The Generation of Power

October 9, 1966
Plainfield

The Generation of Power

The slogan "Black Power" symbolizes a difficult test of one's knowledge and an authentic challenge to one's real, moral values. When we are honest with ourselves, it is a blunt reminder of the need to persist in the never-ending struggle to close the gap between what is and what should be. If one wishes to raise the spectre of fear, or heat to steaming the filthy brew of bigotry or to reduce support for civil rights legislation or enforcement of existing legislation, one has only to mention the name of Stokely Carmichael, or repeat the Watts incantation, "burn, baby, burn." Is White America becoming scared that "we shall overcome" is being replaced by "we shall overthrow?" Is a defeated generation which struggled patiently and peacefully being replaced by a generation which seeks power openly and forcefully?

It is passing strange to me, because in the past few months I have listened to comments surprising to me, that first I must testify to my belief that facing up squarely to this issue is a moral necessity; and that what is moral i[s] unavoidably religious. A question invites answer on a moral level when the issue involves one's sense of what is right and what is wrong. That the issue and answers may be controversial is all the more reason for being known for one's present convictions.

The statement of purpose of the Unitarian Universalist Association reads in part, "to strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship...to affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man and the use of the democratic method in human relationships." I do not believe these principles because the U.U.A. has them as a purpose; rather I believe in these values and remain a Unitarian Universalist because the organization maintains these principles as foundation statements.

The implications of the search for truth, the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of every man and the democratic method seem quite clear to me. Freedom is fraudulent when persons continue to be deprived of equal opportunity; when there is neglect or failure to apply the Bill of Rights which was the constitutional form created to guarantee that a minority will not be deprived of rights by the majority. When such principles and practice do not prevail, then I have a moral obligation to add my influence, little though it may be, to the side that tries to bring about in reality what our national Pledge of Allegiance premises in theory, "one nation, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all."

All world religions hold high the Golden Rule, human brotherhood, "loving one’s neighbor as oneself" Jesus’ powerful parable told the story of the Good Samaritan who bound up the wounds of the traveler and took him to safe lodgings. This was loving one's neighbor as oneself

But social service is not enough; social justice is necessary. The authentic moving force in any religious movement is moral enterprise and its consequent obligation of commitment. Sometimes we forget that commitment to the idea of commitment is nonsense. One commits his time, energy and influence to issues involving needs recognized through one's sense of commitment. Love for one's neighbor requires equal distribution of justice; otherwise love must be either impossibly vague or sentimentally transient. Perhaps Jesus did not include that in his parables, but as I interpret the traditions of the gospels, Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem not because he came to heal the sick or bind up wounds, but because the Roman occupying powers and their collaborators feared Jesus would change the social order.

Consequently the question of "Black Power" involves the moral scales on which one weighs conscience and conviction. A prime question to be raised in appraising the storms and tensions of our day is, are too many people like Janus, the two-faced God of Roman antiquity? Are they looking one way at those who have never had equal opportunity and another way at those who would prevent, delay, deter the accomplishment of freedom and justice for all?

Consider that slogan, "crime in the streets" – words which supposedly symbolize the wrong effects of the civil rights movements. Editorials, political war whoops and so on, again and again associate "crime in the streets" with civil rights demonstrations, peaceful marches, non-violent action. In the Cicero troubles this summer, the civil rights marchers were law-abiding, had a permit to march, obeyed police regulations. It was the good, white people of Cicero who began throwing stones, initiating violence, exhibiting bigotry of the rankest sort. In 1951, when the good people of Cicero invaded the private dwelling of a neighbor, threw his goods and furnishings into the street and burned them, there was no wide-spread alarm, or "crime in the streets," although that was precisely what it was.

When political self-seekers and others talk about "crime in the streets," they never seem to be talking about the intimidation of minorities and violence visited upon minorities.

Were you not shocked and shamed by the newsreel clips coming out of Grenada, Miss? White segregationists, armed with ax handles, pipes and chains, attacked Negro children and their parents. A twelve-year-old boy, limping because his leg was broken had to run a gauntlet of savage white men, young hoodlums, and cursing white women. He finally escaped, bleeding and with clothes torn. Not only were children beaten, but the white mob assaulted newsmen and photographers. The Grenada police were so derelict in their duty that State Troopers finally arrived to escort children to school. But not before 30 to 50 Negroes had been beaten.

But when people worry about "crime in the streets," they never seem to be concerned about the crimes committed by Whites in Grenada, Miss., but only with ghetto violence in Harlem, Rochester, Watts, San Francisco.

Stokely Carmichael created a furor with his call to Black Power on the 1966 Mississippi March. People tremble, and say, "no more civil rights legislation." But Stokely Carmichael received a respond because White Power had shotgunned James Meredith who was on a lawful, peaceful journey. How much concern was there for that crime in the streets?

