4 10 109 https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/2e115abf4a08b796337b54796dee1662.jpeg cc642e7d2a05276d7cf3f1830914185d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dr. Farmer Photographs Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Black and white photograph Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dr. James Farmer with Students in a Classroom Subject The topic of the resource 1900-99 Farmer, James, 1920-1999 Description An account of the resource James Farmer teaching a class. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gordon, Liz Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw.access.preservica.com/IO_0b127825-df84-4979-bee3-b1a264859f22/ Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-02 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright is retained by Special Collections and University Archives, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington. This item is available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Items may not be reproduced or used for any commercial purposes without prior written consent from the University of Mary Washington. Relation A related resource The James L. Farmer Collection Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context UMW_993 Classroom Faculty History Department James Farmer Students https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/087528f229623bc62cbaf16c670dbe87.gif fdb8557fedbfa5dba2fe96799c5dc374 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Movement: The Civil Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice Suggested Bibliography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Autobiography of Malcolm X Subject The topic of the resource X, Malcolm, 1925-1965 Black Muslims-Biogrpahy African Americans-Biography Description An account of the resource The Autobiography of Malcolm X was intended to be a true autobiography, with the name of Alex Haley appearing not at all or as a ghostwriter or as a mere contributor or assistant. However, with the assassination of Malcolm X in Harlem, NY on February 21, 1965 it became necessary to reveal the important role of Alex Haley in creating this book. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Malcolm X Haley, Alex Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01UMW_ALMA2131247830003326&indx=2&recIds=01UMW_ALMA2131247830003326&recIdxs=1&elementId=1&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&frbrSourceidDisplay=01UMW_ALMA&frbrIssnDisplay=&dscnt=0&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&frbrRecordsSource=Primo+Local&mode=Basic&vid=UMW&lastPag=&rfnGrp=frbr&frbrJtitleDisplay=&tab=everything&searchCDI=&dstmp=1587392693554&frbg=859871393&ac=O3%3D113%26O6%3D25%26O9%3D1%26&lastPagIndx=1&frbrSrt=date&frbrEissnDisplay=&scp.scps=scope%3A%2801UMW_ALMA%29%2Cscope%3A%28%2201UMW%22%29%2Cscope%3A%2801UMW_P_UNIT%29%2C01UMW_EbscoLocal%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&tb=t&fctV=859871393&vl(1220243658UI0)=any&cs=frb&srt=rank&fctN=facet_frbrgroupid&vl(freeText0)=the%20autobiography%20of%20malcolm%20x%201965&dum=true Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available New York, Grove Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource xvi, 455 p. illus., ports. 24 cm. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E185.97.L5 A3 Bibliography Book https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/34233baee31f06507f52ad90593e515e.png 7dc7769345f68a7505863be22a0d946f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eastridge, Kimberly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed McClurken, Jeffery Location The location of the interview Zoom Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Text: This oral history interview was created as part of a project on Dr. James Farmer’s educational legacy at the University of Mary Washington. This project was completed for the University of Mary Washington’s Adventures in Digital History class taught by Dr. Jeffrey McClurken. We would like to thank Dr. Jeffrey McClurken for agreeing to participate in this interview. Text: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, Dr. McClurken. Could you please state your name for the record? Dr. McClurken: I am Jeffrey W. McClurken, a professor of History and American Studies at Mary Washington. Text: What year did you graduate? Dr. McClurken: I graduated in 1994. Text: How did you know Dr. Farmer? Dr. McClurken: I mean, I was a student in his class, but of course I’d heard about him long before that semester. People on campus had talked about him and I’d heard about him from faculty in the department about him. Text: Did you learn something in his civil rights class that you still remember today? Or changed your perspective as a person or as a teacher? Dr. McClurken: I mean the class was, it’s almost trite, but it was life changing, right? You had this sense that you were in the presence of history greatness. Right? He had this booming, powerful voice, this great smile, terrific way of telling stories. Um, yeah, I mean, I think- look, as a history major I had taken a number of classes in which the Civil Rights movement was covered. Right? But it was one thing to hear about the movement from a faculty member, but there is something fundamentally different in hearing those stories come to life, right? Come to life from someone who has been there. Come to life from someone who is physically and emotionally suffered for the cause you’re studying. It’s just a- it’s a different experience. It’s a transformative experience. Um. You know, I guess another way to put it would be to say that as a history major who had every plan of going on to graduate school, to becoming a scholar, to becoming a professor, a teacher myself, there was something deeply powerful about hearing from what was effectively a living legend. Right? And-and a living legend who was somehow simultaneously clearly human as well. Right? I mean, he was self-deprecating. He was open about his personal struggles. He would talk, for example, about how he dealt with his jealousy of Martin’s fame. Right? Just, first of all, the fact that he talked about Martin Luther King as “Martin,” right? It was a constant reminder to us his ties to the other leaders of the movement. But, that- he wasn’t name dropping. He wasn’t trying to just- he wasn’t using it in some false or pretentious way. He was-he was there. Martin was a friend of his. Dr. King was a friend of his. Um, you know, so he was always-he was just always sort of self-deprecating. He talked through how he agonized about whether or not he made the right decision to stay in jail with the other protestors in Plaquemine, Louisiana, when he could have just paid the court fees and have been at the 1960’s March on Washington. Sort of agonized over whether it was the right thing to do, even thirty years later, or forty years later. So, that sense of, of both the majesty and humanity just really- just really stuck with me. Text: What kinds of values did he instill in his students? Do you see the reverberations of those lessons in your own teachings today? Dr. McClurken: Oh, man, I hope so. Um, you know, he-I would say he instilled service, thoughtfulness, honesty, a willingness to confront oppression. A, um, but also a sense- a sense of humor, and a sense of, of the need to still laugh and to be human. Yeah, I’d love to-I’d love to think that that has influenced my own teaching, but I-but I watched—you know, I mean there were, you know, over a hundred of us in each of these classes, um, and, um, and yet you could see people just be affected and transformed by this and we talk about it outside of class. Um, you know, for me personally, that experience solidified my desire to be a historian. Solidified my desire to represent the perspective of those in the past and in the present. Um, so, you know, I-there’s no question in my mind that he-he, he—but I was not the only one who had-who had that kind of reaction to it, because I was sitting with all my fellow classmates, and-and-and hearing their reactions and the conversations they we have at lunch, um, or, um, you know, at the dinner table at, you know, over at what was then Seacobek. Um, you know, having these conversations. It-it went beyond just a class. It was more than just content. Um, it was— this is going to sound trite, but it was an experience, right? Text: You have a very unique perspective as both an alumni and a current faculty member. How do you think Dr. Farmer has impacted UMW and the greater Fredericksburg area? Dr. McClurken: Um, I-I think Farmer’s legacy on-on campus and-and in town is hard to quantify. I mean it’s easier to point to-to sort of organizations or institutions or things that are named after him. Uh, I think the James Farmer Multicultural Center continues on his legacy. I think the Farmer bust is an important reminder, even if not everyone knows what they’re looking at when they walk past it. I think the work being carried out in his name, a lot of the work create the A.S.P.I.R.E. concept was really based in his ideas, and his work. You know, there have been numerous, um, um, first year seminars that have been created, and, about him or with his teachings at the center. Uh, earlier groups have done oral histories with people, um, who work with him or who knew him. Um, you know, I-I I think- you know, for me, as you point out, I do have this unique perspective, right, because I was his student but now I’m back teaching at the school where he taught for almost two decades. Um, you know, my time in that classroom was transformative, and so when I had a chance to come back and teach at Mary Washington, um, I jumped at the chance to try to find ways to remember and honor him, right? For his service to the Civil Rights Movement, but also to his service to a generation of students at Mary Washington. Um, I wanted people to be able to hear that booming voice, to hear his stories as much as possible. It’s why I’ve had three different classes over the last decade create digital projects related to Farmer and his work. Um, you know, I-and I think the work your group is doing and the work those previous groups have done mean that through the work of Mary Washington students everyone can hear James Farmer words, can-can read his words, can hear him tell his stories, to come to understand why we honor James Farmer and his legacy. Text: Do you have a favorite memory or anecdote about him? McClurken: It’s central to what I’ve been talking about, I think. You know, the paper-the research paper I wrote for his class was on President Lyndon Johnson’s varied stances—and they varied quite wildly—his stances on Civil Rights over the years. I-I won’t bore you with the details, but, but I know that when I turned in that paper I was very proud of the nuanced story that I had written, the narrative that I had laid out grounded in the primary sources—it really used LBJ’s autobiography which he wrote after he stepped down as president. Now, I-I’m enough of a scholar now and there’s been enough time that looking back, given what I now know about primary sources and Lyndon Johnson, I probably bought-I bought into LBJ’s retellings of his own past more than I should have, right? He was telling his own story in a way that made him look good. But when I got the paper back Dr. Farmer—the only thing he had written on it was: “Interesting. This is not the version President Johnson told me when I was in the oval office.” And so, you know, of course I had professors tell me I needed to think more critically about my sources before, that was the first time I’d ever had a professor cite actual interactions with the people in question to indicate how wrong I was. So, I, you know, and it was-I didn’t take it-I didn’t take it in a bad way. I could hear his-I could hear the tone and his voice, the sort of wry, sardonic tone in his voice as he was like “that’s not what President Johnson told me.” Right? And, um, so that-that was the kind of person he was. He-he-he- it was education, not indoctrination. Right? Um, and so um, you know, I-I- for me the fact that he-that we are finding ways to recognize the ways that-that this man brought the Civil Rights Movement to life through that resonant voice, through that-that wry humor, that deep intelligence, that empathy, right? And-and in some cases, what amounted to an incredibly raw emotion, right? The emotion of someone who had lived through the movement. And so, um, that fact that we are able to celebrate and recognize the life and teaching of Dr. Farmer whose-whose career as a Civil Rights leader, I think, was-was complemented by his career as an educator. It’s-it’s an amazing opportunity and responsibility for all of us, but-but it’s one that I think we gladly take up. Text: Thank you again, Dr. McClurken, for helping us get to know Dr. Farmer even better! Text: Interviewee: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken; Interviewer: Kim Eastridge; Editor: Eilise Mahoney; Team Members: John Forest, Katia Savelyeva, Megan Williams; Advising Professor: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken Text: For more information on this project please go to farmer.umwhistory.org Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 10:20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dr. Jeffrey McClurken's Oral History Interview Subject The topic of the resource Farmer, James, 1920-1999 Faculty McClurken, Jeffrey W. Department of History and American Studies Oral History Interview University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Description An account of the resource In this oral history interview, Dr. Jeffrey McClurken of the University of Mary Washington's History and American Studies department about his time in Dr. Farmer's Civil Rights class as well as Dr. Farmer's educational legacy at the University. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EZZrI7dKSC0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />To see this video on Youtube please click <a href="https://youtu.be/EZZrI7dKSC0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Link to Youtube video">here</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-04-09 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McClurken, Jeffrey W. Eastridge, Kimberly Mahoney, Eilise Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Dr. Jeffrey McCLurken Education James Farmer Legacy Oral History Oral History Interview https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/c1261ae8f3b78fc71d7629fb47def2d6.png 4e1f8ae5a7b3dbcb7fdbd8b79a491fe0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eastridge, Kimberly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Davis, Pam Location The location of the interview Zoom Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Text: This oral history interview was created as part of a project on Dr. James Farmer’s educational legacy at the University of Mary Washington. This project was completed for the University of Mary Washington’s Adventures in Digital History class taught by Dr. Jeffrey McClurken. We would like to thank Ms. Davis for agreeing to participate in this interview. Text: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, Dr. McClurken. Could you please state your name for the record? Ms. Davis: My name is Pamela Smith Davis Text: What year did you graduate? Ms. Davis: ’91. Text: What was your major? Ms. Davis: I was a business administration major with a concentration in finance, but, uh, I ended up not staying in that field very, very long and went into grad school and went into teaching. Text: How did you know Dr. Farmer? Ms. Davis: So, I, uh, took his Civil Rights class my Junior year, and um it-I always loved history, took a lot of history courses at Mary Washington. Actually, if I go back and look at my transcripts I could have majored-I mean minor in American Studies very easily. Kim Eastridge: Wow. Yeah. Ms. Davis: That was what allowed me, when I went to my master’s program, to, um, certify to teach Social Studies, actually was from all the history and geography and poli sci that I had taken at Mary Washington. All those gen. ed. Courses paid off. Text: What do you remember from his class? Ms. Davis: So, the biggest thing I remember from his class was, um, his stories. His stories were just so vivid. Um, he was such a, um, such a great storyteller. Um, he added a lot of detail, um his memory was amazing. Um, I remember, um, him telling us a story about Freedom Summer when he, um, and some of his colleagues and C.O.R.E. were actually, um, in Mississippi when um Cheney, and, um, the two other, um young people were helping with voter registration were killed. And he was somewhere in Mississippi, and, um he was hiding out min a funeral home and actually escaped from that town in the back of a hearse. That-That was one of the stories that really stuck with me, just, you know, his experiences, um, were just, um, almost unbelievable, but certainly he was a piece of living history. So, it was just an honor, it was very humbling, um, sitting in his class and just listening, um, to his stories that he told. Of course, we read his book Lay Bare the Heart, um, as part of the course. And at that time, um, I believe it was Ken