History of the Negro People; 7; The New Mood

The following program is from any aid to the National Educational Television Network. I am an invisible man. No I'm not a spook like one of those who wanted Edgar Allen Poe. So am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasm. I'm a man of substance a flesh and bone fiber and liquids and I might even be said to possess a mind. I'm invisible simply because people refuse to see me. It is sometimes and then just to be unseen although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world. Those lines were written by the negro novelist Ralph Ellison in the late 1940s and at that time the negro was indeed the invisible man of American society present and body

absent from America's consciousness. Yet the time was coming when Negroes would begin to emerge from the dark prison of exile when the sights and sounds of the negro protest would reverberate and the many moods of protest from Martin Luther King to Malcolm X murid and often heard by a rising group of Negro writers and poets program is the story of ten years of events and the headlines from the Supreme Court segregation decision of 1954 to the civil rights law of 1964. Ten years to a reflection on those events. Together they make our story. Some of the audience the voices and the moods of a turbulent time.

We were on a journey. From the shack to the south. To get to them. The. Feeling arose. Somehow. That they had to be a move into the mainstream of America. It would be hard. Crowded years. Yet we feel deeply that we were on our way. When did this feeling begin. Who can say for sure. It began in the body of a negro woman who had taken. One too many trips to the back of the bus. Where did it begin with the explosive Supreme Court decision of 1954 to separate young people from those of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of curiosity

as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way on likely to be and we conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no. Separate educational facility. I am however. I've come this far to freedom.

And I won't turn back. I'm climbing to the highway from my old dirt track. I'm stretching. And I'm drawn. And I'll. Read. What I have been so long. On my skin. Like. On December 1st 1955 many of Montgomery buses were empty the result of a negro boycott that began when Rosa Parks made a momentous decision. Right. Everything. Down. On December 5 1955 after working hours on a fair path. I thought the best. I. I found the path to travel demanded that I give up the fight. I. Didn't feel that I was being treated as a human being. I refused to give up to you. Know. Give it. A target. All citizens of Montgomery Alabama. Have refrained

from writing since December 5th 1955. Because of mistreatment. Good. So. Bad we've been requested to Gundry Alabama. Do. Now and will continue to carry on mass protests. Going. On. For. More than a. Year. Gummer's Negroes went to work in Texas cops who are on foot. Then on November 13th 1956 the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional. The Jim Crow signs came down. For the first time when is negroes into buses through the front door.

They could sit everywhere and they could sit alongside of whites. What happened to this town. It was peaceful. We all got along we didn't have no trouble. They had their ways. We had our and everything went along the way God intended. Now that we got to send our kids to school with Megan. Why everybody knows that ain't going to work. Maybe it can learn like white folks. Three years after the Supreme Court decision Little Rock Arkansas nine Negro children left their families to attend Central High School. Fifteen year old Elizabeth Axford was one of them. I caught the bus and I got off a block from the school. I saw a large crowd of people standing across from the soldiers guarding statue. Then someone shouted. Here she comes. Get ready. Crowd didn't close and they began to follow me calling me. Then

somebody might get a picture. You'll make a point of going to get in our school here. I don't know why the happened the lack of faith for me. But I don't think I could have gone another step. Someone drag her over to this true. February 1st 1960 in Greensboro North Carolina Negro students launched a movement that electrified the nation. The sit ins folks have been knowing all your life you're almost afraid. I'm almost afraid to talk to them. You don't know what they're thinking. The South reacted violently but citizens were almost an immediate success. Hundreds of lunch counters hotels and theaters would be segregated. And the sit ins led to the Freedom Rides an attempt to break the back of segregation and transportation for the first time. The federal government intervened as the

non-violent protest movement was greeted with savage violence. They. Came out. Great. Courage. They. Grabbed me. What a shame. Please be. Patient. We're going to keep going until we can rise. Any awareness. Anyplace else. So. Anybody. Make a comment. We're. Just as American citizens. In Alabama and Mississippi. It took the government and federal marshals to enforce the 1954 Supreme Court decision to go abroad and to protect negroes who tried to get a desegregated school in 1956 when Lucy was admitted to the University of Alabama

but was later expelled in 1961 Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton hold a fight with me to the University of Georgia and in 1962 James Meredith sought admission to the University of Mississippi. Kind of a lonely life for you but all these people are on here. I've live in a lot of life long crime. Despite threats and violence. Negroes did win entry into all white university but up to 1964 only one percent of Negro students went to integrated school. And night man. Night. Dream. Dreaming that the Negroes of the South had taken over. In white. Till

it. Mansion. Sitting on their wide veranda. Well the negroes have white. And colored children have white mammy. Dear dear darling old white man. Sometimes even buried with our family. And me my mint julep Mamette. Make haste. A brave. Grand Marshal in his white suit will proceed. And the time will come with Dan and drum on foot on foot on foot. Psycho go white. Out of sight. If they can glide right. March. March. March at. Noon till night. I never knew that many negroes. Where on earth. Did you. I never. Heard the chance to let. The world see the. All. Blacks. Bear.

