thumbnail of Sunday Forum; Coalitions For Non-Violence: Resisting The Storm Together
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I said to Dr. Dubois I asked Dr. Dubois if he didn't regret that he had not compromised alluded suggesting how much more money he might have had and that kind of thing. That was an experience I'll never forget. When he finished talking I felt just about the size of a postage stamp. Some of the things he said stuck with me. One of them was I have taught Dr. Dubois and I have taught or taught somebody that taught every black intellectual in this country. And he went on to explain to me the joy
that he had in being able to honestly say that. And I'd like to start this evening this afternoon session against that background because in a real way all of us are teachers. Several years ago I picked up a New York Times and read a quote from a former student of mine a young man that I had taught in a class in economics in Alabama. The oak Asian was one in which we were beginning the Poor People's March. The story goes that well you know that when we got ready for the poor
people's march Dr. King made a trip across the south and when he got down to Marks Mississippi. The poverty and privation was so tremendous that we are told that he sat down and personally wept. So that when we started the Poor People's March it was appropriate that it would start in Marks Mississippi. The idea was to begin the march before mujhe train from Mississippi to Washington. We knew that many of the people that were administering the poverty program had never looked on the face ugly face of poverty and so we wanted to bring it to Washington so that they might see what it looked like. And to that quote that I mention at one point as these citizens travel along the highway on this open
back truck drawn by. It seems that they got discouraged at one point and there was some grumbling. And the man the student of mine kind of fooled the moon train off to the side. And in the course of the things that he said to the people on that train that that new way was that we all got to go on in to Washington because it appears that we are the only people that God has gotten left to set this nation right. And so I would ask you to ponder with me the possibility that we have a symbol in this room the people perhaps the people and the representatives of the
people. Among the few that God's got left. To set this nation right that's a terrible responsibility. And so it's appropriate that these deliberations would include time set aside to listen to some of the greatest minds of this period as they will kind of put it together reviewing the past and projecting the future. I take pleasure in presenting to you this distinguished panel who will speak to us on the general subject of coalitions for nonviolent strategy is
resisting the storm together. It is my pleasure to present at this point the honorable Ramsey Clark who will speak to us on constitutional crisis. Thank you very much Mrs Kang and lovers of humanity. There is no crisis with the Constitution. Its truth will abide. It stands I believe for our freedom for equality for justice for our common humanity. No crisis with it. The crisis is with us.
Will we. Do we believe in its truth. And will we unleash our energies to fulfill its promise. I suggest that those phenomena that we call crises within our constitutional framework are really its abandonment. If there is a dominant phenomenon within the national government of the United States today it is the abandonment of the rule of law the politicalization of government the use of government and law as a means of power not as a base for the social compact seeking freedom and equality and justice for our people but the government itself seeks to use violence
and segregation those two old American problem solvers as its way of addressing the human crisis in our midst. I can tell you more right at this time in my life about where we are through an important American story than any other way I think. It's the story of a man named Rochelle McGee. He can't be with us today. He's in San Quentin penitentiary in California. He was born 34 years ago in a place called Franklinton Louisiana Washington Parish right up in the northeast corner of the top of that state that's shaped like a boot. He's black. In my judgment he is a beautiful human so.
If we cannot concede his common humanity we'll lose ours. He went for five or six years to the public school system there. He was taught a literacy at a school called the Washington Parish training school which was the all black school for the children of the poor who lived in that beautiful area. At age 16 in 1955 he was arrested. Charged with a crime and convicted and sent to Angola penitentiary. The crime was described by psychiatrists who testified in a case that I've been involved in for the last several months in San Francisco.
As being that of a black man food in and around the white woman. We don't know the truth I suppose entirely. I know personally that the San Quentin file shows that at age 16 had been living with a white woman for about six months. I know that the Napoleonic Code of Louisiana at that time caught his offense attempted aggravated rape. I know that the psychiatry's said that he had gone to Louisiana he had visited there he had gone Damn going to Franklin's in those places no one had been injured and Rochelle McGee had been offered the chance to leave but it was the only place he knew. He knew only a few friends there he had never met his father although to this day he is fiercely proud because he believes he looks like its father
who he never saw. But he wouldn't leave. He wouldn't leave his mother and he was sent to Angola for 12 years. He arrived there is the youngest inmate aged 16. The records show he weighed less than a hundred pounds. He was about five feet six and a half inches tall that there was not during the six years eight months he spent there a single black guard or a single black employee of any sort in that institution and the psychiatry's who went down there. Dr. Richard commissariat says that he learned that in its magnanimity the authority that Angola placed in solitary confinement because they were afraid that such a slight and attractive young male would be in danger if he were among the general population.
