If you were a protester in the Civil Rights movement what would you have done differently?

[xultar]

I get the impression that people now think the way MLK protested is for suckers.

I don't know conservatively 10's of thousands of blacks and whites died during that time. Hell, I don't think we'll ever know how many really died.

Were the civil rights protesters in the 50's and 60's suckers? Would black folks have gotten their rights sooner if we went to congress and yelled during press conferences or stormed congress's offices and lit a fire under their ass?

I wonder? Hey maybe instead of getting our rights when we did we'd have had them in 6 months...I don't know I'm just askin.

So, what do y'all think? How would you have changed the protests of the civil rights protests 60's? What did the black folks in the 60's do wrong?

I will say from my impression the Black Panthers didn't help much but in your eyes maybe they did. Maybe we need that type of stuff now. I don't think it would make things better but hey I could be wrong.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. They were different times

and non violent protest was something new for the US then. Certain elements tried, over and over again, to play the fear card. The thing that kept civil rights going on was the fact that, by and large, pro-civil rights Americans went out of their way to show that they were ordinary, every day people. My mother was a member of the Urban League and I met and knew African American leaders in my community. Their values were mine. What they wanted from life--a fair shake--was what I wanted. What to do differently? Have Rev. King NOT go out on the balcony in Memphis.

[xultar]

4. I often thought I'd take that balcony moment back. But you know...

I think the depths that the ebil fuckers would go to needed to be demonstrated to make the shit real and to ensure the last of the decent people got off the sidelines.

If I had a time machine I'd take it back but I have thought long and hard about it and I don't think I could.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. The way MLK protested, WHEN MLK protested, wasn't for suckers.

It is now, however. The power of the protest is dead. Overused and completely cliche.

Case in point: There was a rally on the National Mall a couple of months ago. I was walking back from an appointment with a colleague of mine that works in the House of Representatives. I asked him, "What's the big protest about today?" His response, "Does it matter? There's a mob out there every day about one issue or another."

Point is, it is so entirely overdone that no one even bothers to stop to find out what you're protesting against anymore.

The methods you mentioned will only serve to get the cause completely undermined. What will work is grassroots efforts - efforts like MoveOn.org. That gets you noticed.

Hurry up before that becomes cliche too.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. How is going to congress and yelling at press conferences...

any different than sitting down in the front seat of a bus?

[xultar]

5. Very different. They could have got on the bus yelling. They didn't

there is a reason for it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. I'm sorry, is that supposed to be a fundamental difference?

Because I'm not buying it.

In the sixties, a black person sitting in the front of the bus in the South was considered just as rude and disrespectful as interrupting a press conference.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

23. I agree. There's a world of difference in the two approaches.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

26. Great.

So what are they?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

29. Tone and respectability.

People don't respond well when you get up in their faces. When you corner a wild animal, that is when they are the most dangerous. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't corner the establishment. They brought a large measure of honor, dignity, and respectability to the civil rights movement.

Nelson Mandela didn't end apartheid by yelling at press conferences. Ghandi didn't change India by threatening those in power. They obtained change by being a reputable, credible, and human face for their movements.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

30. Seriously?

Because people considered Parks, King and others to be very disrespecful. Downright rude actually.

"Ghandi didn't change India by threatening those in power."

Really? Could have fooled me.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

35. Uhm, maybe racists did.

But I don't think any reasonable person could've concluded that, which is the point entirely.

And please, show me when and where Ghandi actually issued threats to the British? Perhaps you mean he POSED a threat to them, but he did not verbally or physically issue threats to them.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. Sure. Which was a significant portion of the country back then.

You're right, reasonable people didn't conclude King as being disrespectful then, and I don't think reasonable people feel any differently about Sheehan now.

"And please, show me when and where Ghandi actually issued threats to the British? Perhaps you mean he POSED a threat to them, but he did not verbally or physically issue threats to them."

Please, show me when and where Sheehan issued threats to the Americans?

[xultar]

36. You know what they are trying to say.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. Yes, I know.

I remember hearing the same sorts of things forty years ago.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

41. Yes, I know.

I remember hearing the same sorts of things forty years ago.

