Focus 580; The Civil Rights Movement, 1964-1990

Of the movement a couple of weeks ago Hugh may recall we had the opportunity to talk with author Taylor Branch who has written a very well-received book on the civil rights movement in the United States from its beginnings in the 50s up until I think roughly about one thousand sixty eight. And we had some opportunity to talk with him about the book in particular some of the things in the book about the early career of Dr. Martin Luther King. We thought that we would then take the opportunity this morning to have in a sense take a view some years beyond the point that we stopped on the other program and talk more about the civil rights movement. Roughly from the mid 60s until the 80s which is also the period which is covered by a series that's now running on public television stations including ours Channel 12 that is called Eyes On The Prize too. It is in a sense the the second installment of a series that aired last year. And this is a series that begins. In

1964 and runs in to the 80s and we're talking this morning with someone who actually has been involved in in that series and also has certainly been involved in the civil rights movement the United States and that is Julian Bond. He is a veteran a civil rights activist and he currently is the can be heard as the narrator of eyes on the prize too which by the way is airing on Monday evenings at 8 o'clock on W while a TV channel 12 so it is a very fine series if you have not seen some of these programs. There are number three yet to run in the series you may want to see them Mr. Bond is the is the host of America's Black Forum which is the first black owned program in television syndication. He has narrated several public and commercial television series and specials. He is an essayist a poet and a journalist and has been published in a number of national periodicals and currently he is a visiting professor at Harvard University and he is talking with us this morning here on focus as we talk a little bit about these years of the

Civil Rights Movement of course. If you have questions. You are welcome to call the telephone number here in Champaign Urbana is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line and that one is good. Anywhere that you can hear us so you needn't pay the charges if it would be a long distance call for you that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 0 3 3 3 wy allowed and 800 to 2 to WY Hello Mr. Bond Hello. Thank you very much for talking with us. We appreciate it. What to do. I suppose one of the things that you have to say about the civil rights movement in this period you know from the mid 60s on is that it was a time when it seems that the movement was rather fragmented. Before that it seemed there was that there was more unity and it it may at this point then we somehow see more

people going off in different directions. And it it may have been because of the the shock of the loss of the leadership of Dr. King and also of Malcolm X. It may be that it was in a sense. You know sort of a function of the generation gap that there was a different set of priorities. Among the older people and the younger people. But it happened. I wonder as. As you look at it what what led to that kind of fragmenting and then wow what the effect of that sort of splintering of the movement was. Well I think it's important to recall that there has never been unanimity among black Americans about the best course to follow in winning political and economic rights during slavery following slavery in the period of the first series of eyes on the prize roughly mid 50s to mid

60s. There always were divergence is of opinion and arguments over strategy and tactics. A fair amount of unanimity over go but always this current Let's do it this way let's do it that way. Your way won't work your way is too conservative your way is too militant. These kinds of divisions were ever present but tended to be muted in their earlier period 54 through 65 period following 65 and the deaths of Dr. King and Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy. And following the movement of the movement from the rural south to the urban north a great many of these preexisting divisions became much more apparent much more real. Different kinds of techniques techniques were called upon to deal with segregation in urbanized Chicago than was true in rural Mississippi. And so the conditions under which the movement operated in this later

period helped to magnify the divisions helped to magnify the differences between these leadership groups. There also was a real generational gap between those young people who came into the movement as a result of the sit in demonstrations the Freedom Rides this courageous and dangerous work in the rural south in the early 1960s and the older people who. Those of Dr. King's age and older who had a different view of what was required had a different view of how far one ought to go and cooperating with the national administration. President Kennedy then President Johnson after him at the same time the country itself began to change. Richard Nixon became the president began to employ a strategy designed to appeal to the racial fears of Southern whites. So the whole mix began to change in the period after 1964

65. But these divisions were always present they simply became more pronounced in the later period. I think there were some people who would say so and they say that if if it had not been for the civil rights movement there might there might not have been any anti-war movement or at least it. Then it got a lot of people who were later very active in the air anywhere movement sort of got their feet wet got them some of their political training and political activism did at the very least you can say that the Southern Civil Rights Movement provided a great many of the foot soldiers and organizers and techniques that we later saw in the anti-war movement and of course the same is true of the reborn women's movement which took a great deal of its momentum from women who were activists in the civil rights movement and who began their activist as women in opposition to the chauvinism they saw in the southern movement as the rights of the mistreatment of women in that movement.

