Jack Mendelsohn:: At the very beginning this morning, we established a lag time of fifteen minutes and we've really held very faithfully to that ever since. It's now 4:45 p.m. which means that we're beginning this session fifteen minutes after the time that it was scheduled to begin. And I think that's a monumental achievement in an enterprise like this, in which so many people have participated, in which it's been necessary for people to move from space to space and then come back again, to go to lunch and then come back again. And it certainly is another tribute to the way in which the Planning Committee organized all of this for us, and the way in which it was all expedited by Tufts University in making these facilities available. And also in providing such wonderful hospitality and direction to us when we needed to know how to get here or to get there, there were always lots of people around to tell us what to do. Just before coming back in here just now, I met someone who was putting her coat on and was obviously getting ready to leave, and I said something like, It's been quite a day, hasn't it? and what she said to me was, I'm drained, [laughs] but she said it in an up way, not in a depressed way. What she meant was that it had been an extraordinary experience for her and it has been for all of us. And most of us are still here after the full day that we've put in. Let me introduce myself. I am Jack Mendelsohn and I am the President of the Civil Rights Project, Inc. which is one of the three organizing sponsors of this day for, for educators...this wonderful conference. And we've been privileged to be a part of that and it was possible because we had in this two partners who were extremely committed to the enterprise in Tufts University and in the Museum of Afro-American History. And we had the complete cooperation of Henry Hampton and the Blackside staff in helping us to put all of this together. Let me just say a word about the Civil Rights Project, Inc. It was organized in 1985 basically for two purposes. The first purpose was to make sure that Henry Hampton got to make Eyes on the Prize, to do everything we could to see that that became a reality, a dream translated into a reality. The second reason for the organization of Civil Rights Project, Inc. was to see to it that the audiovisual history of the American civil rights movement was fully preserved, that it was organized, that it was maintained, that it would be cataloged, that it would be nurtured, that it would be expanded upon, that it would be made available in perpetuity, if you will, to our society and to the world. I've had a lot of questions from you today about the archive, so let me just say a brief word about that. Lillian in the panel of producers and editors said that the archive, or at least the material that ended up on the cutting room floor...the audiovisual material, was something like ten or twenty times greater than the material that actually ends up in the eight hour-long programs of Eyes on the Prize II. That was also true of Eyes on the Prize I. So, the archive is a simply incredibly large body of material relating to this history. It's not just audiovisual material, although it's basically that, but there's an awful lot of memorabilia and history contained in producers' notes, for example, all of the notes that were kept in connection with Eyes I and Eyes II. There are literally hundreds, hundreds of interviews. A lot of them never made it on film, they made it on tape, audiotape. Hundreds of interviews, both audio and visual interviews, that as you heard earlier, are not in the programs but they are preserved and they are going to be made available. The way in which we now foresee this is going to come to pass is that a partnership that does involve the Museum of Afro-American History as one partner, Tufts University as the second partner, and the Civil Rights Project, Inc. as the third partner, are now at work creating the basis upon which this archive will be totally preserved and cataloged, that it will be physically housed here at Tufts University, that the museum and Tufts will be the principal partners in the programming around the archive, that we're going to try to use the most advanced audiovisual techniques that are coming along so that there will be the readiest access to the archival materials, so that it will not be necessary all the time to come, for instance, to Tufts to do work on the archives. They'll be retrievable in other ways at all kinds of distant points. That it will not just be used for scholars, although it will be available for scholarly research, but that it will be used by communities who are interested in continuing to write their own continuing histories of their civil rights movements, that it will be used for teacher's conferences, that it will be used for curriculum development, that it will be used in the most widespread manner in which such an archive can be made available. This is a tremendous national treasure and the three institutions: Tufts, the Museum of Afro-American History, and the Civil Rights Project are indeed proud to be in a position as a result of the making of Eyes on the Prize I and II to make this archive a gift, a gift to the American people, a gift to the world interested in what the American civil rights movement has meant to the world. There are a couple of things I want to stress before we get to one of the real treats of this day, along with so many that we've had, with our concluding speaker. But I wanted to stress that there is an evaluation form in your packet. This is extremely important to us because what we've been doing is an experiment today. This was our first partnership attempt at doing something significant around Eyes on the Prize together. We wanna continue this process and we want you to be a part of that continuing process, so we do hope that you'll take the time, fill out the evaluation form. And that having filled it out, if you do it here, that you drop it on the registration table out in the foyer. If you wanna take a little more time with it, take it home, but mail it back to us. You have all the materials about where to send it from your packet as well. I also want to say something about the reception that's going to follow this meeting. It's more than a social time, although it certainly is that, but something significant has been going on here today, linkages have been made, new friends...friendships, or acquaintanceships at least, have been formed, a new understanding of some of the issues that we've all been dealing with, but dealing with perhaps separately rather than with, with one another. We want those linkages to continue. We want this to be a building process. And so we hope that at the social