This after an all white jury and a white judge had sentenced him there. He passed up parole a couple of times because it was condition parole if you can imagine that reintegration into society was conditioned upon his leaving the state. And finally he accepted that condition. And the morning that he was released he was taken to the bus station in Baton Rouge and put on a bus for the City of Angels Los Angelos California the Golden State where he went to live with a woman he loved called his. Five months later. He and his cousin Leroy Stewart were arrested March 23rd 1963 near a bar called The Club Tropicana
right off 100 third street and watched Scala fornia the first bus stop from the South back in the 20s when the City of Angels was coming into its own. Watts was called charcoal alley way number two. In August of 1965 a week after the Voting Rights Act was signed with all of its promise in the Capitol dome in Washington. Dr. Kenneth Bancroft cark no relation though I can think of no one I would be prouder to call. Brother the psychologist the author of Dark Ghetto testified at length in behalf of you had a haunting phrase about this arrest outside the Tropicana. He said as Rochelle described that club to him he could see a thousand bars in the ghettos of America
where black males take out their frustrations. Again no one was hurt except as it turns out. He had been waiting outside of the bar and near a car for an hour and a half for the man who caused him to be arrested to come and take him back to his ATI's. He spent the next five days in a hospital the records show. Apparently the victim of police violence. He was convicted that summer 1963 I should add at this time that he has been in prison ever since March 23rd 1963. His appeal was successful. He was tried again by the same judge who had tried him the first time a judge Herbert B Walker. The
transcript read into the trial here in the early part of this year quotes Judge Walker as saying such things is this. Years before Bobby Seale ever went to Chicago. You shut your trap Mikey. One more peep out of you and it will be your last. This in a court of justice ban if you bring 12 towels and wrap them around that man's head. Y 12 I never know but that's the number. And that's what happened in a day and a half he was convicted again in 1965 of a crime that Dr. Clark Dr. Kenneth Bancroft Clark described as a squabble. And in that enlightened jurisprudence was given an indeterminant that means you can be released tomorrow. A life sentence. That means you may die in prison. You show might be by chance was sitting on the witness stand
in the Moran County courthouse at 10:45 on the morning of August 7 19 7 day when a man described by most of the witnesses as a tall young black man named Jonathan Jackson stood up and said All right gentlemen just hold it right there. The evidence isn't contradicted that Rochelle McGee who happened to be in court that morning because a nother prisoner was being tried for alleged assaulting a guard and he was a witness had no prior knowledge that anything was going to happen. The record shows that when he came into Angola his IQ was measured at 75. There's inscribed on his admissions sheet fit only for common labor. He had two jobs in six years eight months of Angola when he wasn't in
solitary. Through the years he would spend as long as 35 days alone in darkness with only water and two slices of bread three times a day. Beginning at age 16 those two jobs were first. The soap factory that enlightened prison and history and the great big steam room with huge caldrons where animal fats and other mixtures were boiled down to make soap. It reminded me of anything it reminded me of that scene and Dostoevsky's book called The House of the dead. Describing his four years in prison in Siberia and which the prisoners were having their annual bath in the middle of the winter and there was steam in naked bodies and Dostoevsky said that if he were to die and awaken and how he would have expected it to look just like this. It's hot and steamy enough in Louisiana without working in a soap
factory the other job you can guess I think everybody at end of the hand for that one it was chopping cotton and that time of year came around out in the fields. When he came to San Quentin after a brief introduction to the system through Chino his IQ is measured in 86. This country kept trying to tell him you are stupid you are done no good. Countless. He got no schooling there. He learned no trade there except something possessed him. He became a man of the law. A driven man. He studied law night and day. You look at his record for offenses in the institution and you'll find first and foremost among them working on his
legal papers 30 days solitary and definite suspension of privileges working finally when the law became that he could work on his legal papers you find he is subjected to solitary confinement and other punishment for working on the legal papers of other prisoners. He became a self-taught man. The psychiatry has to work within the psychologists who worked with him said that he is a man of the highest intelligence. I watched him on the witness stand for a day and a half I watched him describe a case like Griffin B Illinois. I know a little about the law I've lived a life in the law. I never expect to hear an exposition of Griffin the Illinois like that I heard from him again. He knows what Griffin v. Illinois means far better than the nine men on the court who participate in the decision. Griffin was denied a transcript of
his record at the trial by which he could appeal in fact he couldn't appeal. And finally the Supreme Court of United States said look we believe inequality. We believe in justice. If a man can't afford a transcript the state has to provide him a transcript. When Griffin v. i don't know I came down he had been trying for a good many years to get that very thing a transcript. And you can look at his correspondence with the court reporter $400 for this section if you can raise twelve hundred dollars you can have this part. He only wanted to appeal he's a man of the law. He wanted the protection of his rights as a human being. So what did he do when Jonathan Jackson stood up and said All right gentlemen just hold everything right there. He paused the evidence shown for 15 seconds to two minutes and then he got out from the witness stand and he went to the nearest band and he said remove these
