00:00:11.640 - 00:00:31.530

Good morning Timothy. Tyson is senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and visiting professor of american Christianity and Southern culture at Duke Divinity School. He holds the Bachelor of Arts from Emory

00:00:31.530 - 00:00:49.610

University and a PhD from Duke University. Dr Tyson is best known for his gripping book, Blood done sign my name, A work of history and autobiography that recounts events in the town of Oxford, North

00:00:49.610 - 00:01:07.640

Carolina. During the summer of 1970. On May 11 of that year, Henry Marrow, a 23 year old black military veteran, walked into a store owned by robert teel, a white man and member

00:01:07.640 - 00:01:27.570

of the ku Klux Klan morrow left the store running and was gunned down by Teal and two of his sons. Tyson's book investigates the bloody racial history leading up tomorrow's killing the demonstrations and riots that ensued before

00:01:27.570 - 00:01:46.090

and after Teal was acquitted of that murder and the efforts of his own father, the reverend, vernon Tyson, to be a mediator in Oxford. During that tumultuous summer, Tyson's book exposes the wounds of

00:01:46.090 - 00:02:05.910

race relations, not just in a small north Carolina town but throughout our nation. And Tyson knows that even though the church has inflicted many of those wounds , it also has words of hope and reconciliation that

00:02:05.910 - 00:02:24.480

may yet lead to healing. Tyson is accompanied today by his father, vernon and mary Williams, a gospel singer and oral historian of the black South. Williams and Tyson have co taught a community based college

00:02:24.480 - 00:02:43.550

course called the South in black and white. They've taught this course four times to nearly 1000 students. Dr Tyson reverend Tyson and Miss Williams, welcome to Austin Seminary. It is an honor to have each

00:02:43.550 - 00:03:38.220

of you with us today and we look forward to all that you have to teach us. Yeah. Yeah. God. Alright. Lost. Mm. I have a son. Yeah, we better go

00:03:38.340 - 00:04:29.930

home. No, wait, okay one. Yeah . Mhm Oh yeah. Hey? Yeah, yeah . Mhm We asked. Right. Yeah, Yeah , we had. Mhm I don't feel why is

00:04:29.930 - 00:05:55.160

that? Yeah. So yeah. No. Oh yeah. Evil. Yeah. Why? Mhm Yeah . So. Mm hmm. Mhm No. Oh honey. Oh honey me Hey? Yeah. These

00:05:56.740 - 00:06:38.470

okay. He brought me this far. Oh believe he brought the various mhm mm He brought me this for Amen Miss mary D Williams. Yeah. My daddy called her mary D Mahalia Jackson Williams and we

00:06:38.480 - 00:06:56.750

uh one of my neighbors is dr T. J . Anderson who is one of the great african american composers of our history, who's a professor emeritus from Tufts University and moved back south in his age.

00:06:56.750 - 00:07:15.930

He used to play the piano for Marian Anderson widely known as one of the great control toes in history and he loved Marian Anderson, he he says, MS Williams has a better voice. Mhm. But

00:07:15.930 - 00:07:38.820

I know that I am always proud to be with her, whether we're going into the theological Seminary or the Wake County jail either. It's all right. I won't express a preference. But uh, it's

00:07:38.830 - 00:07:55.270

all right either way. Of course, even before I knew the distinguished professor, I knew that she had a rare gift because I had seen the stained glass falling out the building and I'm and I'm keenly

00:07:55.270 - 00:08:16.970

aware like that, you know, so she can sing when you hear Miss Williams as great as her individual gift is. You have to understand that you're hearing a chorus of the ancestors that she comes out

00:08:16.970 - 00:08:35.920

of a tradition and walks in it and makes it her own. And yet it speaks most powerfully three through her. The closer the ancestors get in a sense. Yeah. And it's a a theology and

00:08:35.920 - 00:08:56.630

song given to the unlettered by the lettered, who learned to read the bible for themselves. Since I don't suppose it was the slave owners who talked to them about the exodus out of bondage. One suspects

00:08:56.810 - 00:09:13.880

that someone else found that in the text in 18 30 one, there was a 32 I believe. There was a debate in the south Carolina legislature about what to do about slavery. Uh black preacher named

00:09:13.880 - 00:09:35.460

nat turner had cut a swath through south south side Virginia and the conversation went on, What shall we do? And some recommended we're trying to make the case for more missionary work among the enslaved. And

00:09:37.140 - 00:10:01.660

one of the South Carolina legislators said anybody who wants the slaves to read the entire bible belongs in a lunatic asylum. Yeah. Dr King embodied that tradition that frightened them. So Howard thurman distinguishes it from

00:10:01.750 - 00:10:20.060

Christianity calling it the religion of jesus. It was not the faith that the slave masters had sought to impose upon the enslaved. But instead I'm going to argue that it was a rediscovery of the gospel.

