Michael Powell: Reflections on the Freedom Riders
santacruzsentinel.com | May 15th 2011 1:30 AM
Michael Powell
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Freedom Rides
of 1961. The movie on them, based on Raymond Arsenault's book, will air on
PBS Monday. The KQED times are 9 p.m. on Monday on their "9HD" channel and 8
p.m. on Tuesday on their "Life" channel. I encourage everyone who can to
take the time to view this moving documentary with their families. The Santa
Cruz Film Festival hosted an advance showing of it on Tuesday, May 10. As a
former Freedom Rider, I was asked to introduce it and what follows is taken
from my prepared remarks:
Over 400 Riders were involved. My own part was a small one, though it did
involve six weeks in prison. Others get to the heart and soul of what
happened. I want to focus on one name, and one idea: The name is "the
Reverend James Lawson." The idea is "non-violent direct action."
The book quotes Rev. Lawson: ... it was all but impossible "to solve the
problem" of racial injustice "without people being hurt. Only when this
hostility comes to the surface, as it did in Montgomery and Birmingham, will
we begin to see that the system of segregation is an evil which destroys
people and teaches them a contempt for life. We are trying to reach the
conscience of the South. Brutality must be suffered to show the true
character of segregation."
Rev. Lawson was a mentor to the student movement in Nashville. John Lewis
now a congressman from Atlanta, was part of that movement, one of the first
Freedom
Riders, and their first victim of serious violence: In Rock Hill, South
Carolina, approaching the "White" waiting room, he was attacked, suffering
bruised ribs and severe cuts around his eyes and mouth. Asked if he wished
to press charges, he declined. Almost 48 years later, one of his attackers
came to Congressman Lewis to apologize. Asked why on Oprah Winfrey's show,
he credited God with changing his heart and using Lewis' conduct to bring
about the change.
This shows the meaning of two key phrases from that time: The first is
"redemptive suffering." It is not the one who suffers who is being redeemed,
but the one who afflicts him! The second is "the beloved community" being
built as non-violent confrontation changes hearts.
Courage to persevere was also needed: When the dazed and battered original
Freedom Riders where coaxed into leaving the effort in Birmingham, it was
the Nashville student movement that would not accept defeat. Hearing their
offer to continue, James Farmer told their representative, Diane Nash, "You
realize it may be suicide." She responded, "We fully realize that, but we
can't let them stop us with violence. If we do, the movement is dead." When
Robert Kennedy's representative protested that their lives would be in
danger, the book records her reply: If the first wave of Nashville Freedom
Riders were to die, she calmly informed him, "then others will follow them."
This movie is the story of a wonderful and remarkable chapter in our
history, one that triggered progress toward racial equality that can only be
described as astounding in its speed. I thank God for having been a small
part of it.
Michael Powell is a semi-retired software developer living in Boulder Creek.
Original Page: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/ci_18067572%3E
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