irons. I'm a free man. Dr. Kenneth Clark said that any other course of conduct would have been impossible that he had essentially a want alternative to get up off of that witness stand and move toward freedom. Archer curled up on the spot and I know that may sound dramatic to you but that is the truth. He would have to deny everything he believed and everything he stood for everything he worked for. He would have to say I am subhuman. I am on worthy. And try to live with himself. That's the story of Rochelle McGee. I don't know of a more important story around right now because we would go on like this as long as we seek to use violence
and segregation as problem solvers. Look at the manifold uses we make of those phenomena. We remember South Carolina well that was black students widen it. All they wanted was their rights. Title two of the 64 Civil Rights Act said look this is a public accommodation you've got a right to ball in the alley across the street from the South Carolina State College they knew that the State University where the white kids went was building a new gymnasium that was costing more than all the facilities that their college put together and it happened to have among other things in bowling alleys in the basement. And they couldn't even ball in compliance with the supreme law of the land in the bowling alley across from their campus for a fee. So three died and 27 were injured. I look at the autopsy photos there and the photos of those who were that were injured there was not a single person shot in the front. There were four five shot in the bottoms of the feeders and they had their law enforcement
outnumbered without question the students that were demonstrating that cold and windy February night of 1968. And we know Southern University and we know Jackson State and we know how to cook and we can see the common humanity of the inmates at Attica. I will concede that common humanity and seek the fulfillment of those individuals there or will destroy the soul of this country. And finally along comes a can't state white middle class college kids and we find that yes we'll even turn the guns on them. The same people that would use violence as a problem solver. It drags done and it Horatia. It Hanoi and Haiphong and now Cambodia would even shoot their own children. So a man like Tony Lucas writes a sensitive book and he entitled to it. Don't shoot. We're your
children. But the truth of course is that when fair and hatred overcomes and lead you to violence you will shoot even your own children. Look at segregation. Not many of us you can claim with Will Rogers that our ancestors were at the dock to meet the Mayflower right down here on the Cape. We tried violence on them. We're still using a combination of violence directed toward the original inhabitants of this land that probably exceeds that directed toward any others. But violence hadn't been enough so we try segregation. The end reservation who is the most deprived American today. The original American the Native American who was the most deprived of all the Native Americans the native Alaskans the most segregated and isolated of all of us their life expectancy 60000 beautiful people that had a rich culture. Look at the beauty of the human art that they produced. See how their civilization flourished here a
hundred years ago. Their life expectancy is thirty five point three years talk about violent thirty five point three years there 20 percent of the population of the 49 state. There are great people but they've got trouble there for Gavin and Thomas 25 percent of that white Alaska their daily caloric intake in the most hostile environment the 50 states is one half that medically recommended for general places like Alabama. Three best species of salmon are extinct if you live in a village life Wainwright on the Arctic Sea about 150 miles west uproot obey where we found that sticky stuff we love so well called oil. You've got no whales for several years now. If you live in Wainwright you don't get whales you've got troubles now it's wonderful to go to Stockholm I'm all for it and come down to conventions we should kill no more whales but we'd better worry about the people that live in the villages life Wainwright on this planet before we are so sure about what we can do and what we can't do. Because whales have been their food their fuel in the
little cache they have had in their economy and seismograph crews have been testing off the coast there between the ice cap that's there all the time and the hard cold tundra on which they live. And they frighten the beast away. No harvest. And I might add the radioactive fallout is 10 feet deep into the ice cap but you're hardy pioneer going to about that carrying that umbrella. Now what we have to do first is concede our common humanity recognize our interdependence know find it when any suffer all suffer frankly that suits me fine that's justice. Too bad it was that way all along and maybe we had done something about it. Second we're going to have to do the thing that the blacks more than any other people on this earth have told us and that is overcome fear. Fear is the ultimate destroyer of the human spirit in our time in mass urban technologically advanced society it paralyzes you from solving problems. How many black leaders have to tell us. Read your Newton's new book when it comes out it's going to be out in a month or so it's called he's a
romantic guy. It's called revolutionary suicide. It's dedicated to his mother and father who taught him not to fear. Reading a few years earlier when he said look if you're afraid a man make you die a thousand times you can only die once. Don't be afraid. Listen to the words of Whitney Young Jr. that giant beautiful laughing man with the million dollar dampens who served on the board of this great organization and perished in the surf at Lagos. Two years ago last month in a conference of African American leaders at morning it said that his daddy had always told him and the other kids back at Lincoln Ridge Kentucky where he was born. Oh I like it that he was born at Lincoln Ridge Kentucky said Whitney. Never be afraid of any man because you will hate
the man you fear and hatred will consume your Saul. But look at the man who taught us above all others. And by deeds more than words that you can wholly overcome personal fear. Martin Luther King Jr. how I feared on the days of the Selma gunnery March I was the federal officer in charge of enforcing Judge Johnson's court order. You had to get a court order to walk 50 miles from Selma. Turned out you needed one. I feared for his health and safety every moment we scanned the edge of the woods and looked through the shacks ahead of the marchers and at the rooftops as we came in the Montgomery that Friday morning because you could feel the poison. You could feel the poison attracted to that man who walked in beauty.