hour, you'll be doing a little more talking to one another. By the way, we are going to get the names and addresses into a form that can be distributed to everybody who's been here, so you will know how to get hold of people. But maybe there are some special linkages that you want to continue as a result of this, and maybe there are some special ways in which you want to continue to work with us on the Planning Committee. Which by the way, represented many more organizations than just the three sponsors. If you look at that list, you'll see what I mean. I also want to tell you about this. This has been here all day and a lot of you have picked it up from the literature table. It's the catalog of all the related materials that go with both Eyes on the Prize I and Eyes on the Prize II. This has just been produced. And the purpose of this is to make sure that you know the resources that are going to be available to you in order to conduct your seminars, your classes, your experiments with Eyes on the Prize material. And you will note, if you haven't picked one of these up, that they're going to be available to you as you leave this session at the two major exits. We do have enough left over, I think, to take care of those of you who haven't picked them up. But it's important for you to note that as with Eyes I, so with Eyes II, we're not only going to have a, an accompanying volume, we're going to have two accompanying volumes. One being Voices of Freedom: an oral history of the civil rights movement from the 1950s through the 1980s, which Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer have been responsible for putting together, along with our publications department, Bob Lavelle, Sarah Flynn, Samantha Langbaum, and, and many others. And there's going to be a second volume with Eyes II and that's a volume by our speaker who we're just about to hear, a volume by Vincent Harding called Reflections on Sharing the Story of the Movement [sic]. Now, that's particularly directed to people like us who are going to be trying to share this history, this story, with all kinds of audiences, from children through youth to adults, in schools, in churches, and all kinds of other institutions. In addition to that, we're going to have, as we did for Eyes I, a sourcebook, a guide for teachers, and posters, and a sourcebook, and a guide to the series. I think I've got it all now. But at any rate, all these things can be ordered in the ways which are described in this folder. So, please be sure to bring one of those home with you if you haven't already picked it up. Another thing I want to emphasize, because you may not have noticed it, it's in your packet, and it was very important to have it in the packet. This announces, and this is a pre-announcement, you're a, you're a very privileged group to have this pre-announcement, that on January 7th, January 7th, the world premiere, and I mean the world premiere, the one in New York takes place the next night, and the one in Chicago about three or four nights after that. So, actually, Boston gets the world premiere of Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads, presented by the Museum of Afro-American History and the African Meeting House in Boston, and it says, "Please watch for your invitation." And please set that date aside of Sunday evening, January 7th, for the world premiere of Eyes on the Prize. I was supposed to try to do some summarizing of what's transpired here today and I won't really attempt any exhaustive task of that kind. But some very significant things have obviously been taking place here today. And I think that all of that began appropriately, as it should've begun, with Henry Hampton's presentation. Henry Hampton is one of the most interesting combinations in this world of passion and perspective. He, he has an amazing ability to keep passion and perspective in perspective in some kind of healthy balance, and he's got the patience for that. Well, he started us off today by reminding us, among many, many splendid things, that we're all being tested. And I think we all understood that in our own individual ways, but we also understood it because we're engaged, as many people are not engaged, in various segments of the frontline of dealing with the tests. I think being here together was something of a test. There were conversations which took place throughout the day here, in our three smaller sessions of group experience, which were a test of our ability to begin to talk with one another in ways we don't get very many opportunities to talk, beginning to express our feelings toward, to one another across some of those barriers or gulfs that have been described during the day, begin to compare notes on our own perplexities, our own frustrations about how to move constructively to begin to have our own experiences of passion and perspective with one another. And also to talk with one another at an emotional level, the beginnings of an emotional level, which is so absent from most of our interchanges. So if this day, this conference, did nothing more than that, that would be enough. But obviously, we have done a great deal more than that. It has been indeed a rich experience in which experiences shared have expanded and multiplied for all of us, opening up our horizons, giving us a longer and broader view, acquainting us as we so, tend so easily to forget of the immense reverberations that there are from something like the history that's contained in both Eyes I and Eyes II. The reverberations that we talked about a little bit today, for instance, of Black Power, how it has reverberated into South Africa, how it has reverberated for gays and lesbians, how it has reverberated for women, how it has reverberated for the disabled, how it has reverberated for Hispanics, how it has reverberated for endless numbers of people in our society and changed the landscape of their lives. One of our partners in all of this venture is Carla Ritchie of the Tufts University faculty and administration. And in a brief conversation that I had with Carla, oh, just a few minutes ago, she wanted to say just a word about one of the obvious continuations of what we've done here today, which is to begin with this next summer, setting up institutes, regular summer institutes for teachers around this subject. And so your participation in that is, is entreated and will be welcomed. We've already talked about running similar institutes for the members of the state legislature of the Commonwealth and for some of their staffs, and we'll be doing some of that too. Well, in order to be a part of that, let me urge you just once again to be sure to fill out your evaluation form, and also to remain around if you can for a part, at least, of the