Day 8: Program VI: Selma

Tape 1

Stanford Professor Clayborne Carson expresses his belief that the term "civil rights movement" inadequately expresses the meaning of the activity that took place from Montgomery (1954) to Selma (1965). he believes that  what actually occurred was a broad social movement encompassing economic, social and cultural issues.

According to Carson, "classical" theory sees black protest as grounded in other social movements arising throughout history. The enactment of civil rights legislation was a response to the protest of African-Americans.  But after 1965, it was clear that black discontent was deeply rooted and aimed at liberation rather than legislation.

Professor Carson uses the sociological lens of "resource mobilization" to look at the struggle of the black community and the conflict that emerged between the SCLC and SNCC.

At least until Selma, the top priority of the SCLC was legislative.  The support of the Kennedy Administration was as important as the support of local black churches. The leadership was charismatic, epitomized in the role of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Although it had experimented with seeking outside support during Freedom Summer and liberal politics in the attempt to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democrats at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, the central thrust of SNCC was local activism, local leadership and local resources. For SNCC, victory was not national legislation but local control.

After Selma, the differences between the two organizations erupted into conflict.

Tape 2
Arlie Schardt covered the civil rights movement in the south from 1962 until 1969.  He makes some observations about his experience and the dangers faced by reporters and cameramen while covering the movement.

He also reads passages from his journal depicting the treatment of Dr. King, Rev. Ralph Abernathy and the marchers attempting to complete the James Meredith March as they passed through Phildelphia, MS, in June, 1966.

Tapes 2B to 3A

City College Professor David Garrow addresses several "threads" leading up to Selma:

1. The distinction between legal action and mass action.
The NAACP represented a "talented tenth" approach to the problem of  discrimination. SCLC and SNCC represented the mass action approach of A. Phillip Randolph and proved its effectiveness.

2. From 1960 to 1965, an evolution from spirituality to pragmatism.
While Albany was seen as a failure for King, it marked the high point of emotional fervor; "the papers and tapes make you cry," he says.  After Albany, the leadership sees that it is not going to prevail by spiritual committment and adopts a political strategy that provokes federal intervention.

3. Scholars and journalists have a bias toward organizations; they pay less attention to the spiritual dimension.

According to Garrow, Selma looks like a great victory given that key legislation passes in its wake, but it lacks in the spiritual power and local effect of Albany.  Also, King begins to see that he's had a false perception and that legislation is only going to have a limited effect.

Garrow believes in the wake of the Nobel Prize and Selma, King loses his optimism about white goodwill and becomes more radical.  He also sheds his profound sense of unworthiness and his fear of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.  He moves on to Chicago with a program of organizing the poor.

Tape 3B

University of Massachussetts Professor Bill Strickland was also an organizer for SNCC and participant in one of the Selma marches.  According to him, the movement lasted from 1954-1968.  In those years, the movement raised questions about the meaning of America.  However, it also discovered that it could not deal with America based on moral appeal.

For Strickland, Selma was no victory.  Dr. King's reputation was "in tatters" but the system rallied to save his legitimacy.  If legislation was the cure, how to explain Watts, Harlem, Rochester, Detroit?

Strickland tells the producers that it is difficult to stop in 1965; projecting Selma as a victory does serious violence.  The internal dynamics of the movement must be seen in the larger context of "America's refusal to yield to the innocent pleas of its people."

Tapes 3B & 4

Q&A with Strickland, Garrow, Schardt and Carson.