Seeking freedom and equality and justice for all God's children. And you could see the serenity of his face. I believe in faces like installers that every man over forty is responsible for his own face. What a beautiful face Martin Luther King had. And he never reached 40. What perfect serenity and compassion was shown there. And in my judgment he walked the days of his adult life in the valley of the shadow of death and he feared no evil. Nor could any greed or fear at others. Those twins that give rise to racism fear and greed know hatred manifested at him taught him to violence of
any magnitude psychological or physical because he would not mean human dignity by reacting in that way. What a lesson we as individuals have to learn as we turn back to the Constitution to the quest for freedom and equality in justice to a belief in the social compact and the rule of law that concedes our common humanity that renounces violence forever that abandon segregation as a problem solver whether it's for the end and or the prisoner or the black or the poor in the ghetto or the elderly that we put off out of sight and out of mind because the American family is so fragile. We just can't keep ma home anymore. And if we solve that problem of aging by such segregation what will the little children miss in terms of life's purpose. What's it all about. What will they miss in terms of.
Wisdom experience and love. We have to renounce violence and segregation and so seek a fulfillment of the rights of all of our people. We have to understand finally with that already a Chicano revolutionary bonito our ass that i respect for the rights of others is peace. Thank you. Of the. Was in London I'm told that when the call Madonna wants to know what time it is he says to his fellow coal miner who works for the enemy and the time I come back so on so time day I certainly feel that time is our enemy because it's my responsibility to keep the
speakers within 10 minutes and yet I could not restrain Mr Clarke as he was so absolutely perfect of. We're going to try to respect the enemy each Because given ten minutes notice here let me just indicate that there will be time for questions. Let me now present commission of boom of the state of Massachusetts. I. Will. Thank you Mr. Blackwell. As King Hasan gentleman take great Persian say another word or two about criminal justice and prison reform. I don't believe God is going to let us do anything
until we clean up the criminal justice system. I have been worried about criminal justice and justice as long as I can remember. I want to tell you about three short stories my brother and I. Spent lots of time in the small town of we were born and Georgia town Georgia. We had three friends black to briefly refer to them Willie Saft and William actor. You know we label our brothers and sisters as bad and eventually they end up dead in prison.
Joran I wanted to go and pick berries but my mother said you can't go with those bad boys today. And we didn't go and they were found near the Alabama border. And I never will forget the two little white coffins and the great coffin William act as middle class black. Melancon black Willie had Insaf no income black. Want to tell you about my cousin. Who stayed in the Chiang Yang and my father used to carry me to visit him and I saw all of those stripes and the peas and the cornbread and I think he he served a life in prison six months at a time because he dared to
carry a pistol and Bob Barrett. Who is the only policeman I remember in that city and I know we had eight or ten who cared to pistols intimidate their very body but my cousin because he dared to carry his pistol. You know it's nothing wrong with the criminal justice system is what evil man have done to the system and look back at it after slavery. They manipulated the system to try to retain and maintain cheap labor. It's as simple as that. You have to get a license to carry a pistol. You couldn't marry out of the race yet to get a license approach a black man had to get a license to preach. My grandfather was a preacher. I think that means something you know. I wonder what you have to say when you went up to get your glasses
to preach. Try to find out you have to fool him and put him in a trick. Vagrancy lassie I mean vagrancy laws work regulations. Along comes welfare and you have to abandon your family. A few years ago I did a study of the prisons in the south and found that 65 percent of the prison population in black Georgia Alabama Louisiana 50 percent in Tennessee. How did they get there. I moved on the District of Columbia population discount and I'm a 75 percent black population prison. 99 percent black. Just a handful of whites than at that time a few years ago the whites who were that came there with a lone hand beard came up to
Massachusetts. Heard about Attica. I was surprised it said perhaps a population that was black and spanish speaking in Massachusetts 35 percent of the population in the state prison population is black with 3 percent of the state's population. Now what does this mean. I believe we have been hoodwinked you know crime is is it is extremely painful in the ghetto. And the policy has been to control it by military and police control. So we have sent a black man to prison and we have made him bad and mad. And they go right back to that community and prey on their brothers and sisters and an AT out of prison. And it's a plan. It's genocide.
And that's what's happening. Ladies and gentlemen I don't think we can do anything until we go into these prisons. We've got to go into these prison come out and clean up the criminal justice system. If we don't do it we can forget it. We can forget what happens in prison. My cousin didn't have any children he stayed in prison too much. A strong man. A strong man. I look in prisons these days and see some strong intelligent man as Ramsey Clark and sadly I don't label stupid and ignorant and bad. And bad. And we believe it and we we sweep the problem under the rug. And we've also to reappraise and that is the community. The community prison guards in the prison and often times the
community and not enough of them because you talk about protection now let's think about protection. And in prison when I came to Massachusetts I walked in to my office on some of the stone building and saw what the policy was instant and relative to the law on blacks. One person in my office was black and he was an aide in the research department just one and nine in the prison. And we sent him to Walpole in law for them to get rehabilitated. So you have a man enforcing that standards and values from Won't Hold on these angry young men who don't understand them. There's no way in the world you can have an A in a rehabilitation bassinet him to Siberia and situations like that. Now let's talk briefly and I'm through about the cost of imprisonment. See prisons are little industries and all of these communities. I went to Atlanta federal prison about 20 years ago and I thought we were doing something.