00:10:20.740 - 00:10:41.030

It would they supposed, I think those who do not that the slaves had adopted and embraced the religion of their masters and then others will say, well not so much adopt as adapt really. But what

00:10:41.030 - 00:11:01.050

I want to say is that down in the quarter and down by the riverside, that church that met did not adopt nor exactly adapt but that they were traditionalists of a kind. They saw the original,

00:11:01.640 - 00:11:18.130

they went back, they confronted a tradition that had lost its way so badly that it knew not the difference between a person and a thing. But they went to the Wellspring the original place. They went

00:11:18.130 - 00:11:43.340

out to clean the pastor spring and got the fresh living water right out the rock. Yeah. Yeah . So I'm going to talk about that distinctive tradition and I'm gonna talk about my own tradition which is

00:11:43.350 - 00:12:01.950

was segregated from that tradition. But the thing about segregation. Yeah. For those who are too literal and believe what the rules say and and what people say writing books, anything between covers in it,

00:12:01.950 - 00:12:20.370

you know? It's a petrified fact. Yeah. But the truth is segregation didn't work that well. Oh, it worked sometimes. Lots of times sort of. But you know, the faith is just

00:12:20.370 - 00:12:43.340

like folks, it won't stay on the right side of town, especially in the evening. Mm hmm . Yeah. Notes of music, turns of phrase . The sanctified imagination all wander abroad of an evening

00:12:43.940 - 00:13:05.450

and get all mixed up. Which is why we come in such a lovely array of hues and it's the main reason why the South speaks to the whole world with such a loud and redemptive voice prone to

00:13:05.450 - 00:13:18.690

wander. Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love. Except that last part is a little trick here. This almost thought he was leaving the God he loved, but he didn't realize

00:13:18.690 - 00:13:33.670

that God he loved was went down with him. Even in Tokyo, I believe, much less uh down in the bottom. Everybody knows where it is anyway. Um and God's been working with us like

00:13:33.670 - 00:13:56.240

that for a long time. Fools that we mortals be often are abject failures, achieve what are cherished efforts cannot. So the failure of segregation to conquer the wandering heart prevented my culture from being empty and

00:13:56.240 - 00:14:13.390

worthless, much the way it prevented the Declaration of Independence from being of empty and worthless document, even though he that pinned it did so by the light of a lamp brought to him by the hand of

00:14:13.390 - 00:14:31.090

someone to he held the deed of ownership, who was also the mother of his Children. It's deep now, for T. S. Eliot talks about tradition, he and Igor stravinsky were buddies and they

00:14:31.100 - 00:14:45.240

wrote to one another, and the letters and the things that spun out of that conversation are very interesting to me, and they spoke to me with a loud voice. Tradition, Elliot says, is where

00:14:45.240 - 00:14:58.010

the past and the present exists together and they're expressed in the same timeless moment, so that the moment of creation is always knew, and yet the ancestors are always there, right behind it, pushing it

00:14:58.010 - 00:15:16.350

forward and is never uh like Howard thurman says of the faith, it cannot be separated. The religion of jesus gonna be separated from its historical context. Neither can uh the work of the artist be separated

00:15:16.350 - 00:15:33.820

from the tradition and the historical dimension, so that the the poet and the preacher and the singer always come to embody the whole historical struggle of which were apart. And so he says that our individuality of

00:15:33.820 - 00:15:48.360

thought and that which is current at the moment, is crucial, but it's not separate from the unfolding tradition that goes before it. And so it's important that we locate ourselves in the unfolding tradition. And

00:15:48.360 - 00:16:03.550

so we become an expression of as well as an interpreter of the tradition. And uh the world often thinks that genius. Elliott explains that the world thinks that gene the geniuses are those who break away,

00:16:03.540 - 00:16:17.060

you know, they're different from the rest of us . They break away from the tradition and invent something entirely new, but that's just the way of the Assumpta sort of pop assumption. But actually he says

00:16:17.070 - 00:16:36.150

the artist is that his or her most creative when the voice of the ancestors is strongest within them. At 80 stravinsky was still in conversation with uh, Elliot about this and uh he says did not.

00:16:36.640 - 00:16:51.860

Elliot and I set out to refit old ships and refitting old ships is the real task of the artist . So I'm hoping in this talking in the two that follow that I can refit some old ships and

00:16:52.240 - 00:17:10.710

and yet like huck finn on his raft light out for the territory knowing that even if I'm trying to escape, I shall not, mm I'm the descendent of uh, at least six generations of preachers in

00:17:10.710 - 00:17:33.450

eastern north Carolina. In fact, the first four generations were all baptist bible believing, foot washing, tenant farming teetotaling except when they were bootlegging, free will Baptists. We have, we have certain traditions

00:17:36.740 - 00:17:53.770

. Even those who think they're Iran are actually working in a tradition. My granddaddy Jack Tyson was a free will baptist preacher until he got into a denominational dispute. Which I suppose is redundant to say.

00:17:55.940 - 00:18:07.700

Since already said he was a baptist. But Mhm . Anyway, he was he was planting tobacco and preaching the gospel till he got into this scrape with some of the other free will Baptists over here.

