JOHN STEWART: We have a little different setup this afternoon. I’m John Stewart, Director of Education at the Kennedy Library. And I want to welcome all of you to our program this afternoon. We’re in for a treat for the next hour and a half or so.
A couple of announcements. Number one, there will be a reception after the program. There’ll be some coffee and tea and cookies and punch, so hopefully you can all stay and continue the discussion in the lobby.
Secondly, as we always say, we urge you to pick up these fliers. We have a lot of these fliers out on the table. And please, pick up a bunch of them and pass them out to your friends and neighbors, and post them in your offices. There are, as you can see from the schedule, three more sessions in the series this spring. A week from next Tuesday, we’ll be talking about the media and civil rights. Then there’s a wonderful program on Boston coming up the last Sunday in April. And then on April 19th, we’re having a program on religion, the churches and civil rights. We’ll be sending out a postcard announcing the speakers on that program very, very shortly. So please, take some of the fliers and pass them out to your friends.
Also, if you’re not on our mailing list-- we have a mailing list of people who regularly receive copies of all of our announcements of programs-- and if your name is not on that mailing list, please fill out a form and leave it in the box, and we’d be happy to add your name to that list.
The other day I was re-reading, as I’m sure some of you do occasionally, Martin Luther King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” which as we all know was published 35 years ago next month. And it is absolutely a remarkable document. You know, we have all read a lot of books about the civil rights movement, and very, very long histories of what happened 30 or 40 years ago, but it seems to me that Dr. King in these 14 or 15 pages captures the essence of what was going on better than these volumes of histories about the civil rights movement.
The letter, as you recall, was addressed to his fellow clergymen. And it was in effect a response to a plea that had been made to Dr. King to sort of slow things down, to be a little more moderate in the demonstrations, to pursue negotiations more aggressively in Birmingham, and to avoid some of the nasty confrontations that were taking place all over the South in 1963. And Dr. King talks in a very, very moving way about the philosophy of nonviolence, of accepting blows without retaliation, and of enduring the ordeals of jail.
And he speaks of the timeliness, which I thought was very, very important, of acting right away, of not waiting until conditions were exactly right and the prospects for success much greater. He said, quote, “We have waited for more than 340 years for our Constitutional and God-given rights.” And then in this statement, after citing a long series of examples of the indignities suffered by black people, he concludes, quote, “There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, Sirs”-- again, he’s addressing his fellow clergymen-- “I hope, Sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
Dr. King then calmly and rationally points out the justification for violating an unjust law, which is a very crucial part of his whole statement. And he says that you have to, in violating unjust laws, you have to do it lovingly and openly and with a willingness to accept the penalties. I think we can all agree that we’ve made tremendous progress in America since 1963. And many of, if not most of the segregated conditions that led to the revolution that Dr. King led have been, in fact, alleviated, but not obviously totally removed.
Yet it seems to me that Dr. King’s statement in many, many ways is as relevant today as it was 35 years ago. For it is, in essence, a very profound and humble plea for the kind of community wisdom and social and economic justice and sort of basic concern for one another that is lacking in so many areas of society today. The study of history-- and I’ll conclude with this one point-- the study of history can do amazing things for us. Learning about the civil rights movement, as we’re all trying to do this spring, constantly reminds us of not only the bravery and dedication of the people who made it happen, including our two guests today, but it’s a very, very helpful lesson that, it seems to me, almost forces us to think deeply and seriously about the injustices that confront the world today.
One of our major problems today, I think we can all agree, is the apathy and indifference of so many people, and the way that so many people around us-- we see it all the time-- are quite satisfied with their own condition and essentially say they don’t really care about the condition of others. The civil rights struggle, I think, is sort of like a lonely bell tolling in the night to remind us that we all have an obligation to do much better in that. So I would urge you to re-read Dr. King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” at least once a year, if not twice a year. It’s an absolutely wonderful statement, and while we all think we know because we’ve all read it in the past, I think it’s very, very helpful to re-read it and re-read it every once in a while.
