we're young people, we're gonna get it done
that's all.
00:43:58
[Miles Stenshoel] Well, I want to open it up now to responses, questions,
comments, or whatever kinds of responses you think. I'd like to accept my
own invitation first [audience laughs] with a couple of specific questions.
That's something that I've got going for me by sitting up here. With respect
to this question of the political participation and leadership, Black
leadership, now let me raise a question here in the context of the Twin
Cities area.
0044:32
We have a Metropolitan Council which has no governmental powers
really, though some people hope it will have more governmental powers.
Now there might be a, it might be true, if we were to have, work toward
develop a truly metropolitan area government for Minneapolis-St. Paul and
their suburbs with some kind of a common tax base and a common
acceptance of what are really all of our problems, that then the suburbs
would feel more a part of the whole thing, that we might be able to do
something here. It might be a plus thing.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 18
00:45:11
On the other hand, this would dilute Black power in terms of voting block
or in terms of something like this is. Is there any response that any of you
have to that?
00:45:23
[Reginald Berry] First of all, Minneapolis, in the south side of Minneapolis,
Black people are not congregated in one certain area. You may think
they're congregated on Fourth Avenue, but that's not true no more.
There's no certain area in Minneapolis, south side of Minneapolis there's
Black people spread out all over, one of the main issues that we feel
DECOY, feels is that the suburbs are getting paid to schools, the teachers
are getting paid more to teach out in the suburbs than they do in the city,
therefore if a teacher graduates from say Augsburg College and he's a
good teacher he's not gonna want to teach in the city because there's no
money in the city, so one of the one of the main, to get around, one of the
main issues is to get somebody you know all over the schools, the school
districts, all over the state to get the schools ran by statewide basis.
00:46:14
[Gary Hines] Once again you sort of said a mouthful, could you put it in
one specific question? [audience laughs]
00:46:19
Well, what would metropolitan government, the whole metropolitan area,
would this help or hinder from the solution of these problems?
00:46:32
They would hinder it definitely. I'll tell you why, first of all, I'd like to draw a
little synopsis between some clothes and human beings. Okay, I'll speak
up. If I go into a laundry to to get some clothes clean and I have one load
of white clothes and one load of black clothes now the object is to get both
sets of clothes clean, however, I find that if I put both sets of dirty clothes,
white and black, in the same washer, they not only do not become clean
but when I take them out of the washer I find that they have each other's
lint on them, I find that the white one is all grayed up from the black, I find
that the black one is all grayed up from the white, I find that everyone's all
linen and dotted up, and things are worse then when I put them in there.
00:47:33
However, I find that when I put the right one in the washer, get it clean and
put the black clothes in the washer and get them clean and get them all
dried up, then I can put them in the same basket together. Now what does
this say? The lint represents animosities between white and black. Now on
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 19
the white side, white people are still two races, you've just found that out,
you know, with the President's Advisory Commission report.
00:47:58
Black people have known it for four hundred years, [audience laughs] and
Black people, you know, seeing the fact that we know this, Black people
are too bitter. Now you just don't mix bitterness and ignorance, you see.
You have to get each, you see, that's the so-called liberal. I hate to offend
any liberals here, but to me there is no such animal really. Now, what has
to be done--so many white people find out a little bit about the situation
and all of a sudden become authorities, but we won't get into that--find out
about it and the first thing they want to do is rush into the Black community
arms open, wallets open, pockets open. “What can I do? I've been wrong
so long.” Just trying to throw this over Black people and like I said, Black
people are too bitter.
00:48:49
Nine out of ten times until you go home, [inaudible] we don't want you.
See things like this, why one it's time for the Black man to stand up on its
own two feet. We've been waiting on the white man too long, too every
time he sees a white face it represents everything he's fighting for, you
see, not so much you and your white skin, but what your white skin has
enveloped in the past you see and held over Black men, so when you
come up there with your white face, arms open, wallets open, “what can I
do?”
00:49:23
You know what you can do, go out in your own communities as the man
mentioned before, anybody can stand up with the elegance, you know, of
a Frederick Douglass or a Patrick Henry, in your case [audience laughs]
and before a group of Black people and you know spout off at the mouth
about how much they love this and how much they know this is wrong and
mess of this nature. But what about when you get out in your own
communities, you have to get out into your own communities. We've got a
lot of cleaning up to do among ourselves. You see this is a revolution.
Revolution comes from evolution which means change, you know, gradual
change, only our change is changing a little bit faster than revolutions in
the past, you see, we have to redefine our set of values, which is why
nowadays you see the natural look.
00:50:09
You know, the long kinky curly whatever you want to call it hair. You see,
we're trying to redefine our own set of values so far as beauty goes and
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 20
you know [inaudible] and things of this nature. The reason why we've been
straightening the hair with the various lyes, permanence, hot combs in this
nature is because ever since, say the Black woman, has been able to read
or look in a magazine you know Seventeen, or COED, or In-Co Out-Co
[audience laughs] every depiction of beauty is white and has long flowing
hair. Well like I said this is a revolution and you know things are changing.
Now we're saying that black is beautiful what we have what we're proud
and you know yours is no better than ours.
00:50:52
So as for you know people coming in, we've been exploited too long as
soon as Black people try to get together and see your white face there,
they're gonna expect the exploitation and white people have been doing it
so long they may be doing it unconsciously, so we better, like I said get in
our own washers and get our own selves right separately.
00:51:13
[Miles Stenshoel] Okay now I'm going to forego my other question
because I gotta get you in here. I want to remind you of these gentlemen's
names so that if you wish you may address your questions or comments
to particular persons. Mr. Berry, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Hines, and Mr. Sample.
Berry, Andrews, Hines, and Sample, and Don Nichols had his hand up
first. I'm going to ask for this question.
0051:36
[Donald Nichols] It seems to me that one of the things that's been
mentioned several times is this business of black heritage, and I was
wondering what would be the best way to get this black heritage known? It
seems to me that at Augsburg College we should probably have a course,
something along this line, specifically oriented toward expounding this and
I was wondering how you felt about approaching it on this level or what
level do you feel is best? No one in particular.
00:52:10
[Reginald Berry] One of the things we did was, DECOY did, when we went
before the school board [audience laughs, possibly from something that
happened in the room] we got history. True history. One of the things we
said that we wanted true history taught in all the public schools. The
problem is from K through 12 when you're coming up through grade
school the first thing when you learn how to read, you read about Dick and
Jane, you know Dick and Jane out in the suburbs [audience laughs] with a
fine pretty dog, you know everything's mellow. So you know right away
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 21
the black youth has nothing to relate to and the white has nothing to relate
to with the black.
00:52:49
So, what they did, what they're doing now I believe in some of the great
schools they got integrated Dick and Jane books. [audience laughs] Right,
I don't know about the suburbs. Yeah, they're still in the suburbs. [he
laughs] One of the things, another thing is like K through 12 the problem,
like say you take up grass or weed don't cut the weed off at the top and
expect the weed not to grow no more you got to get down to the root of
the problem, the root of the problem is when the youth is young, when he's
coming up. You know, it's funny when a person never, when you're young
you can play with white kids and you see no difference, but as soon as
you start going to school, then you start seeing the difference.
00:53:26
Your mother says you can't play with him no more or their mother says
they can't play with you no more, things like that. It doesn't start until you
start getting in schools, when you start getting related to all these books
so what you gotta do, history's got to be taught. One of the things we said,
yeah, was K through 12 true history taught. History of Black people,
contributions that they've made, tell you we always talked about Charles
Drew because that makes me mad every time I think about it. He was the
inventor of blood plasma, a Black man, he in 1948, he got in a car
accident out in, I believe it was Georgia. What happens, he went to a
white hospital, they wouldn't serve him, all he needed was blood plasma
the invention that he had, invention that he made and what happens on
his way en route to a black hospital, he died.
00:54:11
So what we gotta do, we got to start getting these things together while
we're down here. Your little brother, you got to start letting him know.
That's why I believe it's in us, it's in us youth, that this problem is gonna be
solved. You wanna know what history do? You can find history books as
black men anywhere. One of the greatest books is, to me is “Before the
Mayflower” by Lerone Bennett, but then you can't stop at that book. You
got to start reading on and on about the Black man. I was lucky, I got
learned and so are most Black people they taught me white history in
school.