Burns who was putting together, um Eyes on the Prize, that PBS series so he, uh, we got to see some of that series before it ever came out on TV. Uh, it was, um, it was such a blessing to be able to take that class from someone who was actually there and lived it. Text: What was the style of his lecture? Was it a large class? Ms. Davis: I-you know, I remember it being probably about 30—it was probably one of the larger classes. Of course, not like Eastern and Western Anglo Geography which was in the-I guess there used to be an auditorium in the basement of Monroe, um, I’m assuming it’s still there. Besides that class being the largest class, everyone wanted to get into Dr. Farmer’s Civil Rights class. Everybody did. And I just got lucky my junior year because back then you signed up-you registered for classes based on how many credits you had, so the more credits you had the earlier you were able to sign up for classes. Kimberly Eastridge: Right. Ms. Davis: I had more credit hours than the rest of my-a lot of people in my class because I took summer classes, and so I finished a semester early. So, I was able to uh register for his class my junior year. I think there may have been like twenty/thirty of us in that, but I can’t recall how many sections of the class he offered. But it was, it was one of the larger classes, but it wasn’t too large. None of the classes at Mary Washington were very large, which is a great selling point for the university. Text: How do you think Dr. Farmer is being represented on campus? Ms. Davis: Well, I-I saw the bust of him across from-I think it’s across from Trinkle, or what is now being renamed. Which, by the way, I think should be named Farmer Hall, but that’s just my opinion. That’s what I voted for on the survey! Um, yeah, um, so I’ve seen that there, um, I do know that and I wish able to have seen the bus, the commemorative bus for the Freedom Rides that went around to several of the school divisions and there on campus. I was not able to see that, um, I would’ve loved to have seen that. Um, but you know, I think one of the highest honors that the college, the university, can give him is naming Trinkle after him. Text: Do you have a favorite memory of him? Ms. Davis: You know, I-I- he was older, of course, um, when I was there. Um, he was just about partially blind, so he did have an aide who would walk him in and guide him into the classroom, and he sat, um, he sat behind his desk. Um, he could see, he could see us if we were in, um, you know a certain area of the room. He did wear a patch- he did have the patch on his eye at that time. Um, and, um, he-he- the biggest piece I remember about him was him being such a phenomenal storyteller. Um, I had never heard of C.O.R.E. before I had gotten to his class. I mean, I knew about Rosa Parks, I knew the Montgomery Bus Boycott, I knew, you know, about those things, but never knew any other organization other than the SCLC and Martin Luther King. And he really-I-you know, opened my mind, and my-you know, and my knowledge base on just how deep the Civil Rights Movement was beyond Dr. Martin Luther King, and that it didn’t really start with Dr. Martin Luther King. It had started, you know, a decade prior to that. Kimberly Eastridge: Right. Ms. Davis: Right after World War II. So, and-and- it was, you know, it was just- and that’s one thing I remember about him most was, um, just his storytelling. He didn’t do much in the way of walking around the class when he taught. Um, he did teach from his chair. Uh, he did-he did sneak in some of those clips of what we now know as Eyes on the Prize, because he’s in them. Um, I-you know, we had to write a paper, um, for his class and the paper had to be about a time where we had experienced discrimination. And, uh, I wrote about an incident that happened at my high school when I was a freshman where, um, we came to school Monday morning with racist epitaphs written all over our parking lot, there had been a cross burned out on our pitcher’s mound on the baseball field in front of our school, and um wrote about just how frightened I was as a young girl and never really understood, you know, why that-why someone would be that way. I was a member of a pretty diverse school; Charlottesville High School is pretty diverse for this area. Um, and so I remember researching that and writing about that. So, um, I still have that paper. Kimberly Eastridge: Wow. Ms. Davis: I saved a few things from my time at Mary Washington and that’s one of them. Um, but, um, it definitely- and as a history teacher, U taught history for about fifteen years, and um those are the lessons and stories that aren’t found in the history books. And so I would bring that into the classroom, um, myself, um, just to, you know to honor him and to honor the work of others that aren’t mentioned so much in the history books. And so, I think that’s really what he made me appreciate, is that there is more to the story than what we read in books. And um, that is a lesson that I’ve kind of, you know, held onto all this time. Text: Would you say that he was a harsh grader, easy grader, or in between? Ms. Davis: I would say he was somewhere in between. Um, we had-I, you know-I-I assume we had quizzes or whatever, they never stood out in my brain. The paper did. He always talked about the paper. He always said, you know, “how’s it going? You should be doing this by now. You should be doing that by now.” So, you know, he wasn’t a professor that kept the goal, or the target, from you. He always kind of gave you the timeline of what he expected, um, by when. It wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t just something you turned in at the end of the time. It was a process, and, um, you know, I think got an A on that paper. I’m pretty sure I did. Text: You said that he inspired the content you were teaching, did he also inspire the methods that you taught in? Ms. Davis: You know, again, the biggest lesson that he taught me was that there’s more to the story than what you read in the history books. And, um, the really inquire, you know, have kids dig-dig deeper than what they’re learning, or are getting from one or two sources. Um, that there are other players, um, that are nine out of ten times behind the scenes of everything else that they’re reading about and they are just as important as those big-name people who show up in history books. Kimberly Eastridge: Right. Text: Thank you again, Dr. McClurken, for helping us get to know Dr. Farmer even better! Text: Interviewee: Pam Davis; Interviewer: Kim Eastridge; Editor: Eilise Mahoney; Team Members: John Forest, Katia Savelyeva, Megan Williams; Advising Professor: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken Text: For more information on this project please go to farmer.umwhistory.org Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 13:22 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pam Davis Oral History Interview Description An account of the resource In this oral history interview Pamela Davis speaks about her time in Dr. Farmer's Civil Rights class and Dr. Farmer's educational legacy at the University. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-19 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Davis, Pamela Eastridge, Kimberly Mahoney, Eilise Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Interview Farmer, James 1920-1999 Davis, Pam Faculty History and American Studies Department University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6owDOg1f5n8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />To see this video on Youtube please click <a href="https://youtu.be/EZZrI7dKSC0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Youtube video link">here</a>. Education James Farmer Legacy Oral History Oral History Interview Pam Davis https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/c30a872af631d6fbd02a4cca4873cc78.png 6718a0ad923d8e40c76694f6b6b4fd0e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Eastridge, Kimberly Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dellinger, Mary Hellen Location The location of the interview Zoom Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Text: This oral history interview was created as part of a project on Dr. James Farmer’s educational legacy at the University of Mary Washington. This project was completed for the University of Mary Washington’s Adventures in Digital History class taught by Dr. Jeffrey McClurken. We would like to thank Dr. Jeffrey McClurken for agreeing to participate in this interview. Text: Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview, Ms. Dellinger. Could you please state your name for the record? Ms. Dellinger: Mary Hellen Dellinger Text: What year did you graduate? Ms. Delligner: 1990. Text: What was your major? Ms. Delligner: History. Text: How did you know Dr. Farmer? Ms. Delligner: He was a visiting professor there. I’m not quite sure what his actual title was. And I knew him by his classes. Text: You were in his Civil Rights class? Ms. Delligner: I think that’s the only one he taught. Yes, that’s the one I took. Text: What do you remember learning about in his class? Ms. Delligner: I remember sitting there thinking—I was a senior when I took it— “I’m looking at a living history.” I mean, right in front of me. Just straight out of the pages of a history book. And I remember learning things about the Civil Rights Movement that I didn’t know. Um, I liked the fact that the class addressed a lot of the—I don’t want to call it the pre-movement, because it was all the movement, I guess, but, uh, a lot of the early things from the 1950s. He talked a lot about that, thing that I’d never gone into before, and then quite a bit of time about his personal experiences literally on the front lines of the south. I’d probably say it was the best class I’d ever taken, and I completed the graduate courses at George Mason University. So, yeah, that’s hands-down the best class. Text: How would you describe Dr. Farmer? Ms. Delligner: I’d describe him as a very, um, compassionate person. One that despite all his experiences wanted to share. He wasn’t bitter in the least, didn’t harbor any animosity towards anybody, and, um, was very eager for us to understand his story, so as to, you know, not repeat those types of things. Try and make us better people, I guess you could say. Text: Do you have a favorite memory of him? Ms. Delligner: I remember-my favorite memory is the laugh he had. He had a James Earl Jones kind of voice. One of those really deep voices—you can probably look him up online; I know there are recordings of him out there—but that voice, and when he would laugh—even though at that time he was blind and had to be brought into class on a wheelchair, he had an aide that brought him in, he had that signature eyepatch, but he still couldn’t see—his whole face would light up when he would remember something fondly or a person fondly, or when someone would ask a question that made him laugh. That’s—I know that’s not really a historical type of answer, but that’s the thing I remember the most is sitting there thinking “everything he’s been through, what people did to him solely because of the color of his skin, and yet he sits here and shares that story with a room of- we were all white students; not that he would know there wasn’t one minority student in the room, and he just, you know, just-it was like he was just telling a story.” Text: What kinds of values or lessons did he instill in his students? Ms. Dellinger: Well, I think that it was always that we shouldn’t judge other people. I, at that time, was-my roommate, my college roommate Freshman and Sophomore year, Junior and Senior year is still one of my very best friends, um, was from-was-was a minority student. She had been adopted by a white family as a young-as a young infant, um, and brought to the states and was a US citizen. And I think it made me see her life experiences a little more differently. Um, you know, just to- just to live with somebody that goes through the world and experiences the world differently than I do, I think that was one thing that I kind of learned from him. Does that answer your question? Text: What kind of impact did he have on your time at Mary Washington? Ms. Dellinger: Well, this was in the late 80s, obviously, um, so the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t even 25 years old at that point, 30 years old. Um, there were a lot of people who lived through that- both sides of it and remembered it, um, and I know that dateline or nightline, one of the big news programs of the time had been to Fredericksburg at that point and had interviewed a lot of people. It was a big, big story. We all watched it in the dorms. It talked about how racism was still a problem. Um, so I think to-to-to sit in his class, to kind of be exposed to, you know, that story… that was such an experience, um, you know, living in a different time I can’t say that it’s any better now. I don’t know-I don’t know. I’m not a minority person-to be living through that, I guess, I guess that’s a good answer. Text: Would you say that he has had an impact on your life outside of Mary Washington? Do you think about him sometimes? Ms. Delligner: I do. Definitely. I have two copies of his book, one in hard cover, one in soft cover, both autographed. He was still able to do that. And I-I’ve read them more than once. And I do think about that sometimes when I think-when I see on the news about racial injustice, or when I, you know, have dealings with-with people of color or minority-minority, um people. You know, I sometimes-I can just hear his voice in my head talking about the injustices that he felt and I always try and think “I’d like to do a better job, um, as a person.” Um, again, I move through the world as a white woman, and so that’s how I experience the world. And, so, um, I think that colors everything I do. And so it’s good that I had this class to kind of remember, you know, that there are people out there that-that experience horrible things every day based on just what they look like, um, or what they might sound like. So, that’s a thing I carry with me, and I think it does have an impact, yes. Text: How do you think he is being represented on campus today? Ms. Delligner: Definitely more of a presence today than when I was a student. I mean, obviously at that time he was still a teacher there. Um, since that time, obviously, he has passed away. Um, before he died President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is, I think, is the highest civilian honor we give in this country; well deserved, long overdue. Um, there’s a statue to him out in front of—what will hopefully be renamed—uh Trinkle Hall, and I know there’s the-I think the multicultural center is named after him. So, those are good steps. Um, I was recently asked to participate in a survey about the renaming of Trinkle Hall and I strongly suggested it should be named for James Farmer because the statue is right across the way. So, I think that’s great. Um, and I’m sure there are other things that I’m missing that I don’t know. I think the school does a good job of that, um, but only in the Mary Washington community. I think the bigger community-if you’re a Fredericksburg resident and you’re walking down campus you might not know that story. Um, and I think it’s critically important that people know he was one of the big four, he taught there. Um, very few people had more of an impact on the Civil Rights Movement than he did. Of course, Martin Luther King is a big name but he was just as important in doing a lot of the heavy lifting. If you-I can’t remember what the statue says, but obviously it identifies all—a statue like that does—but I know I’ve been on campus with people, ‘cause I live right next to campus, I can walk there from my home, and we’ll walk our dogs there and sometimes people will say “well, who’s that?” I mean, they just don’t know. He’s not a face that is recognized like Martin Luther King who is the face of the Civil Rights Movement, um but just as important if not more important. So, I know that can’t just name a day after him or anything, but they-you know, yeah, I think they do a good job of within the Mary Washington community, but outside not so much. So, I think, you know, it’s a good job that the school is doing, but there’s always room to do more, you know. Text: Do you have any funny anecdotes or other stories about Dr. Farmer? Ms. Delligner: Ah, man, I’m trying to think. It was a very serious class. You could feel the weight of the subject, um, as he was talking about it and because he couldn’t see, he sat at the front of the room and just talked. Um, you know, I don’t remember. I really don’t. I’m trying to think. I was kind of a serious student. I didn’t fool around a lot. Um, I can’t remember anything. I just remember going to his office one time and waiting quite a while to have him sign the book, and I guess he had heard me out there and he thanked me for waiting. I, um, he didn’t really meet with his students one-on-one, he wasn’t on campus as much as some of the other professors. I don’t know if that was due to his health or just the arrangement, they had with him. I can’t think of anything, I’m sorry. Text: Did you ever attend any of his guest lectures? Ms. Delligner: I didn’t do any of those, I just attended his classes, never missed one, never took any notes either—you didn’t have to. I mean, you just kind of sat there and listened. And I don’t-I just remember he gave us a couple papers to write, I don’t think we had any exams. I think it was more just like papers and that was it. Everybody passed if you just showed up and paid half-way attention, which I don’t see how you couldn’t. Um, yeah, so that’s just what I remember. Text: Thank you again, Ms. Dellinger, for helping us get to know Dr. Farmer even better! Text: Interviewee: Mary Hellen Dellinger; Interviewer: Kim Eastridge; Editor: Eilise Mahoney; Team Members: John Forest, Katia Savelyeva, Megan Williams; Advising Professor: Dr. Jeffrey McClurken Text: For more information on this project please go to farmer.umwhistory.org Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Zoom Video Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 9:38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary Hellen Dellinger Oral History Interview Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Interview Farmer, James 1920-1999 Dellinger, Mary Hellen History and American Studies Department Faculty University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Description An account of the resource In this oral history interview, Mary Hellen Dellinger speaks about her time in Dr. Farmer's Civil Rights class and his educational legacy at the University. