A Word on Words; 3812; D'Army Bailey

fb liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on words with johnson don johnson in the law welcome once again to our own words my guest today is the army base lawyer and judge activist an author the army's passion for writing was born from print journalism reading all he could from various black newspapers nineteen ninety one he founded the national civil rights museum at the lorraine motel the site of the death of dr martin luther king jr

john is here today the army is here today to talk about the educational black radical of southern civil rights activist journey nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixty four the only welcomed the world worth it to nominate the year and especially when someone with your history of connection to struggle well thank you very much for that and it's the nominee is review goes i have long known the mural in its robot i know much more than iran the educational black radical quite challenging title what did the publisher think when you said this is one on a call my book well we actually sent to lsu press with the title the education of a radical and lsu press put the black radical america and so they thought it was over the title of that the education fame

because it follows my years in college as an activist didn't and the radical you know that i typically have based shooter given myself a label i was involved in politics in california in the media called us radicals then but i find that labeled alternate to confine him in terms of people understanding who you are and where you come from but in this case after talked with some friends about the title i thought it was a fair statement of what our politics and were visions really were in the early sixties and they were in the radical we were seeking to fundamentally change the nature of society in the south you began at the beginning with your parents your mother a nurse to your father pullman porter they raised you and your brother to be educating and i guess good place for me to begin to ask you about a southern university

the president's average american and dr clarke did not know already had in store for him and so foreign he admitted you to that university tell me about dr clarke i have a lot of admiration for the glock in spite of my disagreements within really got into civil rights struggle as the freshman class president i have a unique opportunity to have been there along with other class offices and at home and have a normal little bit better he was a very very bright black later he extolled the importance of learning and achievement of the students they had a great deal of faith that now what we could become but and i didn't understand at the time in and i'm not sure the clock fully understood that as much as he had that faith in that us as students in as much as we have that don't we used to encourage us to the highest academic achievement

that he didn't know how to deal with us when we stepped away from the academic world into the real world and tried to transform our teachings into reality that put us into conflict with the louisiana establishment i think that that threw him for a loop and the seven he was unprepared to yelp and clark and you say oh yeah yeah for very own educator you're a freshman you approach because you know radical at that point no definition you're part of the system in fact i did not to do when i left memphis is a seventeen year old high school graduate going to college for the first time of course i had no idea that i was going down there has become politically involved i was going down to further my education to create an opportunity for myself in the future to habitat heads of gorgeous women on the sun's up and down

end and wonderful than in my brother billion for me to play football and it is now a football scholarship that it had been a very successful player in forward to watch the nih school in memphis and they gave him a scholarship to go to seven and when i came out of the sinai school but washington most of my contemporaries that were going to tennessee state and my brother having gone to southern i looked at is an opportunity to veer from the beaten path that the same as phil and go that has to baton rouge i would follow in him but had no idea what was in store once talk a little bit about the crisis that involves giving davis is the governor oh yeah you're in dealing with iran he read the book it dawns on you that he really got he really know

there comes a time when the commendation and this race is wide educator lets you know your calendars and get reelected and i understand show me what was it that drove you hear i mean you know you're not a part of that first set in his standing back when the work comes to the campus your astounded to really don't mean you know it's hard to believe that has taken place your home was withdrawn i suppose at that really looking still going a future a conventional pitcher again or maybe an unchanged were what was at that reason greg well you know as i was listening to that there

have been new correct what the thought that went through my mind was the movement to it's not in a job or you know wanting to have some tears of oregon that i made been arrested in that and that we're protesting about that and things quiet down and then some others arrested and they come from asia most intimate is an organizer dr may know we want to make an announcement on the football game about a rally and i said are now because i was the announcer for the hour to see built drill team that year and i said now it's out that you have that might be an added more going to fall off because they had heard you as a freshman candidate for president make that marvelous beach on the massacre in south africa and they knew then you had the power the passion to lead maybe they knew what you didn't know and i think that that might be so was sort of

a they knew that i got along well with the other students in that i have of myself that i've thought to would some didn't matter that ghana gotten respect among my fellow classmates and and i knew that i could help lead a few of them to go with my direction but i didn't i'd i didn't see myself because at that point in time i didn't really say the full dimension of what this movement was i've been in the midst of change process from nineteen sixty until i became deeply involved in sixty two but even by then it had not really come to reality to me that that it was a major play pivotal leadership role in and i was more worried and they say i saw myself wanting to be more a supporter until the leaders got arrested the other students who were