I would like now to introduce Donna Cotterell. Donna is the Coordinator of the Kennedy Library Civil Rights History Project, this program that’s been put together, was actually put together almost a year ago to plan the programs that the Kennedy Library is having this spring. And Donna will introduce our guests, and then they will proceed. And as I say, after the performance, we’ll have a reception and we can talk and enjoy ourselves further. Donna Cotterell.
[applause]
DONNA COTTERELL: Good afternoon. I am pleased to present to you two wonderful gentlemen who, when you listen to them, it’s like listening to a history book. Mr. Charles Neblitt is one of the original Freedom Singers. And till this day, he still does perform with them, with students, as well as internationally. He is the first elected Black Magistrate in his county, Logan County, Kentucky. He was born and raised in Robertson County, Tennessee, and moved to Carbondale, Illinois as a teenager, and went to school there, college there, and got involved with SNCC in ’61, ’62. And from then on, became a fighter in the movement.
And then Mr. Hollis Watkins will be joining him. And Mr. Watkins got involved with SNCC when he was a teenager in 1961 in Mississippi. He was born and raised in Mississippi, still lives in Mississippi till this day, and is still involved with voter registration in Mississippi. The name of his organization is Southern Echo. And he is the President. So enjoy the performance.
[applause]
CHARLES NEBLITT: Good afternoon. I was in Boston years ago in the early ‘60s. And Boston had a movement going on here too. Anybody remember that? My name is Charles Neblitt. I got in the movement at an early age. And one of the reasons why I got involved in the movement was because I heard stories of my parents and my grandparents about slavery. And in fact, my mother’s grandmother-- she remembered her. She died in the ‘50s. I think she was like 100-- and they said she had to be about 120- some years old because she was a teenager, she said, during the Civil War.
So they’d tell us a lot of stories. And I always knew that I was going to get involved in terms of alleviating some of the things that we were going up against. It seemed like everything that happened was there to take away my humanity. I was being dehumanized. Every time I would look around and see that I had no justice under the law, you see, and I had no rights that any white people had the right to respect. And I was just there, and I was trying to figure out what is this, as a child?
And I remember… Anybody here remember Emmett Till? Alright? I was about his age. And when he was lynched down in Mississippi, and we got an opportunity to see the photographs of that body in Jet magazine, it was a chilling effect. It just created a chilling effect on me that told me that that could happen to me. That was me, and nothing was going to be done about it.
After that, I saw some people down in Birmingham, Dr. King and some people down in Birmingham, in the ‘50s. And they had a movement going on down there, the first time in my life I’d see the masses of black people standing up for their rights. And it was like I had been born again. Something happened to me, it changed me. I saw it for my own eyes. I saw other people who thought the way I was thinking. And I know there was nothing that was going to keep me out of the movement. And when I got a chance to get involved in the movement, I did.
And believe me, it’s a lot of things that you have to go through, a lot of things you have to consider. You got to remember at that time, going to jail wasn’t looked upon as anything nice. If you go to jail, that little girl you was thinking about down the street, the parents said, “No, no, no, that’s a jailbird. You don’t talk to him.” It wasn’t popular going to jail. You got to understand, again, if you got involved in the movement, you had to think about were you ever going to get a job? Would you ever be allowed to go back to school? All of those things had to come into the minds of the students. Those are the things.
And we do a thing called… I was reading the Bible one time about the water, what’s in the water. And all of that was in that water. And if you look at it, you had Bull Connor in that water. You had a chance that you’d never get another job in that water. You had the dogs. You had all of these things. You had apathy. You had hatred. You had everything in that water. But in order to get my freedom, I had to get across to the other side.
That’s why you have to understand that was young people who made those decisions. Young people. A lot of young people made those decisions. I’m talking about 15, 16, even 14-year-old, 18-year-old young people were the ones that made the decisions to get out of their own little lives and fight for their freedom. And we had to get in the water. We had to take risks.
And it’s the same thing today. We have to take risks. Because a lot of us know right now a lot of things we need to do to deal with this problem that we’re involved in today. Racism hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still with us. But we’re going to have to make up in our minds if we are going to walk, step up in that water. Whatever’s in there, we got to step in there, in order to deal with that problem, because if we don’t deal with that, it’s going to deal with us eventually. This country will not stand with the situation we find ourselves in now.