00:18:07.700 - 00:18:22.560

This wild eyed notion he had that they ought to move toward having an educated clergy. Yeah. You know he lost. Yeah. Yeah. See the women faction, they said all you have to do

00:18:22.560 - 00:18:33.690

is open up your mouth and let the Lord fill it. That wasn't too sure that the Lord was filling all the mouths he saw open up. Um Mhm. So he went to night school, he

00:18:33.690 - 00:18:45.670

had dropped out In the 7th grade when his Daddy broke his leg and somebody needed to plant and plow and And get in the year's crop. So he left the 7th grade And he was 30 and had

00:18:45.680 - 00:19:03.200

had fathered 10 Children and went back to Campbell Institute . It was then called of an evening buoys Creek where my father, vernon Tyson was born and he gave up the free will baptist and the tobacco field

00:19:03.210 - 00:19:18.600

at the same time and he defected. He, the free weller said he had succumbed to the filthy Luker of the Methodists. Uh Yeah, who did indeed pay full time salary and had a retirement plan

00:19:18.800 - 00:19:32.410

and a little reasonably good school of theology up the road where I teach now. I know this falls straight into that malicious old joke about a baptist being a just a methodist, just being a baptist that's

00:19:32.410 - 00:19:47.420

learned to read and write. But I didn't I can't help that, I can't help that it's just there. Um Jack and Irene had had six sons that lived and all six grew up to be methodist

00:19:47.420 - 00:20:00.700

preachers, my uncle's Dewey Tommy and George and Earl and bobby and also my daddy, vernon, whom you've met and I wouldn't even I wouldn't even try to count up all the cousins out there pounding the

00:20:00.700 - 00:20:17.850

pulpit somewhere when my when I was a boy, my uncle do we used to yeah, confront me , had family reunions, he would find me in a corner and get all up in my face.

00:20:19.140 - 00:20:41.470

You can sort of growl at me, you still running from jesus boy now we left Dewey in Hollywood cemetery Outside of Greenville near Farmville, 18, 19 years ago I helped carry the casket. I know

00:20:41.470 - 00:21:03.340

he's there. But the trouble with these ancestors is you put them under the stone and they won't stay there and he just keeps turning up to mess with me though it's friendly. Mhm. And he's probably

00:21:03.340 - 00:21:26.640

here. I think you heard that had fallen among the presbyterians anyway. Yeah. Do we? If you're yes I am still running from jesus and I have my reasons. Mhm. For one thing,

00:21:26.640 - 00:21:42.300

Jesus will get you in trouble. Yeah and I don't need any help in that department. I'm doing just fine in the trouble department. I can recruit it all by myself. Except of course I'm not

00:21:42.310 - 00:21:59.010

all by myself any more than any of the other people have mentioned. No, no. My uncle Earl knew all about the kind of trouble. Jesus will get you in. Her was my daddy's last

00:21:59.080 - 00:22:14.630

living brother and he died just before christmas. And we miss him except except he's still here. Mhm . Anyway, so I've got to tell somebody this story and you're the lucky victim. What can you

00:22:14.630 - 00:22:34.140

do really? Except hope I'll shut up eventually. They uh oh watch just about took a dive there , You wouldn't Trust me on that one. What ? I believe that at work. Mhm. Anyway

00:22:34.150 - 00:22:59.210

, back in 1957, was after the Montgomery bus boycott. The Supreme Court had said with all deliberate speed uh in North Carolina, we were preparing a 17 year delay strategy. But in Little Rock Arkansas

00:22:59.220 - 00:23:15.290

, there was a little bit of desegregation going on and President Eisenhower ended up having to send the 82nd airborne down there to hold off the segregationist mobs outside of Central High School. This played in the white

00:23:15.290 - 00:23:41.290

south. Oh my of the invasion of Little Rock . Yeah. Evoked memories of black men in blue with marching through the streets of charleston and Richmond federal troops occupying the south brotherhood by bayonet. Many of

00:23:41.290 - 00:23:52.160

the main stream newspapers said the charleston news and courier , which if you're actually in the period and you're ever looking for something spicy, just, it's a Nazi newspaper. It's a wonderful newspaper. If you

00:23:52.160 - 00:24:07.360

want to know what the most out, they have advocated secession In 1957. They did it. They wanted to do it all over again. Uh, we have north Carolina. We, We'd like to

00:24:07.360 - 00:24:18.820

talk about South Carolina. Like it's a good place to go, especially if you need to marry your half sister and she's only 14. You know, I'm saying, mm, we we just, we

00:24:18.830 - 00:24:29.850

, we we condescend to south Carolina. But a bit of it is the fact that they fired at federal troops who were on the other side of us . Thank you very much. And didn't really ask

00:24:30.740 - 00:24:42.260

. It was a complex, it's a complicated history anyway, getting us back to Little Rock and then Louisburg, north Carolina. That's just the mood that the South was in. And in that moment my

00:24:42.260 - 00:24:55.180

uncle Earl got a speeding ticket. He was had a six point charge outside of Raleigh Lewis, the Lewisburg circuit. And he got his spin ticket. So he went up to the courthouse early and he

00:24:55.180 - 00:25:08.560

was gonna uh pay his ticket and get out of there. He got there, nobody was there. He sat down with his bible in the in the rows of chairs. And there was oblivious to the

00:25:08.940 - 00:25:22.820

shuffling of feet as it began in the scraping of chairs. He was lost in thought. And then he he felt a hand a gentle hand on his shoulder and he looked around and it was an older

00:25:22.830 - 00:25:34.080

black man who smiled at him warmly and said, What, what are you doing here, brother now ? Earl didn't really quite understand the question, I now realize. But Earl said, well, I

00:25:34.080 - 00:25:51.940

believe I came to Pay the Judge$40. And he told, I guess he must have been going pretty fast. And he he told them felt about his plan to pay up and get out. And

00:25:51.950 - 00:26:04.370

the older man said, well you just You just give the judge to$40 that the Lord will give it back to you. The Lord will take care of you if you let him. And so Earl

00:26:04.370 - 00:26:18.700

looked into the man's eyes more deeply, and he recognized a brother in christ and they began to share the gospel and the courtroom filled up behind them, and they paid little attention to it. But then

00:26:18.700 - 00:26:33.060

the bailiff was saying all rise. And so Earl as he was standing, he realized for the first time that he had accidentally sat in the colored section and as he was sitting down, he realized he

00:26:33.060 - 00:26:48.860

won't move in. He couldn't, it would repudiate his brother and christ it would be to wipe his feet upon the moment that they had just had together , which seemed to him a kind of sacred moment

00:26:52.240 - 00:27:10.550

. And then he felt another hand on his shoulder less gentle, the deputy sheriff who said, but you got to move and Earl said, I choose to sit here thinking that was it. Yeah.