Is it not true that too many persons look one way at peaceful civil rights demonstrators who march with a permit – and by some prejudiced reflex consider this a danger and a cause of crime in the streets; and look another way at assassins and child-beaters and bomb throwers, as though such actions were somehow excusable because Americans of a minority group are alleged to be "moving too fast" when they struggle peacefully for freedom and justice for all?

A news dispatch out of Washington this week reported that the House Un-American Committee was going to investigate civil rights movements because Chairman Willis of La. and Rep. Tuck of Virginia are fearful that Communists have infiltrated civil rights movements.

Curious isn’t it, that the House Un-American Committee sees nothing un-American about the wretched activities of violent segregationists in Grenada, shotgun assassins shooting at James Meredith, bombings in Alabama, or the fifty or more murders of Civil rights workers and sympathizers for which no one has been convicted?

A double standard of judgment is applied by too many persons, who find such a double standard comforting to their latent or conscious prejudice, or who use such double standards as an excuse to escape involvement in the terrible struggle of our time.

It is sheer hypocrisy to pay lip service to the worth and dignity of every human being while being willing, even eager, to maintain two ways of judging persons and their acts. There will be those who will believe that because I have said this, that I am willing to tolerate riots and let violence, looting, burning in ghetto areas go unpunished. Not at all. I’m saying that all accused law-breakers should receive equal treatment. If the people of Grenada, Miss. who ran amok in their disgusting attacks on children were treated as San Francisco rioters and Harlem Rioters and Rochester rioters, the Miss. jails would have been crowded with white prisoners in September.

A filmclip on the TV news showed five men holding down a rioter in San Francisco. Perhaps five were needed to subdue the rioter, but one officer was repeatedly kicking the prisoner hard and brutally. I know of no white rioter in Grenada or Cicero receiving such treatment. Nobody should, of any color.

Consider too the incident that touched off the San Francisco rioting. A police officer saw a boy running away from an automobile. When the boy failed to stop on the officer's command, the officer shot the boy in the back, fatally. Now if you can, imagine a change only in the physical environment and color: an all-white suburb, a white boy running away from an automobile, the command to stop, the shot and sudden death. The agitation might have taken a different expression, but there would have been furious indignation in the suburb and consternation and investigation in the high places of government. One must bear in mind too that the car was not reported stolen until hours after the shooting.

Any student of the times could add many additional chapters and verse to point out that we must have a law-abiding social order, of course; but the distinctions must be clearly maintained between civil liberties and unlawful offenses; and the processes of apprehensions, arrests, and trials must be equally applied to the members of both majority and minority groups.

This I believe – if all citizens are willing to measure the behavior of all other citizens by one set of rules, then this scare slogan of "Black Power", other than what is represented by a tiny segment, resolves itself into definitions, attitudes, and actions which should be encouraged with thorough understanding, not rejected with irrational panic.

I would ask you to seek out the varying meanings and intensity levels intended by different persons when they use the words, "Black Power." We owe it to ourselves and our fellow humans to acquire as much knowledge as may be available, because (as Winston LaBarre pointed out in THE HUMAN ANIMAL, p. 259), "... learning is a feedback mechanism through which experience communicates cues for the correction of an organisms’ future action."

Malcolm Boyd, the Episcopal clergyman who is so responsive to the real essence of issues, said it well, (“RENEWAL”, August 66, p. 9),

"It seems to me that the cry for black power contains as many ambiguities within it, as, say, reciting the Nicene Creed, singing the Star Spangled Banner or uttering the words, ‘I love you.’ Black power, when it means black votes and black dollars to redress calculated and long-term injustice, is an historical necessity and a moral right. When, on the other hand, it means an inverse form of racism and an expression of hatred, it is a perpetuation of cancerous self-destruction and a moral wrong.”

Or take this statement: "We are encouraging the development of black consciousness, a pride in black history, culture, institutions, as other ethnic groups have developed cultural awareness and pride....

"Psychologically the Negro has been in a box that he could not get out of, and what he wants to do now is to do what everybody else in the world has done. He wants to build something of his own ... that is not anti-white. When you build your own house, it doesn't mean you tear down the house across the street. It just means that you are building your own house.” Some persons may be surprised that those reasonable words interpreting "Black Power" were spoken by Stokely Carmichael, (quoted by Homer Jack, "Register-Leader," Oct. 66, p. 8)

Or take another example, the words of another man usually thought to be the firebrand type of agitator, Floyd McKissick, exec. direc. of CORE:

"One, we’ve stated that black people must decide this for themselves; they must have the self-determination to determine the direction and pace at which they will become total citizens in this society. And in doing so six basic ingredients are needed: One, political power; two, economic power; three, an improved self-image of the black man himself. As you will know, that's not in the history books, what we've done, and the contributions that we've made; four, the development of young, militant leadership; five, the enforcement of Federal laws, the abolishment of police brutality; and six, the development of the black consumer bloc. This is basically what we describe as black power.” (quoted N.Y.Times, 8/22/66)

Of course, bitter, even threatening things are said by persons who with cause have lost heart in the hope that municipal, state or federal governments will enforce civil rights legislation adequately and equally. Hard things are said by those who have lost hope that the privileged will voluntarily desegregate and end discrimination. The record is that unless there is painstaking vigilance by interested and involved citizens and unless persistent protest is maintained, the patterns of discrimination and segregation will not be seriously altered even when civil rights legislation is on the books. So the frustration of the disenfranchised can reach levels of fury and disgust. From those filled with indignation – righteous indignation in most instances – such cries as “move over or we'll move on over you,” are going to be heard. Those of us who were placed in the majority color by the lottery of birth should give attention to certain recognitions. These are recognitions which provides no concessions to unlawful or illegal behavior but rather comprise admission that the changes sought for by the dedicated doers for civil rights are both legally right and morally correct.