Did did that did that drain off people from the Civil Rights Movement that. That might have been involved in that but that it somehow felt more attracted by the anti-war issue did that somehow take some of the energy from the civil rights movement. Oh absolutely it was a sad occasion but a necessary occasion. You couldn't ask people to not protest against this enormous injustice that was being done by our country in Viet Nam and you couldn't ask them to simply pay attention to domestic concerns. When the two were so connected it was a choice between guns and butter. And if you wanted additional butter you had to protest against the guns but these competing movements the anti-war movement the women's movement the growing environmentalist movement did drain resources people and most importantly I think national attention away from the movement for civil rights. It's the sort of thing you wish had not happened but that you wanted to happen at the same time.

I think it was just inescapable that people could not for one reason or another couldn't do all these things together and so they chose to do winand if they chose the anti-war movement it meant they weren't participants of the movement for civil rights. I guess this morning is Julian Bond. He is a veteran civil rights activist. He's currently a visiting professor at Harvard University and you will hear his voice as the narrator of the series eyes on the prize too which is airing on public television stations around the country. A number of the programs have aired already and you do though have the opportunity to see I believe three more installments if you have not yet. And I'd say probably there's a there was a pretty good chance it is a series that will be rerun again. So this should not be your only opportunity to see some of these programs. Also if you have questions or thoughts here as we talk about the civil rights movement in this period roughly from 1964 to the 80s we would be happy to talk

with you this morning. The local number to call these 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free. Anywhere you can hear us around Illinois over in Indiana elsewhere the number is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. You talked about one of the things that. It happened during this period and that is the movement of the. That is the movement of the movement from the rural south to the urban north. And the fact that it was a very different kind of situation and require different tactics. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. How how what was the nature of that that change in focus. Well in the in the rural south and this is an enormous generalization but in the rural solve all of the black people were good all of the white people were bad. It was a classic confrontation between good and evil. You had the stereotypical southern sheriffs who were

could be counted upon to do the absolute wrong thing at the absolute right moment. Jim Clark's The Bull Connor's this recalcitrant leadership in these southern towns and cities who were just determined not to give an inch. It was a classic confrontation and the national audience that watch found it very easy to choose sides as the movement began to move north to Chicago let's say. The picture was not nearly so clear. Some black Chicagoans were part of the machine presided over by Richard Daley. They oppose the notion of Martin Luther King and others coming into town and disrupting these political relationships with which they were very comfortable in the north in the south of you could picket. A a department store which refused to allow black people to eat at its lunch counters in the north when the problem was segregated housing you didn't

quite know who was at fault. Was that the owner of the housing that wouldn't sell it to blacks was it the realtor who steered blacks away from integrated housing was it the city which refused to employ any legal device to ensure equality. There was a diversity of targets and an inability on the movement's part to focus on on it. And then the opposition wouldn't give up a single stereotypical evil person against whom the community could rally. Mayor Daley in Chicago had his supporters in black Chicago had an ironclad grip over the political machinery of the town. And so the situation was just so so different then the Northern black population had seen this series of victories in the South had seen segregation conquered in Montgomery and seen discrimination at places of public accommodation lunch counters restaurants and movies

eliminated in 64 had seen the right to vote one in 1965 and were cheered by these advances but felt their own lives not changed one whit they already could vote. They could eat at lunch counters. They had the right to vote. They had these freedoms and found their circumstance not really improved by virtue of their having them. So there was a high level of frustration in the north that one didn't find in the south where there were these series of victories and forward steps and all of this created a kind of volatile mix in which nonviolence didn't sell well at least not as well as it had sold in the south. It was an extremely frustrating time to be black northern or urban and to have seen your Southern brothers and sisters winning these enormous gains and to see that they made absolutely no difference at all in your life. Just a period of great frustration and that frustration helped to make the movement's progress much more difficult.