00:54:41
I learned about Patrick Henry's great statement, "liberty or death,"
"taxation without representation is tyranny." Black people been taxed
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 22
without being represented since they've been here. He didn't say nothing
about that or liberty or death, that's all they're crying in the so-called
ghettos, "Liberty or death."
00:55:00
[Crosstalk as the panelists decide who will speak]
00:55:05
[Harold Andrews] This is important I would say, but we say the basis of
this society is education, and yet it's the most outmoded facility. I guess
you're aware of this. Even in reading, we have gone back to the original
form of teaching kids to read. Now it's a very vital issue here at hand. I
was looking at a test yesterday, not a test but a survey and the question
was, I just wouldn't answer because of this the question kept talking about,
'Did I think that the culturally deprived children...?' I don't believe there's
such a thing as cultural deprivation, but cultural differences and this where
education must come in to let you know, because we don't learn by white
standards, we're deprived when really white Americans deprive because
they must learn of out standards and let them know there is a dual
standard, that we do have a heritage.
00:55:52
This is the essence of education in the schools, but it must go beyond the
schools. It didn't begin all in the schools as Gary was mentioning. While
psychologically, or socio-psychologically, we could say that what is known
as the the Negro self complex or the self-hatred complex which is
devolved from this is gathered at an early age, a kid's looking at television
and he sees the start. Everything is white, the hero is always white, and
the Black man his eyes get bold and hair is kinky hair straightens out and
he runs. [another panelist says something inaudible and the audience
laughs] Right, nothing to relate to. When they look at Tarzan as a beautiful
example.
00:56:37
Here's a native with a g-string on [audience laughs] and he's got a spear
with the head if he did that it would fall off and he's running from a lion in a
jungle--incidentally lions don't even live in the jungle that's a plains animal
if you know a thing about Africa. But anyhow, he runs it along comes a
white man on a vine screaming out a God curdling sound, no weapon,
he's got a knife. I never see him pull it out til he gets to the water with the
alligators and he says “Ungawah.” and the lion walks away. [Laughter]
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 23
00:57:14
And there's a kid looking at this he's looking at this, a black kid, and he's
saying, Man, I ain't nothing. This is what he begins to think, he begins to
develop this self age of complex, so he begins to socially interact with
whites, he says, "I want to be white," because this is white but also the
white, this is what you're not looking at. The white kid is victimized too,
because as he looks at the same thing, this connotation is this that of
whiteness, that I could be an idiot but if I'm white I can make it and he's
right too, the way this thing is structured, the way our society is structured,
and then there is this unconscious development of black and white.
00:57:53
There are over 200 synonyms which depict black as ugly, a man who is
ousted from a union. He can't get a job anywhere, he's blackballed and we
know darn well black has nothing to do with not getting a job. Oh yes it
does, I'm sorry--but you see what I'm saying. “Blackmailed,” you can just
think of all kinds of words like this, this unconscious development of it, so
yes, we must start an institution and we're behind, and we're the basis, the
universities and the schools are the basis of education in society. The
basis of the structure of it and yet, we're so far behind that you got to
broaden a community like we're doing right now to find out about
blackness when it should start right here. I agree with you, and we're
doing it in a school system.
00:58:36
[Ada Deer, in the audience] I was wondering what you think about getting
the Black community and the Indian community together. I work in both
groups, and I find when I’m in one community I’m definitely, in that
community, isolated in the other Indian community, isolated in the Black
community, I’m talking about the other side. In both communities.
00:58:57
[Reginald Berry] That’s two different heritages.
00:58:58
[Ada Deer] It’s not! It’s not. My idea is one community. I mean, that’s what
I think would be ideal. [panelists speak to one another while the audience
member is speaking] But was wondering if you think at this point, using
your analogy about mixing clothes, black and white clothes, you think that
red clothes should not be in that mix too.
00:59
[Reginald Berry] See Black people have a whole lot of colors: black, red,
and yellow, and brown, so when we say “Black people” this is my
connotation, when I say black I mean anything that isn't white, because
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 24
that's what it is. White people are not white then you take to the extreme.
Someone may be pink as rose flowers or or so on, gray as a ghost. The
white people are not white but they relate to the extreme which is white.
Put up to a just sheet of paper and none of you are white. Black people, a
lot of Black people, are not black, but they relate to extreme which is
black. You say Indian mixed Indians and Black people together, you know,
you try to change white Indians and black? Dirty clothes, they've both
been exploited by white people. They both have a different heritage,
different backgrounds.
01:00:04
[Ada Deer] But do you think they can be brought together?
01:00:06
[Harold Andrews] We work together.
01:00:07
[Reginald Berry] We work together. We have, what's his name?
01:00:09
[Harold Andrews] Gray?
01:00:09
[Reginald Berry] Gray. [Inaudible]
01:00:12
[Harold Andrews] Harold?
01:00:13
[Reginald Berry] Yeah.
01:00:14
[Harold Andrews] We have, we work together--this is not, this is what--
01:00:17
[Ada Deer] Where is your Indian Representative today? [presumably she
is addressing Miles Stenshoel about the composition of the panel]
01:00:19
[Harold Andrews] Do you want us to live together, is that what you mean?
You say “today.”Did you invite the Indian?
01:00:24
[Miles Stenshoel] Yeah.
01:00:26
[Ada Deer] Yeah, he was invited. Now yes, yes you do live together
already on the Northside I know. But I definitely feel the barrier here--
01:00:32
[Reginald Berry] White people live on the Northside too.
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 25
01:00:33
[Ada Deer] Pardon?
01:00:35
[Reginald Berry] White people live on the Northside too.
01:00:35
[Ada Deer] And white people, you’re right.
01:00:36
[Unidentified panelist] And they're exploited.
01:00:38
And I definitely feel barriers there.
01:00:38
[Harold Andrews] Well alright I'll tell you this. The Indian isn't here, my
grandpa's an Indian. I'll represent him.
01:00:47
[Laughter and applause]
01:00:52
[Harold Andrews] I'll give you a little Indian history a little exploitation. How
many of you familiar with the Cherokee march in Georgia? When
Cherokees were based right in Georgia, had land given to them by the
federal government, and when they were trapped they tried to throw them
off, take them off of this land and put them on other reservation for us it
was too [inaudible]. Anyway you want in a map if you want to know the
worst land in this country, the less productive, the most desolate just all
you have to do is get you an Indian territorial map and that's where it is.
This is what they've done to this man. They put him on this land and he's
got to till it he's got to make it produce, but no they had a nice piece in
Georgia and what happened? They were forced off, but they used the
white man's structure, they used the reformation, they went along with the
bureaucrats and they went through the federal courts and went up to the
high pillar councils and they won their case.
01:01:51
They won their case. General Grant was president at this time and the
federal court said that they had a right to stay there. You know what Grant
said? The president said, "All right you gave him this, you gave him these
rights now you help them stay there," and he had his troops to take these
people on a forced march. One thousand of them died and then as they
were marching along whites would come on taking their horses, taking
their property, and no one to defend them. [Inaudible] marched them off
this land. This is what's happened to the red man. You wonder why the
red man as you depict him the vanishing American with his horse tail took
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 26
his head drooped. Here's a man who has more of a gripe than anybody
here. He is the only man who can say he is an American.
00:02:36
He was here before, while the Black man came a year before the white
man came in 1519, a Black man was here as an indentured servant
working this land. Next year here come the pilgrims. All right, ever since
that time this man has been given the worst bit of it. This man has been
felt that he's had a part of defeat and not until now, not until now, you see,
here's a thing, let's look at it for like it is, you said [inaudible] doesn't have
any get up and go. You ask George Custer how much get up and go he
had, but you see when he did fight, it's the same thing we've been doing it
all through history when we we rebel, you call it a riot, when the Indians
attacked the white man and that time, it was a massacre, when he
attacked us it was a victory, you see what I'm saying? So yeah it's a
history.