social hour so that we can continue the fabric that we've begun to weave together here today. With that said, I want now to exercise the privilege of introducing our concluding speaker. Among the things I'm proudest of is that our speaker has joined the board of the Civil Rights Project Incorporated in recent times, to join Ruth Batson and Joe Breiteneicher and Rob Hohler and Erline Belton. Have I missed anybody? Myself. Bert Lee, soon to become a member. Henry did my job this morning when he talked about the Harding family. I had, I had planned to do all that. I just want...Vincent and where's, Rose here, no I don't think she is, but I wanted Vincent and Rose and Rachel and Jonathan, I wanted you to know I was gonna do that but Henry did it this morning earlier. So, I'm going to confine myself simply to saying a few things about Vincent and about his experiences that it's important for all of us to share. Vincent is a native of New York. His degrees, his graduate degrees, an MA and a PhD, are in history and they are from the University of Chicago. From 1961 to '64, he and his wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, worked in various capacities as full-time teachers, as activists, as negotiators in the Southern Freedom Movement. They know whereof they speak. They were friends and coworkers with Martin Luther King Jr. and many other movement leaders. In 1968 after several years as chairman of the History and Sociology Department of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, he became the director of the Martin Luther King Memorial Center and chair of the nationally televised Black Heritage Series. Vincent was one of the organizers and the first director of the Institute for the Black World, or of the Black World, founded in 1969 in Atlanta. After several research positions and visiting professorships, Vincent has been the professor of religion and social transformation at the Iliff School of Theology on the University of Denver campus. That, since 1981. He has lectured widely in this country and overseas on history, literature, and contemporary issues. We wanted Vincent to come to this conference and to close it because we wanted us all to leave here with a lift, an emotional lift, a sense of our worth and dignity as participants in the struggle, and in the ongoing meanings of that struggle. And true to form, Vincent is going to take us beyond the civil rights movement to the point where what we're really talking about is democracy itself and its future. Vincent Harding.
Vincent Harding:: What a day. Thank you, all of you who made this day possible. Thank you, all of you whose patience keeps you here until whatever time it is. That says five after six but that's obviously a little previous.Audience Member #1:: That's Daylight Saving Time.Vincent Harding:: OK. My watch says five after three-Vincent Harding:: -and I promise you I will not operate on that basis. But whatever time it is, it's been a very good time, a very rich time, a very rewarding time. And as I was walking over here with a new friend this afternoon, what struck me as much as anything else was the sense that there were a lot of people here, who if we could be allowed to use some very old-fashioned but very rich language, there were a lot of people here hungering and thirsting after righteousness, really wanting to do the right thing. And Rosemarie and I often talk about the fact that wha...one of our privileges is to travel a great deal around this country in company like this, and wherever we go, we find a lot of people with a deep longing for doing the right thing. And so we move around with a great deal of hope and I'm very, very glad that it's possible to, to be in the presence of your hope today. Now, normally I don't like to speak without a chance for discussion to go on after whatever I've said. But not only has it been a good day but it's been a long day and so we should pick up the invitation from Jack Mendelsohn and the Planning Committee, that rather than having a question and answer period immediately after my closing, that perhaps we can find our way to the food and drink and spend some time finding our way to each other. And maybe, if we can't do it then, we can do it next year, and there's always 2000. So, we'll find our way to each other if we really need to find our way to each other. I can't really begin without expressing a tremendous amount of appreciation for those of you, especially for those of you who are teachers. Maybe I should see who the ringers are and who the real people are here. How many of you are in some formal or informal sense teachers, real teachers? All right. OK. The others of you, it's all right, you'll get better by and by.Vincent Harding:: But my own strong feeling is that those who teach are involved in a sacred calling. And I don't want you to be frightened by that word sacred. For what I'm really saying is that anyone who spends significant time and energy and creativity trying to help others to move to the deep wells of their own creativity, anyone who does that is bringing people in touch with the divine force of the universe, which is in them, and therefore is involved in sacred activity. And teachers, at your best, that it seems to me is what you are doing. Helping women and men and children to find that powerful creative force which is at the heart of the universe itself and which is in their own lives. So, I am so thankful for you and I want to dedicate these remarks not only to you but to some other people who come to my mind. I want to dedicate these remarks this evening to two marvelous teachers who are on the faculty of Harvard University and who would have been here probably today had it not been for the fact that recently they have been diagnosed as having cancer. And I just heard about that today myself and you don't need to know their names. All you need to know is that they do exist, that they are marvelous human beings, and that it would be good if even as we are here together, you might share some of your best energies with them. [pause] I want to dedicate these remarks to the sisters and brothers who were murdered this week on the campus of the Jesuit University in San Salvador. I call them sisters and brothers because they are in every sense of that word. And I know, in every sense of that word, I know that they were murdered because they believed in their hearts that it was absolutely necessary for them to stand with the poor. And what they knew was that the only way that they could stand with the poor was to stand against the military men and mentalities that we United States of Americans have equipped and supported for years. I dedicate these remarks to them because what they have been about in San Salvador is