So we’re going to sing a little song. I want you all to sing it. How many of you know a song called “Wade in the Water?” Alright.
[singing]
HOLLIS WATKINS: As Donna said, I’m Hollis Watkins, and I’m from Mississippi. And I grew up in a time when things were extremely turbulent in Mississippi. We couldn’t have meetings like this. Everybody in here would have been arrested, ‘cause black and white didn’t get together like that. I grew up at a time when black and white children could not go to school together. There were no public libraries for black children to go to, very few books in libraries that were in the schools.
Black men could get arrested for looking at a white woman, not only arrested, but beaten and killed. At this particular time, there were no black elected officials in Mississippi at all, no black elected officials. Less than four percent of all of the blacks that was of voting age were registered to vote. So the times were very hard.
Black folks, if they went downtown shopping, they couldn’t have the privileges like the whites. You know, you take your little white kid in and she says, “Momma, I need to go to the bathroom.” She says, “Okay, well, I’ll ask the store people, and you go right on and use the bathroom.” If the little black kid says, “Well, Momma, I need to use the bathroom,” she says, “Wait a minute, baby. Hold it. Come on, let’s go.” ‘Cause she had to go back home, or either to the black part of town to use the restroom. They were not there for black people.
So these are how some of the conditions were. But thanks to the almighty and to those who decided that a change should come about, mostly young people, because that’s important for us to know and understand that the vast majority of people that was involved in the civil rights movement were young people. They had the aid and assistance of a few older people working with them.
Decided to stand up for what they knew they had a right to do, and fight for it. Standing up fighting for that right led many of us into jails, led many of us into situations where we were beaten, had police dogs sicced on us, the water hose turned on us. I know some of you say, “Well, what’s the big deal about a water hose?”
But those things carry a lot of pressure. They come up there with that thing running, and they turn the pressure up, and they hit you in the breast or stomach with that. And it would just take you through the air. Whoosh. Fifteen to twenty feet further, you would be dropped. That’s the kind of pressure that was in those hoses that they put on young people who were just trying to get black people registered to vote, who was just trying to make it possible for black people to be able to go into restaurants and eat.
As the time began to improve, many of them cut a hole in the back of the restaurant where black folks could come and order a hamburger, hot dog. You’d walk up and say, “I’d like to get a hamburger please.” They tell you what it is, you pay them the money, and they close the window back down.
And you’re standing there waiting for your burger, and you don’t know what’s happening. It’s taking so long. You said, “I wonder if they had to go kill the cow,” is what you’re saying because it’s taking so long. But later on you find out that even though you have paid for it, there were white people that were coming in the front, and no black person would be served until they had served all of the whites that were sitting in the place.
These were how some of the conditions were. So I’m thankful that a number of young people in particular decided to take a stand and do something about those conditions. And just as young people stood up then, young people can, should stand up today. And we the older folks should give them the opportunity to actively participate in this process as equals so that we can continue to build on the foundation that was laid.
We used to invite people to come into the process. See, we use singing to help us to expel fear, use singing to motivate people to come in and be a part of the process, you know, to throw off whatever the weights were that they were carrying on their shoulders. And one of the songs that we used to sing that kind of invited people to come into the process was a song that we call “Get On Board, Little Children. Let’s fight for human rights.”
And we said “children,” not talking about young people, but we knew this fitted everybody, because everybody is somebody’s child. So we’re talking about all of you who is someone’s child, come and get on board, and let’s fight for human rights. Now, I’m going to invite all of us today to join in and be a part of that, and sing that song with me.
Now I know some of you says, “Well, I don’t know it.” The thing that’s so good about most of these songs is they’re so easily learned. I’m going to do one demonstration, and then we’re going to have everybody singing it. And we’re going to kind of listen to see if you got it. But this is the demonstration. And I want everybody to be able to say--
[singing]
WATKINS: Now, let’s see if this group over here got it. Let’s see if you got it.
[singing]
WATKINS: I think they got it. Let’s see about the middle aisle here. [singing]
WATKINS: I know this brother right here got it. Let’s see about this aisle.
[singing]
NEBLITT: You got some men out here? Alright, we want to hear you singing. Here’s what you’re going to sing.