So this is the big house and we have twenty seven hundred man that we have an education department we have three civilian teachers and five. Five inmate teachers to teach 20 700 men in federal prison. Less than 5 percent of our budget was spent on education and psychological services. The rest of us spent for God. In this state now with the courts looking down on us and all of that it's going to cost $10000 a year for us to keep one man in prison one year less than one percent of that want educational and psychological services less than 1 percent of it goes for pay for guards. That have been accustom to guarding and that's all. Now we are fortunate in this day and that we can do something different. We can spend some of that mine of the last two years bad in that these young men can't function in the community. Let's forget it. We have food here we've said we can do education in prison is no way in the world. You can have quality education in prison when you don't have it in the community.
But. The. It doesn't make sense. You have exceptional children that grew up through your poor schools in the community and ended up in prison and we fail with them in the community and you expect us to do something with them in prison. It doesn't make sense doesn't make sense. And what about cost. Ten thousand dollars keep one man in prison one year he has a wife and four children. Now what we are doing we have him and I like Ramsey Clark said he said he never seen his dad but he knew what he looked like and we want to be like him he's going to be in prison Mike is that it was two of them. And before us a prisoner going to spend $15000 a year on him in a training school that's $30000 a year on the two youngsters $10000 on the Manor she has four children $9000 on her welfare that's. $40000 to keep one man in prison for one year on week raisin That's after feeding. But what are we doing to make him bad and mad and he's going to be a strong criminal coming
right back. Community and Duke I bet I'm going to cry because we can't line up unless. He comes there. Plus National Park a bookie goes back not knowing how to rob a bank or even write a check cause he may learn how to write from somebody. So he goes out. And he stays out for two years in Massachusetts and two years seven out of 10 I'm a coming back. And they're coming back I haven't done a more serious crime than. And he got caught long before you catch him you've done 10 to 15. Talk about the crime rate is going to be about talking about you know what is this program talking about and all of that and the crime rate hit we haven't even got to start it yet yes the crime rate is going up because we aren't paying any attention to corrections corrections or law enforcement is saying once a criminal always a problem. Ladies and gentlemen it is serious business for me and I'm hoping that the people of Massachusetts will invite you up to see our opportunity.
You know the issue can't be bought but people make it. You see I'm big and I'm black and easy to see. And if they make this issue they can whip us. Let's resist the stomp together. And tell what the real issue is. Corrections is crime control. You know if I talk about what gun control when I used to read about the homicide rate in black I mean I hear thing about gun control you know an about about how sentences for drugs where drugs prevailed in the early 50s and federal legislation passed no parole for drug users long senses and drugs are worse than ever. We have done some stupid things in crimes and now somebody is talking about life and
death for the junkies. Now I'm going to shock him and I'm a quitter. I believe that I could go for the death penalty. I believe I could go forward if the president of the United States would say anybody with power and influence enough to introduce drugs in the United States must die. But he hasn't said that yet has he. Wow. If you'd say that and that happened you would have a drug problem would you. We have to look at criminal justice policy. We've got to look at it. If we don't look at it we may be victims of genocide. Thank you very much. During these few moments I hope I can share with you some thoughts. I
must say that really to develop this whole question as it relates to label it does take some time and as I see it I think that this is the most critical area because when we go back to where this all started we have to remind ourselves that we live on our system where in order for that system to maintain itself or labor must be exploited. This was what brought about the condition. We know chattel slavery and. Less anyone start to think that blacks are the only ones who are
subjected to slavery. I want to say that if blacks from Africa were slaves here some others would be. And as a matter of fact you go back in history and you'll see that there were other slaves who aren't black. A system in which men placed materialism above humanism is bound to create the kind of conditions we're talking about today. If such men are allowed to run the show. And that's what has happened in this country. We have got laws constitution and religion all together which talk about the value of human personality and the dignity of human being. But we have had a situation where all this was thrown aside in the quest for power and the greed for material things.