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6-aHZqm0Dmk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />To see this video on Youtube please click <a href="https://youtu.be/6-aHZqm0Dmk" title="Youtube Link to Oral History">here</a>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-31 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dellinger, Mary Hellen Eastridge, Kimberly Mahoney, Eilise Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Education James Farmer Legacy Mary Hellen Dellinger Oral History Oral History Interview https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/2f58f7dfcabd22ea31b70ad8ffafc0b4.png b1ac62b07e89ba99f27e1bdc71879386 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Kimberly Eastridge Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Christopher Williams Location The location of the interview Online Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound KIMBERLY: So, for our records, can you please state your full name? CHRISTOPHER: uh, do you want my middle name? KIMBERLY: if you want, give it to us, sure. CHRISTOPHER: [Laughing] I’ll just do Christopher Williams. KIMBERLY: Awesome, and saw that you signed our consent form, do you have any questions or comments about that? CHRISTOPHER: No, I do not. KIMBERLY: you do understand that this recording will be shared with my group members, Dr. McClurken, and will be uploaded to our website? CHRISTOPHER: Yes. KIMBERLY: Awesome, then we’ll go ahead and get started. So, Uh, When did you first meet Dr. Farmer? CHRISTOPHER: I first meet Dr. Farmer in 1996. KIMBERLY: Awesome, what was your relationship with Dr. Farmer? CHRISTOPHER: My relationship with him, I guess to give you a little bit of the back story, so one day my mom used to be an avid runner and jogger. So, she was running down our road and she just happened to bump into one of Dr. Farmer’s daughters, Tammy, who was working at the house with the horses and whatnot, and she struck up a conversation with her and she mentioned that I was a James Farmer scholar, and if she wouldn’t mind that, if my mom and I would come to the house to meet Dr. Farmer, because I was a scholar and because, you know I was interested in civil rights even at a young age. Uh, and Tam was like “Yeah sure”. Uh, and then, my mom was also friends with Brenda Sloan, Ms. Brenda Sloan, who was one of the librarians at UMW at the time, and who ended up being Dr. Farmer’s caregiver, um for the last few years of his life. So that really granted us access to him, pretty much whenever. So, the summer of my sophomore year of high school and my junior year in high school, I spent a good amount of time with dr. Farmer, a few days here and there, and just having conversations with him about the civil rights movement, you know, just life in general. Uh, So yeah, I hope that’s not too long winded. KIMBERLY: No that was great! No that was great. Uh what…I don’t, I’m not familiar with James Farmer scholars, what exactly is that? CHRISTOPHER: Oh okay, uh, well the James Farmer scholars program was founded in 1987, and has been around for the past, what is it now, 30 almost 33 years, and um the person who was the director of the program, who is still a UMW professor, Dr. Venita McCall, she is in the Education department, and um I consider her like a mother figure to me, outside of my own mother and my god mother. And being a part of that program, you get selected, so they started looking at students in the area, so it’s a program that covers the Spotsylvania school district, Caroline county, west morlin, and also Fredericksburg, the city of Fredericksburg, so you had students coming out of walker grant middle school, James Monroe high school, all the high schools in Spotsylvania county at the time, and then Caroline middle school, and Caroline high school, and west morlin, I think west morlin middle school and Washington and lee high school. So, forgive me I can’t remember the middle school in west morlin, I think I said the name of it but I may be wrong but. They started looking at students when they’re in 6th grade, and you’re selected before you hit for 7th grade. So, by the time you get into 7th grade, you’re enrolled into the James Farmer scholars program. And the program met at uh the University of Mary Washington campus a couple of Saturdays out of the month. There would be school busses dropping students off from all these schools to UMW, we used to meet in Trinkle hall room 204 as a large group and then break throughout the rest of the hall for the rest of the day with our various grade levels. Uh, then we had a summer program, a weeklong summer program at UMW, so you know the James farmers scholars program was really the first program to introduce me to what It could eventually feel like being a college student as a first gen. KIMBERLY: that’s very cool, tha sounds like a very, cool experience for you. CHRISTOPHER: haha, thank you KIMBERLY: Awesome, um how would you describe Dr. Farmer and your like personal experience with him? CHRISTOPHER: A very kind soul. Uh, he was very cerebral, ugh had a very strong baritone voice, shake the ground, uh deep, philosophical, uh, really, uh still, a real advocate, uh for those who could not represent themselves. One of the things that I tend to forget about was that Dr. Farmer represented many different identities. Uh, of course, of course he was a black man, but he also had disabilities. And you know, Disability accommodations were kinda difficult to come by especially at the time when he was teaching at the university. Uh, but he was such a giving person, great laugh haha great laugh, just really open to any questions I had. You know, I think of him very fondly, because of the time that we shared, and, uh, you know he was, he was just so great. I mean I can’t really put into words that experience. You know, he was one of my first mentors. So, um, I have been privileged to be around a few um civil rights legends in my time, but he was the first. And definitely left a [inaudible] mark on me, to this day. KIMBERLY: yeah that’s amazing, um, do you have any favorite memories with him? or ones you can share with us. CHRISTOPHER: Sure, um, I remember, so in the May issue of the Mary Washington, university of Mary Washington magazine, um that issue is going to be dedicated to Dr. Farmer, and I’m a feature in it. And one of the pictures that you saw on Instagram that I posed back in November, it was my mom, Dr. Farmer and I at his 77th birthday party that was January 12, 1997, and I remember being there and being in that room with him with my mom and us talking about things and then reading him his birthday cards because at that point he was blind. So, my mom and I were reading him his birthday cards from people you know from local to across the country, which was really cool to see the type of love he was being shown. And then, being there with Mrs. Sloan, who was his caretaker at the time, um his daughter, his granddaughter, and then another fellow scholar, Dwain K., who is reverend Dwain K. and…Ms. Sloan recently shared this with m, that he said that if the rest of the scholars could turn out like Chris and Dwain, I would’ve left a great legacy. And when she told me that I, she told me that this past summer, I was just like wow. So, I carry that with me too. You know just times, just visiting. Uh, Walking around, uh his home and outside of his home and you know, just spending time with him inside the house having various conversations about his role in the civil rights movement and he would often say I just hope that people don’t forget, not only what I sacrificed, but the many people who were with my at core and the other organizations that sacrificed so that we could be in the space that were in today. So, I also remember those things as well. KIMBERLY: So, you sort of have, um you know, like layers of perspectives on Dr. Farmer as both a younger student and as a faculty emmber today. Do you find that some of these values, um, that he embodied you are instilling in your students today? Or, do you see sort of like reverberations of what you’re doing today at UMW? CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely, one of the things, when I got hired, when I came on board in September of 2017 as assistant director of the James farmer multicultural center. The first thing that Dr. Sandford wanted me to do was to expand, um the social justice piece of our office. Because, in the interview process I told her that I was the main person who was organizing…so she had attended a couple events that I had organized, so she had no idea that I was the one who organized them, so after, so when I organized the town hall leading after the Travon martin verdict, about 300 people showed up that day. Of those 300 people, um, Jordan Davis’ brother, Jordan Davis was another young African American man who was killed in Jacksonville for playing his music too loud by a white man. Um so, his brother was there, and also Oscar grant’s god mother, Oscar Grant was killed in San Francisco out in Oakland, on the Bart, Bart system is kinda like New York subway system, but it’s called Bart in Oakland. Uh, a cop killed him for no reason. So, when I organized the event I had no idea those people were going to be there. They just happened to live in the area. So, and uh, Dr. Stanford was there that day. I didn’t know that because there were so many people there. So when the interview process, one of the questions was “what is your experience in social justice work?” and I told her that I organized that event, I organized the voting town hall event on UMW’s campus, tha tshe came to hahah. Then, uh, I also marched on Washington for wokers rights and union rights with reverend Sharpton and reverend Jessie Jackson, um, I know reverend ben Chavis who was our keynote speaker this past, MLK, who was like “man good to see you” when he pulled up. And then, yeah just a few other people Julian Bond, Dianne Nash, and people like that. So, I;ve had the pleasure of being in their company and they knew who I was, and you know, it’s just, you know, not to be too long winded, so yes, so, the work that im doing in the office today, I pull from the knowledge base of Dr. Farmer, of people like merle Evers, Williams, dianna nash, Julian Bond, Dr. Ben Chavis you know people that I know, and one of the reasons why I am so passionate about the social justice work and organizing not only just the teachings that we do, but the social justice leadership summit, and the social justice fall break trip. All those are components to get students understand why we still have social justice issues in the country today, and giving them the tools to effectively address and respond to those social justice issues, to improve those issues so they no longer are social justice issues. So, we’re not here 100 ears from now talking about the same things. KIMBERLY: right, Right. So, we’ve talked a bit about Dr. Farmer’s legacy, like farmer legacy 2020 that initiative that got placed this year. But how do you think that is being represented here on campus and furthermore, as a faculty member, and just as a general person in our community, how do you think we can better represent his legacy and him as a person? CHRISTOPHER: Well I think that the campus has done a really good job of, you know, acknowledging Dr. Farmer’s legacy on campus with the Farmer legacy 2020 initiative this year. It’s been nice walking around and seeing his face adorned on the light posts around our beautiful campus. I hope those stay up. That’s my hope. I hope they are not taken down after 2020 ends, or whenever we come back to campus haha. It’s been nice that the campus has also paid attention to the James Farmer multicultural center, being that it’s our 30 year anniversary, the 20th anniversary of the center being named after Dr. Farmer, uh and the work that we’re doing in our office, so that’s also been wonderful. I think that one of the things that we can do, moving forward, is just continuing to support, uh, the initiatives and the things and the issues that Dr. Farmer would have supported if he was still with us. Not to sound biased, but, you know, having the social justice piece or component integrated into the curriculum of UMW. We have a social justice minor, which is fantastic. I am thinking even more. You know, having different cultural studies as minors, so you have African American studies as a minor, uh, or major at UMW, because many of the students have asked to have that implemented and integrated into the curriculum on campus. I think that would be a step in the right direction for the campus as a whole to continue the work of Dr. farmer. You know, he taught in the history and American studies department at UMW. Uh, so, that would be a way to carry out this legacy a little bit more. You know, just more representation in terms of faculty, you know hiring more faculty of color, you know I think that would come a long way in the name of Dr. Farmer. Cause he was one of the few who were on campus at the time he was teaching while at UMW. So I think that would be a great way to acknowledge what he brought, not only to our campus but to our society. And you know, just continue to support the other initiatives, whether eit be te office of disabilities resource office, our office, you know, I think its just important for students to realy have a balance. It’s not just enough to, I know people are just coming to college to get into their major, but before they get into their major, you know having an understanding of how our society has worked. And so, you know, having that knowledge base, because it could change lives, because I can say that the social justice and leadership summit has changed the direction of a few student’s past because of the sessions we provide at the summit. So, that, all that could be something that continues the legacy of Dr. Farmer. KIMBERLY: Yeah those are all amazing points. To, I don’t know, end on a high note. Do you have any funny antic dotes about Dr. Farmer? I know you said he had a good laugh so… CHRISTOPHER [LAUGHING]: so, let me see. I remember he had a great sense of humor, I cant recall any like jokes he said or anything he said, but he had a really good sense of humor and a wonderful hardy laugh. I can tell you that I cant recall anything off hand now, but I remember the former director, the first director of the James farmer multicultural center, Forest Parker. We were at the Dr. Farmer tribute, when we first, that first Monday when we returned to campus, when we had the whole chandler ballroom packed. Afterwards him and I talked and he mentioned that “yeah me, me and dr. Farmer” I think he used to call him Jim and and he said “yeah, we used to go out for drinks and you know, he was so funny, charismatic” and I think that’s a side people didn’t get to see that often but… yeah he was great. KIMBERLY: Yeah, I agree with that, I think he was definitely painted as more of like a stoic figure, so its nice to know that he did chuckle a bit. CHRISTOPHER [LAUGHING]: haha yeah, right. I think that because of the…I think…I think about John Lewis and Dr. Farmer and Dr. King, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkens, Dorothy Hight, all these people, all they sacrificed, but they still had great sense of humor. Despite all the trauma they still found sense of Joy, so I think there’s a lesson in that. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christopher Williams Oral History Interview Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qr6_hadbD68" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Interview Farmer, James 1920-1999 History and American Studies Department University of Mary Washington Mary Washington College Description An account of the resource This oral history, featuring Christopher Williams, tells the story of a James Farmer Scholar, friendship, and mentorship. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available HIST 428: Farmer Group Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-03-20 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Eastridge, Kimberly Williams, Christopher Forest, John Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Youtube Video Language A language of the resource English https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/f4fa136258208888ccf5389c6179822f.png be4ba76be7d4d0ec46dd6d9d04eec94d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Movement: The Civil Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice Suggested Bibliography Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource SNCC, The New Aboltionist Subject The topic of the resource Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (US) African Americans--Civil Rights Civil Rights--Southern United States Description An account of the resource The New Abolitionists influenced a generation of activists struggling for civil rights and seeking to learn from the successes and failures of those who built the fantastically influential Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It is considered an indispensable study of the organization, of the 1960s, and of the process of social change. Includes a new introduction by the author. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Howard, Zinn Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://umw-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=01UMW_ALMA2132483100003326&indx=1&recIds=01UMW_ALMA2132483100003326&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&query=any%2Ccontains%2CSNCC%2F+The+New+Abolitionsists+&search_scope=Everything&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%2801UMW_ALMA%29%2Cscope%3A%28%2201UMW%22%29%2Cscope%3A%2801UMW_P_UNIT%29%2C01UMW_EbscoLocal%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&vid=UMW&vl(1220243658UI0)=any&highlight=true&queryTemp=SNCC%2F+The+New+Abolitionsists+&institution=01UMW&tab=everything&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=SNCC%2F%20The%20New%20Abolitionsists%20&dstmp=1587391964703 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Boston, Beacon Press Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1964 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 246 p. 22 cm. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context E185.61 .Z49 Bibliography Book https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/37f3a911e3921f015439afd2532fc64a.mp4 cbfeb4019316df6f33a8ee4aca579248 https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/13146d5ecf7c3df7ba9dcc49487acc3d.srt 5387fe6f138ec3500820e9f1b8e38a1d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lectures Description An account of the resource In addition to his Reflections series, the UMW Special Collections and University Archives possessed three recordings of classroom lectures from Dr. James Farmer's Civil Rights Movement class. The James Farmer Project undertook the task of captioning and transcribing these recordings, making them publicly available for the first time. Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:32:15 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound In the sixties, the Civil Rights Movement was essentially a non-violent group. They had Martin Luther King, who was a dedicated pacifist who had accepted nonviolence not only as a tactic but as a philosophy of life, a way of life in principle. Then there were CORE and SNCC, who accepted it as a tactic which would unite pacifists and non-pacifists around acceptance of nonviolence as a workable tactic. Most of the people who were involved in the movement felt that violence was impossible as an alternative to nonviolence in solving the conflict situation of race relations in the United States. There were other voices, however, that did not agree. There was the Nation of Islam, the so-called Black Muslims, led by Elijah Muhammad, and their chief spokesman, best-known spokesman, that is, was Malcolm X. Now, the Muslims did not preach violence per se, not aggressive violence, but they preached self-defense, and their rhetoric seemed to inspire violence. Malcolm thundered forth from platforms all over the country. Attack no man, but if any man molests you, may Allah bless you. And their packed auditoriums would thunder their approval back at him. Yet they did not attack, they did not use the guns which it was claimed they had gathered together. There were others who were even more outspoken: there was Robert Williams down in North Carolina, who proposed violence as a solution to the problem of race. He was a collector of guns and he had many of them there in his home. His home was said to be an arsenal. I never saw it. He was finally charged with kidnapping of a white couple. As the police were about to move in on him they were allegedly held as hostages. And after he had been so charged he left Monroe, North Carolina and finally left the country by the way of the Canada. There were other voices, many less well known than those, who preached violence. Most of them, however, like Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, preached only self-defense. CORE, as I indicated earlier, was not a pacifist organization. We did not try to tell our members what to do when they were on their own, off of CORE demonstrations. They pledged themselves to the CORE discipline of non-retaliation and nonviolence while on CORE demonstrations. But if, let us say, a CORE member were walking down the street and were attacked by someone, there was nothing in the CORE discipline that spoke to what that individual ought to do in reply. That was left to him with his conscience and his God, what he did. This came to a head down in Louisiana, Bogalusa, when some of the black men informed me as the head of CORE that they were organizing to defend their homes. They were organizing a group they called The Deacons for Defense and Justice. Deacons because they were all deacons in their church, their churches and they were to defend themselves, they said, against the attacks of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had made it a practice in Bogalusa as in many other towns in that and other Deep Southern states of going on night rides. And those night rides involved having a caravan of cars loaded with Klansmen driving through the black section of town and then firing their rifles and other guns into the black homes. The blacks, up until then, had not replied with violence. But the Deacons were pledged to to return fire when the Klan fired. They told me that they were not asking for my permission, because it was not mine to grant them my permission. They were simply informing me, since CORE was very active in the town, as in the whole state of Louisiana, and they wanted me to be aware of it. Well, my response was that when they were on CORE demonstrations they must pledge themselves to the usual CORE discipline and stick to it. When they were off of CORE demonstrations, then they were on their own. Well, the Deacons' self-defense ideology appeared to work. The Klan once rode through the black community, firing into homes, the newly organized Deacons For Defense and Justice members got their guns and returned fire, and the Klan drove rapidly out of that section and did not return. That ended the night ridings in Bogalusa, so far as I know. So the Deacons for Defense and Justice were organized, and there were other similar self defense groups organized throughout Louisiana and other states. Now, there was a mood of violence that was beginning to grow even as early as 1964 in the black community. When I had to leave Plaquemine, Louisiana in the back of a hearse, as I told you in a previous lecture, to escape from a lynch mob, riding in that hearse with me was a young CORE member, and at the end of the ride, as we we arrived safely in New Orleans, he said to me: "Jim, we love you dearly, we'll go with you through hell and high water, but if we ever have to go through a night like that again," that night, the black community had been terrorized by mobs, "we will have hardware with us." And it was awfully hard to argue against that. There were other defectors from the spirit of non-violence. Remember that Stokely Carmichael, who now has the name of Kwame Ture, had in the early sixties, been a dedicated nonviolent activist in SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, so that H. Rap Brown who was his successor as a national chairman of SNCC, both of them worked in the Deep South and had gotten their heads cracked too many times by billy clubs, and by mobs, and shed too much blood, and finally came to the point where they rejected non-violence and began calling for violence. There were others of less articulateness, feeling a great frustration. Those were poor people in the streets, who were not members of the Civil Rights Movement, not acting in it, not members of any of the organizations. We must remember that the civil rights organizations, up until the March on Washington in August of 1963, were largely middle-class in membership. We recruited chiefly from churches, schools, fraternal and civic organizations social clubs, and from friends of those who were already members. We did very little recruiting from the streets of the ghetto. The March on Washington was thus a middle-class demonstration. While it cut cleanly across racial lines - there were whites as well as blacks in large numbers there, cut across sectional lines - there were Southerners and Northerners, Easterners and Westerners there. It cut across religious lines: there were Protestants, Catholics, and Jews and the spirit was a warm one, of friendliness and brotherhood. But I repeat, it was a middle class demonstration, because the class makeup of the civil rights organizations, as opposed to the black nationalist organizations, The Nation of Islam's or Black Muslims' and a number of others, the civil rights organizations were basically middle class. We realized that in CORE. We have been, throughout our history, from 1942 up until that time in '63, largely a group of means-oriented idealists, standing outside of the black community, working on its behalf, working for it, to elevate, to solve the problems which afflicted it. But we were not really a part of it. We were not in that community. We realized that shortcoming. It was Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam and other groups which were recruiting from the streets of the ghetto. They were recruiting from the prisons, they were recruiting from among dope addicts and prostitutes and others, and they were reclaiming these people. That was one of the very positive things which they accomplished. They were making them strong family people, moral people. They were stressing what is known as the Protestant ethic: working hard and saving money and so forth, but they were recruiting from the streets they were recruiting the poor the untutored, the illiterate and the functionally illiterate. The ones that most of the civil rights organizations had left out. So I'm sure the other organizations recognized this, too. But I sent it directly to all CORE chapters, urging all of our chapters - we had about, oh, 165 at our peak - urging them to establish their offices in the hearts of the ghetto in the middle of Harlem, the middle of Watts, in the middle of the other ghettoes of the large metropolitan areas, and to begin recruiting from the streets, from the young people there from the poor as well, as from our traditional sources of members and most of the chapters responded to that and began recruiting from the streets. Then the class contact of our organization began to change. We found it becoming less middle-class, less dedicated to the means, the method. More dedicated to the end that is freedom at any cost, and freedom by any means necessary. That tenet became a battle cry. It was therefore not surprising when, in the summer of 1964 the buildup of frustration among youngsters in the inner city led to an explosion of violence. First in Harlem, and then in successive summers and purposes, Watts, Hough, which is in Cleveland, Newark, New Kersey, and Detroit, and those riots were followed by riots of larger magnitude in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This was not a planned thing. I don't think any of those summer riots of which you have no doubt read were planned or organized by anyone. There was no strategy involved, no one sat down in a tent or a smoke-filled room and said, "Now let's have a riot, this is the place to start." The frustration was there, the inner cities were a powder keg in the summer when it was hot and people were out on the streets especially since those youngsters were unemployed. There were no job. And they simply ate away at themselves in their bitter frustration and the frustration turned easily into hatred. This was powder keg waiting to be ignited. The spark that ignited it, in just about every case, was an incident of police action, real or alleged police brutality. Let me tell you as briefly as I can of the Harlem riot. And I saw it firsthand, our national headquarters being in Harlem, in New York City, and so I lived in Harlem at the time of the riot. The spark was the shooting of a black youngster, a sixteen-year-old kid, by an off-duty white policeman. It was a group of youngsters who were teasing and playing with the so-called super, a superintendent of a building, really the janitor, a maintenance man. He was watering what lawn there was there and he would spray water at them, and they would run and yell and finally one of them sneaked up behind him, turned the hose on him, sprayed water at him. Then they dropped the hose and ran. An off-duty policeman, who some said had just come out of a bar, witnesses, eyewitnesses, who had his gun with him, as off-duty policemen often do. The off-duty policeman yelled, "Hey!" The youngster was running away and he stopped and was shot. Shot in the back and the revolver was emptied into thekid. The kid was dead. Eyewitness reports, which we got his affidavits, say that the off-duty policeman then walked away from the body and turned it over with his foot. I'm sure that the kid, whose name was Powell, was dead. But I called a press conference, really, well-covered. And I thought this off-duty policeman should be arrested and tried for murder. He thought I had called him a murderer. I'd come pretty close. I consulted with counsel before I'd made that statement. That was as close as I could come, legally. He sued me, but then he withdrew his suit. His suit was worth something like a million dollars, you know, write a check, maybe? [Classroom laughs.] Don't know whatever good it would do. But he withdrew the suit. One night, while this was still a headline, the Powell shooting, I got a call at two o'clock in the morning from the New York CORE office, which was located in the streets of Harlem. CORE said, Jim, get up here fast. Harlem has gone wild. There's kids throwing bottles and bricks through plate glass windows, bottles and bricks are flying everywhere and the cops are shooting like cowboys. I said, "Live bullets?" They repeated, "Live bullets." Ricocheting off buildings. So I went up there, and surely enough, it was the acrid smoke of guns in the air. And occasionally you would hear a bullet whining as it ricocheted off a building. The streets were fairly deserted, and starting up to the CORE office in Harlem, which was on the second floor, over a storefront, I stopped and I saw a bunch of young black men, oh, late teens, early twenties, walking down the street in the direction of the CORE office. Maybe 50 or more of them. Across the street from them, walking in same direction, were equally as many perhaps more city policemen, the so-called tactical police force of New York. The riot squad. With their battle helmets and large clubs, service revolvers and small firearms stropped to the ankles. They walked along, so this appeared to be two armies, eyeing each other as they walked along. One armed with real guns and live ammunition, the other armed with bottles and bricks. I went up the stairs to the CORE office. The kids stopped against the wall on the other side of the street. They stopped in front of the CORE office and the police stopped just across the street from them. I sent one of the young CORE officers downstairs to mingle with the crowd of kids, to find out what they were talking about, what they were planning for their next move. He came back up very quickly. And you want to know what they talked about? They talked about raiding the CORE office. Because they said you have white CORE members up here. And the slogan, in those terrible days, was "Get whitey." I'll stop for a second, saying, hate is contagious. And the hate that had been blazing on the headlines and the television screens of the Deep South, where heads had been bloodied, where fire hoses had been turned on women, rolled out on kids in the Birmingham demonstration, police dogs released on kids, this hate built