[singing]
WATKINS: Alright, now, we’re going to do this thing. We’re going to get on with it.
[singing]
WATKINS: Now, another thing too, you see, ‘cause this is not the kind of performance that we’re used to doing, so it’s alright to clap your hands. Sometimes that makes it feel a little bit better. So just because you don’t see nobody else, I know some of us are wanting to do it, but we got a little fear, and says, “Well, I don’t know what they’ll think about me if I clap my hands.” Overcoming fear. So now, if you feel like clapping your hands, then you put it together, let’s do it.
[singing]
WATKINS: Let’s give us children a hand. Everybody get on board, because see, if I’m on board, and you’re not on board, or if you’re on board, and I’m not on board, then the balance is not there. We’re going in different directions. And I know a lot of us hold back and don’t want to get on board, ‘cause we’re scared. I know some folks that says, “Well, I ain’t scared of nothing.” I’m really scared of them folks. ‘Cause they tell me right then that they’re not human.
I know it’s alright to be scared. We were scared a lot of times in many different situations, but we have to overcome fear. And when I talk about overcoming, I mean, don’t allow your fear to keep you from doing what needs to be done. You overcome it that way. And we’re kids, we’re scared to death, many times much scareder (sic) than these young folks that just came up, see.
That shows that young folks, hey, they ready. That shows right there that they’ve never been a part of this, never probably seen me before, but they didn’t have no fear coming up here and joining me and Chuck. Hey, they had overcome it.
And we had a song that we sang that helped us to overcome fear. And we had a little argument about it ‘cause we called the song “Ain’t Scared of Nobody ‘Cause I Want My Freedom.” You know, some of the more educated folks said, “Well, that’s not good English.” We said, “Well, this ain’t really about English, you know what I’m saying?” This is really about conveying a message. This is really about communicating. So if we can just agree that we’re going to communicate, we can do this thing.
So we want you to join in with us again. And we’re going to do this thing, “Ain’t Scared of Nobody ‘Cause I Want My Freedom.” And I know you’re saying again, “Well, I don’t know it.” You learn it just like that. I know, they just proved it. They’re going to learn this and we’re going to do it even better than we did the other one, even though it was excellent. Little demonstration.
[singing]
WATKINS: Let’s see about this aisle again. Let’s see where we are. [singing]
WATKINS: Right here, the middle section. [singing]
WATKINS: Hey, movin’ along. What about this one? [singing]
WATKINS: Now, I think we’re all ready. But see, we’re going to do this one a little bit different. Now, for one person over here, who overcome their fear and ain’t scared of nobody, I want you to think about a verse that you’re going to add yourself. I want the same thing for people right here, and the same thing for this aisle. So we’re going
to sing two or three verses, and then we want someone over here to stand. And I’ll come over with the mike and join you and we’ll add that verse. Okay? Same thing here. We’re getting this thing going. We’re going to do it like we used to do. Alright? Are we ready?
[singing]
WATKINS: Keep your hands going. Just keep ’em going like that, see? Now it’s time for someone over here who has overcome fear to stand up and we’re going to put a verse in there for this side right here. Oh, we got one over here.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] I’m going to love who I want ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
WATKINS: Alright.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] I’m going to face those dogs ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
WATKINS: You mean all of the people that have overcome is on this side? Oh no!
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] Ain’t scared of Jim Crow ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] Going to walk with the Lord ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] Going to keep the spirit going ‘cause I want my freedom. Going to keep the spirit going ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] We’ll sit at Woolworth’s, ‘cause we want our freedom. We’ll sit at Woolworth’s ‘cause we want our freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] We’ll never forget, ‘cause we want our freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] I’ll speak the truth ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] Going to stand up for my right ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] Hoses, bricks and bats won’t stop my freedom.
[singing]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] The freedom will set me free.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: [singing] I’ll never give up ‘cause I want my freedom.
[singing]
WATKINS: Now, we need to sing that one again, ‘cause most of you didn’t hear it. The sister said, “I’ll never give up, ‘cause I want my freedom.” Let’s do it.