[IronLionZion]

42. The Nazis would have just killed him.

It all depends on the situation. The Brits would listen to reason. In the later years Gandhi even visited the UK to meet with leaders.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

44. I'm sorry...

what's this got to do with the Nazis?

[IronLionZion]

50. nothing, it has to do with civil nonviolent tactics

it really does depend greatly on the situation and what type of people you are dealing with

[Cameron27]

9. Well, for one, they were likely to

get beaten, shot or lynched for sitting in the front of a bus.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. More likely they would have gotten arrested.

[xultar]

16. Oh and then beaten and hung.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Rosa Parks was beaten and hung?

Goodness gracious.

[xultar]

21. Thank god she wasn't but you know plenty of us were beaten and hung for just being alive.

So it isn't a leap to say that plenty of black folk arrested never make it to trial.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Sure.

And Cindy Sheehan's had innumberable death threats.

[xultar]

39. True. Scary true. I just believe her tactics can be better presented for effectiveness.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

45. Alright.

How so?

[Cameron27]

46. But Cindy Sheehan

doesn't have police dogs ripping her apart or fire hoses turned on her when she marches down the street. Those were ugly and brutal times, and there's not much comparison between protesting against a war in 2002---> 2007, and protesting the civil rights of blacks and minorities in the 50's and 60's.

When Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus, she knew very well that her body might be found hanging from the limb of a tree. Martin Luther King was absolutely prescient when it came to his assassination, but protested with nobility despite this.

Can you even imagine what would have happened if a group of minority protesters camped out on a plot of land in Crawford during the civil rights movement?

The times just aren't comparable.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

48. Well, yes. And Cindy's white and King was black.

And Cindy had a guy in a pick up truck drive through their camp and run over their memorial. And they killed her son.


But I'm still not seeing any real difference. Civil disobedience is civil disobedience.

[Cameron27]

49. What are you talking about?

A guy in a pick up truck killed her son? Her son wasn't killed because she was a protester, he wasn't singled out to be killed because of who he was.

I won't put Cindy Sheehan on the same plane as MLK and the protesters of the civil rights movement.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

51. I'm talking about Cindy Sheehan and other protesters.

"A guy in a pick up truck killed her son?"

People who support the war killed her son. George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, the Guy in the Pick-up, Rahm Emmanuel...

"Her son wasn't killed because she was a protester."

No. She became a protester because her son was killed. Many civil rights protesters became protesters because their sons and brothers and husbands were killed. Emmit Till's mother comes to mind.

"I won't put Cindy Sheehan on the same plane as MLK and the protesters of the civil rights movement."

No, but that's not important. MLK and other protesters would.

[Cameron27]

52. Protesters of that era may support Cindy Sheehan,

but I seriously doubt any of them would put her on the same level as MLK.

Why not ask Jesse Jackson:

Martin Luther King = Cindy Sheehan?

I admire her for protesting the war, and I sympathize that she lost a son, but she is not comparable to King, Malcolm x, Rosa Parks, or any of the hundreds of protesters who were bombed, hanged, shot, fire hosed, chased down by dogs or assassinated during that time period.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

53. They'd put her on the same level as Mamie Till.

And they sure wouldn't have been telling her to sit down and shut up.

Ask Jesse Jackson?

[Cameron27]

54. Did I say sit down and shut up?

Nice pic of Jesse. I'm sure he thinks the world of Cindy; I'm also certain that he'd be the last to rank her as equal to MLK or Mamie Till.

You're not going to be budged on your opinion, and I'm not going to be budged on mine; so good day to you.
:hi:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

55. You implied it.

[Cameron27]

56. I did no such thing

but keep up with the hyperbole without me.

[mmonk]

6. The only suckers were those that did nothing.

[xultar]

10. Having your life on the line makes it difficult so I can't be too hard on people

who were scared they'd get hung.

[mmonk]

31. True.

However, tyranny's back must be broken through personal sacrifice if only at least, attending a rally or holding a public but silent vigil and teaching your children what is right. We all benefitted by the actions of a few with courage.

[Sapere aude]

7. I was in a civil rights march in Yellow Springs, OH. There was a barber there who refused to cut

the hair of African Americans. I was proud to be one of the two white people in the march. I would have not done anything different. Of course we could not buy anything in town that day. No one would sell us anything and we wanted to get a coke and some snacks after the march.