It seems that they had to you know certainly there was as much racism in the north as there was in the south but that in the north perhaps it was a bit more covert a bit more insidious and that that perhaps in the north what the African-American people would be talking about would be perhaps at least at that point much more serious challenges to the system in society as it was. And you know I wonder whether there wouldn't there weren't at the time politicians for example in the north that would have cheered on the civil rights movement as long as had stayed in the south and was at a distance enough so that it wasn't really troubling to them who looked at it differently once it came north. Oh sure it's the same phenomenon you see it now this NIMBY you know not in my backyard here. It was great for Southern blacks to demonstrate for integrated schools in Alabama Mississippi Georgia and Louisiana but not in Illinois Wisconsin or Michigan. We always like to celebrate

people's freedoms at great distance. I think that's one of the reasons why we're so cheered by the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. That's far away from us and the difficulties. Black and White South Africans are going to have now and coming to grips with each other. We can watch them from this great distance we can curse the white South Africans we could condemn them for having constructed this apartheid system for keeping blacks boatless and homeless in abject poverty. But when the victimizer is our neighbor or ourselves we're much less quick to condemn and certainly much less quick to act. So it's it's an unfortunate human characteristic to be all in favor of freedom in Warsaw and Johannesburg not to be as eager to prosecute it when it happens in some place close by. I have couple of callers who would like to bring into our conversation we have one local line 3

3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's the number. We also have toll free line which you may use anywhere you know outside of the immediate area here in Champaign Urbana. And the call will be free. That's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Let's talk with some of our listeners here we'll start with line 1. Hello. Yes you are speaking about sort of. Three months between blocks within the civil rights movement I was wondering whether you had anything interesting to say about the recent transformation of James Meredith who liberated the University of Mississippi and is now working for Jesse Helms and it's calling for segregated public schools and separate black education. And it seems to be now taking this extremely hard right wing line on black family issues. What what do you have any ideas about what would lead somebody to go through such a transformation. What sort of social or personal factors are that would lead a person to basically just completely

reverse themselves. Well I can only speculate based on the few reports of a couple of interviews I've seen with Mr. Meredith since he started working for Senator Helms. I gather that he's disappointed with the progress. Bach Americans have made so far and has come to believe that. Part of the difficulty has been the attempts by America's liberal community to impose a vision on black and white America that Mr. Meredith doesn't share. I think he's absolutely wrong and mistaken but I'm not really sure why he's come to this point of view. He's an interesting and fascinating figure he has always been sort of a loner. He I going to call when he finished his first year at Ole Miss he held a press conference and said the Nigro will not return to the University of Mississippi. But James Meredith will almost as if to separate

himself from the not from the black community certainly but but from the hopes that his success at Ole Miss. It was in turn the success of all black Americans. Easy just a loner kind of person has always found his own path. Even when the path has been in opposition to the accepted wisdom of the larger black community I think he's right. I don't want to say but I do I really don't know why he's come to this point of view but it's not a totally very new point of view there been you know generation after generation of black Americans who felt that either we ought to go it alone that we could do best with our own institutions the schools and businesses and so forth and that the attempt to integrate into the larger world would always meet with failure and destruction of these institutions that any people need if they're going to build a prosperous community

for themselves. I think fat claims that various things are undermining the black family or lead to divisiveness between various branches of the civil rights movement. He's come out against abortion for example that could drive a wedge between the black movement and the women's movement for instance. I mean there's a real potential once you start talking this traditional American family values line or any sort of progress. If political attendance is going to fall apart Well again there's a long history of contentiousness between the movement of black Americans to achieve civil rights and the movement of women to achieve civil rights is a long long history and sort of sad history actually. These two groups of people being in contention with each other in arguing over tactics is a point in the history of the Movement for the right to vote for women in which white women said listen