01:03:23
Now as far as working together, we're definitely working together. Harold
Goodsky who I want you to hear him speak, I wish he were here now. A
very impressive speaker but to heck with speaking, we got things we're
doing. No it ain't in the Tribune every day, it's not in the Star, but that's not
where it's at. We got action moving and as Barry said, when we said
“black,” we're talking about the Indian, the Puerto Rican, any other
minority group as you so call us, and if they're out here they're
represented and that's why I want to go on record right now as
representing them because we're not speaking, we say black would mean
black, red, and every other color.
01:03:56
[Inaudible question from audience]
01:04:11
[Gary Hines] [Inaudible] has told me that teachers get paid more because
there's some law that was passed while the suburbs were growing get
more, paid more for each student out in the suburbs that they teach.
01:04:27
They, recently--this is a recent raise in the school system and six to seven
hundred dollars now, which is quite a bit more, it's not the teachers, it's
just the institution itself and it that's a different, a separate system from the
the Minneapolis Public School system and this is actually the problem. In
relations to the Alsop and Pettigrew debate about schools, quality of
schools, and Pettigrew says that we should bus them. But I go along with
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 27
Alsop and along with, what's-his-name, well anyhow! This is what he said.
"It's not the color of the school, but the quality of it." When we say quality,
we not only mean the facilities we're far less facilitated than the [inaudible]
suburban schools you know this. I was in Edina last week, Edina High
School and it looks better than Augsburg to tell you the truth, [audience
laughs]
01:05:20
And then, I mean they've got just tremendous things at their disposal. Now
these things [inaudible] We got a few talking typewrites coming into our
system [inaudibe] over negotiate on that few things, but still, that's just
facilities. It must be quality also in the teacher. Now as fas as the
sensitivity is speaking of I assume, I think that [inaudible] going along with
the young man's question over here. Right here, you should get some
exposure to what's going on there and even in your practice teaching, why
don't you go to a ghetto school and get some exposure?
01:05:55
[Ronald Sample] I'd like to answer to your question too. I don't know
where your statistics or figures are from, but I've talked with many
teachers here and they have admitted to me that they can get paid more
in suburban schools than they can in the city schools and these are
people who ought to know they were the ones who get [inaudible]. In fact,
one lady told me she wanted to teach in Hopkins because she's gonna get
more money and have better equipment and better facilities and easier
children to teach.
01:06:20
[Inaudible response from the audience]
01:06:29
[Ronald Sample] One teacher that I knew quite well left from the suburbs
and Hopkins and she was maybe nine thousand dollars a year.
01:06:41
[Harold Andrews] There's a difference, yeah, but the top the level isn't as
high as the suburban.
01:06:44
[Miles Stenshoel] One last question, I don't know to whom to turn here is
there one last question? Okay, one last question.
01:06:53
I was just curious. It's been brought up that the welfare system is so
inequitable and so poorly constructed. In what way can we affect this
now? Should we write our congressmen or how can this be?
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 28
01:07:12
This is the way it is going to have to be done. As we have tried to point out
and reason why I'm very familiar with this I have just recently had
conferences with the entire staff of the Hennepin County welfare and do
almost to a person we agree about these particular handicaps: Number
one; they are tied by whatever our national policies happen to be in
welfare work. They are just workers, they have to do what they're told to
do so not we do have to work this through our legislation we have to be
aware of where the injustices lie in our welfare system and it has to go
through our legislative processes to get it corrected. These particular
problems [inaudible] is our welfare really helping these people or is it
actually really giving them to a subservient situation out of which they find
almost no means of getting out of it?
01:08:03
[Inaudible] we have a good welfare system. It will help the needy people,
but it will not be a hindrance to them helping themselves when they so
desire to do so and most of them do. I've met very few people on welfare,
and I talked to quite a few, who want to stay there. A man wants to be a
man, a woman wants to be a woman. They don't want to have to go
around feeling they have to live on handouts all their lives, but our welfare
system has put them in this bag and has allowed them no way out.
01:08:33
[Inaudible question from the audience]
01:08:48
[Harold Andrews]And young man, if you want to pursue this I want to give
you a little something else to take along. There's an element or segment in
the poverty level that is totally ignored. Welfare is designed now it's two
elements; the family who does not have a head of a household who
cannot survive and the old people, the aged. This is all they support and
as a third segment that only one federal program helps, that's food
stamps and that is where there is a head of the household and does
insufficient income they can't get a thing anywhere except relief and that's
temporary and it's very menial. This should also be included. Food stamps
is different. Some of you could get food stamps because all it's relying
upon is your income by ratio to the number of people in the household and
employed.
01:09:45
You must have a total income and then if it's less than that $35,000 then
you qualify for food stamps, for food stamps you see, but that's the only
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 29
program but I think it should be more flexible for that family, then a father
would have to leave the home too.
00:01:10
Well we come awfully close to the guaranteed income idea without ever
mentioning it, it seems to me. That was the other question we don't have
time for it. I want to say thank you to our visitors this morning. This was I'm
sure pointed very helpful to us even if we strayed occasionally from the
more specific topic. I want to say thank you to this group and I want to
remind you that at 11:15 we the next presentation, "Violence versus
Non-Violence," and that will be a general meeting downstairs again.
Thank you all very much.
01:10:35
[Applause]
“Our Forgotten Neighbors” morning panel discussion (transcript), page 30
Show less
Transcript of “People or Property: Law Enforcement in the Ghetto”
(afternoon session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0033
Description: Please note: this recording contains use of the n-word that listeners may
find disturbing. Gary Hines, Larry Harrell... Show more
Transcript of “People or Property: Law Enforcement in the Ghetto”
(afternoon session)
A Panel Discussion
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0033
Description: Please note: this recording contains use of the n-word that listeners may
find disturbing. Gary Hines, Larry Harrell, Douglas Hall, and Corty Espangoga discuss
issues surrounding police presence in black neighborhoods in an afternoon panel
moderated by Dr. Unidentified speaker. Note: this discussion contains explicit language.
The panel was part of a day focused on speaking and listening to issues of racial
injustice, known as "One Day in May," 1968 May 15.
Duration: 01:05:52
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
[The recording cuts in as Torstenson is speaking]
00:00:00
[Unidentified speaker] All of us may not be here. In order to make full use
of our time, I think we are all aware that one of the sensitive and most
critical issues in the field of human relations relates to the whole matter of
law enforcement and the delicate question of the role of the police in the
matter of their protection of people and property. This has been brought
sharply into focus in relationship to riots, but probably more sharply still in
relationship to some observations that were made by a mayor of a city
about five hundred miles from here with respect to what police ought to be
doing in the case of the critical tests in this matter.1
1
Possibly a reference to Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley and the 1968 Chicago Riots, which took place
on April 5-6. Daley encouraged Chicago police to shoot or maim looters and arsonists.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 1
00:01:05
I'm not going to be doing any speaking to this subject. I'm simply, I think,
to introduce some of the members of the panel, who will open up the
discussion and give us a chance to think together with them about this
important matter. There have been some changes in the personnel of our
panel. Mr. Douglas Hall, the attorney who many of you have known about,
known personally, and some of you have read about a great deal before,
but perhaps saw the interesting story of this man in last Sunday's paper.2
We'll open the discussion, present some of the issues, and the other two
members of the panel: Larry Harrell from the Minneapolis Civil Rights
Department and Cortez Espinosa from South High may be brought into
the discussion.
00:02:10
George--Gary Hines from the Determined Ebony Council of Youth at
Central High School
00:02:19
[Gary Hines] No, not at Central High School.
00:02:21
[Unidentified speaker] At Central High School.
00:02:21
[Gary Hines] No.
00:02:22
[Unidentified speaker] No, not at Central High School. I get the information
you have from somebody else. And I think we'll introduce Doug Hall first
and then he will introduce the other members of the panel, is that alright?
Mr. Hall, how long do you want me to [sound of shuffling papers and
microphone adjustments]
00:02:49
[Douglas Hall] I want to get something off my chest to start out with. It has
nothing to do with law enforcement. I didn't bring it along with me, but the
letter I got inviting me to this session, and my feelings about the tone that
some speakers take when they come to college groups. It's kind of all
wrong. As I recall the letter, it said that the students at Augsburg never
lived in the ghetto, and they didn't know what it was all about, and it was
our responsibility to come up and get you involved.