I was aways proud of the civil rights marchers. They were the underdog in place where what they were doing was hated. They were doing it for future generations not only themselves. They were willing to sacrafice themselves for better lives for there kids and grandkids. I like the idea of keeping your eye on the prize.

[manic expression]

8. Many movements used more confrontational tactics

The women's suffrage movement in Britain was VERY confrontational, as women routinely spat upon representatives who refused to let women vote. In the end, they got the vote.

The Black Panthers were making lots of headway, but the government destroyed them through infiltration and outright assassination (Fred Hampton, for example). They were threatening the actual system that oppressed and continues to oppress minorities and impoverished people alike, and so they were always going to meet far more governmental opposition.

The Black Panthers had tactics which helped their communities, including breakfast programs, classes on political theory, testing for sickle cell disease (before anyone else really cared about it), countering police brutality, organization and more. That helped A LOT, but this was unacceptable to those in power.

SNCC and MLK weren't really challenging the bourgeoisie or their institutions as much as the racist south. That doesn't lessen their struggle a bit, it simply means they were fighting different things. When MLK started speaking against Vietnam and other issues, he met the same fate as Fred Hampton and many other Black Panthers.

[xultar]

14. DAYUM you are good. People did for get the good the Black Panthers

did once the bad came out.

I don't want that to be the entire legacy of this peace movement.

Black panthers fed kids so they could learn. That was the greatest gift. Too bad people only associate killing with the Black Panthers.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

24. You're very, very right.

There was a lot of good to be learned by the Black Panthers, despite the reputation they've received.

Of course, you know who learned the tactics? The Evangelicals. Think about it - what do you think happens in those Superchurches?

[BuelahWitch]

13. If I remember correctly, MLK's protests were patterned

after Ghandi's. They were both men of peace who were trying to effect change. The more violent protests in the late '60s helped bring Nixon to power, because the rank and file Americans were afraid of the violence.

[Sapere aude]

15. The Black Panthers helped African Americans. They had breakfast programs

and other varius programs so that poor people could make it through self help. You rarely hear about the good that the Panthers did.

[xultar]

18. True. Unfortunately people have long memories for the bad and not the good.

That is part of the issue.

[BuelahWitch]

20. The problem is, only the bad goes in the history books

Those of us who weren't around at the time, or who were too young to remember have to hear it from alternative sources, like DU or "The People vs. John Lennon" (there's a clip of Lennon talking about the Panthers helping with education and feeding kids in that film.)

[Sapere aude]

28. Go to the C-Span archives. There was a C-Span show with some of the leaders of the Black Panthers

and they were talking about what it was like back then. They told of all the programs they had and what the leaders were like as real people. They were humble and shy but they were leaders. They were both men and women together.

The C-Span show was on not to long ago. Maybe last month I think. It is really a good history lesson for those not old enough to remember.

I think I read or heard that one of the reasons the Panthers were first formed was to escort Malcolm X's widow to Los Angeles. They feared she would be killed to.

Here is the link,

http://www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=195698-1

The Black Panthers
<i>The Black Panthers</i>
larger image
Product ID: 195698-1
Format: Forum
Event Date: October 18, 2006
Location: New York, New York
Last Aired: January 1, 2007
Length: 2 hours, 19 minutes

Sponsors:
Cooper Union

Appearances:
Johnson-Seale, Leslie - Former Member, Black Panther Party
Jones, Charles E. - Founding Chair, Georgia State University, African-American Studies
Seale, Bobby - Founding Member, Black Panther Party
Shames, Stephen - Photographer

Summary:
Stephen Shames talked about his book, The Black Panthers, published by Aperture. This collection of never-before-published images of the Black Panther Party members taken by photographer Stephen Shames during the height of the movement (1967-1973) was released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the founding of the party. Mr. Shames delivered a PowerPoint presentation and discussed some of the images in his book. Black Panther founding chairman Bobby Seale and his wife and former party member Leslie Johnson-Seale talked about the legacy of this significant and controversial social movement. Professor Jones moderated. After their presentations the participants responded to audience members’ questions.