up a counter-hate, and since the hate that they saw on the tubes, had read in the paper, was white against black, they produced, then, a black hate against white. They said "Get whitey, get whitey," that became the slogan. So then they said "Thought about raiding the CORE office? They've got white CORE members up there." Well I called a quick meeting of the people there to decide what we're gonna do. First of all, I said, we have to get the white women members of the Harlem chapter of CORE out of this CORE office. There could be a conflagration there. Everybody agreed to that, except the white women members, who said, "we're members, too, we'll stay here." But we overruled. But how to do that, with the kids out there at the front door? We decided that what they should do is have me go out as a decoy. I go out to make a speech to the youngsters. And while their attention's on me, then the women we got out with black male escort to one of the CORE cars parked on the street, and taken home. The white men remained in the CORE office, and the black men and black women. I went down, elbowed my way into the middle of the crowd. The kids recognized me from the TV. They said, "You gonna talk to us, Mr. Farmer, you gonna talk to us?" I said, "Yeah I'm gonna speak." They said, "Well, don't tell us about no non-violence. We don't want to hear that blankety-blank! We don't wanna hear that stuff! No non-violence! Well, I began to speak and they booed. Soon they booed very lustily. I spoke louder and the boos grew less loud. Then I began telling them what we were doing down South to fight the segregation there, they booed even more. They didn't care about lunch counters down South or restaurants there, or hotels, what did they care? That didn't put bread on their table or milk in the mouths of their baby sisters or baby brothers, or stop the roof from leaking, or the plumbing from being stopped up, or the rats from biting the babies. What did they care about what was happening in the South? So they booed. Then I shifted, and began talking about what we were doing in the North. The booing stopped, and they listened more. Then suddenly it occurred to me: why, we met yesterday, we had to meet with the deputy mayor, Screvane, Paul Screvane. Mayor Wagner was out of the country, touring Europe, campaigning for reelection. So we met with Screvane. And then they listened. Their ears pricked up. "Then we made this demand, and this demand, and that demand." Then they began to applaud, at last I had them going along with me and that we will not stop until we get an answer from Screvane. On that, yes, they applauded. And I said, "We will keep it up until we win." Out of the corner of my eye, then, I saw the window of a car roll down and a microphone was stuck out. The next day, on the radio station, every hour, on the hour, they played that brief tape. "CORE Director Farmer, addressing rioters in Harlem." "We will keep at it until we win!" [Laughter in classroom.] "Keep at it until we win." Well, I said that there's only one thing you can do to help. "What is it, Mr. Farmer, what can we do to help?" I said, "Get off the streets and go home." They shouted in unison, "No, we'll go home when them stormtroopers go home. They stay, we stay. They go, we go." Well, another plan came to me. That was a high ideal. Someone whispered, suggested in my ear, and I said, "Cool." "All right, line up behind me, let's march." My plan was to try to turn a disorderly riot into an orderly peaceful demonstration. Best trick you can do. But it was a drastic attempt. They lined up, said, "You wanna lead us, Mr. Farmer, you wanna lead us?" I said, "Yes, I'll lead you. Line up behind me. Line up in twos!" Then I sent a young CORE member across the street to tell the police what we were doing. They'll go tell them what the plan was. We were going to walk into the encroaching tide and try to get them to disperse. Tell them, 'if we pass by the house, drop your weapon and go home." And we started marching. "We want justice, we want justice, we want justice." They were watching. One fellow said, "How many blacks there? Get back and scare them." "We want justice." Wherever we skipped, it seemed to be working. When we turned up to go further north in Harlem, Amsterdam Avenue, Several dropped out, went into those tenement slums. Those walkouts, those vast buildings. We continued to walk. And the police, the tactical force, came up behind us and began shooting guns. The marchers dropped to the ground, dashed behind cars for cover. I almost fought them, I was scared, too. Because bullets were falling on buildings and gliding through the air. They were shooting rooftops and windows. I went to, walked up toward one, to the lieutenant. And four of these kids, kids, I say, nineteen or twenty, surrounded me. These were so called 'young punks.' The underclass. Who people say had no feeling, no compassion. No humanity at all. No remorse. They say they'd put a knife in you as quickly as a butcher would in a side of beef. These four kids came up to me. One stood in front, one on each side, one behind. Shielding my body with their bodies. Covering my head with their hands, trying to protect my head from the flying bullets. Those kids have no feeling, no human feeling? That obviously was not true. They walked with me, this little rank of four around me, as we walked to the lieutenant. We said, "Why did you start shooting?" He said, "You tell those people to stop throwing bottles and bricks at us!" "I didn't hear anybody throwing bottles and bricks until you started shooting." "You tell them to stop throwing bottles and bricks." There probably was... someone from a rooftop threw a bottle. Or a brick. And the tactical police force, not being as well-trained as they were supposed to have been, panicked and opened fire with their small firearms, emptied them, refilled, opened fire again. Well obviously there was no more I could do to stop the riot I went to the CORE office and there we got out some CORE arm bands, orange armbands with C.O.R.E. in blue. Put them on CORE staff members, send them out on the street's stretches to bring in wounded. And there were a lot of wounded. People lying in the gutters, on streets. Wounded from bullets and wounded from blows, billy clubs. And if nurses couldn't bandage them up, they were sent to Harlem hospital. Well, this went on for a couple of more nights, and then it was ended, it died down. I stood there in that room, looking out the window and through the blinds. Hating the hate which I saw, and the hate that had produced it. One youngster who had been brought in on a stretcher, his head bloody, put on the stretcher and one of the white CORE members went over to wash it off to begin to begin the process of bandaging him up. Finally he opened his eyes, looked at him, jumped up and yelled, "What's wrong with - what you got this whitey here for? What's - what are you doing here?" "I thought you trying to help us!" I said, "I am. He's here to help you." "Old whitey can't help us!" The kid, with the blood still streaming down his head, ran back down the stairs. Hate produces hate. It is contagious. Somewhere we have to stop that, it is certain. And that's what the movement was about, too. That's what King was about, and that was the importance of King, I guess. He preached a message of love. The riots ran their course. People soon realized the stupidity of it. Tearing down their own buildings and their own homes and creating a mess without resolving the conflict. But one message was clear, and that was that we would neglect and ignore the poor in our communities at our own peril. The movement then moved more forthrightly than ever before to bring into its midst those who were poor, even the illiterate. And hence the maximum feasible participation of them, of the anti-poverty program which came to be. I think the movement's about to rise again. Frankly I do. I've been encouraged by the demonstrations in front of the South African ministry, the embassy, with the extent to which college students all over the country have involved themselves in, white and black. Where would you expect black students when white students have gone off here and gone to jail. Mary Washington students in jail. In front of the embassy. University students all over the country, they're involved in seeking to get their institutions to divest themselves of investments in South Africa. Now we find more students volunteering to go down to Alabama, and participate in attempts to get more blacks registered and voting in the election, which is in process. Now, that is the dedication of Freedom Summer. 1964. So I would predict that before this decade of the eighties is over, there will be a rebirth of the movement, and a rebirth of the compassion exemplified by the era of Kennedy and King. Thank you. [Applause.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmer Lecture: Militant Resistance and the Harlem Riots Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Farmer Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-03-06 Description An account of the resource Recording of a lecture from James Farmer’s The Civil Rights Movement in the 20th Century class, Titled 'Lecture 040' in UMW Special Collections. Farmer discusses the nonviolence philosophy in the dominant Civil Rights Movement (0:00), more militant organizations (00:58), the distinction between nonviolence and pacifism (3:00), one case of the successful use of self-defensive violence (3:40), and notable detractors from the philosophy of nonviolence (7:05). He then discusses the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement’s lack of attention to the lower classes (8:00). He connects class to the rise of rioting in inner cities in the mid-sixties (12:43) and goes on to describe his personal experience in witnessing the 1965 Harlem riot (14:37). Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Classroom Education James Farmer Lecture Video https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/73eb317a375a4fd7af952be1b277e582.mp4 efc8802a096304fdd393767bfc5db4ec https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/723bcb60ea562bca1f2a96d9d84781ef.srt 1de80ac015f564be15cbfcd7d3058277 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lectures Description An account of the resource In addition to his Reflections series, the UMW Special Collections and University Archives possessed three recordings of classroom lectures from Dr. James Farmer's Civil Rights Movement class. The James Farmer Project undertook the task of captioning and transcribing these recordings, making them publicly available for the first time. Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 53:54 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound This climb, and part of that climb is catalogued in Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up from Slavery, which by the way you should read, if you have not read. Washington is a controversial figure, but indeed most of the important persons and personages in the struggle have been controversial. He's considered far too moderate and too accommodating, but Booker Washington was born in slavery. He was just a few years old, a small boy, in the time of emancipation. And as often happens when people are born during torrential times, they grow up early. They grow up fast, and he became a man quite early, matured soon, quickly. By the time he was twenty, he had already started, had founded a college, a school, an institution which became Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama, and that became his life's work, really, his idea of the kind of education which blacks should undertake as their road toward freedom if not toward equality, their road toward advancement, and that was at once his strength and his weakness. Booker Washington argued that we should cast down our buckets where we were. We should not attempt to become the social equals of whites. He was opposed to social equality and this endeared him to whites, even, indeed, to white Southerners. His famous speech, which I trust you'll have an opportunity to read during the rest of your college career, was his speech in Atlanta. It must have been before the turn of the century, probably around 1890. And that was a speech at a crowded convention hall of people involved in the cotton industry. There were both blacks and whites in the audience, but they were thoroughly segregated. Blacks were over there in one little roped-off section, sitting quietly. Most of the people there were, of course, white. They were planters and large landowners of the great cotton industry. Booker Washington had been invited to speak because his views were those which most of the white Southerners would accept. He was not threatening to it. He was a good speaker, so they tell me, I never had the opportunity to hear him. He was dead before I was conscious of what was going on in the world, and there he electrified his audience - told a nation of blacks, and looked to the section where blacks were seated, to cast down their buckets where they were, the water was good there. And they should seek industrial education. Vocational education, that is. He spoke out against social equality. He said we can be as separate as the fingers on the hand in all things social, but then in all matters of mutual concern and patriotism, we will come together like the fist. And his audience stood and applauded - that is, the whites, who were the bulk of the audience. They stood and they applauded, gave a standing ovation that went on for many many minutes and his speech was interrupted many times with such ovation. And some of the blacks were weeping. Just dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs, probably not really knowing why they were crying. Maybe crying partly because here was a black spokesman who was speaking to a large white audience and they were listening to him. Maybe they were not sure what he was saying, but somehow the whites in their audience felt it was good. Or they, the whites, were not threatened by what Booker T. Washington was saying. He then became the darling of Southern whites and, indeed, many Northern whites. Philanthropic money poured into Tuskegee Institute and it mushroomed in size. This became the symbol of industrial education and vocational education for blacks. It is the same idea, by the way, which led to the birth of Hampton Institute in Virginia. They're the same kinds of institutions. Booker Washington was lionized all over the country. Presidents invited him to the White House to consult with them. He was the only black spokesman who had the ear of the nation, and the ear of the press especially. He had detractors, especially black, and his chief detractor was a brilliant, aristocratic, then-young black intellectual and scholar: Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. The first black to get a PhD from Harvard University. Dr. Du Bois was born up in Massachussetts, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Probably, this family was the only black family in that little town of Great Barrington. He had a brilliant academic record in elementary school and high school. Then he went to Fisk University, a black university in Nashville Tennessee, and that was his first introduction to the race problem, and he observed it and studied it. Then he went up to Harvard, PhD in history, studied sociology and economics as well, then went over to Germany and studied in, studied at Oxford and came back as the most learned black man of the nation had yet seen. He was just a few years younger than Booker T. Washington. And when Washington made that great Atlanta speech of his, Du Bois immediately labeled it the "Atlanta Compromise." And then the debate was on, and the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois raged across the country, with Du Bois arguing that he would reject the notion that blacks should be pointed to industrial education and vocational education exclusively. That he was opposed to the development of a permanent color labor caste, with black people working with their hands and white people working with their brains. Instead, he says blacks should go do academic feats as well, and should become scholars, and the talented tenth of the black community should be the black leaders. And those should soak up as much education as they could in all fields of Arts and Letters, and that was the argument between Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Actually, the press picked it up and made it a question of either/or, either this or that, when really what each one was saying is that his view was that the emphasis be on one kind of education as opposed to the other. Later in DuBois's life, as he was an old man, he pointed out quite candidly that he and Booker Washington were not as far apart as they'd been made to appear. That it was just a matter of emphasis. He of course believed in vocational education, but he believed that we needed at that time in our history to concentrate more on academic education. And Booker Washington believed on the contrary that we should concentrate more on vocational education. Washington was an accommodationist; he felt that he was not going to