give us the vote and we will balance those black people who are voting so if you're worried about black people voting give the right to vote to white women and we will be able to outweigh and overbalance the votes of blacks. We will be able to maintain white supremacy. So there's a long history of this kind of thing. Meredith particularly I don't think there's a great deal of worry about division because. Knowing that he works for Senator Helms knowing what an opponent Senator Helms is of everything that's just and right I don't think most people are going to give him much of an audience. But again these are these strains and divisions are not new. They have occurred over and over again over the last century and unfortunately probably going to occur over and over again and there's an enormous tension between black women and the organized movement for women's rights with black women feeling that their first commitment is to black people men and women and others feeling that their commitment is to their

sex. So what Meredith is suggesting is not anything new. I think he's wrong again but it's not a new phenomena. Thank you. All right I think you will go on to another caller here on our line number two. Hello. Hi I would like for you to say something about the FBI coordinated program to introduce a lot of divisiveness I've seen quite a bit of documentation of that and a variety of books that I had passed directly over at Hoover's desk and a lot of it was personality fascination of Martin Luther King. And before Also I'd like for you to comment on this. I don't want this to be this. There's a conspiracy theory because I don't think anybody really knows what the case is and I think it can be separated from these well-documented subterfuges that were going on. But what do you where do you come down on the theory that the FBI who were involved in surveillance of

Martin Luther King in Memphis. Either tipped off somebody to let them know when their guard was down or when the change of staff was happening. It's sort of I've never looked at Mark Lane and Dick Gregory's book on that but I'm wondering what you would say about both of those. Both of those issues well about the particular issue of the FBI collaboration in the death of Dr. King. I don't know. There's all sorts of speculation that there was some kind of FBI collusion. And that James Earl Ray the assassin was given some sort of signal that now would be the proper time when he could fire the shot and could escape easily. I just don't know whether that's true or not but it's easy to see from the history of the FBI. Absolute dedication to destroying the black movement not only Dr King but to actually engineering open warfare between the Black Panther

Party and the group called us in. In Southern California the serious attempts at turning a group a against Group B through served vicious and forged messages from one to the other. Just a clear evident history all along attempts to subvert and destroy this movement that you couldn't be greatly surprised if evidence were produced today to demonstrate that it happened with King's assassination or that it's still happening today. Remember we're not talking about something which happened a hundred years ago in American history this is within the lifetime of enormous number of Americans. We're talking about 20 years ago 25 years ago and we're talking about fairly clear evidence based on some recent legal cases that the FBI is still maintains a great deal of this racist white supremacist character. So while I don't have any

information about the particular incident I wouldn't all be surprised if attempts of this nature didn't continue even until today. Does it get to your question here. If somebody wanted to follow up on that I can remember the title Dick Gregory and Mark Lane's book but that's something to look at I haven't done that myself but there is a book agents of repression that covers a lot of the destabilization and Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers and also covers a lot of the material on the FBI wanted me and the American Indian Movement there and the fact the subsequent book is called Documents of COINTELPRO which ever produces volumes of one volume but many many pages of the very documentation it's been gotten out for the Freedom of Information Act. Thank you. OK I thank you for the call me about midway so book yeah. Racial matters which documents the history of the FBI is attempts to subvert the black movement in this country it published last year. No member the

author but there is a fairly large collection of documented evidence of just a calculated attempt by agencies of the federal government to destroy the movement for civil rights and as I say that be wouldn't be a matter of great surprise if you could demonstrate it was going on today. Listeners focus 580 money as David engine We're talking this morning with Julian Bond from let me tell you again review his background as little bit certainly he has been involved in the civil rights movement for a number of years. He is the host of America's Black Forum which is the first black on program and television syndication. He has served as narrator for several public and commercial television series and specials including as I mentioned eyes on the prize two now airing on public television stations. He is an essayist a poet and journalist and has been published in a number of national periodicals. At the moment he is a visiting professor at Harvard University and we're talking here about the civil rights movement and roughly in this period that is covered by the series eyes on the prize two