00:27:10.940 - 00:27:25.220

And it at this point in the story, I have to explain that Earl was a Tyson and therefore he was as kindle, absalom as he was to Jacob and joseph. And that is to say as

00:27:25.220 - 00:27:40.880

much as you want to make this story a story about righteous opposition to injustice, we have to acknowledge that Earl was capable of rebellion against injustice and justice and God and man and anybody else who tried to

00:27:40.880 - 00:28:02.200

tell her what to do? We have a bona fide ax murderer in my family, a distant relation . Mm. But but definitely can. But putting aside theology in genetics for a minute, I want

00:28:02.200 - 00:28:12.310

to get back to early and he's not quite rosa parks moment. They're at the Lewisburg courthouse. The judge called him up and said, you know, we we need to be about the piece of people's

00:28:12.310 - 00:28:26.010

business reputation, Would you please just move so we can do that. And Earl said, well, you know, I've only come here to pay my fine and leave, but I'm going to be sitting

00:28:26.010 - 00:28:40.360

there while I'm sitting and the judge said, reputation , you have to move. And he said, well, if you can tell me where to sit , you can tell me where to stand and what

00:28:40.360 - 00:28:56.350

to say. And I don't believe the Lord has invested you with that authority. And then the judge uttered what one of those truths that we do hold to be self evident. He said, reverend Tyson

00:28:56.610 - 00:29:12.500

, if you do this, you'll be sorry. And then now this is how you know that girl is a white man because they let him pay and leave. Perhaps he felt victorious. But when he

00:29:12.500 - 00:29:25.900

got home, he did not feel victorious because there were six men of his acquaintance in his front yard . By the time he got home from his Lewisburg Church and they had talked to the other five churches

00:29:26.340 - 00:29:42.060

and they wanted to talk about this thing that I had the NaacP put him up to this mess. Did he know that the NaACP was all in league with the communists? Was he a Communist himself?

00:29:44.540 - 00:30:00.690

They said that he wasn't welcome in any of his puppets anymore. And Earl said, well, he didn't stand in any of those puppets at their invitation . That he stood there uh by the call of

00:30:00.690 - 00:30:11.560

the Lord, jesus christ. And by the appointment of the bishop of the eastern north Carolina conference. And if he wanted, if they wanted either of those phone numbers, he would be glad to provide

00:30:11.560 - 00:30:26.240

them. I made that up about God's phone number or it was revealed to me. But the other parts too. All right, Earl walked into the parsonage. He was where he Greeted by his wife

00:30:26.240 - 00:30:42.450

who was eight months pregnant. Earl was 29. He lacked all credentials. He needed to go to divinity School. Uh, but unfortunately, Dean Cannon at Duke Divinity School had already met Dewey and Tommy

00:30:42.840 - 00:30:56.510

and George and vernon he had been dealt for. He didn't feel he needed another card he was going to stick. He told Earl, and I quote , I don't want any more Tyson's up to your

00:30:56.520 - 00:31:12.700

causing trouble. So Earl was not knowing what to do. The phone began to ring 1st. It was the death threats. Then it was the bishop who explained that the local churches had stopped Earl salary

00:31:12.700 - 00:31:25.910

and that the conference didn't really have any money to pay him. And he was very sympathetic to Earl's plight. But he didn't have another church that he could appoint URL to. He had rendered himself una

00:31:25.910 - 00:31:38.190

point able under the circumstances. But he had a friend. Bishop said he had a friend who had a friend. He thought that had a three point charge up in Virginia somewhere. He would look into

00:31:38.190 - 00:31:56.320

it and send word. But he warned Earl not to mess with this race business anymore. He said it will mark you. So three weeks after he had, after his uh the incident at the courthouse

00:31:56.330 - 00:32:13.050

, Earl and Betty jo, we're unpacking boxes at the end of a cow path and near scott's ville Virginia and Surry County Virginia. My father wrote in his diary, January 1958, Earl moved from the

00:32:13.050 - 00:32:22.730

Lewisburg circuit because of a racial incident. I glory in his spunk and I appreciate his being a faithful witness to the truth of God, which is all well and good. But Earl had been banished.