intrinsically related to everything that you have seen on the screen and everything that we know in our own lives. I dedicate these remarks with great joy to the hundreds of thousands, indeed to the millions of marching, singing, organizing, hoping women and men of Eastern Europe. Especially those who, who simply really marched, marched until the walls came tumbling down.Vincent Harding:: Do you see that? Old mythology, don't believe that stuff. And in the year 1989, women and men marched until the walls came tumbling down. Whew.Vincent Harding:: I dedicate it to them because I feel so close to them. I feel close to them because, because I, I heard them marching through the streets of Leipzig and they were singing, "We Shall Overcome." I dedicate it to them because they were sitting on top of the Potsdamer Platz part of the Wall and, and they were singing in German words, "The wall is coming down." But I knew the tune that they were singing. The tune was that African American Christmas carol that Fannie Lou Hamer sings as, "Go tell it on the mountain to let my people go." I dedicate it to them because they are our sisters and brothers in this long struggle for the building of a new world. And I dedicate this to the Chinese students who dared to believe in democracy and who took up our slogan, "We Shall Overcome," and who were slaughtered but not destroyed. I dedicate these remarks to them. And finally, and beginning again, I dedicate these remarks to all of our foreparents who gave the best of themselves to create a more perfect union, to create the living archive of one of the world's great struggles for democracy, for justice, for freedom. And I don't see how you can be here for a whole day talking about the Freedom Movement and not sing. I mean, that's just impossible.Vincent Harding:: So, [laughs]-Vincent Harding:: - I'd like to suggest that we sing and what I'd like to suggest is that we sing something that some of you know, some of you have sort of heard, but that I've got some new words for you to deal with. Some of you know it as, "We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder." Some of you know it as, "We are Dancing Sarah's Circle." I would like to suggest that we sing it as, "We are building up a new world. We are building up a new world. We are building up a new world. Builders must be strong." Let's try it. Don't matter if you can't sing, I can't sing either-Vincent Harding:: -so it's all right.
All:: [sings] We are building up a new world, we are building up a new world, we are building up a new world, builders must be strong.Vincent Harding:: Once more.All:: [sings] We are building up a new world, we are building up a new world, we are building up a new world, builders must be strong.Vincent Harding:: Got one other stanza, "Courage, sisters, don't get weary. Courage, brothers, don't get weary. Courage, people, don't get weary though the way be long."All:: [sings] Courage, sisters, don't get weary. Courage, brothers, don't get weary. Courage, people, don't get weary though the way be long.Vincent Harding:: Then we repeat.All:: [sings] We are building up a new world, we are building up a new world, we are building up a new world, builders must be strong.Vincent Harding:: All right. Now you can say you've been involved with the Movement, OK?Vincent Harding:: Right. There is something very special about these sacred spaces within us in which the breath of life moves in such a way that it moves us inexplicably to levels that we cannot understand. And I remember back in the early, in the mid-sixties when the Nation of Islam was moving to its height and for a lot of reasons, they were refusing to sing in their meetings. And I was trying to figure out what, now, what could be done about this? And lots of people, of course, would run from their choir stuff on Sunday mornings and then go to the Nation of Islam after they got their singing in. And I remember speaking to a friend of mine who had long, long experience as a revolutionary, especially in the Vietnam struggle against the French and the Americans, and I said, Tron, have you ever known a revolutionary movement where people didn't sing? He said, No, no. No such thing. You can't have a revolutionary movement where people don't sing. So, we have taken the first steps and welcome, welcome. [pause] Teachers and I have had a long, long and mostly loving relationship. My life has been moved and shaped and encouraged and prodded by some of the most beautiful human beings that I have known, who have been teachers. And over the last...this past year, what Jack Mendelsohn didn't tell you is that this thing which is called a book is really something that I've been working on and is really a long letter of love and gratitude and encouragement to all those who are called teachers. And these remarks that I am making this evening are based on that love letter, and so if you feel like being loved, open up and let yourself be available. Now, I'm not going to speak primarily about the book, but I need to say a word about it. I brought along with me-Bob Lavelle, I brought along with me the second, third, and fourth drafts of the last chapter-Vincent Harding:: -[laughs] of the last chapter. Now in good book style, all I have to do is write the Introduction but I knew my editor would be here and I had to show something for all of my snow, slowness.
Audience Member #2:: That's why we invited you.Vincent Harding:: Thank you. [laughs] The book is for teachers of all kinds. Teachers in prisons, teachers in synagogues, teachers in graduate schools, teachers in kindergartens, teachers in churches, teachers everywhere. And the book is essentially trying to ask a question and offer some options for an answer. The question is, why should we teach about the history of the Black struggle for freedom in America wherever we are and to whomever we are dealing with? Why should we teach about the African American Freedom Movement? And then the book is basically shaped around some responses why, what might be some answers. I have, I have a note right next here says, [reads] "Do not elaborate." OK. I'm not gonna elaborate on this-Vincent Harding:: -but I want to mention to you some of the things that are part of my response to why we should be teaching and almost, each one of these is almost a chapter in the book. One major reason, and this is the way that I start off, is that we must teach it because what has been going on under the rubric of civil rights is much, much more and far deeper than anything that could be pushed into a corner called, Civil rights for colored folks. That's why they sing in Leipzig. That's why they sing in Korea. That's why the Sandinistas took Strength to Love into the mountains with them, because they knew that