[singing]
[applause]
NEBLITT: A lot of things happened in the movement. We had a problem with the war. One time I was thinking about being a pilot. Just going in, I thought I’d be like a Dr. J or a Michael Jordan in the air. You know, just for the fun of it, you know. But anyway, I changed my mind when I learned more about war, the kind of things that we got ourselves involved in.
In Danville, Virginia, there was a soldier boy who came home on leave, and he came to Danville. There was a movement going on there. And his sister was on the picket line. And he looked at her, and he says, “You know, when I come back, I’m going to join you on this picket line.” So he did. He came back. He got on the picket line, and the police saw him on the picket line with his uniform on, and the picket line. And they snatched him off of that picket line. They threw him in jail. They did some horrible things to him.
And he even went down to McNamara at that time. And one of the things he told Secretary of Defense McNamara, he said, “Look”-- they wanted him not to do that-- he said, “I’m an American fighting man.” He said, “I’ll defend this country as long as I can.” He said, “If I can defend it overseas, then you’re going to have to set my people free.” So a young man named Matthew Jones, they call it “Demonstrating GI.” Now, you’re going to help me sing this one too. Now, all you got to sing is--
[singing]
[applause]
NEBLITT: You know, we had problems. One of the problems we had were people with fear. And I had problems with ministers, especially with black ministers who were scared that their church was going to get blown up if they get involved, and all this kind of things. People said we didn’t trust people over 30. Said when you got over 30, you’re finished. So when I got to 30, I pushed it up to 31.
But anyway, we called people who wouldn’t participate, we called the guys, we called them men of the towns. Anybody know what we called the women? Nervous Nellies. But anyway, a friend of mine wrote this song trying to understand this guy. And I’m going to do this little song. And it’s called “Uncle Tom’s Prayer.”
[singing]
[applause]
WATKINS: As we go through the process, we would have talked about not being afraid of anyone. We had invited everybody to get on board and become a part of this process. And still you see folks hanging back, not coming on board, not being a part of it. So you’re wondering, you got questions. So you decide to send them a message through a song. You say, “Well, I’m going to send them a message.” I’m going to sing this song to them to let them know a little bit about who I am, where I’m coming from, and try to get some idea as to where they are in the process. And we would do it by singing this song, of asking people very specifically, “Which side are you on?” And I want you to join in with us in singing, “Which side are you on?” Let’s see if we can do this real quick, and say--
[singing]
[applause]
NEBLITT: You know, it’s very seldom we travel around. I’d like for Judy to stand up, Judy Richardson. She’s a SNCC Field Secretary. She was down through all of that. Judy. Yeah, Judy’s been to jail.
She was there. And another thing too, she reminded me of something that a lot of women in that movement hasn’t gotten the credit they deserve, the role that they played in the movement in the South.
‘Cause I believe that. See, SNCC women were our sisters. We was the brothers, and they were our sisters. We knew we had the toughest sisters in this country. They would go to jail. They knew how to take care of themselves. And they were tough. They had courage. And a lot of times they had to do some things that we would think about doing. But we just want to give the credit to the women that was involved in that movement. And I think it’s appropriate.
I’d like to say right now if it weren’t for the music, I don’t think there would have been a movement. There wouldn’t have been a movement. You know, the music in that movement, we use it as an organizing tool, and as a motivating force. The thing is it’s something that we could do that we could really come together with. We could deal in the same spirit.
I’ve seen music in churches, and I wish I could do one of common meter hymns that everybody would get involved in, if you heard it, you know, this amount of people in here would make this place shudder singing one of those. And everybody would put themselves into it, and sometimes the churches would just move. The spirit would be so high, you could cut it with a knife. The spirit would be so high, people would walk out of that place, and walk over a dog. It dispelled fear. The music dispelled a lot of fear.
One of the things that… There’s this guy, this white guy in jail. We used to tease him because he couldn’t sing. And another thing too, there was a lot of white people in that movement. Don’t think there wasn’t a lot of white people participating in that movement in the South. And I’ve seen a lot of them get worse beatings than I would have gotten because they were white with us.
So you had a lot of white people, white students participating in that movement. You also had some local white people who would do what they could. But if they were caught helping out that movement, you knew what would have happened to them. But anyway, they did little things. So you had a lot of people involved.
