Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement

Author and historian Taylor Branch has just finished the third book of his "At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Year's" Trilogy. His latest work covers 1965 through 1968; what could be called the denouement of the Civil Rights Movement. I had the good fortune of seeing him speak here in Charlotte last night at ImaginOn, which houses a children's library and theatre.

Branch talked about the miracles and myths of the Civil Rights Movement. The greatest miracle was that a people who had been oppressed for so long could rise up to claim their humanity and change the course of history in the process. The Civil Rights Movement did not just have domestic implications. It reverberated throughout the world in Africa, Asia and Europe. Before the fall of Communism, there were Polish citizens demonstrating and singing "We shall overcome," Branch informed the audience.

One of the most unfortunate myths is that the Civil Rights Movement was a male dominated struggle. When the television cameras were around and the microphones were on the men tended to be present, but when it came to much of the daily grassroots education, administration and political organization women were often much more involved. African-American men and women were vital to the achievements of the era, but the stories of women like Diane Nash and even Fannie Lou Hamer are largely unknown. The Civil Rights Movement was also vital in securing basic rights and opportunities for women of all colors and the following decade brought unprecedented changes in their lives.

There are many lessons to be learned from the Civil Rights Movement in terms of moral courage and true citizenship in a democratic society. Branch says that we should consider those thousands of paricipants to be "modern founders". The founding fathers may have helped create a theoretical framework for a democracy based on freedom, equality and self-government, but those men and women who risked their lives and in too many cases lost them, have helped to turn abstract American ideals a more embodied reality; though we still have much work to do. The legacy of non-violence is perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from this stage in our history, especially in a post-9/11 world. The fact that Branch was speaking to us on the fifth anniversary of that horrific day, made his talk all the more timely.

Branch said that non-violent engagement is the highest act of courage, discipline and citizenship. If any democratic experiment is to have any hope, it must progressively become less violent. Violence and war is the unfortunate bond that we share with totalitarian regimes and police states. We consider violence to be unhealthy in household and in communities, but we are all too willing to acquiesce to violence between nations. The nation that we have inherited was transformed by bold individuals who collectively refused to allow hatred or fear to move them to compromise their virtues. They were virtues formed in the church and the black church in particular. King was arguably the most eloquent proponent of nonviolence and stood "with one foot in the Scriptures and one foot in the Constitution" according to Branch. But the movement was lead by many people and there are many lessons to be learned.

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Read my poem, "It May Sound Cliche... (Reflecting on September 11th)".