00:03:33
The speakers feel that they have to arouse your feelings of guilt and so
forth to appeal to you and this whole situation. I think that's wrong. I see a
See Bob Lundegaard, “Doug Hall: Attorney for the Underdog,” Minneapolis Tribune, May 12, 1968. Front
page.
2
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 2
lot of your generation. I've got five kids of my own that kind of span your
generation on both ends. And I think you're beautiful people, and I don't
think you should feel guilty about this whole situation. I think you should
become involved, you should become involved from a sense of
responsibility, but I don't think you should feel guilty.
00:04:20
And I think there are certain hang-ups in these guilt feelings that people try
to put on your generation and they cause you to become hung up on
things, and you can carry out your responsibility which you obviously have
much better, if you look at it in terms of responsibility and not that you're
guilty for all of the sins of the prior generation. Because all you have to do
really is to look at the history of this country from about the past three or
four or five years and college students have accomplished tremendous
changes in policy, and in feeling, and awareness, and as a group, you've
done more than the older folks have to redirect a lot of the thinking in this
country. So I think you should be proud of yourselves.
00:05:19
You shouldn't feel guilty. Come on in and get involved and all that stuff,
but do it from the right basis. Law enforcement in the ghettos. [Long
pause] You start now with a problem in the ghetto. It was the most
universal, up to two or three years ago and it still goes on, that the ghetto
is the place to channel all of the things that you don't want in the other part
of the city. And the general attitude of law enforcement was ‘we don't care
much what goes on in the ghetto as long as they do it to each other. If
they get out of the ghetto, and do it to the rest of the community, then we'll
have to take some action.’ You can imagine what that kind of an official
policy has done to the ghetto.
00:06:32
It's embittered people. It has made them frustrated, depressed, with a very
strong feeling that they have no worth and that they are the dregs of
society in their areas and the city is the dumping ground. And this has led
to all sorts of ramifications, I don't think there's any question. I'm sure you
studied it in your sociology courses that the poor, and the Black, and the
red are more vulnerable to police action. The police feel that with impunity
they can push people around in the ghetto and nothing will ever happen
about it. And there is a completely negative feeling in the ghetto about
justice and law and order. These are not relevant things to people who live
in the ghetto.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 3
00:07:51
And I can illustrate it best by the attitude along Franklin Avenue in the
Indian community, that almost universally if an Indian is arrested for
anything, nine times out of ten he will go down to court, he will plead guilty
just to get it over with. There's no sense in trying to do anything about it.
And of all the injustices, I suppose I feel this one the most keenly, that
Indian people and black people have such a completely defeatist idea
about justice because this is what my profession is supposed to be about.
About a year ago, three Indians were arrested on Franklin Avenue and
charged with four offenses, and it was a sort of the routine bag that the
police department had engaged in, but they just happened to pick out the
wrong three, because these men decided that it was about time to put an
end to going down and pleading guilty and getting it over with.
00:09:14
They wanted their day in court, and they wanted their day in court without
any real expectation that they would win, but they decided to call a halt for
their own integrity to this idea of just going down and falling in the bay.
And so we tried three cases. It took us two days. I sometimes have the
reputation of trying a misdemeanor case like a first-degree murder case,
but this is important. Instead of just standing up in front of the judge and
having the thing over in about three minutes, they sit at the counsel table,
the witnesses are sworn, they get to participate in the dignity of what the
law is supposed to be about. And you can see the response of a human
being to the sort of pride of participating in a process and doing it on their
own terms.
00:10:33
And that experience sort of started a new awareness in the community as
to what justice can be and it really was unimportant that in those four
charges they happened to win three. It was a fine thing to have happened,
but the important thing was that they decided that they were going to at
least participate as human beings. And it's from beginnings like that, that
this curse of the ghetto is going to be broken. And it's in areas like that,
that you as individuals can participate. There are all sorts of ways and
organizations and movements in which you can become involved, not with
the idea of working out your guilt, but with the idea of acquiring a whole
new world of experience and it's a constant learning process.
00:11:41
I've been talking recently about racism and the administration of justice
and one of the areas in which it's most manifest is in just the semantics of
the situation, and the words we use. At the Hennepin County Bar
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 4
luncheon in which we talked about this thing, sitting at the speaker's table,
and gauging in the chit-chat before the program began, the term “colored
boy” was used again and again. Here we were sitting down to discuss
racism and these men are so insensitive to a very elemental proposition:
that a man is a man and you address him like that, but it's a constant
learning process and I made one of the worst goofs I ever made in my life.
00:12:36
About ten days ago, I was engaged in a discussion before a group on the
north side and I was complaining about the particular organization that it
hadn't carried out its program, and one of the things I was most concerned
about that in the period immediately after the assassination,3 it hadn't done
anything to reduce the tensions or as organizations like The Way, TCOIC,
Sabathani Center had organized the patrol and developed it. And I was
talking about the fact that this gave us a bad image in the eyes of Black
people, that we were staying out of things, and then I proceeded to say
‘this is the blackest mark our organization has got.’ Ossie Davis, a very
fine actor, made an analysis of dictionary words, and he categorized the
words having the connotation of ‘black’ or ‘blackness’ as to the positive
and negative and the words black or blackness that have a negative
connotation are about three-to-one over the positive so we have built in
our own vocabulary a racist element.
00:14:04
And I used it just like that, and it's this learning process that's the most
exciting thing about the work in the movement and, if I were you, I'd look
at it in that sense a way to broaden horizons, to acquire richness in your
lives, and when--with the resources that you bring in, particularly within
that context, then we'll get on with the problems, and that's what we need
because the racist element is so deeply embedded. In the administration
of justice, in addition to the police problem, when a minority person goes
into court, in Minneapolis anyway, they go into almost a white, completely
white world.
00:15:07
In Hennepin County, the only Black faces they see are the bailiffs in the
courtroom or deputy sheriffs who represent power and there's a Black
man who is on the county attorney staff. It just happens that he does a
good job and he is a good prosecutor. As a matter of fact, the Hennepin
County Attorney's Office is one of the best prosecuting offices that I know
of. But here again all the Black faces connected with administration of
3
The assasintation of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 5
justice in Hennepin County are on the prosecution side. When you're
found guilty, and you’re referred to probation there are some there, but
while you're in the process of vindicating your innocence of a charge,
you're in the white world except for the Black people on the side of
enforcement, and when you pick a jury you're in about a 99% white world.
00:16:21
I defended a man some time ago charged with two traffic offenses, and
he lives about the six hundred block off of Olson Highway in North
Minneapolis, lived there all his life. And when we got through picking the
jury there wasn't anybody closer to the core city than about 48th Street.
Two-thirds of the jurors lived in the suburbs. All-white, obvious. He took
one look at that jury and said, ‘I thought I was entitled to a trial--jury of my
peers. These people aren't my peers.’ This is one of the most difficult
things we're having to deal with now because the justification for the
selection of juries, this is practically universal, is that it's by lot. You go
down the city directory and you take the fourth name on page twenty, then
you turn to page twenty-eight and you take the fourth name on page
twenty-eight.
00:17:30
You go through the directory that way, and you get a couple of hundred
names. They make up your jury panel and it's perfectly fair because
nobody is picked for one reason or another, it's just chance, so you get a
fair jury. Well, this is nonsense. This is one of the greatest unrealities of
the law, but it's almost impossible to see the men who've grown up with
that system, recognize that justice and the jury system means that there
will be peers on the jury and peers means those equal in experience, life
experience. You have some idea of the problem. This is not to say you are
gonna have twelve people from the ghetto on every jury that tries a person
from the ghetto, but the system should be as much seasoned with that
aspect of our community as it is the housewife, businessman, professional
man, so forth.
00:18:37
And it's going to be the understanding and the work which your minds will
bring to these problems that are eventually going to result in the changes
because if you can get inside these problems now and not start with all the
building and hang up that my generation has, for example, then we're
going to get into the understanding of why these things are important.