attack segregated education at all. He was not attacking the unequal status of the races in this country. He felt that theonly way blacks, or Negroes as they were called then, could survive was to accept their role of social inferiors and become the best that they could at whatever jobs were available to them, and if they became so good at those jobs which were available, then the nation would rely upon them, would need them. And furthermore there would be no conflict with the whites because they would not be threatening to the whites. And Du Bois insisted we must be threatening to them, of course, because anything that they have, we too must aspire to. And we must seek social equality, we will seek all things that are available to any other American because we are American citizens. Well, Du Bois, who would seem like an egalitarian, really was not an egalitarian, he was a snob and an aristocrat and an elitist. I'll never forget meeting him for the first time. Well, meeting is hardly the right word. Seeing him and accosting him, more like it. I was 21, and this is 1941, December, right after Pearl Harbor. I was seated in Union Station, the railroad station in Washington DC, just arrived there by train, and before going to my parents' house I had decided to sit there at the station for a while until there were taxis available. The taxis were taken up with men in uniform and their lovers, their girlfriends, their wives, or what have you. Everyone was standing there holding everybody else and people crying kissing and so on and the taxis were all clogged up, and the streets were clogged up, too - so I sat just to wait this out out a while, and I suddenly looked up and here was this unmistakable figure. A short man, meticulously attired in a three-piece suit, and he had on spats - you know what spats are? They go over your shoes, you know, part of your shoes, they cover the place where your shoes and socks come together. He had on spats, he had a gold chain in his vest, and he had a little Van Dyke beard. His head was bald, he walked along with his hands folded behind his back, and looking up as though he was studying the scenery or lost in thought. It was probably the latter. And he walked down the street with measured steps. Immediately, I recognized him as Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. So I smiled, stood in his pathway, and said, "Doctor Du Bois!" and extended my hand. He paused, frowned a bit, reached in his pocket and got his pince-nez. Clipped them on his nose, looked up at me and said, "Let me see. Do I know you?" I shook my head and said no and sat back down. And Du Bois walked on. So that was Du Bois. He was fond of people, but not often. But a great scholar. He wrote his own, I guess, 15 books or so. There are good ones, there are great ones, they are all solid scholarship. One of his best-known works of scholarship with a history of the Reconstruction period entitled Black Reconstruction. It's a massive book. His most famous book is beautifully, artistically written, almost prose poetry. It was one that he wrote as a very young man at the turn of the century, 1903, I believe. The Souls of Black Folk. That's a classic, an undying classic. And you should read if you have not read it. He wrote many other books - Dusk of Dawn, et cetera. Booker Washington pretty nearly controlled money that came into the black community. Before any person receives any cash, any black person receives a grant for any idea that he had from government or philanthropy, Booker T Washington was consulted, and if he said no, that person did not get money. If he said yes, the person did get the money and he built what was called the Tuskegee Machine. That was the machine that dominated the black experience and black leadership for a long period of time. Du Bois suffered from that, and yet he was able to start the Niagara movement and attempted building a protest organization which lasted, oh, just two or three years until the NAACP was set up. And Dubois was one of the originators of the NAACP, that was 1909, and he became editor of the NAACP's publication, Crisis Magazine. Finally, Du Bois was kicked out of that job, he was fired and forced to resign because the NAACP had an official position on an issue and Du Bois was not interested in what the official position of the NAACP was. He was only interested in what his official position was. And so, frequently, the Crisis Magazine took the position which was opposed to that of the organization, and the Crisis Magazine was the official publication of the organization. So, the Board of Directors of the NAACP decided that the official journal of the organization could not take a position that is diametrically opposed to that of the organization. So Du Bois just had to leave, and went down to Atlanta University, that great complex of black colleges and universities - Clark College, Morehouse, Spellman, et cetera. There in Atlanta, called the Athens of black education and was a professor there, and a researcher, until the president of Atlanta University, who was also black, had to get rid of him. It had come to the point where it had to be decided whether he, the president, was going to run Atlanta University, or Dr. Dubois, one of his professors, was going to run it. The Board of Trustees decided the president would run it, so DuBois left again and he moved from job to job in academia and wrote books and lectured around the country but contended that, as he put it, he would constantly assail the ears of the nation with the story of how the strong restores the Negro. And he did that, from platform and with pen. He was radical, and in his later years he was accused of being a communist in the McCarthy period. You are familiar with the McCarthy period, are you? Of the early fifties, Joe McCarthy, who made it a practice of calling people communists, without proof usually. "Within the State Department there are 568 communists!" During that period, Dr. DuBois was charged with being a communist and was finally arrested in New York, handcuffed, his imminence got, Great Scott, great thick ones, handcuffs him on and charged with being an unregistered agent of a foreign power. Can you imagine handcuffs on this little man? You've gotta shoot somebody. This picture was on the front page of the New York Times and DuBois, of course, was just outraged. He was an old man then when he got out of jail, and he called a press conference on his 80th birthday. And said to the press: "Gentlemen, I have called you here to help me celebrate my 80th birthday. I'm going to celebrate that birthday by giving up my citizenship in the United States of America and moving to Ghana, in West Africa, where at the invitation of Ghanian President Kwame Nkrumah, I shall undertake the task of preparing an encyclopedia of Africa. He said, that's the first way I'm asking you to join with me in celebrating my 80th birthday. The second: I want to announce to you, and I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear this, that I am so puzzled by the fear that strikes at the hearts of most Americans when they hear the word 'communism'. The fear that put handcuffs on me and put me in jail. I cannot understand why that is so. In order to find out, I have today, on my 80th birthday, joined the Communist Party." So he said, "I ask you to join with me in celebrating my 80th birthday." Well, it was quite a raucous press conference, I'm told. One reporter said, "Dr. Dubois, one question." "Yes?" "Isn't it a bit pretentious of you to undertake the preparation of an encyclopedia of Africa, a massive job, at the age of 80?" Du Bois shot back, "That is a pigheaded question." He said, "As long as there is a breath in my body, I will continue working and fighting and speaking and writing and teaching what I believe to be right." Well, he died in Africa. The encyclopedia of Africa was never finished. He died in 1963 on the eve of the March on Washington, and that was announced at the March on Washington that W.E.B. Du Bois had died. One of the great tragedies in the cycle of tragedy of his life, whole life, is that is he now lies in the virtually unmarked and unkept little grave. I was talking to a friend a personal friend who was in Ghana very recently, the friend being a tourist with his camera, and he was across the field looking for a certain castle and he stumbled suddenly, fell to the ground, got up and found he had stumbled over the headstone, the grave of Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. Grown with weeds around him. That's most unfortunate, because he was really one of the greatest men that America has produced, I think. In spite of all the warts and the blemishes, he was a fine scholar. Those were truly great men who set the framework for the struggles that were following. The NAACP continued its work of fighting against lynching, trying vainly, it is true, to get anti-lynching legislation. By the turn of the century, there were at least two recorded lynchings per week, more than a hundred per year. There were many others that were not recorded. The NAACP fought unsuccessfully to get such legislation, federal legislation. The thing which served as their greatest obstacle was the concept of states' rights. Many in Congress held that they include not telling the states how to deal with such a problem. As mentioned, that was a matter for the states, and if the federal government tried to establish such a law, it would be a violation of the rights of the states. When lynching did decline around about the forties, many believed that it probably did not decline in numbers but it went underground, as it were. Rather than having screaming mobs abducting the accused and stringing him up to a tree or tying to a post and setting fire to him, the person would simply disappear in the dark of night and the body was found later, maybe much later, floating in one of the rivers, the Mississippi or Alabama. It was nonetheless lynching, but did not fit the classic mold of lynching. But it did decline, it declined gradually. One of the last highly publicized lynchings was that of Emmett Till, young Emmett Till of Chicago.A 14 year old kid who went down to Mississippi to visit his uncle. A fourteen year old Chicago boy, with I think his cousin, went shopping at a country store. And the fourteen year old kid, swaggering like many fourteen-year-old boys, wanted to impress his cousin with the fact that he wasn't afraid of anything. He looked at the lady behind the counter in the country store and whistled at her and, allegedly, rolled his eyes. Whistled. [Whistles]. Well, she reported that to her husband, and her husband and his brother went to the house of the kid's uncle, where he was visiting, at night and took the boy out of bed and killed him, beat him up, shot him, tied weights around his body and dumped him in the river. The wire rope with which the weights were tied around him broke, and the body surfaced and was found. That was one of the last highly publicized lynchings. There are others, the Klan has been revitalized recently, but the NAACP put enormous work in slowing down lynchings, reducing the numbers of them, and it was on the forefronts of other fronts, too. One of the most significant was, of course, its efforts to desegregate the school. At first it was a battle to equalize separate schools, the separate but equal concept, Plessy versus Ferguson. And finally it became clear that separate could not be equal. In fact, the NAACP argued before the court, said that the very fact of separateness made it unequal. The court agreed even though a law school would just state the bill for blacks might objectively be equal to that for whites, in terms of this library, in terms of its professors' training and preparation, in terms of the building's physical plan, it could not possibly provide an equal education because it could not provide the tradition. It could not provide the privilege to its graduates of being alumni of the same institution from which the judge had graduated. The graduates could not go into the judge's chambers and talk to him about old times at the Alma Mater, and they could not compare notes with peers in this profession or from major law schools in the country. And for that reason the separate law schools, though physically equal, could not provide an equal education. So the NAACP evolved in its arguing to the point where it argued that segregation was first stage inequality, and they won in Brown Vs. Topeka Board of Education. Well, prior to that decision, back in the forties, a group of young pacifists, black and white, including me, were studying Ghandi and experimenting with Ghandian techniques of non-violent direct action, nonviolent resistance, including non-cooperation, civil disobedience, willingness to go to jail, willingness to accept the consequences, and we were having sit-ins in 1942, 43, and throughout the forties. That was in an organization known as CORE, The Congress of Racial Equality. We organized similar groups in twelve or fifteen other Northern cities, organized a national organization, and throughout the forties and the fifties CORE was active and winning victories, but they were unsung because there was no television in the forties, the early days. Forties. Television came after World War II, and did not become widespread in use until the fifties. So the movement of nonviolent direct action did not take to the skies, did not take wing, until the Montgomery Bus Boycott triggered by Rosa Parks, this black seamstress, who was tired. She wasn't a crusader, she wasn't trying to start a movement, she wasn't a troublemaker, she was just tired. And she didn't sit at the front of the bus, the Montgomery City Bus, she sat in the back where she was supposed to be. Then a white man got on the bus and the bus was crowded, and he wanted to sit where she was sitting, so he told her to get up and stand so he could sit down where she was sitting. She said no, I'm not getting up. She was tired of getting up. The bus driver told her to get up. She said no. So the police carted her off and arrested her and that started the movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. And Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to the occasion and burst upon the American scene never to be forgotten. A star was born, as it were. And the movement took wing, the imagination of people was captured, throughout the country, all over the world. Youngsters, young black college students inspired by the example of King and having talked with a white merchant in Greensboro, many people are not aware of this. A white merchant, name of Johns, I forget his first name, who had been on the CORE mailing list for quite a few years. He knew of CORE activities. Johns had been trying to get some some students in Greensboro, some black students, to sit in at a Woolworth lunch counter for years. No, no, no. Was the guy crazy or something? But finally, he convinced four freshmen: that's generally not known, but he convinced them. These four freshmen went downtown and made their other purchases in Woolworth's. "Are you ready, man?" "Yeah." "Let's go and get some coffee." The others said, "Dig it." They went over, they, they sat down, they sat not at the end of the lunch counter where blacks traditionally sat where there's a sign saying "Colored," but at the main section of the lunch counter, where there was a sign saying "White Only." They sat there and asked for coffee or whatever it was, a hot dog, and they sat until the place closed and they decided to do it again next day. They called on Dr. Simpkins, a black dentist who was the president of the local branch of the NAACP, for help. And he called CORE because he too knew CORE's work. He called CORE's headquarters in New York and CORE sent one of its two teen secretaries down there and said that he set up an institute to train in nonviolent direct action but the students joined in the city. By this time, the TV cameras were there. The next day, the next day, and the next day. And the crowds of people going to sit in that lunch counter grew, white students in Greensboro joined them. Finally there's no place for anybody else at Woolworth! Everybody there was waiting to sit in at the lunch counter! There were dozens and finally hundreds waiting to sit in at the lunch counter. Oh, it was up and running, and since this was on TV, other black college students throughout the South saw it on the tube and said "Hey, man, look what our brothers and sisters are doing there in Greensboro. What's wrong with us? Let's do it here." And they did. It spread, of course, like the birth of a wildfire. What really broke the camel's back, the camel of segregation at the lunch counter, was the nationwide boycott of the variety stores in support of the Southern students' efforts to be desegregated at the lunch counter. And that brought them to their knees, and they desegregated. Woolworth, in its annual report the following year, reported that the curve of profits had gone down in 1960. They didn't lose money, but the curve, which had been up, that fallen down. And they gave the first reason for that to the nationwide boycott of their stores in support of the desegregation efforts at the