from the mid 60s through the 80s. If you have questions we would be happy to talk with you in fact we have a couple of people holding we'll get right to the local number here. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4. 5 our next callers on line number one. Hello. Yes. First I must say I'm really enjoying the series a lot. I assume tonight's program given the dates going to talk a little bit about cointelpro the FBI program right COINTELPRO or whatever it is now. Is that correct. I brought with us is number six in a series. What's its title to. I don't know they focused on we're seeing excerpts showing the Democratic convention in Chicago in 68 and then it looks like an interview with Fred Hampton. Oh this is I think so yes it does it focuses on the murder of Fred Hampton Fred Hampton Russia Congo and the attempts by Chicago authorities to cover it up. And I for the first time I think you're going to

see the FBI informant who helped plot the attack on Hampton and other Panthers in their beds this is just a remarkable view of how this works from a participant himself the man who drew the floor plan of. It's frightening coverage. Do you also give the coverage that happened the media blitz that happened right afterwards for example I can remember I was an undergraduate at Northwestern at that time and I can remember the coverage in the Chicago Tribune showing supposedly the shot of the the door jamb with a shotgun blast was fired and it turned out they were nail holes. Exactly yes it does cover all of that images show you how a combination of forces the FBI the Chicago Fire use the law enforcement community generally and the media conspiring to consciously or unconsciously to put forth this enormous lie that

the police had acted properly when in fact this was just outright murder to give some idea of how extensive the FBI as attempt was to disassociate any kind of support from the Black Panthers I have my own little personal history as an undergraduate Northwestern in 69 I tried to I wrote a check for a subscription to Black Panther newspaper that summer in Peoria which is where I grew up. I had two FBI agents visit my home asking me how I got information to subscribe to the Black Panther newspaper and I began to think about that I asked them to send the newspaper to my address in Evanston and I figured out that of course what they were doing was monitoring the bank account of the Black Panther Party. And that's where the address was because to check out my PR address. You know it makes you wonder that if they were to devoted their attention during this period to real crimes right. Whether the drug trade trade in the United States would have reached these epidemic proportions by now I'd say it's just it's just one example of as minor as it is I've been at this several times but it's one example of how minor it is. But apparently

there to go to do something like that. And in fact go and visit to take two agents off the street and have them visit people who had some kind of tacit support or at least interested in the blank that their party at that time shows how what what what Hoover decided to do. A very scary time. Anyway I very much enjoyed the series. Thank you. I have a question what's going to happen now. Are you still in GA. No I live in Washington DC and in fact I appreciate being introduced as a Harvard professor. Actually my tenure in Harvard is finished I was there for the first semester only that I was going to ask you about what what the political situation in Georgia and when we have another southern state with a black governor. Well as you know former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young is running for governor. He's doing very well right now in the polls we don't know how much of that is due to simple name recognition or how much of it is people who actually will intend to vote for him but if he can get the support he needs from around the country and in Georgia he has

at least an even chance of winning the primary and then going on and winning the general election this fall. How will there be if they're planned another series anything out. I don't think so. The producer of eyes won and eyes two is a remarkable man named Henry Hampton. And I think he has considers this work done and is working on two other series one on the war on poverty and one on the depression. And if he brings the same sensitivity and understanding to these two topics and I think they're going to contribute as much to our understanding of our history as the Part 1 and Part 2 of eyes on the prize have done but I don't think he plans a way what will it end with a victory in New York and New Jersey. The sooner this ends with a victory underdog Oh yes the victory in Chicago. Did the talk about subsequently the breakup of the Black Coalition. No in fact it ends with Harold Washington's victory in Chicago and turmoil in Miami over the police shooting of a black man in Overton.