Now the labor movement. Came into being not only in this country but all over the world as a method whereby working people could organize themselves to fight against the oppressors namely the bosses. How many people today do not recognize that in our society we dare not think of success for the masses. If there be no unions and that the unions the labor movement has a responsibility which I believe is very grave. Unfortunately not all in labor see this method in this light. Many in
labor today do not realise Labour's responsibility and many who are not in labor so to speak do not recognise the importance of the labor movement. I would hope it would be a beautiful thing believe me if every intellect you and every preacher every doctor had started out being a worker. Understanding what it is to be exploited. Understanding what it is to feel the lash of an employer who only seek profits and doesn't give a damn about you or your family. Then we would understand what we are up against in these troubled times. It is my profound belief that any coalition that is to bring us together to weather the storm must have labor as an integral part
more all over. It is my profound belief that in all we do in order to bring genuine progress prosperity dignity to the masses of the people who are workers they must be in unions. Because it's only through unions can they have that strength to gain for themselves. That measure of justice for the early water routes I think put it most fundamentally it says if the union boss as unionists as workers it gives us the power to get the employer to say yes when he so badly wants to say no but it goes beyond that because wed organize as workers. We will do for ourselves that which only we ourselves can do
that is we will be smart enough in politics we will be human enough in social things. We will see to it that we build for ourselves instruments and organisations in our communities that address excess to the very problems that are vexing us. And therefore whatever institutions we set up will be for the benefit of the masses. Moreover we can pool our talent and our resources in giving a hand to those who need help. People like ourselves. Now this is what we have tried to do in our union and there are the unions who tried to do this as well. Maybe I don't want to talk so much about our union but I think you ought to know that Dr. King during his lifetime.
And this is one of the reasons why we became such fast and steadfast friends and comrades not just because of the fact that we send dollar contributions but Dr. King visited our union studied all institution saw a poor work on skilled workers black white spanish speaking Jew and Gentile working together as one. And building for ourselves an organization that is unique in the labor movement. And it's precisely because of this kind of philosophy that we were able to down through the years from Montgomery all the way to the present time to make the kind of financial contributions and the physical contributions that we have been able to make because we see this struggle not as a struggle separate from workers. This is workers struggle. And we've got to remember that the overwhelming majority of the people who we set ourselves up to free and to free
ourselves as well are working people. There are fewer bosses. We have to remember again as we look at our society and the wealth it has amassed that better than 80 percent off our population owns less than 20 percent of its wealth. And the other 20 percent of our population who owns it doesn't 80 percent of it's with. So you'll see that the overwhelming majority faces the same common problem. And ever since slavery. There have been that device which divides the workers caste fear in the ranks put race against race on till this very day. Now many of us who live in the north in such places as Boston and New York really sometimes do not understand what America's all about. But those of us who have had the privilege
of working through the south lens and seeing what racism is doing and watching poverty and degradation is doing to black and whites not just blacks. You can first begin to realize what America is all about. I tell you that it is a stroke of irony that we can have a man in the White House or people in Congress or anywhere else who is going to tell us that we ought to spend one dime in military hardware to go on in force our type of freedom and democracy all side up these United States. When at home the work is not yet done. And this is what we have to do. Labor in coalition with all people of good will. Now let me just finally say this. Some techniques have been developed which needs to be really admired and carried on because today we
are fighting bosses who trend is beyond description. They are national and international in scope. We used to talk about Condi dominates and we think about employers who have several types of businesses throughout these United States. But the same employers not only control the businesses in the States but they are all over the world. Like the idea on TV and what they are doing in Chile and others who have their businesses like octopuses. Beyond the red. Off national borders and they can call the tune in any country move plants from one place to the other. Throw workers out of jobs as they see fit and therefore we have to develop that kind of strategy that makes it possible for us to beat them. I just like to call attention
to the fact that precisely because of the administration now in power every employer big and small believe that his day has come. Consequently every time poor workers try to flex their muscles for some meager just justified demand organize themselves seek some relief from the heat and burden of the day. They find that the employer is there to say no or to use the courts and the law at their bidding. Look at the far strike now in Texas since last May. We are Mexican-Americans. Three thousand strong are fighting a millionaire boss. And despite the fact he is losing millions he continue to fight the textile workers are sharing the same fate right now in South Carolina. I think it's on the knitting mirrors. Seventy five percent of those workers are
black. I just got to not mention that because they demand more support because they're black but I just want to point out that there are poor people who have been exploited over the years. Blacks Latinos Americans and poor whites. You know union we have the same situation going on in Columbus Georgia or in Norfolk where workers find themselves have to take the picket line for months and weeks. And the fact that you can't beat these employers unless you've got some support and some correlation. The use of the boycott the demand of people of goodwill everywhere on employers that they sit down and do that which is right now it is this kind of coalition that brought about the successes in the hospital are among the agricultural workers. And it must go on. But beyond that let me point out this that we do not yet have laws which give collective bargaining rights to
millions of people in this country. And I say flatly that. Any worker who does not have the right to join a union does not have the right to organize to bargain collectively and to strike. Still a sleeve so as we struggle we've got to fight for the enactment of these laws as we struggle we've got to fight for the enactment of laws which will give workers the right to a job and a decent job. Now when you talk about prisons and you talk about crime and you talk about everything else on the Web of Fear and somebody says work ethics people don't want to work. Well I would ask anybody at the minimum wages to be. Would you work for it. Can you ask
someone to work for a dollar and sixty cents an hour today when the very government tells you we need close to eight thousand dollars a year to live just a barely exist and a family of four. Yet we have a minimum wage of a dollar 60. We do not yet have a guaranteed annual wage. We do not yet have a system whereby a worker who have been deprived of education can go to school yes and be paid while learning so that he can apply himself to some skill or profession as he goes along life. All these are things that we need to correct and we've got to do them together because in the final analysis life can never be beautiful unless when I work I get just reward for my labor. Thank you. Now you can appreciate why the British minuses time is the enemy. I present our very good friend the the the
distinguished congressman c I'm accustomed to saying and. The distinguished congressman from the Fifth Congressional District who joined you Mr. Andrew Young. I. THANK YOU can I tell you this is really a tough act to follow because what we've heard is the truth we've heard of the contradictions in our society we've heard of the problems that we face. We've heard the challenge that you and I must confront. If we as a people regardless of our color or class or Prita going to survive. And I think the way we will meet that challenge in fact the only way that our society is structured to meet that challenge is through politics. And there's no question about whether or not politics works. The question is who does it work for.