00:32:22.740 - 00:32:34.610

He had been banished. He'd been banished from his daddy's church. He had been banished from Duke Divinity School. He'd been banished from his home state, where none of us had ever left since, wherever

00:32:34.610 - 00:32:46.920

it was, we got kicked out of a long time ago and it almost broke his heart. But he did not give up. He went and applied in person. Um, That's kind of the way

00:32:46.920 - 00:32:58.020

Tyson's are too. If there's been a bit, we always think that if we could just talk and if God just knew the circumstances of the case, you know, we would know if we could just

00:32:58.020 - 00:33:07.820

go talk to whoever it was, we, we could turn this whole thing out. So he went up to Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and was interviewed by the Dean who looked over his application and saw

00:33:07.820 - 00:33:22.150

that the, it was a little spotty on the academic end. But he asked Earl two questions. First, he asked, what did Earl think about integration and that worried Earl. He remembered the bishops

00:33:22.150 - 00:33:38.130

warning and he, but he swallowed hard and said , I'm I'm called to acknowledge all my brothers and sisters in christ regardless of color. And then the Dean asked the question that cut to the heart of

00:33:38.130 - 00:33:51.490

the matter, which was Earl. You're one of those Tyson's now, what are you doing here, y'all? What are you doing up here? And Earl had to tell him the story about what happened

00:33:51.490 - 00:34:07.770

at the courthouse. And the Dean listened and he smiled and he said, Well, that incident alone makes you qualified to enter this, the vanity school . But despite your academic record, but it's clear

00:34:07.770 - 00:34:19.970

you're already a fine preacher. So were we would be glad to have you. So he, Earl was happy and went on home, penniless and blessed , and got a letter in the mail a couple

00:34:19.970 - 00:34:35.300

of days later that said he wasn't just admitted he had a full scholarship. And this girl's thoughts went back to his brother in christ at the courthouse who had told him that the Lord would take care of

00:34:35.300 - 00:35:00.670

him if Earl would let him. And the words that did mark him, white people just love stories like that. Yeah. A lot of us I do really hard to tell it without crying. Um

00:35:01.640 - 00:35:21.940

, but as much as uh love Uncle Earl and love that story and celebrate. Yeah. Um, I have to acknowledge how insufficient is my attachment. two stories of this kind see it's a lot like

00:35:21.940 - 00:35:39.450

our popular history of the civil rights movement. It focuses on redemptive faith and individual conscience. The protagonist is a preacher. He follows God's call, stands up for justice pays a price. Indeed. But

00:35:39.450 - 00:35:54.990

it all works out in the end, we even get that wonderful cameo appearance by morgan Freeman as the colored man in the courthouse tells us everything is gonna be all right because he can see he's got that

00:35:55.000 - 00:36:10.690

deeper, soulful wisdom. See he's not the hero of the story. He gives it a kind of moral authority though, doesn't he? It's a story about individual conscience. But see stories like this for

00:36:10.690 - 00:36:27.720

all their beauty comfort, the comfortable uh they do not match the challenge of luke and Isaiah to remove the yolk and let the captive go free and repair the breach and restore the streets. These stories,

00:36:27.730 - 00:36:43.300

these stories change our hearts. They let us change our hearts without changing our ways or changing our world , not to kill a mockingbird is the classic. It set the mold and I love harper lee just

00:36:43.300 - 00:36:57.020

to try to avoid fights here and I love Scout and I love Dill and I love Jeb and I love atticus and I love calpurnia and I love boo and I love Miss marty. Don't want to leave

00:36:57.020 - 00:37:10.720

out Miss marty, but the way that that it's set up in to kill a mockingbird. It's the good white folks against the bad white folks who are by the way, clearly marked often by the black

00:37:10.720 - 00:37:24.600

folks. See there the marker of the, of the good, but mostly it's between the bad white folks and the good white folks. Black southerners sort of sing hymns and get lynched and they verify the

00:37:24.600 - 00:37:42.410

virtue of white folks and they underline the evil of the bad white folks like calpurnia, they don't even need last names or real lives. They just have to stay black and love their good white folks,

00:37:42.930 - 00:38:01.640

just like family and reveal our finer qualities. The old black man will come and he will take our innocent arm and he will say stand up, Miss jean louise your father's passing and we say like Miss

00:38:01.640 - 00:38:22.380

daisy hoc, you're my best friend. And it is well with our soul safe from jesus at last at least. So we believe, see, these are hymns to individual conviction. They are not hymns

00:38:22.380 - 00:38:34.930

to social change. Earl didn't bless his heart, but he didn't change the dog on thing. He did not. This is not a story about Earl joined the movement. The walls that did not come

00:38:34.930 - 00:38:49.610

tumbling down because of Earl, he just sang. I saw he looked good against them. It was a nice backdrop for this photograph that I'm carrying. This faded photograph that I do love so looks so

00:38:49.610 - 00:39:05.730

good standing against the wall of Jericho. But that's not why the wall of Jericho fell down and Earl didn't have anything to do with that. These stories don't require the power to knock down a wall.

00:39:05.740 - 00:39:24.920

They don't require victory over a wall. In fact , losing nobly is actually the gooey sweet center of it all. Losing nobly really is another marker of the virtue, but it's only a virtue to lose

00:39:24.920 - 00:39:45.900

nobly. If you can afford to lose nobly. His black brothers and sisters all around him down through black belt, north Carolina could not afford to lose nobly. Our protagonist has been washed in the blood

00:39:45.010 - 00:40:04.930

washed as white as snow and he can afford a kind of story that across the other side of the tracks is out of not in the budget. See these stories cherish innocence, not justice, not mercy

00:40:07.010 - 00:40:22.730

. The movement. You know, tell me, tell me one of these stories where the movement appears on stage that to have the protagonist belong to the struggle that knocks down the wall would sully the protagonist