leaving and add ice thought i was just one of those that happened be it in vermont but when all of them got arrested and we're all tear gassed and they were all went back to the church in scotland bill an end who's not unlike men in a church black church since gotten bill campbell memorial filled with students that have just been chased out of downtown baton rouge tear gassed police dogs put on a summer arrested and we managed to get back into the church a whole lot of jordan's deal with the scent of gas they were all trying to understand and two partially come to grips with what happened that day and dove and if that wasn't enough than the one remaining key leader that we had ridden cox who have been for the congress of racial equality the police came to the church and to come out physically to arrest him and at

that point i guess all of the most and politics of interest of mine and the stage though in a back office with me as we waited for the right to start asked me if i would take the leadership and then i did and the next thing you know there is word from three more education that discipline and expulsion there comes a time when dr clarke stands up and says nobody is going to be expelled the us and he gives his work a promise which he was clearly very torn because he knew that that we were right i told us and he didn't tell us but the dean of mental illness that we rely on the faculty who would not say publicly toaster we were like the american association of university professors had ended the pigeon even century the university because of its

move to expel students there was no here and there were no hearings are no due process were just summarily given notices of expulsion then dr clarke i think because he was very bright man and because i think he did deeply feel blessed that it was a cab and noblesse gold leash that day that he is going to look out for us and we have to do what he said was and so when it came out that he had to reassess itself and just not pursue the hotline that if you protest to be arrested to expel and suddenly one night he's faced with a thousand or more bus on his front lawn waiting for him to come out and he's seen the tv images of his own students who marched peacefully well dressed down down and then a chase down the doctrine gas that i think he honestly at that point time felt that he had enough and that he was willing to go back about my spending with the us and then he has to back down a portion of pressure of money back down and there are explosions you've not

been arrested them they get you with the rule that you cannot adapt to the economy institution which was a rule says as you point out it didn't cover to expel homosexuals and so they get you the most moving moments in this book diary is a telephone conversation with your mother when you talk about your explosion your father's just left town her support with a long arm looking back on that time and thinking about the mothers and follows worried to death about that tune pleading would allow bhutto's she ride with you and my spiritual been broken at night if she had been otherwise have been because you know when i made that song called her that night from that broader lounge to talk with her that was the only real source of strife like turn to at that

moment and i didn't know a minute and i guess of that she had said son you things into two of you need to come on home then i probably unified state that i wouldn't have to strive to carry on the fight that the ability gay marriage statements support it was beautiful and you're just joining us were going to be on a billion dollars educational blackrock radical gwen education you've got to find another place to stay around or you continue to provide leadership to those dissidents students to those protesters but then you go from clark park effect here from dr clarke there's two named clark another state another region and suddenly you find yourself i'm here mostly not the big

man on campus a black man on campus and that that culture's not accountable not at all the realities and an md after whoever that here i was just to begin with and a culture that was completely foreign to me hours in a new england town of just two people only three thousand blacks in the city the university campus a thousand students one black undergraduate and a climate that added you know would expect with the weather i went to the military surplus store and bought military boots in flight jacket thinking that i would be in some huge bones which didn't happen but when you buy an alien environment or something new and then they have this image of who you are and what you would be and then yet deep within myself i was still in and conquered rubble that have been ordered not to speak on southern's campus in and helped to

create the turmoil there and and there is something within me that that set uncomfortably with all of the celebrity you be in this warrior from the salad and walter and i guess if if i had been accepted justice warner student i might not have gotten as involved as i did in organizing to protest against racial discrimination was true but i looked at the community around make his hand it would have been just the hypocrisy that i could not live with those are warped from question the question about the campers you know you come from a conversation to the condescension of massachusetts liberalism are it's a different culture courses not a stunning physically but emotionally it takes its toll so absolutely very resistant to his was

just just delicious great contestant and was true when we attacked the wyman one company which was the largest manufacturing company in the city employees and two thousand workers i was called to the university president's office two and he was nice about it was not that he didn't intend to intimidate me when he attempted to dissuade me from of proceeding without protests which closed part four days and was durum between them and the man owned the local paper in television station he was an actual sectarian the john birch society and robert started and we fortunately got support from the teamsters when we pick at the plant because it was a non union places well but massachusetts and had just gone through a great deal of controversy over school bus and in boston and while as you say was not physically as

threatening but there was strong resistance in a boat report back strongly not only do we pick it but we filed a complaint with the united states air force because the company was a large defense contractor without that complied with the massachusetts commission against discrimination and that's part of the story of this movement in and that is at the strategies that we pursued would malta faceted strategies we didn't just rely on the kick we had those companies are those businesses with as many different assaults information in different fronts and we couldn't you know in the process of this new enter iowa the lawyer worries names that made headlines in those days students identified as radicals so long white radicals some of the song names that