But Bob Zellner, he was in jail one time. And we were singing songs, ‘cause most of the tunes that we sing, a lot of them came from gospel. And we found out that a lot of them was freedom songs anyway. A lot of songs that we had dismissed because we didn’t like them because they were old-timey. When we got involved in the movement, we found out, hey, these people had a thing going on a few hundred years ago. This song we’re going to do now is one he started.
He got up that morning, and he said, “Hey fellas!” “What’s happening, Bob?” He said, “I got it.” “What you got, Bob?” He started this song called “Woke Up This Morning, My Mind Stayed on Freedom.” You might know it as “Woke Up This Morning, My Mind Stayed on Jesus.” But we’re going to do that, “Woke Up This Morning, My Mind Stayed on Freedom.”
[singing]
WATKINS: We’re going to pause right here for a few minutes because there may be some of you in the audience that might want to ask us a few questions. So we’re going to take a few minutes to entertain a few questions that you might have. So if there is someone in the audience that has a question, we want you to ask it. And we’ll take a few questions. And then we’ll come back and sing some more.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...(inaudible)
WATKINS: Ms. Hamer was a born leader. When we first met Ms. Hamer, she already had her own choir, and was singing, very active in the church. We were introduced to Mrs. Hamer by Amsley (?) Moore who was from Cleveland, Mississippi. Mrs. Hamer was from Mississippi. So he told us, he says, “You just got to meet this woman. You just got to meet her. She’s one of the most dynamic women I’ve ever seen.”
So we met Mrs. Hamer, and we talked with her, told her about what we were doing. And she said it seemed interesting. She said she’d like for us to come by her house sometime. And we talked further about this, because when we first met her, we met her at a church where she and her group were singing. And even then, she would sing, and then get up and talk about how black people needed to come together and work on problems that black folks was facing in our community.
And after several meetings with Mrs. Hamer, Mrs. Hamer decided to go down and attempt to register to vote. And because of that, she was given an ultimatum to take her name off of the voter registration role, or be evicted from a house where she was living on a plantation. And Mrs. Hamer, who was already singing, learned how to change a few words in the songs that she was already singing, and change them from being as we define a gospel or spiritual song, into being a freedom song. And she continued to sing, and continued to speak throughout Mississippi and the nation as a whole.
One of our greatest regrets as we look back on time now is that we didn’t utilize Mrs. Hamer enough in Mississippi. We felt that it was more important that we send her all across the country, singing and delivering the message. And we in Mississippi, we still suffer today from not having used such a powerful woman in Mississippi more rather than sending her out across the world.
NEBLITT: I think another thing too is she is a good example of grassroots leadership, you know, the power of that local people, the talent that local people have. And that a lot of times you look over people who know the most and get the most down. Mrs. Hamer was a powerful local person. And she was a force with her singing. She used singing as a motivator, as an organizing tool, and she was a brave lady. Like I was telling you before, she walked in that water. She stepped right off in that water, lost her job and everything. But she went on. She was a remarkable person. I think she had an influence on all of us, anyone who met her.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...(inaudible)
NEBLITT: She needed a book, two or three of them.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Where can you find these books now?
NEBLITT: Some are out of print. We’re going to put them together. Now, we’re in the process of putting together a lot of the music that we have done. A lot of things that was never even recorded before, we’re going to record those. But the Smithsonian has a collection of that. You can get then from the Smithsonian Institution. They have a collection of most of the freedom songs there that you can get, which is readily available.
WATKINS: I was assigned by the New York New Democrats to go to Mississippi and to share the skills that I had learned in the anti-war movement working for Father Drinan, who ran for Congress in 1970 and unseated Philbin who was head of the Armed Services Committee. And we pulled the vote, to learn some of these new voter techniques. And I spent my first two weeks in Madison County in Canton. And we organized a campaign from the Baptist churches, and the soul food restaurants, and the NAACP.
And I am pleased to say that I know now from my continued correspondence and discussions with Ed Cole, who was Charles Evers’ campaign manager, now is an executive assistant to a white Congressman in Mississippi. He also did spend some time working in Senator Eastland’s staff too. I mean, things are changing. But there are more blacks in the legislature in Mississippi than any other state in the country. I just don’t know if people know that fact, but it’s true.