00:40:23.010 - 00:40:36.520

. I once had had dinner with a man he made, I can't remember his name now Tom and anyway he made Bull Durham quite a good movie for a date and all. Um But he was making

00:40:36.520 - 00:40:46.410

a movie he thought about the solidarity, the rise of solidarity in Poland which the polish working class, they defeated Stalin. You may have heard of him . The ghost of Stalin that ruled stalinism was toppled

00:40:46.410 - 00:40:57.440

by the polish working class. They organized a union , they had 60 million people. It's a catholic country. They had 60 million people. 10 million of them were in the union. That means all

00:40:57.440 - 00:41:08.240

the parents and a great many of the Children were in one labor union. That's what pushed down the wall if one wanted to know. But Tom. Campbell was tom to his last name. Tom was

00:41:08.240 - 00:41:19.710

making this movie and he was telling me about walesa . Which we are we are we all saw walesa because he he was an electricity, climbed up the wall of the factory. The tanks were all around

00:41:19.710 - 00:41:30.690

the factory. They'd come to crush the people's uprising . And we went to climbs up the Uh chain link fence which is pretty high 20 ft 25. And he's at the top and it's on CNN it's

00:41:30.690 - 00:41:45.520

worldwide television violence. The leader has has sneaking into where the workers are in the factory. It's a moment. That's when I went to goes on world stage and the movie maker was telling me that there

00:41:45.520 - 00:41:58.630

was a girl on the other side of the fence in the movie there would be a girl and that he would catch her eye and he really was climbing against over the fence to meet her. See we

00:41:58.640 - 00:42:12.250

rosa parks, her feet were tired. We can't say she was the most politically active woman in Montgomery Alabama. She'd been an activist for 20 years. You know, She heard she had first become involved

00:42:12.250 - 00:42:22.670

in the movement in 1931 with the Scottsboro trials. We can't say that. You know, she was just she was tired, you see, because we can respect that. We don't want anybody getting the

00:42:22.670 - 00:42:35.470

wrong idea and thinking that anybody has to do anything , you see. And besides, that's not what this movie is about. Right? The movie of of of of to kill a mockingbird. The movie

00:42:35.470 - 00:42:49.530

of Earl's Last Standard Lewisburg. It's about why I'm not like those other white people. That's the invisible subtitles, why I am not like those other white people. That's why we carry the story around in

00:42:49.540 - 00:43:09.790

our pockets. Now, don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends are white people. Um , I love white people. I myself have taken enormous impoverished white Children into my home And raise them

00:43:09.790 - 00:43:30.120

to be Division one athletes. Mm hmm. That's how you know, I'm I'm not like those other white people. And I love URL to the bottom of my heart, to the bottom of my toes

00:43:30.900 - 00:43:43.590

. I love IRL. See the problem is not that we love these stories is why we love them . We can continue to drive them if we understand why we love them and we let hold of them

00:43:43.590 - 00:44:00.250

just a little bit. See we love rosa parks . But she was a militant activist when martin Luther king was in diapers, she was organized national political campaigns when he was in high school, she was

00:44:00.250 - 00:44:10.480

the secretary of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. Which is the strongest black labor union who has ever been in this country. Well. But you know when when we tell our rosa parks story, none

00:44:10.480 - 00:44:22.100

of that happens let alone that. She moved to Detroit and became a black nationalist and a follower of Malcolm X. She wrote a book my story. Do we read it? No because we already know

00:44:22.100 - 00:44:31.600

her story and would like to tell you about it if you don't mind. Which doesn't include the fact for example that she never believed in Nonviolence, she blessed it. She thought it was great, she

00:44:31.600 - 00:44:45.860

honored its achievements and she was a kind of all of its spiritual aspect. But she never took it for herself. She always kept guns to protect herself and her family because they were afraid. And she

00:44:45.860 - 00:44:57.400

had learned this from her grandfather whom she adored. He was a member of the Marcus Garvey movement in Alabama back in the teens and twenties and she grew up on his lap and he with she would be

00:44:57.400 - 00:45:09.440

on one knee and the shotgun cradled on the other Because it was the 1920s in Alabama and hundreds and hundreds of people died in the movement. People asked me to civil rights and I always want to know

00:45:09.450 - 00:45:22.280

which one. There was a movement in L. A. In the in the Delta of the Mississippi River in the Teens and 20s. There was a movement in Alabama in the Teens and 20s, lots

00:45:22.280 - 00:45:34.210

of people. It's not on tv for one thing they came in a shooting killed everybody, not everybody , they didn't kill rosa parks grandmother. But see that's for her, that's her moment being on granddaddy's

00:45:34.210 - 00:45:45.580

lab, he was her political teacher and her he was a preacher, he was her spiritual teacher, you know, so so she has a she has a full and complicated and and round life that that

00:45:45.590 - 00:45:55.280

we could learn about if we were interested, but we insist that she be who we say she is , and we will not let her not because we don't want to deal with her complexity. And because

00:45:55.280 - 00:46:07.600

that would tell us too much about the world. She was confronting stuff we don't want to know because we want to add water and stir and have redemption . Rather, we want a purity gospel story,

00:46:08.080 - 00:46:22.870

tear the packet open, add water and stir. We don't want these blues history, this unresolved, complicated, loose ended real human being. Because see that one would lead us toward the calamitous social structures

00:46:22.870 - 00:46:34.200

that we are dealing with right now. Yeah, but we'd rather be led to the heavenly city of some kind. Not this one, not the actual city. We actually are leaving the city as fast

00:46:34.200 - 00:46:51.710

as we can. Mhm. Mhm. We cling to these stories that use what Bonhoeffer called cheap grace . So we tell the Children self congratulatory fables in which dr king called on the nation to accept its

00:46:51.710 - 00:47:07.410

own creed. And he made a beautiful, joyful noise unto the Lord a beautiful speech and the wall came tumbling down. It's essentially a moral appeal to call on America's conscience. And America answered it.