Politics works both of those who work it. And there was no better illustration than that then checking my appointment book to see who the first people were that visited me when I became elected to Congress. The very first week the president of Lockheed stopped by to say hello. The very first week the president of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company came by discussing legislation that concerns Coca-Cola the very first week the president and chairman of the board of Delta Airlines insisted that I join them for a very delicious lunch but not yet after three months has a single college student come in to say a word to me about the college student loans that are not going to be available next year. Now I know that and I am going to be concerned about loans for college students
but my colleagues who are not necessarily as sensitive to the problems of college students are not going to represent the needs of college students because college students have not asked them to. And the business interest in their districts have asked them to. And so when we say the political system doesn't work all politics is raise questions about whether it's relevant or irrelevant. We first have to face the question What have we done to make it work for us every time. Martin Luther King moved with nonviolence and with political action he was successful every single occasion. There was never a failure. The only problem was we did not have the resources. We did not have the people to move as many places as we needed to move and we couldn't move fast enough on limited resources. Do you realize that the
Civil Rights Bill of 1964 was passed as a result of an organization led by Martin Luther King that had a staff of 14 people and a budget that year of two hundred fifty thousand dollars. And yet it changed the nation. There is power via a powerful coalition emerged which we saw expressed in the March on Washington and what we talking about in terms of coalition politics is gathering a coalition of people of goodwill. The whole purpose of marching was to dramatize an issue an order that you might rally the people of goodwill to move politically. And so Birmingham marched but the power was when Cleve Robinson in District 65 got thousands of buses to come down from New York when the churches who represented he and Gaurav Wilmore was with the Presbyterian Church then and all of you people in Boston that cool
religious power along with the power of labor unions. When college students stopped what they were doing and became concerned about the issue of racial separation. When Congressman then faced with that coalition. I realize that there was a power for good that was present on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They moved forthwith to deliver justice to those of us in the South who had been so long denied justice. And so the answer to all of the problems we face and the answer to every problem we are going to face is recreating a coalition of people of good will to overcome the coalition of selfish self-centered people who with great energy and industry make the decisions and run the country. Now here you put getting me OK.
But the one thing I want to leave with you about coalition politics. It is that we have usually followed coalition politics as a least common denominator kind of thing. We see what is the minimum foundation upon which we can get together and everybody then tends to hold up his point of view and we fight it out until we can come to a kind of least common denominator that's not what we need. Somehow coalition politics says to me that everybody speaks the truth. From his perspective and the whole truth is not the least common denominator. But the whole truth is the sum total of the truth that we can gather to go that far be it for me to argue with Rasho McGee or with Joe bloom. John Boone. Our job.
About which is more important it's obvious that it's all important and somehow I think when we can all come together and realize that we can begin to understand that every problem we face is but a symptom of the same problem. And it takes different expressions of the problems of the Native American of the American Indian is a different expression of the same problem that black Americans face the problem of the white college student with long hair. And free spirit is a different expression of the same problem that poor white students in Appalachian face or poor white workers and Appalachian that somehow understanding that. And building a coalition which then helps us determine an overall
strategy is the challenge that we face. Now President Nixon is doing us a favor and he is keeping his promise. He said he was going to bring us together and he is. Because you see the moratorium on housing not only brought deprive poor people of housing but it deprived construction workers of work it deprive contractors of contracts it deprive even the bankers of money that they had put into land speculations that they were planning to develop and now they are out on the limb. And it was a beautiful thing for me to see coming into my office three people coming together. And that is Louise watt of a tenant in public housing and the president of the Atlanta tenants association and public
housing a young man who was a banca. And our young Catholic system. They were coming because they all feel the pinch and the pain but rather than fighting each other to say what are we going to do first. Somehow I think we've got to see that what's at stake here is a question of priorities. Are we going to put the resources of this nation in life and development. Are we going to continue to put the resources of this nation in death and destruction. Now that decision will not be made on the basis of right and wrong. One thing you have to realize is that in fact politics has a kind of strange him our reality about it. The best men don't win. The people who work the hardest win and there's a strange kind of justice
about that and being right and being morrow is never enough. It's only enough if you work harder than your opponent. And so whether special interest or human interests are considered. Will depend on whether or not we can mobilize the human interest in the society to stand toe to toe with the special interest. And this is a beautiful and nonviolent struggle. It's a revolution of fulfillment rather than a revolution of destruction because you see when we begin to put first the human interests Lockheed won't have to go bankrupt. When we began to put forward the human interests the corporate giants of America will will not crumble. They have technological potential will be put in the right
directions. The subsidies of this nation will not subsidize death and destruction as we have through a multi billion dollar military budget. But that same corporate genius and energy will go to feed hungry people will go to educate people and create new forms of rehabilitation for those who have been denied and who are now in prison. And that question. The question is Ms King put it between the givers and the takers. I say between the lovers and the haters is the one that you and I have to resolve. In terms of how we assign our energies and our priorities over not only the next few months but over the rest of the years of our lives because there is a song that our forefathers sang all the time that says Freedom is a constant struggle.