OK you know which reminds us of how current These things are because we've just seen late last year another dispute between the police and the black community in Miami. It ends with Harold Washington's first election as mayor of Chicago. But anyway it is a very enjoyable series and I hope they get back gets back also to the producer. OK OK well thank you for the kind that we do have another caller here who is holding on and we'll go right to them on line three. Hello. I don't feel right to share my my praise for the program I think everybody responsible for it but I think that rationing is particularly good. I think as a television it's the abiding kind of history I think of it that it's got. Attention to detail that very few histories particularly television have had. I'd also like to pick up on a couple of comments you made earlier about the tension between the civil rights movement and the women's movement. I have kind of a personal experience of it myself. I tend to law

school that was nominally the first law school in a country founded by women. And in fact it was founded it was founded by white women for white women to provide an alternative to Howard University where our school which are welcome to women but to provide an alternative a school where white women could go where they wouldn't have to be at Howard. But that's kind of a strange little segment of history. It showed that the tension between women is a desire to get education but not to do it in the end. In a largely black context I also was wondering you mentioned earlier about that the NIMBY phenomenon is referring to the movement of the movement and I was wondering if I could get down some of your comments on some of the recent publicity given to the NIMBY phenomenon as applied to the environment and how that frequently ended up with black and low income people bearing the brunt of environmental pollution and pretty much throughout the country in both urban and redder and rural settings. That's

right if you could comment on that. Well if you look at the location of toxic waste dumps. That's right in the in the country you find a disproportionate number of them in Rural Black Belt counties where it is a heavy black population. And of course these are chosen for a variety of reasons first because the political leadership which tended to be black and at least some of these areas agreed to have them there. But it also demonstrates that for the owners and operators of these facilities it here is a part of the country where. That desperate poverty of the people made it more likely these things would be accepted. Then you see other tensions between the environmental movement and black community. Just recently we've seen a report demonstrating that the larger environmental organizations have almost Lillywhite staffs with almost no minority employees and that their concerns

focused largely on those concerns that don't mean a great deal to urban dwellers. All of us I think want there to be pristine mountains of fires but we also want to live in areas where there's no lead paint where there's no environmental pollution being belted out of smokestacks and a great deal of the environmental effort at least appears to be directed away from the concerns of black and Hispanic city dwellers. So again these tensions erupt. You like to hope that the environmental movement is clever enough and compassion. See the error of its ways and begin to say well the environment pure environment means just as much to someone of 120 street Lenox Avenue New York City as it does to someone who lives in Aspen Colorado and we ought to direct our attention toward both the character that's a very good point. Thanks very much. All right I thank you for the call. We're here this morning talking with Julian Bond and we're talking about the civil rights movement in the United States focusing it largely on the period that is

covered by the series. Eyes on the prize too that he has 1964 through the 80s. If you have questions certainly not limited to this time period if you have questions about a topic the civil rights movement please do call the telephone number here is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. And we have a toll free line it's good anywhere you can hear us. And that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We will have a little bit more time than usual this morning because it is a holiday in the commodity markets are closed so that we might be able to accommodate a few more callers than we would ordinarily And certainly that the lines are free now. If you would like to give us a call. I'm interested in having you talk a little bit about Muhammad Ali and he. He plays a large part in one of these programs I believe it's a program that has aired already I guess last month and it's apparently it's there's some comments here I think that are interesting from that program by up Harry Belafonte talking about Muhammad Ali saying that that talking I think about the the the movement

of black pride and black consciousness saying that he was an embodiment of the thrust of that movement. He didn't care about money he didn't care about the white man's success. He brought America to its most wonderful and most naked moment and I think referring here to his refusal to serve in the military he said I will not play your game. I'll not kill on your behalf. And if you could talk a little bit about the significance of Muhammad Ali or perhaps other sorts of black figures that were important at this at this point and in this kind of a way. Well the thing about Ahmed Ali here is this fellow first was at the very top of his craft. I mean this is not a boxer of his period who approached him. His Grace just the ability to dispatch an opponent so swiftly and so beautifully. Boxing can be called a beautiful art leave was its greatest

practitioner during the period of his championship during the period of his reign. He had the world on a string and then gave it all up. For his religion and for his insistence as he put it so well. The Viet Cong never called me nigger and he had no quarrel with them he had could see in his own mind no reason why he ought to fight for them and he just put it so clearly and so cleanly. I think he he without intending to just represented all that everyone wanted to be for themselves he was the best at what he did. And yet at the moment of his ultimate triumph said no I'm throwing us all away. I cannot compromise my principles I don't believe in this war and I'm not going to lend myself to it if it means going to jail if it means losing that title which I won in the ring. If it means losing the acclaim of millions of people I don't care. I'm going to give it up.

