Visiting with a male friend Al Lingo, who was a white activist in the Civil Rights movement in the 60’s reminded me that the fight for social justice in the United States has gone on all of my lifetime, and the lifetimes of generations before me. Getting to fairness has not been a short trip, given the original sin of slavery that our country started with. Unlike Al who got to be where the action was during the marches in Selma and Birmingham I was a young woman living in Detroit with a husband and two young children, longing to be involved but not having a practical way to do it.
There was another Detroit housewife who did go to Selma, Viola Liuzzo. She was a former student of Wayne State University where I went to school, a long time activist and mother of 5 children whose job in Selma was to drive out of town March participants back and forth to the airport with the assistance of a young black volunteer. Clan members who saw a white woman and a black man together pulled up alongside her car and put two bullets in her head, killing her instantly.
After her death critics raised the issue of the irresponsibility of her leaving her children and putting herself in harm’s way, while no other male victim was scrutinized in this way. Men who did such things were celebrated as heroes.
I’m sitting on a stool in the kitchen of African-American musicians Dorothy and John Ashby in Detroit Michigan. Dorothy, a nationally known jazz harpist and her husband, a drummer and member of her trio were filling me in on their perspective on Civil Rights. Conversations like this occurred often after I had my voice lessons with Dorothy or had finished teaching some dance moves to the girl group singers Dorothy was coaching. This was the heyday of Motown and securing a singing contract was the dream of many black kids. I was happy to be a small part of helping that to happen.
My husband and I had purposefully moved into the city as many whites were fleeing it. We wanted our children to grow up in an integrated neighborhood. So I looked up to Martin Luther King while John was a fan of Malcolm X and the Black Power movement. He did not see integration as a worthy goal but only a time of transition before the re-establishment of separate black and white neighborhoods. Dorothy was less militant in her views but both saw Martin Luther King as an Uncle Tom, “Where’s all that marching and turning the other check gonna get him?” John would say. He did agree that Malcolm’s more aggressive approach helped Martin’s case, since it suggested to the white establishment, “You better deal with King or you might have to deal with that other guy?”
My children’s nanny Margaret preferred Martin’s approach as I did, but for a different reason. “Won’t do no good for us negroes to hate whites, she told me. ”If we hate whites, we hate ourselves, since most of us have white blood. “
Looking back 50 years, I find it helpful to remember that the people involved in the various movements for justice did not know how it would turn out, did not know which of the things they tried would eventually work, (or not) and they were ignorant of what their legacy would eventually be. Now hearing criticisms of all the various Civil rights leaders and movements I see how the Civil Rights movement paved the way for the movement to end the war in Vietnam, and then for the most recent wave of the women’s movement, then the Gay Rights movement and now the LGBTQ movement. I chose to believe, as Martin did that ”the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” A thrust for Justice is not quenched until it’s here for everyone. And whatever we chose to do, it’s better to do something than to do nothing.
Join me, Al Lingo and the Wing & A Prayer Pittsburgh Players for Martin, Me and What’s Next as we explore these topics this Sunday, April 15th at the Community of Reconciliation Church 100 North Bellefield Ave. @ Fifth, Pittsburgh 15213
http://www.interplaypittsburgh.com/martin-me-and-what-now/