Me. May 1963. One hundred years after emancipation. James Bone wrote to his nephew. Dear Jane. If the word integration mean anything. This is what is me but we shall force our brothers to see themselves. As they are to see us flee from reality and begin to change. Well this is your home my friend. Do not be driven from a. Great man have done great things here. And will again. And we can make America what America must. Become. It will be Hodgin. But you come from sturdy peasant stock. Man pick cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads and then the most

terrifying odds achieved and unsalable and monumental dignity. Don't shop for anything on Capitol Street. Let's let the merchants down Capital Street feel the economic pinch. Let me say this to you. I had one merchant to call me and he said I want you to know that I've talked to my national office today. And they want me to tell you that we don't need pick business jewelry. 1963. Medgar Evers secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi was elected by the New York Times as the man in the new and referred to as the quiet integrationists relative our neighbor not to trade at the store. Now finally ladies and gentlemen and this is final. We'll be

demonstrating here until freedom comes to Negroes here in Jackson Mississippi. On June 12th 1963. A sniper's bullet killed Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers once said. It may sound funny but I love the song. I don't choose to live anywhere that land here where man can raise cattle. And I'm going to do that something. There's room here for my children to play and grow and become good citizen. The white man will only let. Green. Nightmare. We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and it is clear that the American Constitution. Well President Kennedy sent to Congress the most sweeping civil rights legislation in history. He spoke to the nation whether we are going to treat all Americans as we

want to be treated here in America. He put this in his dog cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public. If he cannot send his children to the best public school available if he cannot vote for the public to represent him if in short he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want then who among us can be content and the color of the skin changed and stand in his place. Who among us would then be content with a call to the patient and delay. 100 years of delay and President Lincoln freeing the slaves. Yet their and their grandson are not fully free. They are not yet free from the bonds of injustice. They not yet not yet free from social and economic oppression in this nation for all its hopes and all it

will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. Even though. We. Been. Caught. Up today and from all. I. Have. Read. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream. That one day. This nation. Will Rise up. Live out the true meaning of it. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created. August 28 1963. More than 200 thousand people. Black and White marched on Washington for Jobs and Freedom for Negroes. The nation had never seen anything like it. They would not be deterred by. It. But by the content of that character.

That. One. Day. In Alabama we. Were having. Dripping with. The. Word. About. The fact. That right. Now Black Black we'll be able to. Fight for the little white girl. And. We will be able to work together to pray together from the border to help the. Freedom. To go. To. Be able to. Go. With no meaning. Back. To.

You. We never say. That. My father. Died. From. Pride. From every. Mountainside. Let freedom ring in America to be afraid. To come through. When we. Get. Away. From. Day. And. We want to be able to beat up bad bad bad bad. Bad. And. Something. Hopefully. We'll be able to talk to him. And being in a free press. Or. What happens to a dream deferred.

WASSERMAN I want so many things but sometimes I think they can drive me crazy. You know I go to mama. Just look at you. You are a good looking boy. You got to find one. Now I opened it cause I got a lot of pain I. Know. So I take I try my best. I can. And you. Understand what. Wear. Sometimes. It's like I could see my kid to get stretched out in front of me my whole big play empty space for him at the end of my day. But you don't have to. Sometimes when I'm driving I know. We've got some. Quiet. No question. Why. Are. They. Talking. Talk about.

Millions of dollars. My life has to be done before the. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be like my mom. It was always money. No way to know. How to. Change. You Something new boy in my time we was worried about not being rich and getting to stay alive and still do. Now come you believe that your daddy you ain't satisfied nothing to be done to him. And if we get you have a couple kids was going. To have to ride. We're coming back to nobody nobody's take. My. Kid. What happens to a dream deferred. Does it dry up. Like a raisin in the. Office like a. Dog.

And then run. Does it stink like rotten meat. And sugar over. Lack of syrupy sweet. Maybe it just sounds. Like a heavy load. Or does it explode. Oh oh no explosive demonstration. Rock from north as well into the south as Negros struggle for equal opportunities. Dreams. And nightmares.

Nightmares and dream. By 1960 civil rights organizations turn their attack upon southern voting practices from the north. Civil rights workers came down to assist and persuade negroes who were afraid or indifferent to register. All the way. That is we used to read it if you like to go for the flow. In fact. By 1963 negro groups decided to make voting a major go. As late as 1961 only about 25 percent of negroes in the south could vote. In 1964. It rose to 40 percent. On August 4th 1964. Three civil rights workers. Michael

Schwerner Andrew Goodman and James Chaney were found buried near Philadelphia Mississippi. They had been shot. When I die I'm sure I will have a big. Curiosity seekers. Come in to see if I am really dead. Or just trying to make. Civil rights that is a challenge to better work in our communities and our states and in our hearts. July 2nd 1964 President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill into law. So. Tonight I urge every public official of religiously every business and professional men every working man ever housewife I urge

America to join in this effort to bring to justice. And. To. Bring peace. If the word integration means anything this is what it means that we shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are to cease playing some reality and begin to change it. I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace. At a moment when 21:2 many negroes of the United

States. Are engaged in a creative battle. To end the long night to racial injustice. The day of the spin in the lie the Proliant. The cry in the begin is outdated. I love what you write and I'm too old to be free but I'm free. For that matter. Because you cannot live in our country. And be accepted as human being and free that is. Something the matter with something. And it isn't true. And we know. Play. With me. We. Don't. Know. The history of the past decade ends as it began. With a question. Where does a revolution.

The answer is of course that there are no convenient dates that mark the beginning or the end of a period. Which seems to have started at Montgomery with a Supreme Court decision did not really start that. Nor did it end with the civil rights law of 1964 or Selma or what might happen tomorrow. Today American Negroes are saying the same things they said 10 years ago. Or 100 years ago. For that matter. But something new has happened since 1954 for the first time. The rest of America. Was listening. Is any National Educational Television

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