00:47:07.180 - 00:47:25.660

Never mind that he died among the garbage workers in Memphis telling them we have to organize a revolution, that the fundamental nature of our society must be changed . That the dispossessed must come together and march to

00:47:25.660 - 00:47:45.150

Washington and say no more and say the government's job is not to rain fire down on the people of the world. That the government's job is to deal with poverty in its own lap. These sugarcoated histories

00:47:45.170 - 00:48:02.600

that leave out those pieces are a sign that we want, we want to transcend the world without actually confronting it. WEB du Bois recognized this in 1912 , He writes, this country has had its appetite

00:48:02.600 - 00:48:23.510

for facts, on the negro question spoiled by sweets . Its appetite has been spoiled by sweets. So in the years since Dr King was murdered, we invented an innocuous black santa claus who just wanted everybody

00:48:23.510 - 00:48:37.110

to be kind to one another and perhaps by a car of some american made car. I'm sure I saw a Microsoft commercial. I was walking through the airport. It's been a year before last, I

00:48:37.110 - 00:48:47.760

think. And I heard Dr King. So I turned around and there he was on the television and it was Microsoft. And then sort of after he spoke for a moment, it sort of faded into

00:48:47.770 - 00:49:06.390

their products and I thought, I don't think they know everything about DR King. Yeah. Because he , over in Chapel Hill in 1957, he said , I never intend to accommodate myself to the tragic

00:49:06.400 - 00:49:24.480

inequalities of an economic system which takes necessities from the many in order to give luxuries to the few 1957 he said that oh the young people who chanted black power In the late 1960s were critical of Dr.

00:49:24.830 - 00:49:35.310

They loved him, but they were critical of him . They made fun of him actually. They had a name for him in the student nonviolent coordinating committee . They called him the Lord. The Lord is

00:49:35.310 - 00:49:54.910

coming. The Lord says it was a marking name they gave him because we had that beautiful voice and because he had that stature and because they were impatient and they in part there their chant was a generational

00:49:54.920 - 00:50:08.710

emblem. In part it also spoke out of a deep tradition that rosa parks grandfather could tell you all about. But Stokely Carmichael, who was the great popularizer of the phrase black power in those days.

00:50:08.720 - 00:50:22.520

He gained his stature not by just being able to speak, but by organizing the lounge county freedom organization in Lowndes County Alabama, which was a political black independent political party whose emblem was the black panther.

00:50:22.530 - 00:50:35.420

The original black panther party organized there in Lowndes County . And they won power in Lowndes County for a brief time. But Which was where when they, when Stokely Carmichael jumped out of the back of a

00:50:35.420 - 00:50:47.320

pickup truck with a sleeping bag in about$10 in Lowndes County. Not there wasn't a single black registered voter in Lowndes County and two years later they swept the county. But uh, he talked about how

00:50:47.320 - 00:51:01.520

they would go out through the, uh, the landscape and go up to these houses and start talking to the woman who came to the door about or voter registration and trying to talk about their program.

00:51:01.520 - 00:51:15.500

And, and there would be a look on her face and then she would say, you always your with dr king, you're right. And they of course still love to say, would always say yes

00:51:15.500 - 00:51:31.490

ma'am. And there was more truth to it. It was an ironic joke. Um, he also talked about going to the churches in Lawrence County in the evenings. And when they got there, uh

00:51:31.860 - 00:51:43.700

, he line, they were preaching, they sort of acknowledge Nonviolence, they were in church, They were trying to organize these people, they used the language of the church and they nodded at Nonviolence now

00:51:43.710 - 00:51:53.270

, but they weren't, they were armed, they didn't think the people were quite ready. And then he was, that was the first night and he was talking and he saw some old men come in

00:51:53.270 - 00:52:10.700

the back and just filed down and sit down the back row and they had shotguns. These were real old man from back in the sharecroppers Union and they came to him afterwards and said you you come around

00:52:10.700 - 00:52:30.380

here talking that Nonviolence son, they're gonna hand you half of what you're sitting on. They thought they had to convince Stokely Carmichael. Mhm. Anyway, the division between these things is is a spiritual and

00:52:30.390 - 00:52:47.170

intellectual architecture of convenience for us. Good nonviolent civil rights, bad black power. But the things are not separate. They grew out of the same soil . They addressed the same problems and they agreed on

00:52:47.170 - 00:53:05.630

a lot more than they disagreed on. One thing that is really important to understand about Nonviolence is that dr king did not go to Birmingham to win the hearts and minds of Bull Connor and George Wallace.