And this combination of his absolute perfection in his field and his unyielding adherents to principle just endeared him to. Millions and millions of people and you can't help but in the series that aired last Monday night to look at him both in the ring and out of the ring as a spokesperson not have an enormous amount of admiration for. It's difficult to say how much he meant and how much he he became everything we wanted ourselves to be. Well let's talk with another caller here on line one. Good morning. I gave it the same way. I missed it. Thank you for sharing with us this morning. I again am flabbergasted with these theories I think it's wonderful and I taped it every week. I do have a come far though as an African-American woman and that is the lack of reporting on the role women have played

in the civil rights movement. I think all of the information that shared in the series is really really wonderful and everybody really nice to see it. But it still reminds me of all the information that's not they are not. I think African women are particularly missing from this theory and that concerns me it's especially since people are saying this. Then a diff piece of work. I am concerned about the missing women and I know there is work being done around the country to try and rewrite history to include black women and I'm sorry that I'm not saying that in this area so far can you speak to that not all have hang. OK that's going to be the first series. It's peculiar that even though this second series is more recent and ought to be remembered by more of us a great deal of it is actually more

obscure than the material found in the first series and if you recall the first series even beginning in Montgomery there was an attempt made to show that there was an ongoing relatively militant women's group in Montgomery which had tried even before Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 to promote a bus boycott. These were this was a group led by a remarkable woman named Joanne Robinson who. I had tried and failed to get the largely male leadership of black Montgomery to begin protest over the arrest of two other women on city buses in the year and a half before Rosa Parks was arrested. So in the first series there was an attempt made I think to demonstrate that the movement was first more than just Martin Luther King that there were many women and men who played important roles and that their contributions have been overlooked. And the second series there was a wider variety of material to choose from and some difficult choices

had to be made. And while I don't want to. In fact I'm not going to accuse the producers of any anti feminist bias. I think the enormous amount of material there are to be chosen from. And the choices they made in choosing to highlight this incident as opposed to this one may have mitigated against the kind of exposure of women true and longer history of the period might have required but the caller's absolutely right. The role of black women in the history of this movement hasn't been treated fairly by most historians whether they are black or white. And there is now a great deal of scholarship being developed to try to show that women despite the chauvinism of the men with whom they had to contend and the general feeling of error in the past that women ought to have taken a backseat and not to have been listened to that there is an attempt being made now to right this wrong and to show that women played not just an important

role but quite often a leading role in the history of this movement there is just an enormous number of figures that haven't received their proper share of attention. And the first series I think you probably saw a great many more women playing the role that women played. You saw Fannie Lou Hamer you saw Joanne Robinson in Montgomery. You saw Diane nation Nashville. And the second series perhaps as a consequence of the moments in that history that were selected you don't see as much of that as you might have seen. But you do see and the current commentators and a series a number of strong women played an important role in the development in Detroit and Chicago and other parts of the country. Commenting on what they did and what others did around them. But again it's not enough and it's not sufficient to the contributions women make you know it makes me think of an interview I think that I read was an interview with Henry Hampton who was

the producer of the series and and referring back to we had earlier caller asking there if there would be another series and in this particular interview I think the interviewer asked Mr. Hampton will there be an eyes on the prize three. And he said there may be but I'm not the guy who's going to do it. And he went on to say though he felt that no one should think of eyes on the prize as somehow being the definitive telling of this story and that in fact there are you know he is hoping that there will be more people going out and kind of doing their own view of this history. And certainly I don't think he would he would say that there aren't there aren't stories that need to be told that are in this particular. This particular piece of journalism as good as it is right it's like a civil war history when my parents were school children. They were taught history of the Civil War that said nothing about either slaves or slavery. It sounds odd to those of us today to think that you could

discuss this enormous conflict in American history without mentioning the reason why it was fought but that was true in my parents time a little less true in my time a little less true today. So the telling of history is as much an evolving process as is the development of history itself. And Hampton is right. You could make a dozen series about this period in our history told from a dozen different points of view and probably still not tell every story that has to be told. But having said that it is unfortunate that what women have done and will do hasnt been given its proper its proper due. Well let's talk with someone else we go to line one. Hell yeah if I don't have that I have a question for and for an audience right. I've hear of right. Let the people know that that this show it's been very beneficial. That I've really enjoyed it.