something much more than civil rights was going on here. And I believe that we must teach it partly because this is one of the great epic stories of this age. We've got something, we don't know what we have. We must teach it because what this is is the story which ties our story in the last half of the twentieth century to all the stories that are going on and bursting out everyplace now. I believe that we must teach it because what we are really dealing with is the struggle for the expansion of democracy in America which therefore is everybody's story. We took charge at a point in history and gave certain critical leadership and that must be understood as to why that was, how that was, and what that means for everybody and us now. I think we should teach it because the, the, the story is full of magnificent biography, filled with the lives of women and men, who if they were placed into the hands of people who often have no sense of direction for their own life, might open them up to some new life and possibility for themselves. The lives of great men and women teach us. I think we should teach it partly because what this story is, especially this post-World War Two story, is a story of young people, young people giving leadership to the transformation of American society. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-two-year-old young people. And for young people who today think that they can only give leadership to consumerism in America, this is a marvelous story. I think we should teach it because there are wonderful struggles that we saw on the screen here today, of the matter of are there real alternatives to violence when we are determined to find justice. That is one of the critical elements in this story. And that question will not die out very soon, so we should be teaching it. What did women and men think and do and believe about that question in our own nation, in our own time? I think we should be teaching it because it is a wonderful example of the connections between things that people don't believe should be connected and that is religion and political responsibility. You get down to those mass meetings in Albany and Birmingham and say that that ain't church going on. But it's the kind of church going on where after you finish church, you get up and don't say, Thank you, Pastor, that was a wonderful sermon. You get up and face the dogs. You get up and face the firehoses. You get up and go to jail. And you get up and do that because you have been someplace that has filled you with something that you needed in order to do that. Oh, God. There's so many stories, I just [laughs] forgive me. This one comes from before this period of the movement. I spend a fair amount of time studying the Communist movement in the South in the 1930s. Some of the bravest human beings that I know of were those crazy communists who went, Black and White, into the South in the 1930s to organize Black and White people. And they started their little cells in Birmingham, among other places. And what we learned is that in the little communist cells in Birmingham, Al, Alabama, since most of the communists were Black, they started their communist cell meetings with reading the scriptures and singing-Vincent Harding:: -[laughs] all right? That's a whole thing in, in itself, right? OK. I think we should teach it for those kinds of wonderful connections, but we should also teach it because you can just go right through the story and find what we might call a, a primer for the creation of democracy. What does it take to create a democratic society? What does it cost to create a democratic society? How does one organize to create a democratic society? So much there. And one of the things that we will never look at if we see it only as civil rights but if we see it as great, great democratic energy, then we should teach it because it gives us a tremendous insight into the role of artists. Musical artists, graphic artists, all kinds of artists in the struggle for democracy. It gives a chance indeed to come back to that question that I mentioned earlier, to deal with our young people, with our older people, about music, the relationship between music and the human quest for renewal. Why are those always going together? What does it mean? I think we should teach it because it gives us an opportunity to ask people, Well, for that Rosa Parks and for that Fred Shuttlesworth, and for that Medgar Evers, and for that Amzie Moore, what kind of vision did they have of what they wanted? What kind of vision was it that put them out there absolutely vulnerable and exposed? What was it that they desired deeply in their heart? And do you need to have a vision in order to move forward on the next steps of this journey? I think we should teach it because what we will need at one point to know is what is our vision, not only of a new society in the United States, but what is our vision of a new world? As you can see, all kinds of folks are dumbfounded as the old world cracks up. What is our vision of a new international order? That is real teaching material. [laughs] As Lillian Benson said, That's praying material, 'cause you don't get it just intellectually. And then, of course, I think we should teach it because if there's nothing else in the story and, and just seeing Bob Moses brings it back to me again and again, if there's nothing else in the story, the story is one of people organizing, people organizing. Often, like in Montgomery and other places, people getting ready and not even knowing sometimes what they were getting ready for, but knowing that they ought to get ready just on GP. And then when the time came, there were some ready people around. They weren't just saying, Oh, I wish something would come, I wish something would, oh, Lord, well, who, when is...no, then so let's get ready, let's get ready, let's get ready. We should teach it for that model. So, to a large degree that's what the work is about and it's undergirded by our friend Thich Nhat Hanh's call to us all, the call to revolutionary patience, something that I assume teachers know something about. That's the book. And I got rid of that. OK, Bob? Now, the book, if we are lucky, may be out before the series is over. We are working on that, and as I say, it's for you, it's for all of you, take it with love and money and, and do what, what you can.Vincent Harding:: But right now, that's not really the central matter on my mind. Like Jack, I'm really much more concerned about what we've experienced today and how it may help us to move beyond the focus on civil rights, which is really old, and which in many ways is dysfunctional. Because if you tell a lot of young White people, for instance, or even a lot of young middle-class and