[Behind the Aegis]

19. Wouldn't change a thing.

I feel that MLK and others did what was needed. Violence only led to more violence. When the government or locals acted violently against African-Americans, who were being peaceful, it was that which awoke many to the issues. The one thing that they had, that really doesn't exist anymore is a singular message. When they marched on Washington, the goal was clear. This was the same for the 1987 march on Washington by gays and lesbians. As time progressed, side issues started to jump to the forefront, diluting the primary message and giving fodder to the media and others to ignore the primary message. While "multi-tasking" is a wonderful thing, when it comes to things like this, I feel focus is more beneficial.

[damntexdem]

25. I WAS a protester in the Civil Rights Movement.

And MLK's tactics were fairly effective.

Yelling and screaming for decades had not done much, then the correct movement at the correct time hit the big time.

[xultar]

33. I'd love to talk with you about your experiences. My mom and I are considering

a book on the subject...aimed at kids because kids aren't being informed of the real experiences behind the movement.

[IronLionZion]

27. We needed both the black panther party AND MLK

to have gotten civil rights. The panthers drew lots of attention through their tactics and MLK showed a much more reasonable face that people would be willing to support. Neither the aggressive nor peaceful movements would have made it on their own.

Of course on the aggressive side were also the Nation of Islam, Deacons for Defense, and other groups. On the peaceful side included a lot of religous groups and even quite a few whites. Joe Lieberman often stated he marched with the civil rights movement. Guys like Joe are easy to ignore. Guys like Huey Newton are not. The NAACP has admitted they needed these external groups to provide armed guards for protection so they themselves could remain nonviolent.

Good topic Xultar.

just my $0.02

[Sapere aude]

38. The Black Panther were escorted Malcolm X's widow to Los Angles

It was feared that she would be killed to. I believe I heard that it was one of the first things they ever did.

[IronLionZion]

43. yup, they were formed partly because of Malcolm's death

to "fill the void".

[twilight_sailing]

32. MLK is the greatest American. Period.

[High Plains]

34. I would have shut up to not make Democrats squirm.

Now, where's that little sarcasm thingie?

[BrotherBuzz]

47. Perhaps your view of the Black Panther Party would change if you knew...

what they had accomplished in California prior to be attacked and destroyed by the national MSM and the powers that be (J. Edgar Hoover). The Black Panthers were initially formed to protect local communities from police brutality and racism. The militant aspect of the BPP was a huge turnoff to a lot of people, but to really understand it, one needed to know what was happening in Oakland in the early sixties. The group also ran medical clinics and provided free food to school children. Within a couple of years the Black Panthers in Oakland were feeding over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. The BPP had established an infrastructure and network that shamed anything else out there. All they needed was money to realism the dream, yet rather then finance or assist them, society chose to destroyed them because a lot of people were just plain afraid of the power they wielded. Would have, cold have, should have been.

Black Panther Party Platform and Program

October 1966

What We Want

What We Believe

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.

We believe that black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.

2. We want full employment for our people.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black Community.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of black people. We will accept the payment as currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over twenty million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.

We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.

6. We want all black men to be exempt from military service.

We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.

7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.

We believe we can end police brutality in our black community by organizing black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all black people should arm themselves for self defense.

8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.

We believe that all black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

9. We want all black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their black communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.

We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the black community from which the black defendant came. We have been, and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the black community.

10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the black colony in which only black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate for the purpose of determining the will of black people as to their national destiny.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to supper, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.



This is the window of the office on Shattuck of the Black Panther National Headquarters. It was taken on September 10, 1968, after Huey Newton's trial. He'd been convicted of voluntary manslaughter. He was accused of murdering an Oakland policeman, but was not convicted of murder. A couple of Oakland policeman were so distraught at the verdict that they shot his poster. They also shot Eldridge Cleaver's poster. They also shot the "Newton for Congress" bumper sticker. This was the opinion of the Oakland police officers who disagreed with the verdict.

In 1966, only 16 of Oakland's 661 Police Officers were African American.

[xultar]

57. I love it when White Folk educate me on my history. The tactiics the

Black Panthers used in the end didn't work. Violence only makes people scared.

Yes they fed and schooled...but in the long run all they are remembered for is the violence and that really drowns out the good.

That is why we have MLK day and not Black Panther day.