Then we'll get some changes.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 6
00:19:08
[Douglas Hall] Now, I was to introduce the rest? Or were you going to?
00:19:16
[Unidentified speaker] Your fifteen minutes are not up yet, if you have any
more--
00:19:18
[Douglas Hall] Well, I’ll yield and then we’ll get into a discussion.
00:19:20
[Unidentified speaker] I wonder which of you gentlemen would like to
respond to what Mr. Hall has said first. Mr. Larry Harrell.
00:19:36
[Larry Harrell] Well Mr. Hall is my lawyer and I’d just disagree with him for
one thing is that
00:19:38
[Douglas Hall] Please speak in the yeah.
00:19:42
[Larry Harrell] For one thing, I like Doug and I gotta be cool here. Doug, I
think that it is their problem just as much so. I think they have to be aware
of their problem when you start off you said that you don't think they ever
be hollered at and criticized, you know, But see, we've been hollered at
and criticized by the police and now we've been abused and misused and
every time we go to court like you said you know that there's no justice for
us in this courtroom, yet we can go to court for killing someone and we'll
go to jail for twenty years, and all of a sudden a white man comes in and
he gets the same treatment, you know, he goes through the court and he's
insane. He's found insane and sent off to St. Peter's for five years and
that’s it. And, you know, black people get mad and disgusted about this,
here, you know, they begin to holler and can you much blame them for
hollering and being disgusted by the way that they've been treated in
America. And that’s my point, you can go ahead...
00:20:54
[Unidentified speaker] Gary Hines, if you would like to comment on this or
make some other observation.
00:21:04
[Gary Hines] Talked a lot about ghettos. First of all, you have to realize the
way people use the word now ‘ghetto’ there aren't enough Black people in
the state of Minnesota ready to make up a ghetto, so you can't really talk
on ghetto terms, but staying on the subject we're on now, law
enforcement, you see, the problem comes in one simple sentence,
phrase, paraphrase, however you want to put it. The present system by
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 7
which you know we all are supposed to abide puts law and order before
justice. Now if you put justice before law and order, law and order will
naturally fall in line, however, when you put law and order before justice
there's gonna be a little bit of a problem, you see, because as most of you
realize by now if you haven't, shame on you, this is a revolution of people
of color not only in Minneapolis, not only in this country, but all over the
world.
00:22:10
You see it in Asia, you see it in Africa, South Africa to be specific, you see
it right here in our own so-called country, so this is a revolution. One
characteristic of a revolution is that it starts within and projects outward,
another characteristic of a revolution, if you know anything about it, is that
revolution comes from the word ‘evolution’ which means change,
revolving, you're changing something, you're turning something around,
you see, which is what is happening now, what needs to happen. This
country now, especially in its laws, needs to wake up, you know, and be
turned around and shook up a little bit and you know they need to dig, we
need to dig into the set of values and things we have established now, you
see, because the way that things are set up now, they're set up for the
white man, for white America. You see, that's why they're so, as far as I'm
concerned, there's no such animal as a liberal, you know, no such thing
because the liberal assumes that everything that's good for America is
automatically good for Black people.
00:23:19
Not so. We have our own culture, we have our own ways, but we're here
in America which is one of the reasons why we're Afro-Americans as
opposed to Negro. We'll get into that later on, but in direct conjunction with
law and enforcement, the laws are made for you and they're not made for
me, which is why every time you try to put them on me conflict arises, you
see. You're gonna put me in a place, for instance the so-called, bag about
marriage and Black fathers and parents straying. Let's look at it a little bit,
now you talk about, well, black men are never satisfied. They have to have
two and three women, well that's right, you know why? Well that's your
fault too, you see, because we were first brought over here one of the
prime--well main, to be more correct--functions of certain Black men was
to serve as studs or bucks, you've heard that word before if you've read
any of Kyle Onstott’s works: Falconhurst Fancy, Mandingo, Drum, Son of
Drum, you know what I'm talking about.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 8
00:24:17
See this myth about cotton-picking, you know, that was more or less in the
minority. The primary job of the black man, especially the well-built black
man, you know, a good buck a good stuf, was to serve as a buck, you
know, on a breeding farm and all his pastime was to reproduce, you know,
make the babies. This buck will produce a good stud, you know, he's
worth $200, he can do so much for them, so what you've done is you've
bred two or three hundred years of promiscuity into us, you know, having
five and six women and then getting us together, you know, these different
studs and bucks, you know, and we'd be talking about, ‘man, in my stable
I got fifteen females how many you got?’ ‘Oh man I only got six, you've got
it good.’ And then you're gonna tell us to adhere to your laws, have one
wife.
00:25:10
You're gonna take us from Africa, and if you know anything about African
history, you'll know that it was not uncommon in many tribes, in many
areas, for a man to have more than one wife, you see, you're going to give
us a religion that really isn't suitable to us or for us, you know, you're
gonna come down into the desert areas in Africa, into the jungle,
especially the jungle, and talk about Christianity, and talk about that your
pagan if you don't wear clothes. Hell if you live in a 130 degrees in the
tropical forest what you need clothes for? [laughter] I mean, you know, so
you're putting everything on us that's not befitting of us, including these
laws, you see. These laws would be fitting of us if you recognize us as
human beings and treated us as such, but you haven't done that.
00:25:57
Until now a lot of people haven't done it and a lot of people still don't want
to do it, a lot of people think they're doing it, they're not doing it. But, once
again, in direct conjunction with the subject at hand these laws were
supposedly made for Americans, but you don't recognize somebody as an
American around here unless he's human. He's not human unless he's
American, if that makes any sense, and these laws were made by white
people for white people, you see, overlooking the needs of black people.
Consciously or unconsciously is irrelevant. The fact is that it was done,
and the fact is today it needs change. We find that out now.
00:26:40
You talk about militancy. People wouldn't be militant if they didn't have to
be. You talk about pimps, prostitutes, whores, or you know different
degrees, they wouldn't be so if they didn't have to, you know, Black people
have never lived in this country we've only survived, you see. You made it
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 9
that way for us, you see. Until the 19th century, the Constitution said that
we were only three-fifths of a human being. For 125 years, we made
seventy-five cents out of every dollar. You take the country away from the
red man, and later tell him that he has to pass a law for him to be a citizen,
and then you're gonna pass a human rights bill to tell us that we're human,
we don't have tails, like we didn't know that, and then you're gonna put
laws on us that aren't even of our culture, or of our heritage and then
you're gonna send a white policeman into our ghetto.
00:27:29
Now we've developed a subculture, and you're gonna send a white
policeman in there, and tell us what's right and wrong, you see. When your
morals are different from ours, your culture is different from ours, your
heritage is different from ours, your beliefs are different from ours in many
aspects, and I realize that I'm making a lot of generalizations. However,
generalizations are necessary. So, in compliance what we're saying, many
of the laws now that are standing, you know, as they are, must come
under some severe changes and very quickly, you see, because if these
laws were as they are stated, if they are enforced as they’re stated, you
know, if they were carried out as they are stated for everyone that it is
stated about you wouldn't have the so-called rebellions and things of this
nature.
00:28:20
Social-economic revolutions, they're not riots. This is a revolution. The
so-called riots are the rebellion part of the revolution, you see, and then
you're gonna talk about militants. Hell, we’re not militant. Who's militant
that goes around burning down buildings? We're just frustrated. You talk
about how we're lazy. We're not lazy. We're just tired. You've been
working for four hundred years and you'd be tired too. Now take a look at
the Ku Klux Klan running around raping and castrating and bombing little
girls. That's militant, you see. They're directing their anguishes and their
hatred and their racism at people. They're not going around burning
around buildings like we are, but, you see, if some of these laws aren't,
you know, put into effect and soon, Black people are gonna start
changing their targets, from buildings to guess who?
00:29:07
[Applause]
00:29:17
[Unidentified speaker] Cortez Espinosa, would you like to make some
comments from South High School?