upper-middle class Black people that this struggle was all about civil rights, they will say, Oh, thank you, that's taken care of now. When do we get the car? But if they understand that this struggle was a struggle for the renewal of human beings and the transformation of the society, then they've got different questions that they have to ask themselves at this moment in history. So, what I'm concerned about is how we move as quickly as possible beyond civil rights to focus on what this was at its heart, a struggle for personal and societal transformation, a struggle for the expansion of democracy. And what I'd like us to do as we close out now, as we get hungry and move towards the food, what I'd like us to do is to remember. And that's a wonderful word, if you think about it re-member, re-collect, the images that we saw this morning and reflect just a couple of minutes on each, and think about where those images might take us in our teaching and in our living, and where we might take them with our students. And of course, the necessary preface to all of this is that deep stuff that Lillian Benson was putting out this afternoon. And one of the deepest of all was when she said, If you can connect with it in yourself, then you can put it out there, and I'm suggesting that we think about what it means for us to connect with the depth of these images with ourselves so that we can put it out there. Think about the 106-year-old man. Jesus, [laughs] 106 years, and not just 106 years old, but 106 years old in Mississippi.Vincent Harding:: And, and what he means, and remember that for the generation that is in their teens or even twenites now, Mississippi don't mean what it meant to us twenty, twenty-five years ago. So, we have to just start with Mississippi, what's that all about? And then 106-years-old and, and when was he born, and this thing was shot in 1966 or '65 or when was it? Yeah, Meredith March, '66, so that means that this man was born into slavery. Phew. And, and then you can ask, Well, what did he live through since 1900-1860? I mean, you just got a whole curriculum right there on my all, what was his name, Bob, do you remember? He's got a, he's got a very interesting, strange, wonderful name that don't sound Mississippian at all.
Audience Member #3:: El Renfro [sic].Vincent Harding:: El Renfro, that's right. El, that's his name, El Renfro [sic]. [laughs] OK. And then what was the meaning of sixteen-year-old students and twenty-year-old students lifting this 106-year-old man up on their shoulders? What an image in this day and time. What could you do with that? And what did he mean, when like the character in Invisible Man, he said, I feel fine.Vincent Harding:: I have looked upon chaos and I feel fine. Phew. [laughs] All right, you see, I mean, it's not about just history or political science or Buddha, it's about Invisible Man too. And consider the chaos that this man has looked on and yet feels fine, 'cause he has voted for the first time in his life because he was willing to take great risk and because those young people were willing to risk with him. Look at the image of Malcolm. And it was so right and so wonderful, you know, you start off seeing and you'll see it more clearly when, when the film is there, Malcolm with this great big smile when lots of people thought that Malcolm had lockjaw. Malcolm just, just Malcolm, wonderful, warm, you know, just being available to human beings. And what we realize as we, as we listen, as we pick up the autobiography, what we realize is that what we're in touch with here-and all of our students should be asked to read the autobiography, what we realize here is that we are in touch with a great life-transforming odyssey. This is a modern odyssey as worthy of our attention as any odyssey that I know. From Detroit Red to Al Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, how do you go that way in thirty-seven years, passing through seven years of prison on the way? Oh, Malcolm. What he has to teach us about religion and political struggle. What he has to teach us about serving the people. What he has to teach us about the purpose of life itself. Oh, Malcolm. The images, remember, remember Muhammad Ali. He sure was pretty, wasn't he? Yeah. [laughs] Mm-hmm. OK. And, and what I always find fun is to ask people, Well, why'd he change his name? and then especially younger people, You know any other people who changed their name? and they talk about the Muslims, et cetera, et cetera. But I say, How about any other people? You know any White people who changed their name? and they act as if White people can't change their name, What, what you mean? And I say, How many of you Roman Catholics? And do you know any nuns? And what does it mean for a person to change their name? And have you ever heard the song, "I told Jesus it Would be All Right if He Changed My Name." Oh, you gotta have all kinds of music and stuff, you know, in, in with your lessons plan, you understand that? That this is not simply a straight intellectual, Well, one, two, three, four, check that box. No, no.Vincent Harding:: No, no, no, no. Just so many changes going on here. And then we saw Stokely. Wonderful Stokely. Some of our best memory, [laughs] memories of Stokely in our family are Stokely and, and Bob Moses sometimes and Charlie Cobb on the floor in our kitchen playing with Rachel, you know, playing with Rachel when she couldn't get much past the floor and they were down there with her. And then we see him up here on the screen talking about Black Power and if we can, if we can understand what he was really talking about and what Black Power was really about at its best, and none of us is always at our best, but at its best, it was really about in many, many ways the teenager's question that was put to Dr. King, Dr. King, how can you ask us to love White folks before we even love ourselves? Phew. Now that has all kinds of ramifications. You can think of all kinds of folks who are trying to love other people before they love themselves. All kinds of wives, all kinds of husbands, all kinds of children, all kinds of world changers. So, it's not just about, quote, "Black Power," it is about love your neighbor as you love yourself. It's about psychology and spirituality, it's about depth, and we can take it and run with it. And then the image, you didn't see too much of it but you will see a lot of it, of the Panthers, the Panthers. God bless them. Because what the Panthers among other things say to us is, Here were some, quote, "disadvantaged urban youth" who refused to be disadvantaged urban youth, who refused to remain victims, who refused to remain problems, who refused to, to remain statistics of pathology of the underclass. That's what the Panthers is