But to bring it to today, there is so much work in our inner cities that needs to be done today. In August 1996, a new law was passed in the Congress called the Personal Responsibility Act, and it sounds wonderful. But if you don’t have the resources to take on responsibility, it’s very hard to do that. And there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.
We need to bring people together to access the job market. And our government isn’t doing very much to help that. As a matter of fact, what they’re doing is really penalizing and hurting people who don’t have the education and the skills to compete. So we need to work around those issues, and get out and register to vote, and vote for people who are going to work towards those ends. I could say so much more. But that’s just a start. Just doing voter registration is as important now as it was in 1963.
WATKINS: All of the issues that we had in the ‘60s are still prevalent today. One of the major issues that we have to deal with today is the fear of us old folks. And one of the greatest fears that we old folks have today is bringing young folks to the table, to give them the opportunity to express themselves, to get involved. If all of us would engage in truth telling and look right around us, we can find many, many different issues that we all can get involved in.
We can admit that we don’t have some of the national organizations in place that are actively doing things as we did back then. But the issues are there, and the concerns are there. And we can let our young folks know that that movement never stopped. We weren’t the beginning of it. We joined into one that was already going, and it still goes, continuously.
And one of the mistakes that we made during the early ‘60s was that we attempted to define the issues for local communities. And we should not do that. We should motivate, encourage and inspire local communities to come together and define their own vision, define the issues for themselves, develop a strategy and a program to work to solve those problems that they are confronted with. And as we do that, attempt to set up a network where we can communicate with other groups that are active in doing things. And through the process of negotiation, negotiate them joining in with us, and us with them, where now we form a network to collectively deal with some of the problems that we face.
One of the reasons that I am able to continue, and have been able to continue to go on, is because of what I see in young people, and what the young people are doing. We know the media want us to throw our young people away, and don’t give us the proper publicity about the positive things that our young people are doing. They want to accentuate the negative, so that we believe they all are bad.
But if we engage in truth telling, we will see that there are more positive things that are going on than there are negative. It’s a few that’s out there that are doing the negative things, and we throw them all in the hopper with the few negatives. But if we would come work with them, give them the opportunities, we could see a new kind of movement in the ‘90s that would far exceed that which we did in the early ‘60s. And that’s what I’m challenging all of us that’s over 30 to get involved in.
NEBLITT: Bayard? I think he was a fantastic organizer. I look upon him as… What I know about Bayard, he was a phenomenal organizer. He was a darned good organizer.
WATKINS: I don’t know about the forefront, because in many cases, Bayard was on the forefront. He was a national person, and did a lot of good things, just like all of our other national leaders did a lot of good things, but they overlooked a lot of things at the local and state level that should have been dealt with that would have laid a much more solid a foundation for the national piece to be built on. In your committee, or any other committee, if there is internal discrimination, I think we all have to engage in truth telling, as we and Bayard did at that time, and put it on the table.
And we’d deal with it without trying to pretend that it does not exist. Because if you’re pretending that it doesn’t exist, and you see it there, then you are lying to yourselves and you’re lying to everybody else. And we should not do that. We should engage in truth telling, and put it on the table and deal with it. You see, because if I see it, and you pretend that you don’t see it, then I know you are being dishonest to yourself and to me. And if I feel in any way that you are being dishonest, I will not trust you. And if you feel that I’m being that way, I pray that you don’t trust me.
Because we are serious about this thing, and that’s how good, serious, positive relationships are built that take us to where we need to go. That’s the fear we got of engaging in truth telling and putting things on the table. But if we intend to go where we need to go, we have to do that. And I don’t think there’s any way around it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was wondering, do you guys still perform at all?
NEBLITT: Yeah, the Freedom Singers are still performing. They do approximately 12 to 15 concerts a year, and special kind of things.
We do a lot more than that individually. Just keeping it going. We want to keep the message out there and keep on going. Because we found out a lot of people really don’t know anything about the movement in the ‘60s. And one of the ways we find that we can get that message across is through the music. Because through the music, you get the spirit of that movement. You get more than just reading it out of a book. You can get the spirit of that movement, and we think that needs to continue.