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 10
00:29:25
[Cortez Espinosa] Excuse me I'm not from South High School, so we get
that straight off I’m from the Youth Opportunity Program from Civil Rights
Office. And another thing, well I just want to say something about
Minneapolis I'm just talking [inaudible] I think they have a great police
force, great. They enforce all the laws and are so good that they get a
raise, you know, this is why your police force is so good. You hear about
Minneapolis Police Force doing this. Everybody on TV they show them
giving these medals out. They haven't been doing anything but force and
putting it enforcement on my people and me and as Doug was saying
about the courtroom, I mean, you know, Doug's been my lawyer, you
know, he knows, you know. I was fortunate enough that, see, I just gonna
give you an example.
00:30:17
I was walking down the street, me and my friend, and some white boys
come by in a car and call us chocolate drops, pull up to the side tell us
‘come on,’ they're gonna do this and that, so there's three of them and two
of us and, to me, the size was even, you know. [audience laughs] I mean
even if it wasn't to me, it was it was sure was to the police, when they got
me, you know, the reason they got me is because my friend, he protected
himself with a weapon, a razor, you know, and see they started, they
come out on the worst end of it, and we get punished for it, you know, and
so we were fortunate enough to get away from--all I was told is that we
were wrong, you know, the way it made me feel like that we were just
supposed to walk over there, get beat up and call the police, knowing not
who these people are, where they come from, but it just got reverse
directions.
00:31:17
It seemed like some kind of way of--somebody got cut, and somebody got
hit with a rock, and I didn't come out with a scratch, and the police
threatened to shoot my friend, cause when they got him in the car I was
fortunate enough to get away again.
00:31:35
[Laughter]
00:31:37
This is the thing, you know, he gets in the car, they put him in the car, he
said, takes out his gun said ‘well now, I should kill you right here and
now,’4 you know, what kind of law enforcement is that? you know, do you
4
Espinosa is presumably saying his friend heard this from the police.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 11
think, now I think if this was a white person just a Black cop, would have
turned around and told him this he would have filed all kinds of complaints
and, sued everybody but, you know, just like the Indian, just like Doug
said, they've been taking it so they're just gonna plead guilty. My friend
didn't say nothing. He just put his head down and went on down, and
spent four days in jail and some kind of way by miracle or something,
somebody did something we got out. And this is the thing, man. If this is
so great of a police force and law enforcement and all you judges and
attorneys and, you know, well do we have a chance?
00:32:32
This is all I gotta say. Can I go in the courtroom with a fair chance? Can I
go in there thinking well at least I'm thinking I might have that chance, but
is it true? Do I have that chance that you might have when you go in the
courtroom, you see. People just like he said, you got these people in here
on the jury. Somebody doesn't even, knows no nothing, you know. They
just come on in and, well, just like if I think I would've went to court I
wouldn't be standing here right now. They would've told him that I was
wrong, there was three of them two of us we outnumbered them. Well
that's what they might as well told me that, you know, since they said they
didn't start it. This--I just don't understand, how can they come there and
tell me I was wrong, you know, I'm gonna get jumped on, protect myself,
and I'm wrong? Answer that.
00:33:41
[Unidentified speaker] Well I think the remaining time we would like to
open the floor for the discussion and questions. You can address them to
one of the members.
00:33:47
[Audience member] Gary, I'd like to know if you could tell us a little bit
more about DECOY?
00:33:52
[Gary Hines] Well I wouldn't mind doing that, but I mean I'm sure there's
other people that want to stick right to the immediate subject. I could tell
you that personally, I mean, it's nothing that--I'm not saying that I don't
want to publicize, I do, but I mean, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of
people that want to stick right to the subject -- is that alright?
00:34:10
Perhaps [inaudible] after the session, after the meeting.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 12
00:34:14
[Audience member] [Inaudible] I realize that there is prejudice in any
police force, but I'd like also to point out that it isn't a bed of roses for
every white [inaudible]. I realize that [inaudible] have prejudice against
[inaudible], but every one person who goes in there isn't going to have it
all great. [Inaudible]
00:33:32
[Cross talk from the panelists]
00:34:39
[Cortez Espinosa] It's not for every white [inaudible] for the poor white
person he's not in exact treatment I am. I'm getting worse I know, if I don't
get worse than he does, then something [inaudible] But I know that that
white man don't get treated as bad as I do. Just cold facts.
00:35:00
[Gary Hines] You have to look at it from the simple sense. The white man,
or boy, whoever it may be in a given situation, may be mistreated, you
know by the law by police officers, but all you have to do is ask yourself
why. They're getting treated for various other reasons other than they're
color, you see, it's the same thing with the poor white, the poor white is not
poor because he's white, but in most cases in almost all cases, the poor
Black is poor because he's Black. And the same goes for mistreatment
within law enforcement agencies, he's getting mistreated because he's
Black, you see.
00:35:40
[Inaudible question from the audience] and like Lillian Anthony was talking
about this morning. She said the Black people, she said are mixed up as
to what to consider themselves, an Afro-American, and some consider
themselves colored people, some Negro, some Black people, just --
00:36:02
[Gary Hines] Well, can I clear that up for you? First of all, and you might as
well sit back cause it's gonna take a little while. First terms first, now
00:36:12
[Unidentified speaker] You want to stand up so want to stand up so they
can hear you? I think some people--
00:36:16
[Gary Hines] All right.
00:36:17
[Sound of microphone feedback]
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 13
00:36:19
First of all, Afro-American and Black are not synonymous, but they do not
conflict with each other. I'll clear them up later. First one I want to clear up
is ‘Negro,’ why black people are against the word ‘Negro’. Now, all you
have to do in nine out of ten times in any case like this against anything is
just look into the history of it. Now, the word Negro is a Spanish word for
‘black.’ Now many of those people that dealt with the slave trade were
people of Spanish descent or Spanish people, Portuguese and Dutch
mainly, and when we were brought to this country, it wasn't realized, you
know, that we came from different racial stocks, different tribal stocks, you
know.
00:37:08
We came from, oh just to name a few; the [inaudible], the [inaudible], the
Ashantis, the [inaudible], the [inaudible], the Krus, and several others. It
was just realized we had one thing in common, that we were Black, and so
they referred to us as ‘Negro,’ you see, this was their word for Black. Now,
all right, what's wrong with it? First of all, I'll tell you what the word Negro
does, it takes away any identification with any culture or any heritage. You
can look on on a map of the continent of Africa and nowhere will you see
the word Negro. You can look on the map of the world, and no way will
you see the word Negro. There is no Negroland and, you see, you
constantly hear about the Fighting Irish, you know, and the Spanish have
Spain, and the Germans have Germany, the English at England.
00:37:54
Who the Negroes have? Negroland? Well where's that at? You see that
right there. The second thing it does is that there's been a stereotype with
the word Negro. Quote Malcolm X's autobiography. Malcolm X was third in
his class, and being students you'll note that that's a fairly high
percentage. He was third in his class, and he was talking to one of his
teachers one day, and his teacher asked him, ‘Malcolm what do you
intend for your profession to be when you grow up?’ And Malcolm replied,
‘well I want to be a lawyer.’ And so his teacher said, ‘well, a lawyer? Well
don't be a lawyer, why don't you become a carpenter, something more
fitting of a Negro, you see.’ So that's the second thing the word Negro
does. It not only takes away culture and heritage, but there's a stereotype
with it.
00:38:40
The third thing is that to too many people the word Negro means n*****
anyway, you see. Now, the insult with the word n***** and Negro comes
from this: for two or three hundred years Black people were n*****s in this
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 14
connotation. The present-day definition of the word n***** is a base low
human being, a very vulgar human being and for two or three hundred
years while slavery was, you know, reached its height and decline Black
people were n*****s, you know, fed once a day if the master didn't forget it,
you know, cut up his hog, and have his ham, and toss us the guts and say
‘here, n*****, eat it.’ And we were smart enough to turn around and make a
delicacy out of it: chitlins, you see, things of this nature. So what does it
do? It takes away any identification with the culture, there's a stereotype
with it, a negative stereotype, and there's an insult to the word, among
other things, so that is why the word Negro, many people, Black people,
nowadays considered it as defunct.