00:53:05.640 - 00:53:19.130

He was a black baptist from Alabama. He knew that we are mired in sin. He knew that we were, That you do not change the world through mere moral appeals. He understood that they had

00:53:19.130 - 00:53:37.360

to make Birmingham ungovernable and unprofitable until the men who own Bull Connor and George Wallace called it off because they couldn't make money Now. It might be different burning down a warehouse than sitting in that world wars

00:53:37.590 - 00:53:52.480

at the lunch counter. But what they have in common is you ain't making any money until I am a citizen. Mhm. It is an act of coercion dr King. And his first sermon, Excuse

00:53:52.480 - 00:54:05.700

me? His first political speech on December five as the bus boycott opens. It's a great, great talk. He had 15 minutes, I think, to prepare it, he made a few notes on

00:54:05.700 - 00:54:19.610

the way over to the church on the back of an envelope but he grounds the movement in Nonviolence and Christianity, which he conveniently blurred onto one another as if they were synonymous deft. Then he makes a

00:54:19.610 - 00:54:34.490

kind of so love and then he makes a kind of four July speech about how the glory of american democracy is the right to protest and he it celebrates freedom of speech. He knew they were going to

00:54:34.490 - 00:54:46.100

blow up his house, he knew he didn't have , he was Montgomery Alabama, he wasn't an idiot , he knew he didn't have freedom of speech, but he laid it out there anyway, so american

00:54:46.100 - 00:55:04.390

democracy and christian love. But then he says love is not just God is not just the God of love. God is, there's a thing called justice , he said and justices lovin harness, he says

00:55:04.620 - 00:55:16.460

God is not just the God of love but also the god that says be still and know that I am God and if you don't obey me, I'm gonna break the backbone of your power. His words

00:55:16.470 - 00:55:30.860

, I'm gonna break the backbone of your power and I'm going to cast you out of the arms of your national and your international relationships. And he he was explaining that to the, to the american people

00:55:31.740 - 00:55:45.070

that we can make you or break you in this rivalry with the soviet union, we can make you or break you. He knew that America was two empires were grappling for control of the world and this

00:55:45.070 - 00:56:00.690

was where his strategic opportunity was. You know, when they moved in Alabama in in the Delta of Mississippi and Arkansas in 1919. There was no such situation and federal troops led by the governor of Arkansas

00:56:00.690 - 00:56:17.880

, brought in machine guns and mode. The people down at Elaine Arkansas 250 died immediately many more after . And then hundreds sentenced to long prison terms. The movement. This was not an option in a

00:56:17.880 - 00:56:30.340

world that was divided where people were mostly of color and two empires were competing and one of them said it was the beacon of democracy and the other said , have you seen these pictures from the Chicago defender

00:56:31.330 - 00:56:58.350

? This was this was the landscape of power. This was where, where power would come for the black south in many ways. I don't know what um dr king said to local white folks in Montgomery

00:56:59.230 - 00:57:22.480

. But the white folks that you see in those film clips tend to be from socialists from Minnesota or trade unionists from new york city or communists from san Francisco or radical nuns from someplace Quakers, People from

00:57:22.480 - 00:57:38.900

the margins of american political life, The white folks are not from Selma, they're not from Birmingham, They've come a long way and people don't like them back where they come from, but they came a

00:57:38.900 - 00:58:00.080

long way to stand with dr king. He didn't have much use for weak willed dreamers, He didn't have much use for people. He called too good to do good. In his immortal letter from Birmingham

00:58:00.080 - 00:58:15.160

jail, he says his biggest problem is not the ku Klux Klan, It's not the white Citizens Council , it's the good white folks, it's the white moderate who says we're with you, but we're we

00:58:15.160 - 00:58:27.570

don't know about these methods that you're using or we're with you and we don't know about now or we are with you. But you know, this is not going to change overnight. As if he thought

00:58:27.570 - 00:58:42.790

it did. He said, uh he called us that we need to find the strength to love the prophet Isaiah, whom he adored, said if you do not stand firm in faith, you do not

00:58:42.790 - 00:59:01.510

stand at all. We've got a we've got a movement going on now. As always, we're there's many labors and not enough hands to do it, but I'm going to try to persuade you to join

00:59:01.510 - 00:59:15.090

it because we're right now. The battle is about public education and the battle is rising all over this country. And if you want to know where the movement is today, that's where it is. And

00:59:15.090 - 00:59:31.580

it's not a secret and it's rising all over this country. But it's converging on wake county north Carolina and pretty darn soon. Actually, on February 12 , we're marching in Raleigh. We'd love to meet

00:59:31.580 - 00:59:49.870

you in front of Shaw University in Downtown Raleigh at 9:30 on that Saturday morning, February 12. It's a people are coming from all over the country. Mhm. The Wake County's become kind of a beacon

00:59:49.880 - 00:00:00.000

. They put together this uh socioeconomic diversity plan for the schools From the in the first decade of that plan, African American, children's test scores on proficiency tests went from 40% passing to 80.5. Mixed schools

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

work better Detroit is too late, Baltimore, it's too late. It's not too late everywhere. But if we don't beat them in Wake County, the games done and they got more money, they got

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

more money than you can imagine. Americans for prosperity . I'll tell you more about it later. But Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008. And they're a little upset about that. Mhm Jesus said,

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

look forward. It's quoting the prophet Isaiah, who said that if we loose the bonds of injustice, if we let the oppressed go free, if we feed and shelter the homeless poor, that our lights

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

shall break forth like the dawn, and we shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail, that our ancient ruins shall be rebuilt, that we will raise up

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

the foundations of many generations and be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in