lunch counters in Southern stores. Well, the next year I should point out that SNCC was organized out of the southern student cities. SNCC was not really an organization, it was set up to be a temporary thing. In fact, that was its first name: the Temporary Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Finally, they dropped the T and it was just SNCC. And the press gave it the nickname "snick," S-N-C-C. I think they had their tone of the cheek when they called it "snick", like "snake." And SNCC began calling SCLC "slick", to show them what they thought of it. There's a tension between the two organizations that were SNCC and SCLC. 1961: the Freedom Rides. I won't go into details on that, but what started out to be a lonely little idealistic ride of 13 people, roughly half-white, half-black, and the process in which one man so badly beaten he had stroke and had been confined to a wheelchair - ever since that day in May 1961, still in a wheelchair. Another man, also white, was so brutally beaten, he had to have 56 stitches taken in his head, and partly as a result of that beating, I think, he has suffered a series of strokes and is now in a nursing home in very bad shape. Those two men, incidentally, have sued the FBI successfully, because we learned that I sent copies of our itinerary to the president, the Attorney General, the FBI, the ICC, Greyhound, and Trailways before the ride began. The FBI gave these copies of our itinerary to law enforcement offices in the state of Alabama whom they knew to be leaders of the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, the Klan had a warm reception for us at every stop in that state, and on the basis of that knowledge, which we gained from Senate hearings, they sued successfully, and I don't know how much money they got. One of the men sued for two million and the other sued for one million. They didn't get anything like that, but they got a nominal amount for damages. We were victorious. This little group could go no further when some SNCC students joined by CORE students picked up the Freedom Ride in Birmingham, and I rode with them from Montgomery and to Jackson and to Jackson Jail. We filled up the jails of Jackson City, the Hinds County jail, the Hinds County Prison, then the maximum security unit to the State Penitentiary at Parchman in Misssissippi. Well, we were staying in as long as we could, and still filed appeals. That was 40 days of Mississippi law out of the one year sentence. Every day, some new Freedom Riders coming in on virtually every bus, so many more were pouring in. As few bailed out, more poured in. And we won. Missisippi called on the federal government to do something. And Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy as the attorney general, asked the ICC to issue an executive order which he then enforced. The ICC issued an order that on November 1st, 61 all "For Colored" and "for white" signs must come down from the buses and the terminals used by interstate passengers, and would be replaced by signs saying "segregation by race induced in these facilities is unconstitutional. Violation subject to fine and/or imprisonment." This must be posted on all buses used by interstate passengers and all bus terminals similarly used. And printed on all tickets for interstate passengers. We tested the enforcement of that order on the effective date, November 1st, and it was enforced. It was completely successful. The ride was an absolute success. Won its objective. The movement of the early sixties won its objective too, its objectives, which were legislative. The Civil Rights Act of 64 and the Voting Rights Act of 65, the two major legislative components of the movement of the sixties, the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. What we did in the 60s was not to eliminate racism There is still a lot of racism in this country. What we did was to regulate practices, behavior, by the enactment of those laws. Since the prejudice is still there. They threaten to pop out at any time. Whenever the enforcement becomes lax, they bubble up to the top, out a game or when those with the strongest prejudices find a loophole or ways to maneuver around the laws, they do that. And so eternal vigilance is called for. But now, today, our problems are even greater than that. We've got to close the gaps, the gaps in education. We still have kids in the ghettoes and barrios of our cities graduate from high school functionally illiterate, only a reader to a fourth or fifth grade level. Outrageous. Gaps in income, median average income of blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans less than sixty percent of the median income of whites. Health, infant mortality rate, of those nonwhite minority groups, more than twice as high, in some cases much much more than the national average. And the life expectancy gap is widening among males. Worse than that, the life expectancy of the black male has dropped in the past few years, dropped from 64 to 61. We die down before we collect social security. We don't know all the reasons for that, but we can speculate. Part of it's success. More of us have moved into the middle class as a result of the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement, the 60s. New jobs, untraditional jobs move in without the preparation and training for those jobs as we work all the harder trying to keep the guy behind you from getting your job, and trying to get the job of the guy in front you. You know, legal records. The system. And hypertension goes up. Oh, the hypertension rate is much higher in the black community. It's gone up remarkably. So there's been a great rise, rapid rise in strokes and the heart attacks. The cancer rate has gone up too, maybe it's because some of us smoke too much. And the suicide rate has gone up. That too is a part of success people who are in the rat race tend to commit suicide. Not the bottom of the ladder. I remember Dick Gregory back in 1961, and in the Q&A period someone said, "Well, Mr. Gregory, if things are as bad as you say they are black people, quite a little more of you commit suicide, why don't you kill yourself?" Dick said, "Two things: one, we have to spend so much time and energy trying to keep people from killing us, we don't have time to think about killing ourselves. And second," he said, "do you ever hear of a cat jumping up out of a basement window?" I thought that was very perceptive. It's the person who has moved up on the ladder that jumps down to bash his brains out. The guy who's at the bottom can't go any lower, so he doesn't commit suicide, he spends his energy trying to keep alive. One of the other reasons, however, the treatment in the mid 60's to the mid 70's of soul food, which is just Southern food, really, and it's it's greasy fried food and that may taste awfully good, but it's not awfully good for you. There's a lot of cholesterol and a lot of fat and everything else, and we tend to use a lot of seasoning, a lot of salt and other kinds of seasoning which aren't particularly good for you. So there are many reasons for it, but the life expectancy of the black male has dropped. There are indications that the drop has not hit rock bottom yet. Then, finally, we have become painfully aware, that awareness has become a national issue now, of deterioration within certain segments of the black community of the black family. I hasten to say 'certain segments' because one of the errors of much of the publicity of this issue is that it gives the impression that that is THE black family. It is not THE black family. It is a portion of the black family. It is a large portion of the black family of the lower economic classes, but not of the middle classes. The middle-class black family adheres with greater tenacity to the same values that the white family respectfully adheres to. Just about the same as the white middle-class family, but more so. In a way it's an adaption, you might say an imitation, and like most imitations it exceeds the prototype. We get the impression from some of the stories and documentaries that that is the black family. But yet it is of great enough magnitude that we must give time and attention to finding a solution. Nor is the problem of teenage pregnancies a 'color problem' exclusively. Teenage pregnancies are in the white community and the rate of them has been going up. There are one-parent households in the white community, and their rate has been going up, too, not as rapidly as in the black community, but remember that poverty is not as widespread in the white community as in the black community. There is more correlation between poverty and those problems than there is between race and those problems. Yet since they affect those of color, civil rights advocates and leaders must now give major attention to them, otherwise they would be derelict of their duties. Well, now that's kind of a running summary hopscotch, skip, jump over what we've been talking about, or haven't been talking about, or should have been talking about over the past semester. And I conclude by saying that I've enjoyed immensely and have found your questions and comments to be stimulating. Most of you are lower-class, lower class for students. I have to keep reminding myself of that. So I look forward to a great future for you, not only in academia but in life after academia. And indeed, there is life after academia. Thank you. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmer Lecture: Overviewing the Civil Rights Movement Description An account of the resource Recording of a lecture from James Farmer’s The Civil Rights Movement in the 20th Century class. Farmer discusses Booker T. Washington (00:00), W.E.B. DuBois (06:55), the struggle against lynching (25:11), the desegregation of schools (29:08), the early days of CORE (31:20), the Montgomery Bus Boycott (32:39), the Greensboro sit-ins and ensuing nationwide movement (34:23), the formation of SNCC (38:38), the Freedom Rides (31:39), and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts (44:06). Farmer then moves to discuss the continuing struggle against racism (44:32). He addresses continuing racial disparities in education, income, health, and family structure (45:32). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Farmer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .mov Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hist 428 Spring 2020 Classroom Education James Farmer Lecture Video https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/240aec86334bf26b744c352acd1822b6.mp4 7f77a233e3550e0b1e0afdd837cfab5b https://farmer.umwhistory.org/files/original/de63bc5165a4668cb7f8451d6eb8d401.srt 4f34024d0cecc20b3a6d5a0bf7161911 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lectures Description An account of the resource In addition to his Reflections series, the UMW Special Collections and University Archives possessed three recordings of classroom lectures from Dr. James Farmer's Civil Rights Movement class. The James Farmer Project undertook the task of captioning and transcribing these recordings, making them publicly available for the first time. Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Lecture Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Sounds like you had it right, Council on United Civil Rights Leadership. And we just might ask you what that was. And let me repeat what it was, the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership was an organization set up by the heads of the civil rights organizations, it was an umbrella organization. Its members were Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Dorothy Height, John Lewis, and James Foreman, the SNCC, and me. We met roughly once a month in New York City, and its purpose was to provide a forum where the heads of the civil rights organizations could compare notes on a regular basis, discuss and debate tactics, and map strategies. In other words, where we had differences of opinion, sometimes sharp differences of opinion, we would talk those out behind the closed doors of people we were leading. Sometimes we would argue. But that was, if we may use the analogy of warfare, that was the tent and not the battlefield. When we went out on the battlefield, we were united. And the disagreements, the debates, the arguments were kept for the tent, reserved for the tent. So that was the Council of United Civil Rights Leadership, known as CUCRL, where Randolph proposed his March on Washington idea to CUCRL, and the idea was adopted and it was the various civil rights organizations who combined their resources to put on the march. And other groups were drawn in, such as some of the labor groups, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the National Council of Churches, Anti-Defamation League, Catholic organizations, and so on. It was a giant coalition that put on the march. Now I proceed. We'd like you to be able to define integration - what do we mean by integration? So you can give that some thought, between now and examination time. Define black nationalism, too. Among the black nationalist leaders were Malcolm X, that is the best known of them, were Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and before them, of course, there was the late Marcus Garvey. Rap Brown, who followed Stokely Carmichael as national chairman of SNCC, was also a nationalist, black nationalist. [Student: What was his name again?] H. Rapp, R-A-P-P, Brown. Rap Brown was even more militant than Stokely Carmichael was. We didn't talk much about him, of course, in these lectures and discussions. Rap had a very brief tenure in SNCC, SNCC went out of existence under his tenure, and he was arrested, jailed, charged with inciting arson, in Cambridge, Maryland, where he made a fiery speech, no pun intended, proposing that they burn down the city. And when he left, Cambridge would be set afire, parts of it. Cambridge, Maryland. Rap Brown, now, by the way, has changed his name, he has taken a Muslim name and he has joined the Nation of Islam, the so-called Black Muslims. And he owns a grocery store in Atlanta. It was curious, the semester before last, one of my students here decided to write a term paper on H. Rap Brown. And he found out that Brown was down in Atlanta, running a grocery store, a Muslim grocery store. Halal foods, no pork, et cetera, et cetera. So he fetched a long-distance call down there, a man answered. He said, may I speak with Mr. Brown, please? The guy said, "There is no Mr. Brown here." He said, "Well, I'm very anxious to get in touch with Mr. H. Rap Brown, because I'm writing a term paper on him and I'm in Jim Farmer's class at Mary Washington College." And I've decided I want to do a term paper on H. Rapp Brown. The voice on the other end of the line said, "Well, I'm the former H. Rapp Brown, my name is such and such and such and such now." And gave him an interview for about half an hour on the phone. And gave him my regards. I was surprised, because H. Rapp Brown and I were hardly on speaking terms when he was with SNCC. But anyway, those were some of the militants, and black nationalist militants. So you want to be able to define black nationalism, how it differs from integration, and I'd like you to make a stab at defining pan-Africanism, too. It's a term we've mentioned, I don't know that we've discussed it at any length. Marcus Garvey considered himself an Africanist in the 1920s, 1930s. DuBois began a Pan-Africanist movement at one stage in his life. Stokely Carmichael considers himself to be a pan-Africanist now, and is working for a pan-Africanist organization. The Pan-Africanists originally spoke of a 'back to Africa' movement, that all persons of African descent should return to Africa. Now very few of the pan-Africanists talk about returning to the motherland. They talk more frequently about the African diaspora, or persons of African descent scattered throughout the world, wherever they are, considering themselves Africans because of a certain assumed similarity of culture and of heritage. That is what most of the pan-Africanists think now: a unity of all those of African descent. Wherever they are in the world, whether they're in the Carribean, or in Africa, or the United States and the islands of the sea, or wherever. Now, let's see. One of the essay questions probably will be, "What were the..." Oh, this was a good essay question. It'll be very simple. Back to our question. What were the major legislative accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement in the sixties? Well, that's simple. Anybody want to make a stab at it? [Student: "Civil rights act."] Civil rights act of what year? [Students together: 64.] Sixty-four. [Students: Voting Rights Act.] Voting Rights Act. That was what year? [Students: sixty-five.] Sixty-five, that is correct. It also wants you to tell us where and when the non-violent direct action movement for civil rights in this country began. [Student: Greensboro.] Well, actually, no. That's not what we're looking for - in Chicago, in 1942, when CORE was organized. But people did not know very much about that, it did not receive much publicity, but the technique was used from 1942 on. It became popularized in 1956, with the publicity surrounding the great Montgomery Bus Boycott. But we want you to know where it began. It was in Chicago in 1942, with the organization of CORE. It also wants to know where the Southern Student Sit-In Movement began, and when. Greensboro, North Carolina, and 1960.The month, and you won't be expected to remember that, was February. February first, 1960. Greensboro, North Carolina isimportant, and the year, 1960. The Freedom Rides began, took place, in what year?