You'd write to Henry Hampton who is the overall producer the executive producer and his company is called Black side incorporated and it's at 486 Shabat. That's FHA WMU key avenue for adult FX 486 Shawmut Avenue Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 1 0 8. South Africa are a pair wanting to run it. Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 1 8 1 1 archetype Thank you. OK well thanks for calling. I wonder Mr. Bond I did mention before I played my my biographical material on you apparently hasn't caught up with you yesterday. You were you deadheads going to Harvard for the first semester of the school year. OK so you you were at Harvard and I'm sure that you do a lot of speaking with students I know you've been here on this campus a couple of times yes. And they're here you're being brought into contact with with young people who may not have been born when

some of these events were taking place who at least were were pretty small and so they really have not lived through them. I wonder what your your feelings are as as you talk with young people about this history particularly your feelings about how well they know it. Well they know all of the high points. I've taught at the University of Pennsylvania Drexel in Philadelphia and just recently at Harvard and before the beginning of each class I gave my students a sort of a pop quiz Who is this Who is that who is this Who is this. Every single one of them knew who Rosa Parks was. I think that's partly a function of the celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday in the retelling of the Montgomery Bus Boycott story over and over again it's such a heroics and dramatic story. It's become part of our national consciousness. But at Penn and Drexel not one student could identify George Wallace the former governor of Alabama a man who is alive today just want out of

office four years ago at Harvard about a third of my students going to done a fine him. I was teaching a course called civil rights history to people who weren't born when the history was made but their parents were and I encourage them to talk to their mothers and fathers about what they were or were not doing during this period and more often than not they find that their mother or father went to a demonstration marched in a protest were involved in some way on or the other in this movement no matter where they lived in the country whether in Alaska or in Alabama. Because the movement became national in its scope and its participation. And so there they have a quick reference point. They they find sometimes a mom and dad didn't do anything. But it leaves Mom and Dad can talk about doing nothing while others about them were doing a great deal. So it's not as remote as it may seem. Argue the king is a living presence at least once a year to most Americans. And the debates and arguments that began to surface during this period are still

very much a part of our national consciousness today so it's not as if it's something that happened 2000 years ago this happened within the lifetime of my students mothers and fathers. And it's very much a part of us now. You know we started out talking a little bit about one of perhaps one of the characteristics of the civil rights movement in this period is is the fragmentation that is people with different sorts of priorities who have different agendas maybe want to go in different directions. And I wonder if it now at the point where there are many blacks now having been very successful in politics and really getting into the system and working on the system from the inside whether there is still some tension between those people who have gotten into the system and those people who are still on the outside and perhaps beyond and be more inclined to think about attacking the system from the outside. Oh sure there is that tension again it's it's an old story it's always been

present and perhaps it always will be present at least until we come to a point in our development as a nation in a universe where there are no outside people people who are outside the. Political process or outside the benefits that society can bring. I think on the whole though it's relatively healthy it keeps those on the inside honest and keeps their eyes on the prize if they know that there's a large body of unaffected disaffected people who are asking you know now that you're the mayor now that you're the governor now that you're in the legislature what have you done for me lately. I think that's on the whole rather healthy kind of tension. And you'd like to hope that it spurs the outsiders to do the insiders rather to do more and to push them toward the day when there will be no outsiders when all of us are included in and to benefit society. Well I want to thank you very much for talking with us is Ben's been good in that we appreciate your time. Thank

you. Our guest this morning Julian Bond and once again you can hear him as the narrator of the series eyes on the prize too which is airing Monday nights on our public television station w wild TV channel 12 and many other stations. It airs at 8 o'clock and you still have the opportunity to see three programs in this series. And it seems I think it would be a good bet that if you have not seen the first ones that it it may well err again.