So we will continue that. One of the men in our group-- he’s not with us anymore, he died a couple years ago-- Cordell Reagon, one of the things about him, he kept up with it until he died. And I think we all will be doing something in this movement, in the music or whatever we’re doing, for a long time. People are dedicated to doing that in some way, shape, form or fashion.
WATKINS: Let me just answer from where I am. I’m from Mississippi. I’ve always been there, and I’ve continued to work. And in 1989, I incorporated a group that’s called Southern Echo. And Southern Echo is a leadership development, education and training organization that provides training, technical assistance to individuals, organizations throughout Mississippi and the South.
We provide that training in a number of different areas, all areas of politics. We do it in the area of environmental issues. Included in our environmental program, we teach organic and sustainable agricultural production. We also work with people who, and organizations that are trying to make their educational institutions more accountable to the needs and interests of the people. As a part of that component, we do conflict resolution training. We also provide training and technical assistance in economic development, and legal, on a smaller scale.
All of our efforts is based on an intergenerational model because we believe in bringing the youth and the adults to talk about things collectively, and the community as a whole. Because anything that directly affects the adults also indirectly or directly affects the youth, and vice versa.
And it is that kind of work that I’m doing, and as far as the music and the singing, I’m still doing that periodically. But in Mississippi, I have transferred the knowledge of the music to a large number of young people. Whereas now when we have our meetings, our workshops, our training, I don’t have to be up trying to sing and do these songs. The young people take it on, and it was through that work also that brought me to the hip hop project here in Boston, which is a group of young people just doing a marvelous job.
And I’m also so excited that I had a chance to meet with the young people here of the Kennedy Library-- I think it’s the Kennedy Core program-- you know, and sharing my knowledge and experience with them. So I’m still trying to do the work, while trying to do the work, incorporating, bringing young people into the process, so when 75 or 80 years from now, when I feel like I need to slow down a little bit, then I have young people prepared to do that work.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...(inaudible)
[applause]
WATKINS: At this time, it seems as if we probably have maybe five or ten more minutes for the whole program left. So we’ll take this as the last question.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...(inaudible)
WATKINS: Very briefly, as so many other local leaders, Vernon Damon is one of those who have not gotten the credit and the publicity that was due him. He was the Chairman of the local NAACP from his area which showed that he had the correct assessment and vision. Because he realized that the work that needed to be done, he and his local NAACP could not do it.
And as a result of that, he invited SNCC to come in to Hattiesburg and Forrest County to work with him and the rest of his NAACP members in moving Hattiesburg and Forrest County along. And he stayed out there on the battlefield until he died. If there was anything that Vernon Damon could do to enhance or promote any of the activities that was happening in the civil rights movement, be it in Hattiesburg or Forrest County, or anywhere in Mississippi, Vernon Damon was there assisting in that process.
It’s very unfortunate that time won’t allow us to continue and talk more about such wonderful people as Vernon Damon. But he definitely was one of those heroes that if it had not been for him, many of us would not have been able to do what we did as a part of the process.
NEBLITT: At this time, would everybody stand? We’re going to sing one of Mrs. Hamer’s favorite songs.
[singing]
[applause]
WATKINS: Thank you. Thank you very much.
STEWART: We’d like to thank you all for coming today. And we’d like to invite you to join us back again, Tuesday, March 24th, to hear Dan Rather, Wyatt C. Walker, and Charles Cobb. It’ll be on TV and the civil rights movement.
Would you do us the honor of closing with one more song?
WATKINS: Since the brother insists, we’ll do a couple verses of “Ain’t Going to Let Nobody Turn Us Around.”
[singing]
WATKINS: You see, there were two ways. Sometimes we said, “fighting for my equal rights,” and then other times we said, “marching down the freedom lane.” So we’re going to just put “marching down the freedom lane,” since that was the way we did it at first.
[singing]
[applause]
STEWART: Thank you again. Mr. Neblitt and Mr. Watkins, we have a couple of presents we want to give you. A hat from JFK Library, and a poster of the Emancipation Proclamation. Thank you.