all about at its depths and at its best, that these are young people who decided that they wanted to enter history on their own terms, by their own definitions, and become transformative forces in history and not simply victims of history. Oh, teach the Panthers, please. Let people see the Panthers. Let people ask how it was that this twenty-one year-old Fred Hampton in Chicago, cold Chicago, could get people up at 5:30 in the morning to do calisthenics before they went to feed the children for the breakfast program. Try that yet in Medford [laughs] at 5:30 in the winter morning or even in the summer morning. And then you didn't probably know who he was but he was about over here and he was big and folks would say he was big and black, and that was exactly what they called him at Attica, Big Black, and he was one of the leaders of that Attica struggle. And if you've never been in prisons, don't teach too much longer without going in some. They are part of the most central reality of American life. And Big Black and the Attica Rebellion are central to our understanding of many things. But for me, one of the critical things in that story was when the prisoners had taken over and when the guards were all around, almost yearning sometimes to shoot. And when the reporters were down on their hands and knees looking down into the yard where the prisoners had set up a little kind of, of city down there and where they were dressed in, in dashikis and other forms of Afro garb testifying to transformation that was going on in them even in prison. And somebody, one of the reporters, looked down into the yard and said, They seem to be building up more than they're tearing down in that yard. Let our students write a paragraph or-[cut][picture resumes]
Vincent Harding:: -nation means but what I'm saying is that America's penal system must be understood as one of the major blocks to the development of democracy in America. And we have to understood what that means, and what one does about it, and to recognize that the penal system, as all of you certainly know, is simply overflowing with the poor and all kinds of people of color, and what does that mean in a democratic society. And then, of course, we saw the folks in the Poor People's Campaign with my friend José just singing his head off. José just loves to sing [laughs] and we'll just let it go at that, it's just so wonderful. Long-distance runners and singers. But somebody asked, Where are the women? Well, if you looked at that lead oxcart, mule cart, you saw some of the women. They were right sitting up there on the driver's seat of the oxcart on their way to Washington D.C. in their best Sunday go-to-meeting clothes including their flowered hats. And then we can talk about revolutionaries in flowered hats to break down our stereotypes of what revolutionary struggle is about for the transformation of democracy in America. And, of course, we can also use this to remind us that at that point in his life, Martin King was very clear that whatever he did had to be multiracial, had to bring in not just Black and Whites, but had to bring in Native Americans, had to bring in Hispanics, had to bring in poor Whites from Appalachia, and we can ask ourselves, Is he still ahead of us? And what catching up do we yet need to do? Remember the image of the Poor People's Campaign because it does remind us of where King was going. And one of the things that doesn't come out as clear as I would like to see it come out in the films is that King was trying to experiment with nonviolent revolution. And I wonder what he is saying now about Eastern Europe where nonviolent revolution is taking place. Do you know that? I mean, don't let the newspapers not tell you that. That's what's happening. Rosemarie was telling me, I didn't get a chance to see it, she said that when Lech Walesa was in Congress and all around Washington, what he was constantly saying was, We did this nonviolently. We did this without firing a shot. That's what we did. And you have to stop and wonder, Why was Lech, you know, telling all of us Americans about that? Was he report, reporting? Was he reporting to Fannie Lou? Was he letting Martin know that everything was cool? Was he telling Randy Blackwell and Dorothy Day that it was fine, we picked up your message? We don't know what power we have had in this world, and the great power has not been the power of our military might. That has been destructive, by and large. The great power has been the power of our deep beliefs in the possibility of human beings to transform themselves and to transform their society. And if the world is to continue, that power will have to be nurtured and built in every one of our children and every one of ourselves. Maybe that's what Maynard and Call mean too. Wait for the Maynard Jackson section. That's gonna be a blast for some of you. I will hint if you will pay me later on as I go out.Vincent Harding:: You will see Maynard Jackson in the ring boxing with Muhammad Ali, all right? [laughs] Just wait for that one. And he knocks him out. [laughs]Vincent Harding:: OK. But what we need to deal with then, of course, is, well, what do these electoral victories mean? What does it mean to have these declining, decaying cities handed over now to colored folks and saying, OK, yep, you can have 'em, go ahead. Is there something more than that involved? Do we, as usual, we Black folks have something up our sleeves? [laughs] Get 'em to write a paragraph about that and don't avoid, please, the question about Marion Barry, because those kinds of things are on their mind and, and they have to be dealt with. But just maybe get your hands on Charlie Cobb's film about SNCC and the Washington D.C. city government, which at one point seemed to be made up of nothing else but SNCC, and somebody asked, In the light of the kind of movement strength that you folks represent, how could you let Washington D.C. come to the past that it has come to? And one of the most honest of the former SNCC people on the city council said, Well, you know, in the, in the older days when we were in the struggle, when those folks were running the cities wrong, we were like a fire under them and they had to do something about it. But now we've been running it wrong and there ain't nobody puttin' no fire under us. That's quite a story, quite a thing to think about. And then the piece that you didn't see, and this is the last image...no, the next-to-last image that I wanted to mention. Go to the archives or make it up, but get that piece, please, about the White city council member in Memphis. Get that piece about the man who decided to vote with the sanitation workers against everybody else on the city council. Get that piece about the man who then