[Students: Sixty-one.] Sixty-one, correct. Montgomery Bus Boycott, what year? [Fifty-six.] Fifty-six, yes. A little in fifty-seven, went over into fifty-seven. Actually, it started in December of 55, very shortly after Rosa Parks was arrested, but 56 would be a good date, 56-57. The objective of the Southern Student Sit-In Movement. The sit-in movement that began in Greensboro, what is the objective?[Student: Desegregate the lunch counters at Woolworth.] Not only in Woolworth, but the other variety stores like Woolworth. That was the original objective, but very soon after it started, it spread to desegregation of all places and public accommodations. Originally it was desegregation of the lunch counters at the variety stores. The objective of the Montgomery Bus Boycott? [Inaudible student answer.] Desegregate what? [Student talking, inaudible.] Sit where you wanted on city buses in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. In other words, desegregation of the municipal buses in Montgomery. The objective of the Freedom Rides? [Student replies.] Yes, desegregation of interstate bus travel, that is, buses traveling from state to state, between states, all over the country. Let me see... Basically, that covers it. I want you to know... I want you to tell us what you think about the success or the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. What were its major accomplishments? What were its limitations or failures? I'd also like you to make a stab at your evaluation or appraisal of the state of civil rights in the United States today. That's opinion. That's opinion. And what would you do in the future? Do you have any questions, not just about the examination, but anything in the area of civil rights? I don't presume that I have all the answers to anything, but at least I'd like to get the questions. You know, in the sixties, I was amazed at the amount of answers I had. I had answers to everything then. But I've forgotten most of it. Now I'm not sure I know most of the questions. But there were lots of them in the sixties. [Student: I'd like to ask, um, for your exam schedules, is it at one time?] The exam schedule. [Student: Yeah.] Um, yes, what is the - [Are you offering it at that one time?] Just at one time. If there are those here, if there's only one person, who finds that most inconvenient, then you can arrange for another time, a better time for that individual for those individuals. Okay? [Thank you.] Any other questions? [Student: I was wondering if you could touch again on the subject of the teachings of Gandhi?] On what?[I was wondering if you could touch on the subject once again of how the teachings of Gandhi were quite influential in the nonviolent movement?]Oh, yes. Well, in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor and immediately after Pearl Harbor, a number of pacifists, including myself, were interested in finding nonviolent solutions to conflict situations. We did not find it enough for us, for our consciences, simply to refuse participation in war. Because to say no to participation in war was a negative act, and we had to do something positive to feel that we were constructive. So we were looking for nonviolent solutions to violent conflict situations. Not only the international scene, but the domestic scene as well. And there were two major problems to be concerned with on the domestic scene: the first was, one, rather than the first, but one was labor and management, labor and industry. And the other was race. My major concern was race. And I began studying the techniques of Gandhi, including Gandhi's writings and what was written about him and especially a book by Krishnalal Shridharani,a disciple of Gandhi's who was then studying in Columbia University. His book, titled War Without Violence, was an analysis of Gandhi's program and methods. Step-by-step procedures as used by Gandhi. Well, this small band of pacifists in Chicago and New York, chiefly in Chicago then, began studying Gandhi. And I wrote two memoranda to A.J. Muste, who was head of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a religious pacifist organization for which I worked at the time. In 1941 I began writing the memos, completed the first memo in early 1942. I sent these memos to Muste, proposing that the F.O.R, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, sponsor the establishment of an interrracial organization using Gandhian techniques of nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, noncooperation, jail-going where necessary, and filling up the jails where necessary, in an attempt to bring an end to racial segregation and other forms of racial discrimination in this country. The Fellowship of Reconciliation's national council, which was its governing body , discussed the two memoranda and decided not to sponsor such an organization but to authorize me as its traveling race relations secretary. Part-time, fifteen dollars a week. And that was poor pay even in those days. Supposed to be part-time but it's actually a lot more full-time. More like full-time. They agreed that they would continue paying my salary, fifteen dollars a week, and allow me on their time to set up a pilot project along the lines which I had outlined in the memos. In one city, Chicago. And then they would determine, after a while, whether to sponsor it or not. After the pilot project was set up. The pilot project was the first chapter of CORE. In the course of the next year, I traveled around the country for the F.O.R., and in those travels organized about a dozen other organizations, like the Chicago Committee of Racial Equality, and then the next summer we called a conference of those organizations, and set up the national CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. So that was the connection between Gandhian technique and the civil rights movement in this country. Now, to repeat what I'd said earlier, we had no publicity. Though we were making successful use of technique of nonviolence, this was prior to the advent of television. Television was a post-World War Two development. Actually, it was not even in homes here until, well, I guess the early fifties. We had no television coverage, very little on the radio. Very little in the written press. Perhaps there would be a small item on the back page of a local paper such as the Chicago Tribune, saying that yesterday a half-dozen nuts and crackpots sat down in this restaurant until they were served or thrown out, whichever came first. But that was all. So a nonviolent movement did not take to the skies. Not until Dr. King with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1956. Television coverage and charismatic leadership captured the imagination of people not only in this country but all over the world. And the movement was on wings, then. It was after that, several years later, that the Southern Student Sit-in movement began, inspired in part by the example of Dr. King in Montgomery, the technique of nonviolence. And the CORE Freedom Rides followed a year later. 1961. So the movement was well on the way then. Other questions? [Student: Do you think part of the lack of publicity was because in the early forties we were in a world war and it was the biggest news of the time, bigger than anyone?] Of course. And people were not inclined to listen to nonviolence in a time of war. It sounded like a bunch of nuts, you know? People were talking about nonviolence, don't strike back, when we were fighting for our lives. Yeah, thank you, you're quite right, it was very annoying. Very annoying.[Student: Sometimes something is so important, the most important thing that's going on, they're gonna want publicity.] True. Yep. Whatever's bigger than you in someplace else, publicity-wise, you're dead. You're absolutely right. [Student: What do you see as your failures in the movement?] Failures? [Yeah, what are its limitations?] Our limitations... yeah. There are many; we left untouched some vital areas, such as residential segregation, very important, very. The movement, per ce, did virtually nothing on that. Martin, Martin Luther King, Jr., began moving in that direction in 1967 in Chicago. His efforts there were a failure. And he was literally astonished at the amount of prejudice and outright hostility and hatred that he encountered in the city of Chicago. He marched in Chicago and marched in Cicero or Cairo. Dr. King had grown up in the South and done most of his work in the Deep South, and had come North to get support for his efforts in the South. Financial support, moral support, et cetera. Here he was marching in the North, not in the South. And he was astonished by deeply-rooted racism in the Chicago area. He was pelted, the marches were pelted with stones and sticks and eggs and everything else, and obscenities were shouted at them as they went by, and police had to protect them as mobs gathered. Finally, in what I consider the three AM of his soul, he blurted out, "The people of Mississippi wanna learn how to hate? They oughta come to Chicago." He found more hatred there, he thought, than he had seen in Mississippi. Well, we did very little on housing, almost nothing. We did very little to try to counteract racism itself. We were attacking the effects of racism, the structures that racism built up to protect itself. Segregation, for instance. But for the prejudices themselves, we did virtually nothing. Another weakness of the movement was we did no long-range planning. We should have. But our excuse for not doing it was that we were crisis-oriented, we were constantly confronting emergencies and crises. And couldn't find the time to indulge in the luxury of thinking and doing long-range planning. As a consequence, when success in terms of achievement of the short-term goals - Civil Rights Act of 64, the Voting Rights Act of 65, came upon us, we were caught without programming for the future, what to do after we get the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. What were the problems likely to be? We should have thought at the time. Several times, in CORE, I scheduled think sessions where we planned to pull the entire CORE staff in, out of field, at some camp, out in the woods, away from the telephone, for some extended period of time, maybe two weeks. We would have scholars there with big baseline data so this wouldn't simply be batting the breeze, but strategy sessions. And we would talk about what the problems were probably going to be, in 1970, 1980, 1990. The year 2000. And how we can deal with those problems. Trying to anticipate the obstacles that would arise. How we should be getting to prepare our youngsters for those jobs. What ought to be done, you know, futuristic thinking. Futurism. But we didn't do it. I arranged a schedule and had everybody put it on their calendars, but invariably, before the dates rolled around, some emergency would arise. A CORE member would get jailed, or get killed down in Mississippi, or we'd have three thousand people in jail in Greensboro, North Carolina. And it seemed obvious to us then. We could not indulge in the luxury of thinking but I think the movement is paying a penalty for not having done any longterm planning. So now there is a lack of unity among civil rights organizations because there is no clear and united sense of direction and objective. There is nothing comparable to CUCRL, the Council On United Civil Rights Leadership, today. The issues, granted, are much more complex than they were in the sixties. But even so, it should be possible to get some unity to the point of union, so that there can be concerted action on them. So those are some of the limitations, as I see. Some are pages of omission, and others shortsightedness. Yes? [Student: Some are saying that the President's administration is trying to turn back time... that is, trying to reverse some of the achievements made during the Civil RightsMovement. Your comment? Well I agree with that, quite, I think that is true. His administration is trying to do that. I hope that I will not offend those who are supporters of President Reagan, I respect him as an individual and as a person, but I disagree with him strongly. During the sixties, Mr. Reagan was opposed to the Civil Rights movement, sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, and he said so in no uncertain terms. While the Civil Rights Act was up for debate in Washington, he spoke out several times in California against it. He thought it was a mistake, he thought it was an infringement on the rights of the businessmen who man restaurants and other places of public accommodation for the federal government to get in and cull the divide by telling them who they could serve and who they could not refuse to serve. But he was opposed to it. And it has been my feeling, and the feeling of many other civil rights activists, that since he's been president his Senate is trying to undo what has been done by the Civil Rights Movement. In a number of ways, the Voting Rights Act is an example. When the Voting Rights Act was up for renewal and extension, he was opposed to it and said so. He wanted it to die right then. We don't need it anymore, it served a useful function but that time, its time, has passed. Which of course was the same point of view held by the segregationist Strom Thurmond. Who took the lead in Congress in trying to get the ball rolling on letting the Voting Rights Act die. But we managed to mount such a public relations campaign to bring political pressure there on Capitol Hill: letters, and telegrams, and phone calls, and rallies, and marches, that they saw that ending the Voting Rights Act was not gonna fly politically. So then they adopted a new strategy and that was to change it, amend it. So that in order to establish discrimination, you would have to prove intent to discriminate. In other words, the effect - if the effect is discriminatory - that didn't matter. You had to prove that that was their intention. Well, of course we know in a long history of civil rights activity that it's virtually impossible to prove intent. There you're being asked to read a person's mind. The gentleman intended, she intended. You're being asked to go into the closet with them and to pray to their god. They talk to their conscience, their conscience talks to them. So you can't tell what they intended, you can only tell the effects of what they do. In my opinion. They finally dropped that, the pressure that we founded was sufficiently great. So the bill went through, the extension went through, and the President signed, albeit reluctantly. Now, the Justice Department under Ed Meese and Bradford Reynolds is bringing [Continued in Part 2.] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Farmer Lecture: Exam Review and Q&A (Part 1) Subject The topic of the resource Farmer, James, 1920-1999 Description An account of the resource First part of the recording of a lecture from James Farmer’s The Civil Rights Movement In The 20th Century class, which has been split in half by the James Farmer Project for upload space. Originally titled Lecture 038 by Special Collections. Farmer begins by reviewing for the upcoming final exam, discussing the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (0:00:00), the March on Washington (1:44), figures and movements in black nationalism (2:46), and pan-Africanism (5:55). He and the class then review the major legislative accomplishments and movements within the Civil Rights Movement (8:08). At 13:22, Farmer asks the class if they have any questions, either about the exam or about the movement. He discusses the influence of the teachings of Gandhi on the nonviolent movement and the origins of CORE (14:37), then addresses CORE’s early lack of publicity in relation to the Second World War. Farmer then discusses what he sees as the Civil Rights Movement’s limitations (22:35). Then, at 29:25, Farmer begins to answer a question about the Reagan administration’s attempts to dismantle the work done during the Civil Rights Movement. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Farmer Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Mary Washington Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-04-22 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource HIST 428 Spring 2020 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright is retained by Special Collections and University Archives, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington. This item is available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Items may not be reproduced or used for any commercial purposes without prior written consent from the University of Mary Washington. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource .MP4 Language A language of the resource English Classroom Education Lecture