00:39:39
Now colored means ‘of color.’ And when you're talking about human
beings, Homo sapiens you're talking about Hawaiians, you're talking about
Orientals, Chinese, Japanese, Tahitians, Mexicans, Spanish, and Black
people, Africans, and Afro-Americans, you see. That is the thing with
color, you see, so when you're talking about colored people you're not
talking about us, color can also mean ‘of different colors,’ and if you're
gonna talk about that color, you're talking about yourself because some,
you know, places on your skin are pale grey and some are pink, someone
will be red even, so you know, if you're gonna talk about color, make sure
which connotation you have, either you're talking about us or you're talking
about yourself.
00:40:25
Now as for the word Black, when you talk about people, people relate to
the extremes. Nobody in here is white, and yet you're referred to as white
people. If I hold up any white piece of paper around here which we would
all agree to as being white, and held it up to your skin, you'd see that you
are far from it, but people relate to the extreme. The red man, no Indian is
pure re, but they relate to the extreme. Yellow man, same as Orientals,
Chinese. You don't see a pure yellow, some close to it, yes, but you don't
see that. People relate to the extreme. Now, then comes the question,
why haven't Black people wanted to be called Black. Well obviously, it's
been instilled in their minds that Black is bad, you know, angel food cake
is white and devil's food cake is black, things of this nature, you know.
When you're married you wear white, and when you die you wear black.
00:41:11
As Spike said, it's been put in your mind that black is bad, you see, but
now we're starting to relate to our extreme too, we're saying that Black is
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 15
beautiful. We're redefining our entire sets of values so that is the word on
black. Now Afro-American, Afro-American is the really correct term
because you can't say African, because we've been here too long for that.
We built this country, and we put too much into it to just say African.
Another reason is because one out of every five black men has had some
white ancestors, you see, and the same goes with white people, so we're
not pure Africans if there is any such thing as ‘pure.’ And so what the word
Afro-American does it restores that identification with a culture or heritage
that Negro has taken away it is the exact opposite of Negro, you see.
00:41:56
Now, whenever somebody has called a Negro it's meant in a derogatory
way, you see, so that is what the word Afro-American does. It restores
some of that which has been taken away and it is the only really correct
term when you're talking about nationalities, you know, like I said the
Spanish have Spain, the Afro-Americans have what? Well, they put too
much in this country to just back out and say we just have Africa, you see,
Africa is the heritage and culture we relate to, however, we still are, we're
not technically, but people like to think of us we like to think of ourselves to
some extent as Americans, so you have Afro-Americans.
00:42:32
Then comes to the final part, what about this myth about -oids, you know
this -oid; Africanoid, Australoid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, you see you've
even tried to slip racism in there. You're gonna call up now, first of all, let's
get something straight, the word ‘race’ is only three hundred fifty years old,
approximately, and it came as a substitute or was synonymous to the
word family, you know, like your look in the Bible, you see, the family of
Shem, the family of Moses, the family of this one, the family of that one,
you see. ‘Race’ meant family. Now when you're talking about Caucasoids
and Mongoloids and things of this nature, you were not referring to skin
color. Caucasoid, or Caucasian, comes from the Caucasus Mountains,
you see, in Europe as a result there's Black Caucasians, you see, but
people have used the political term, you see.
00:43:28
Mongoloid, that comes from the area in Asia referred to as Mongolia.
There were a few scattered tribes of Black people there, so as a result
there's Black Mongolians there's white Mongolians, you see, but people
have used color as a border, you see, but even such, you still try to take
something away from us. You call the group and Mongolians, Mongoloids,
they had some place to relate to, you call the Caucasians Caucusoids,
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 16
they had someplace to relate to, and then you're gonna call the people
from Africa Negroids? Talking about Africoids or Africanoids, or Afroids,
something like that, something where you have something tangible to
relate to, but not something way off base so, does that take care of that
African/Negro’colored bit?
00:44:14
[Unidentified speaker] Thank you. I think we should try to get the
questions directed primarily now to the question of the law enforcement,
yes.
00:44:20
[Audience Member] I think in your first talk you pointed up two things: first
of all that there was injustice--
00:44:26
[Unidentified speaker] Could you speak louder?
00:44:29
[Audience member] --injust treatment once, you know, [inaudible] Negro,
or an Afro-American was caught, but you also said that there was injustice
in the laws that you had to abide by and I'm curious, I guess I just don't
know what exact laws don’t apply, you know don't know which laws you
consider not applicable [inaudible].
00:44:50
Well it's like this, maybe you've got, took it wrong when I said, you have to
realize, now let's look at the Constitution. The basis for all of our laws,
right, you're with me there? Constitution, all right now, the Constitution
was made for human beings, American human beings, right? However,
consider at that time Black people were not considered as human beings
because that same Constitution told us that we were only three-fifths of a
person, you see, so therefore none of the law is applied to us really except
the so-called Jim Crow legislation and the slave codes, but now as to
modern-day things, things tangible, something you can relate to right
today.
00:45:40
Like I said, one of those is this so-called myth about changing your whole
philosophy after six thousand years of glory in Africa, living under our own
cultural ways you're going to tell us about this one white bit and adhere to
this, and adhere to that. In other words you, what you're doing is you're
penalizing us and then you're oppressing us, and then you're asking us
why don't we speak, and then when we do speak you're asking why we're
speaking, you see, so it's a merry-go-round like that, you see.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 17
00:46:14
Now when I'm talking about [inaudible] to your question is you're talking
about what laws don't relate. I'm not going to go into specific laws, I saw
the man give the time signal, but what it is is, first of all, Black people have
to be recognized as human beings, you see, what one law is good for, like
I said the so-called liberal, there is no such animal because many of them
assume that what's good for America, white Americans, are automatically
good for Black America, not so, you see. So until we're recognized as
human beings then maybe the laws to start applying.
00:46:48
[Unidentified speaker] I am in a very uncomfortable position of having to
follow orders, I don't know if you follow orders or not in this case like this,
but I was told that there is a movie shown at four o'clock in another part of
the building, and then the Dudley Riggs show at 4:30 and I'm wondering if
instead of just following the orders, we might cut the thing to those who
wish to go to the movies can go to the movies and those who wish to stay
on a little longer here so the gentleman that I've come to talk to us about
law enforcement can stay. Does that seem like a reasonable solution?
00:47:32
[Inaudible speaking from the audience]
00:47:47
[Unidentified speaker] Yes thank you. “The Detached Americans” is the
name of the film and I assume that some of you may have seen it before.
So, I guess we'll just go one with the questions and those who wish to
leave. Mr. Agre had his hand up a long time ago and I'd like to recognize
his question.
00:48:07
[Audience member, possibly Courtland Agre] I would like to direct my
comment-question primarily to Mr. Hines. It seems, as I interpret the
statements he has made, that there are laws, some of which you might
agree with and others which you will not agree with. Let us admit right off
the bat that the laws of America are not [inaudible] or they might be
enforced [inaudible] at the whims of officials, but it is scarcely tolerable to
accept this statement to the effect that the laws of America are not to be
applied to the Afro-American. You are Americans, you're going to live by
American laws. The unfortunate thing, then, is I think, is the enforcement
of the laws [inaudible] harsher treatment by the juries, that white people
are harshly treated too. I think you have to accept that you're an American
you're going to live by American laws.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 18
00:49:12
[Gary Hines] True, however, if you can enforce one law and enforce all of
them, you see, now we're in a pretty unique situation. I see what you're
getting at, you know, live in America go by American laws. Now, you're
just the people that aren't doing it, you see, people here you got people
talking about why you shouldn't have open housing when all of the land is
supposed to be accessible by all of the people. These are the people that
shouldn't be here because they don't want to adhere to the so-called
American ways. Now, in application to the Black man, you enforce one law
against the Black man, and when it comes to a white man, not so, this is
what I'm referring to.
00:49:56
[Audience member, possibly Courtland Agre] I grant that and I feel equally
harshly against many of our judges, some of whom I've had contact,
indirectly I must admit, but still, rather directly I think there's much of
[inaudible] in jail [inaudible], but still it is their law, or their task to enforce
the law, and I suppose it must be certain equitable treatment, too, no
matter what the race.
00:50:23
[Gary Hines] Yes, but then like I said, the rule of justice before law and
order, they're not doing it, they're putting law and order before justice.