confessed, that even though all the calls at night and all the threats didn't bother him, they bothered his wife who had cancer. Get that piece and, and let students talk about the course of democracy. They are real. And then look at Harry Belafonte's wonderful face, 'cause I think that's what he was talking about when he said, "We were the best then." Hmm, what a, what a poignant statement, "We were the best then," and he didn't mean best at the 60-yard dash or best, you know, on the football field or best in ba-I mean, he appreciated all that, best in the Platinum Records category, no. What I thought he was saying was we were the best representatives of the best hopes of democracy in the United States. We were carrying the great flame of freedom in this country and our energy was overwhelming. And now Henry says we are being tested. Where is the fire? Where is the energy? Where are the best? And, of course, what we know is that every generation is tested as our dear friend Frantz Fanon said that every generation must come out of relative obscurity and look on the work of its predecessors and then determine what its role is at that moment in history. And then also to determine whether it will fulfill its role or betray it. So, we are being tested, all of us. White, Black, green, pink, and purple. And what I sense is that Henry is saying to us...and I want to say so much about those folks but I can't right now, Henry is saying to us that we need another generation coming forth from teachers like you and me, a generation loving freedom and truth and justice more than they love making it. Henry is saying we are being tested. Is this the goal and purpose of our teaching? But let's say something to Henry first and to the rest of the team. Maybe, maybe this is the key to the real prize for all of us, including the Eyes team. So, Henry, when they offer you the Academy or anything else this next time, it's all right, take it and, and you know, in the auditorium, you grab Ruth and y'all just boogie up on the stage and just, just do it. But know deeply as you do know that the real prize is not that. That the real prize was, was stated by Sister Margaret Walker that what it is that we are seeking for, hoping for, is that a second generation full of courage should issue forth, that a people loving freedom should come to birth. Teachers as midwives, filmmakers as midwives, how marvelous an image. Perhaps the real prize of our teaching is the same thing. And if anyone should ask us, Well, why do we still need people working for democracy? Where are they still needed? Let me just suggest a few things that you might say and then I will stop. Tell them that any time the education the children get is tied to the wealth that their families have, democracy is still in trouble. Tell them that we still need democratic healthcare in this country, available to all the citizens of the country simply because they are citizens. Tell them that, that we still need a democratic approach to housing in America, not only to how we live but to where we live and who lives. Tell them that, that we still need safe, humane, beautiful, and democratic cities. What is a democratic city anyway? To say nothing of what is a safe city. But that's what the next generation is for and that's what we're for standing in the midst of the next generation. If they want to know what democratic work still needs to be done, tell them to look at the disparities in income in our society and in taxes in our society and in legal assistance in our society. If they want to know what democratic work still needs to be done, tell them that women hold up half the sky but they sure ain't getting half of the income. Tell them about the role that young people played in this century, please. Tell them that there is still work for them to do. Tell them that maybe the East, Eastern Europeans are showing us that there may be something called democratic national security and it may have nothing to do with missiles. Tell them to start toying around with new understandings of national security that don't depend upon an eirarchic [sic] undemocratic military force, because as long as your safety depends upon an undemocratic force, you will be undemocratic at your heart. The means and the ends, the means and the ends, talk to them about Gandhi a little, and if they ask, Can we do that? Touch them, literally, hold them, literally, and tell them, Oh, yes, you can. Oh, yes, you can. Get ready, get ready, people, get ready. And if they say to us, You gettin' ready too, teach? Say the truth. And now you see at the end, we've finally got an answer to the question that was raised earlier today. How do you bring closure to the telling of this great human story? How do you bring closure to the telling of this story of great sacrifice and hope and struggle and death and life? How do you bring closure to this struggle, this story of the struggle for a more perfect union? And clearly, the answer is there is no closure on this struggle. This struggle is as long as humanity is long. There are pauses for refreshment, as they used to say when I was growing up, and reflection. There are pauses for holding onto each other and for watching films like these. But then after that, you gotta listen to the wisdom of that ancient sage, Yogi Berra-Vincent Harding:: -"It ain't over till it's over." Yeah, it ain't over till it's over, [laughs] and it ain't over yet, children, it ain't over yet. You go ahead, you go ahead.
Jack Mendelsohn:: It's impossible, Vincent, to thank you adequately. May we be indeed emboldened by the privilege of what we just heard, to see our day together here as a first step, and only a first step of many to come. We've the beginnings of the creation of a community here which could lead to all kinds of possibilities in terms of resources, mutual reinforcement, going with the materials of Eyes I and II, beyond the civil rights movement as something that can be categorized into something that really reinvigorates and restores our sense of the possibilities of democracy. In a very short time, after socializing some more together, we are going to be returning to the world of things as they are, and I mean really as they are, which ain't all that hot. But the visions that have been raised in us today, may those visions of the world as it could be, the world as it should be, strengthen us and sustain us, each of us individually, and all of us together. Blessings on you all.Vincent Harding:: [inaudible]Jack Mendelsohn:: [inaudible] good luck.Vincent Harding:: [laughs]Audience Member #4:: That was magnificient. Just really-Vincent Harding:: [inaudible]Audience Member #4:: I've been reading books by a friend of yours, Margaret-[cut][end of recording: 01:19:05:00]