We've struggled so long that we must be free and sure we are more free than we were when Martin Luther King started out in 55. We're much more free than we were at the end of Birmingham in 64. We've even moved beyond the level of freedom that we experienced in the last five years even. But these are just the first three or four steps on a thousand mile journey and there will always be in justice so long as there are men and women. And our question is whether or not we are going to be struggling on the side of justice or whether we are going to relax give up cop out. And I close by reminding you that the only thing that's necessary for evil to prosper is that good men do nothing. They didn't join him and it's written in the Scriptures where
more than a thousand years ago that man would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. I believe we have served out that sentence. You have heard it say it in four different ways that we have the capacity to create a life with quality genuine quality. The challenge for us in having served out that sentence is to proclaim the freedom that we know is rightfully ours. May we entertain one of two questions we'll with the hour. But I think that if there are some individuals that feel that they must ask questions now is the appropriate time. Yes. Let me introduce the lady of the speaking. I think everybody here need to know we use in the black community
expression the living proof. I like to look at Mrs. Boeing Billups as the living proof. Less than 10 years ago Mrs. Boyington was clubbed to her knees by the police forces of Selma Alabama in an effort to register the vote. She now sits on the city council of Selma Alabama and she tells me that the people that were doing the beating are known to working very hard to be her friend. Nobody you know. Right. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. Oh. When. You. Come back. That. Name. And you're. Not going to. Call me you can get in there. Are you. You know. I'm wondering. When.
You. Hear. My. Name. And then. Let me let me take the liberty of asking Philadelphia if he'll respond to that. Charge. By. The way. What you can say something a little feeling. Mr. Kling And I'm delighted to see you back because I did my schooling here in this area. Harvard every day. I don't see that. Going to the U.S. today which is something in your speech your tall. Touched my heart. There are so many things to say very little of I don't know.
Along the salty things that came out was because so many things from the beginning yesterday when I first heard Mrs. King was. A member of the war profiteers. Oh in that kind of luncheon hour all night. It. Was truly beautiful. And then city. Renting for my own for many years and during the night. I am prompted to make some son Jack home to this thing with two. Congressmen to hear that bit young man has already addressed. The young man the guy the way. This. Brilliant young. Crazy boy. Here. I come. I come. Say did. You hear my leave. From my heel on your doorstep.
She told. Me So. Floor told Congress you're going to make us your pick. Congressman. Young. Let's get off of the lawn. Let's come to the bank. From everything I saw the last point of this particular all 14 of 16 little let me a blanket but get on the bed. Don't call a black man you don't stop with the view to reconstruct. Every candidate in America no more and give them an education to give them because 90 percent of them LOL. I sit on the bench. I see the man come up
like lightning. Many times I seen police come in and meet them not unlike what with the whole. Thing. Will. Run. Around the family last with Will Ferrell far earlier than I used to because of fine men women or just somebody made that remark. Might feel all right I'll tell you. I met Angelo. We'll go now known as Shannon let me just I realize you'll be blind and you won't get my memory of the what we call it. I mean was it just me. And of course could be the first one. Just run. Those if. You. Want.
Series
Sunday Forum
Episode
Coalitions For Non-Violence: Resisting The Storm Together
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-23hx3qqt
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Description
Series Description
Sunday Forum is a weekly show presenting recordings of public addresses on topics of public interest.
Description
Ramsay Clark; John O. Boone, Cleve Robinson, Congressman Andrew Young, Randy Blackwell. Tape one of two
Created Date
1973-04-06
Genres
Event Coverage
Topics
Public Affairs
Media type
Sound
Duration
01:21:26
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 73-0107-04-15-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 01:20:17
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Citations
Chicago: “Sunday Forum; Coalitions For Non-Violence: Resisting The Storm Together,” 1973-04-06, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-23hx3qqt.
MLA: “Sunday Forum; Coalitions For Non-Violence: Resisting The Storm Together.” 1973-04-06. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-23hx3qqt>.
APA: Sunday Forum; Coalitions For Non-Violence: Resisting The Storm Together. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-23hx3qqt