Justice is supposed to be what's right, what's correct in any, you know,
applicable sense, they're putting law and order before justice.
00:50:46
[Unidentified speaker] Would Mr. Hall like to comment on the question
between justice and law and order. I think that's such a critically important
issue that you'd like to raise as a legal specialist.
00:50:59
[Douglas Hall] Well, I'd really like to comment first on another aspect of it.
Maybe you saw in the Star ten days, two weeks ago, a Harris Poll on
alienation, which gave a breakdown in four, or five, six categories
1966-1968: how the Black community felt as to their acceptance or
rejection in various aspects of society. And in those two years, the feelings
of rejection had, the people who had the feelings of rejection alienation,
increased about a hundred percent in almost all of the categories between
75 and a hundred percent. What you've heard this afternoon from the
Black men on the program, is their feelings of alienation and rejection, but
they don't have a part in the system and here you have the roots of the riot
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 19
and the disturbance and the whole burden of the riot and the disturbance
is then by society put back on the Black community.
00:52:21
This is your wrong, you're responsible for it, and you've got to find the
solution for it, and so we're just running around in a circle. The real cause
of the riot and disturbance and the destruction, which is this alienation and
rejection isn't cooked with at all and it's perfectly well to say that in
America, you have to abide by the American laws but the injustice is so
cumulative, now, and the frustration is so great that that is no longer
relevant to the black community and unless we come to grips with that and
tackle first the job of making the law relevant to the Black community and
making justice relevant to the Black community, then we're going to get at
the cause of the riot and the disturbance and the rest of it.
00:53:18
And Mr. Hines is perfectly correct, the emphasis on law and order misses
the point. You attack it from the point of view of justice, and then law and
order becomes relevant. And until us white folks can get over this bag,
and the institutions can be adjusted and reevaluated, then we're going to
be confronting the symptoms of irrelevancy and this is a discouraging
thing in the spring of sixty-eight, the issuance of the riot commission
report. The assassination of Dr. King. These apparently are passing
phenomena as far as the white community is concerned. They're too
swiftly forgotten and they're talked to death and they're studied to death
and all this stuff and we never get down with it and until we get that word
justice up on top to permeate down all of this, we're in trouble.
00:54:32
[Unidentified speaker] Yes.
00:54:33
[Audience member] I'd like to ask a question of Mr. Hall. It seems that
within this belief system that we have that a rather inherent racism for the
policeman job is a person who is has to meet physical standards, he's
probably played violent football in high school, he's been in the Army for
eighteen years, and it's this type of person [inaudible] --
00:55:04
[Douglas Hall] You're absolutely right. There's some beginning to cope
with this, the trying to get at the psychopathic personality by administering
the psychological test so that they could weed out at that area. You have
an increasing reliance on at least some college training, if not a degree.
Those are all ways to get at that, but it's going to take a long time, and the
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 20
thing that you put your finger on is going to be the dominant characteristic
of the police force.
00:55:51
[Audience member] I have a question for you Mr. Hall. [Inaudible] that you
might face some repercussions from the Bar Association or [inaudible]
lawyers [inaudible] for the stand you're taking, the work you're doing with
these charges of racism in the court system [inaudible]. I want to know if
you can comment, perhaps on the Bar Association, and on any progress
they might be making [inaudible] not liberalizing, but coming around to the
real problems that do exist within the structure.
00:56:45
[Douglas Hall] Well I appreciate the question. I don't feel it puts me on the
spot at all. The Bar obviously is one of the most conservative segments of
society, always has been and probably always will be. However, within the
bar there are contrary currents. Some of the great moments of the Bar
have been men whose background and training would [inaudible] indicate
their participation in matters of human rights, but there have been
outstanding men who have risen to the occasion and there's a great deal
of ferment right now. I may be biased, I would say at the Bar session that
we had this discussion of racism at, I would say at least fifty percent
responded positively. Ninety-five of the fifty percent were young men, this
is a partly part of it.
00:58:03
But there's a ferment going on, and there's a ferment going on on the
bench. One judge on the municipal bench has, for weeks now, been
attending classes in Afro-American studies, and he is directing his efforts
to involve other members of the bench. We're going to make a similar
effort directed at the Bar. When I proposed the idea of this discussion of
racism and the administration of justice, the president of the Hennepin
County Bar Association responded not only well, but [snaps fingers] just
like that. We will always lag, I think, it's part of our bag, but it's not
completely black and --
00:58:59
[Laughter]
00:59:04
There I go! It's an area in which, if the rest of the community will zero in on
the Bar and keep reminding us that after all your responsibility is not law
and order but justice and keep the pressure on us, the younger men will
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 21
eventually carry the day. An answer to the thing you mentioned at first reprisal, I don't anticipate that.
00:59:41
[Unidentified speaker] Yes.
00:59:43
[Audience member] You mentioned Afro-American Studies, I wonder to
what extent you feel that, by teaching white people about Afro-American
studies and judges, this would--what's the goal here, is this going to
reduce some sort of prejudice or what's the idea behind it?
01:00:02
[Douglas Hall] This will get at the heart of the prejudice and here it gets
back to Mr. Hines' point. If by getting into Afro-American studies, the result
is that judges will begin to look at people as human beings regardless of,
then you get it to heart.
01:00:26
[Audience member] You think this should start at the college level or you
think it should start younger or what's the ideal here?
01:00:33
[Douglas Hall] Well it starts in the family, and for example, if you don't
mind a personal reference, I came out of a family and a social climate in
which I never heard the words ‘Negro’ or ‘Jew,’ it was always n***** and
k***, and it was through my high school experience, that I began to get
over that. As a result, our children started twenty-five, thirty years ahead of
where we started, and if, I suppose some of you may have come from
families for the stereotype and so forth is the order of the day The extent
that you're here now, you're working out of it. And as your families come
along and so forth, we'll eventually get to it.
01:01:41
[Audience member] Mr. Hall, what kind of reforms would you [inaudible]
01:01:51
[Douglas Hall] I hate to reveal my ignorance, but after I spoke at the Bar
Association, I was in last Sunday's paper. Congress has passed a Jury
Reform Act for federal courts, and there’s a story about it from the New
York Times Service and all of the existing systems which don't encompass
this core have to be scrapped and there has to be a deliberate attempt,
when you select your overall jury panel, that it is representative of the
community socio-economic strata [the audio briefly cuts out] but if your
overall jury panel is built that way then you've got a chance.
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 22
01:02:44
One thing you run into now and this was used in the meeting, they say
that the Negro population in Minneapolis is two percent, we have two
percent on our juries, therefore it's fair. This is a numbers game, because
the things that lead to crime result in many more than two percent of the
defendants in the criminal system being Black or poor or Indian, so the
numbers game falls apart there. We're going to make an interesting effort
here. The jury system, selection system in Hennepin County is done by a
rule of the court. The justices of the bench administrates it, so we're going
to make an effort to get a group of lawyers together and petition that this
new federal policy be applied to Hennepin County as a matter of judicial
rule and this is going to put to the bench, and we'll see what happens.
01:03:53
[Inaudible question from the audience]
01:04:14
[Douglas Hall] I think by and large it's clear that the law schools have not
paid enough attention to the problems of the Black student coming into an
alien atmosphere in an alien system and so that the push off process, the
burden, the academic burden, hasn't been recognized and it's particularly
true out here. One of the most inspiring things that I've ever been to was
conferences of the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People] Legal and Educational Fund, that for years have brought
Black men out of the south, supported them through the northern law
schools, then they go back into the south to practice.
01:05:06
And this is one of the greatest group of men I have ever seen in my life!
And this program has paid off, and they're back in the south carrying on
the fight, although one of the strangest things I ever saw was that same
conference was a lawyer, Black, who looked and sounded like Everett
Dirksen, if you can imagine anything more incongruous than that
[inaudible].
01:05:36
[Unidentified speaker] I'm sorry but I think we're going to have to call the
meeting to a halt. There is as you know a Dudley Rigg’s Brave New
Workshop --
[The recording cuts off at 01:05:52]
“People or Property” afternoon panel discussion (transcript), page 23
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