are sort of fun some were forced to we're now on the positive corporations and presidents but also some of white radicals who were almost drone carrying riot the liberal press of that day because of the level of a hostility and their threats to the status quo well i remember one of the most eloquent voices in support of the protest movement led by frank and by they would be we'd be up with this message given to a convention and you hear those surveyed walk up to the mike or do you get all this nonsense from the southern delegates about we were moving too fast and a savannah laws and i would walk up and at them i can use

justice susan and direct them as he continues to be now as a congressman and he was virtually and helpless way a lot of the delegates are now cannot have tom hayden was another one who's for activision out in california at one time was in the california senate but he was one of the organizers many of the young people in the students follow the democrats' side as the earth is tom goldman in fact i still have now original copy of the europe or her on stage but when they would get forty are on michigan and came out with their manifesto for student to radicalism for change of malcolm x was one of the cars he was a student leader but he was one of the great american lead it let's focus on that for a moment you were in korea and if you try to let them know that

you know i'm not what you think i am i am i'm not a symbol of a culture i want you know that there is a part of my culture that reflects the attitude of malcolm x and so i'm sure it would not ever welcoming side on the campos when you asked malcolm x to come were you surprised that he accepted your invitation not knowing you i was and i was surprised in accessibility was that i was able to call at his home and talk directly with him to make the arrangements for him to come speak of that campus there were no speak and agents all muslim officials that i went through i went directly with malcolm to book as a parent and when i call them he was just as accommodating and when he agreed to come and we celebrated in time and i ran into some flak from some

about is a liberal white supporters and whisk it when they heard to ruin invite him and i had to talk back with malcolm about that not the dancing with a stampede he seemed to have expected but that could happen i hadn't expected and so the men and malcolm has done a landmark will have the money all to volunteer and when they told me that my local supporters and would give them and malcolm so well debate monmouth the game and of course i was somewhat naive i mean to me it's a one of a man might be she was an irish jig if we could get back became a common was due to debate malcolm x quickly they said no and then step to assert that obeid rustin who had been a big supporter of the philip randolph and it worked with the king on the margin was that it would be the better person to do that and when i called back with malcolm x he sort of laughed a bit into the phone and said no

he knew king would not have a team but he was not won a debate by a question he felt that if he was going to engage in a debate with the civil rights leadership you want to do it at the top and us are several large income on anyway and i think that some of my board members will not resign so be it and so that i were going to do was to he came and left a lasting impression on the city and only he didn't see was he already had in the lead since the transition from the nation yes but not publicly and and and not formally but i think that at a logically he was because of that the time is that because you say that nasa realizes that to reach young blacks that he couldn't expect that we are all mortal march in lockstep with the concept of muslim discipline that and malcolm was smart enough to understand the etiology was more important than organization and so he was beginning to reach

up and read altos not on whether or not we could become muslims but whether we could buy into the notion that number one non violence did not make sense if you've been attacked you're to fight back at the jobs than the three women and not let them be attacked that blacks on to have some degree of self her determination and not stick to just be integrated into the white community not before superman quantum at the table both messages that could resonate whether you were a muslim or not and so as he began to broaden his appeal two young black intellectuals i would say less of the stage as well as i'm not a number of other warner working people are still controversial at this time the majority of black people have not come to embrace malcolm x he was still viewed by nineteen sixty two sixty three is something about of the person to be wary about many blacks but it was

at the fort hood the beginning point of his break with the muslim organization he went to mecca and came back with the view that the struggle that he was a part of was much bigger than most of the race and it was it was within a year and he had half that he did make a break with the muslim organization and of course it was also within a very short period of use assassinated or have only about a minute that we have this time has flown by going to you know when you go to california after that at the nineteen sixty four they come back to memphis yet a lawyer judge you found that the sight of king's death is one of losing and now a museum to track people from all of the country all over the world i know that your story done in nineteen sixty four he wrote this

book does is there a sequel yes they'd next story will be about northern california when i was elected to the city council in berkeley served two and a half years i came in contact with the berkeley left of the northern california that the black panthers encounters with huey newton her encounters with the white progressives and radicals and why conservatives which ultimately led to my been recalled in a special election in berkeley in nineteen seventy four so that's the next door and then finally i returned to memphis to stop action on seventy four the need to stock effort to transform the lure it into a civil rights museum and through all of these stories to fight to build the civil rights bills and ultimately i found that as you make progress there people resist torture dylan an opposition bills to your leadership and you find yourself it not just whites but blacks just as much who are programmed in

to stand in a new way as you make moves forward thrust and and that's a line that my woman through all three of these books as well judge dr lee bailey my thanks for coming we run out of time my thanks to all of you for a word on words on guns ignore keep reading