We all know, or should know, that political gains are achieved in the political arena where needed legislation and authentic enforcement receive the strongest leverage from voters who vote, lobbies that lobby, leaders who lead.

In a discussion of the meaning and implications of "Black Power" among college students who had been activists in the civil rights movement, there was a variety of expression. A Hawaiian student of Japanese ancestry said succinctly, "Face it. The Big White Father bit is over." He may have meant that racial minorities are no longer going to rely upon the paternal favors of the White majority, who when properly appealed to, do the right and moral thing. A determined and united minority represents a formidable political wedge in opening the tight doors of equal opportunity. The potential power of this political wedge is no longer going to be overlooked. In a democratic political system, this is neither illicit nor deplorable, but legal and commendable.

In a telegram to the President when the San Francisco rioting erupted, Mayor John Shelley appealed "in the name of God and human decency" for emergency funds, pinning the basic cause on a lack of jobs for young people. Mayor Shelley, a onetime chief of the California Labor Federation also charged, "discrimination by some labor unions is just as sorrowful and just as unfair as the attitudes expressed by some members of employer or management groups."

Multiply San Francisco by the number of cities in the nation. Only a mammoth political solution with an unprecedented involvement of economic resources can reshape the facets of the cities – better schooling, slum dispersal, occupational uplifting. Equally demanded is loyalty to human rights, even when inconvenience appears and new ways are necessary. Only the most naive persons would feel that significant change can happen unless the political power of citizens is applied. Political power is human power applied to the direction of political affairs. "Black Power" alone cannot achieve the result, even though much more attention is needed to the obvious necessity of recognizing everywhere leadership ability among Negroes. Martin Luther King calls for striped power – black and white together. Human power is the most productive phrase – human power exerting peaceful, legitimate pressures for necessary and forthwith change. But the extreme positions of some – racist, Black Nationalist, violent – should be an omen, not a threat, but a prediction of things to come if moderation continues to fail. Moderate progress should be measured not by the privileged and the affluent but by the disenfranchised and the poor. Otherwise the wind that has been sown will be reaped in whirlwind.

In conclusion, I must remind myself and you that professions of good will are tested by actions and attitudes in our daily experience in occupation, community efforts, home atmosphere and neighborhood stance.

There is no single best way to demonstrate that one means what he professes about the worth and dignity of every human person. Each of us is of unlike temperament, responding in different ways to the experiences and opportunities that occur.

Some prefer a solitary posture and individual effort, standing alone for what is believed to be right and just and needed now. Such individualism deserves applause. Would that there were many more who were known because of the attention they gave to the issues of living.

Some persons combine their individual effort in unity with others in such joint efforts as the Committee on Social Responsibility of this Society, a Committee which speaks for itself. This Committee is always in need of more persons to the end that there may be increasing depth in discussion and more human power for tasks and actions undertaken together.

Others apply strength in other organizations – community, professional, social action. This is commendable. One hopes for greater participation to achieve greater leverage to open wider the doors of progress.

Still others may not be able to engage in any of these but ... are persons who can add weight to the scales of distributive justice by simply refusing to permit bigotry to go unchallenged; by discerning when two-faced standards of justice prevail and letting this knowledge be known.

Those who may believe that words such as these do not represent spiritual support for which you come to worship, [and] those who remain unconvinced that the issue of equal opportunity in housing, education, employment is momentous, should at least inquire of themselves whether their voice or their silence, their acts or their non-action square with what their religious belief professes about the nature of man and the worth of every person.

In his book, THE HUMAN ANIMAL, Winston LaBarre wrote, (p.227):

“... in the historical rise and fall of cultures and societies, man gives every evidence of being ultimately self-responsive for his fate. The viability of a society does seem to depend upon a maturity of moral decision and upon the sheer hard-boiled animal effectiveness, adaptability and survival-value of the choices made."

In the beginning I inquired, Is White America scared that "we shall overcome" is being replaced by “We shall overthrow?" That was the partial statement of Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a psychiatrist who heads the Medical Committee for Human Rights Activities. A more complete quote is, "we shall overthrow the vicious system of segregation, discrimination and white supremacy." (quoted "Ramparts," p. 4, Oct. 66) That is a just cause for allegiance, for I believe our goal should be neither Black supremacy nor White supremacy, but human supremacy in an equal opportunity society.