(00:00:01) Today is the start of Black History Month and we observe it by broadcasting a talk by former Georgia state. Senator, Julian Bond when he left office after an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1986, Julian Bond had served in the Georgia legislature for two decades. He was 25 years old when he entered the legislature, he gained national attention when he was nominated for vice president of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He was the first black to have his name placed in nomination at a major political party convention, but he withdrew his name because at the age of 28 he was too young to serve had he been elected while he was a student at Morehouse College in the 1960s. Julian Bond was one of the founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was active in voter registration drives in the rural South and he was an early opponent of the war in Vietnam. Julian bond is now an activist in many civil and human rights and World Peace organizations and he is a visiting lecturer at several colleges and universities. He spoke this past week at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. His speech is entitled crisis in Black America past present and future here is Julian Bond. (00:01:18) We have just entered the last decade of the 1900s. And in 10 short years, we'll see what few Americans living now have ever seen. the birth of a new century and the end of the old We tend therefore to thank of 1990 not simply as a new year, but rather as the beginning of a new decade a 10 times longer Span in which we will measure our worth as a nation and as a people. The 80s ended with a continuation of an American custom older than the century that will soon be left behind. Invasion by the United States of another helpless Nation In the first 30 years of the 20th century American president sent troops into the Caribbean and Central America 28 times. George Bush there for rings out the old as his predecessors rang in the new gunboats and Marines on a tropical isle. Bush chose to act in a proverbial fashion let the sword decide after strategy has failed. He would do well to remember another admonition a man May build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it. the 1980s also ended with a rush of freedom in Eastern Europe raising as many questions for the West as it tried to answer for the east George Bush and his foreign policy advisors came of political age during the height of the Cold War. He built his career and political philosophy on the need to contain Communism to make the world safe for democracy. The Communist threat was the vehicle used to stifle dissent at home to support terrorists abroad to justify a massive buildup of arms. It was easier to dismantle the wall in Berlin than it will be to dismantle that obscenity known as the American industrial complex in 1967 Martin Luther King expressing his opposition to the Vietnam War and other aspects of American foreign policy proclaimed. I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today my own government. He continued it is a sad fact that because of comfort complacency a morbid fear of Communism and are proneness to adjust to Injustice. The Western Nations that have initiated so much of the Revolutionary Spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti revolutionaries 23 years later. The Berlin Wall may be gone and with it much of our morbid fear of Communism, but our comfort complacency and capacity to adjust to Injustice yet remain (00:04:23) The (00:04:23) cold Warriors have merely shifted direction from east west to north-south. They are responsible not only for our African policy and the invasion of Panama, but for our support of the contras in Nicaragua and our funding of a brutal priest killing regime in El Salvador. We have yet to heed The Works of dr. King who concluded we must find new ways to speak for peace and Justice throughout the developing world a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged Down The Long Dark and shameful Carter's of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion might without morality and strength without sight if the old decade ended in celebration in the Warsaw Pact and shame and Central America. It's whole was much more than that the 10 years. We've left behind began with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan for little better. And for much worse. It was his decade his successor continues his policies in a Kinder gentler (00:05:32) voice. (00:05:34) The 80s will forever be the Reagan years for some they were years of great growth and success. But the for those Americans whose Skins are dark the decade of the 1980s were years of Sorrow as the decade began. The nation had chosen a president whose terms would hold awful parallels with reconstruction almost 100 years before Then and now a president desperate for power entered into an illicit Arrangement, not just with the unreconstructed South but with the national unreconstructed mentality, which believe then as it does now that private profit and public arrogance could be pursued at the expense of the people living on the economic Edge. The 1980 election was won by an amiable incompetent Who Sold intent was removing the government from every aspect of American life. He intended to take the government out of the business of enforcing equal opportunity. He intended to eliminate affirmative action for women and minorities. He intended to erase the laws and programs Written in Blood and sweat in the quarter Century. Since Martin King was the premier figure in the Freedom Movement and a majority of Americans were single-minded in pursuit of human freedom for the reaganites a conflict of interest was a precondition for employment in government a band of Financial and ideological profit ears descended on Washington like a crazed swarm of right-wing Locus bent on destroying the laws which protect our people from bigotry from poisoned air and water from greed, but nowhere was there assault on the rule of law. So great as in their Subvert ignored defy and destroy the laws which require an America which is bias-free a constituency of the comfortable the callous and the smug was recruited to form solid ranks against the Forgotten. They enforce the national nullification of the needs of the needy the gratuitous gratification of the gross and the greedy and practice the politics of prevarication Pious platitudes and self-righteous swinish nests. They forced upon us a form of triage economics producing the first increase in American infant mortality rates in 20 years and pushing thousands of poor and Working Poor American families deeper and deeper into poverty by midterm. The Census Bureau reported that the number of people living in poverty had increased over the previous four years by nine million the biggest increase since these statistics were first collected over two decades ago. Today the poorest toofus of our population receives a smaller share of the national income and the richest 2/5 a larger share than at any time since 1947. If we are to believe with Thomas Jefferson that the common man is the most precious portion of our state we find that precious resource in real danger of economic Extinction today. They increased American interference in the lives of our neighbors and this Hemisphere and in other countries around the globe criminal Invasion and Grenada u.s. sponsored terrorism and Nicaragua and Angela encouragement of white supremacy in South Africa. These are the legacies of the Reagan years the decade of the dominance of greed. In the summer of 1988 following the Democratic and Republican Presidential conventions, when the final phase of the presidential campaign had formally begun both George Bush and Michael Dukakis. Saw an America that many Americans never see for these two men America was the land of happy families and successful suburbs where every child waves an American flag where every day is the fourth of July, but there was then and is now another America a shadow America neither candidate dared to show or tell The eight years that went before had been a festive party thrown for America's Rich the middle class got by on two paychecks median family income was stagnant the percentage of young families who own their own homes went down for the first time since the depression for all these families. It wasn't morning in America. The only shining Points of Light. They saw where daylight through the cracks in their woes President Reagan had never seen a civil rights law. He liked his appointees to the federal courts and to administrative positions in the Department of Justice were determined to destroy or disobey every civil rights law they read President Reagan and his administration. The Constitution was a document of infinite elasticity to be stretched and tailored to fit the Fashions of the moment. The human cost of these actions is beyond measure when the government becomes the aggressor against the civil rights of its own people. It becomes the promoter of prejudice making common cause with the stain of white supremacy that has persisted throughout our history. The Reagan years saw temps to give tax breaks to segregated schools opposition to renewal of the Voting Rights Act transformation of the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice into a society for the protection of white male privilege the thrashing of the Civil Rights Commission, the halting of integration of the public schools and strident attacks on that part of the federal Judiciary that still sought to protect minority rights another front against equal rights gain strength and power in the 1980s led by Scholars and academics. Funded by Corporate America. This movement of neoconservatives aimed its effort at removing government regulation from every aspect of our lives and found a popular hated Target in civil rights while professing support for equal rights these Neo Bourbons opposed every tool designed to achieve that goal. They discredited affirmative action in the public mind not only because it threatened to ancient skin privilege, but because it served as a handy hated symbol of government intervention for these new races equal opportunity as a burden Society cannot afford to Bear their less than subtle messages that including blacks and women excludes quality. The truth is that true equality requires an increase in competition. These new States writers can ill afford. They're all white old boy networks in Academia and in Industry cannot tolerate Federal imposition of equal opportunity. They argue that the civil rights laws of the 1960s eliminated all discrimination that the playing field is now level that each contestant now stands equal at the starting line that some contestants have no shoes and others are gripped by heavy baggage from the past is of no consequence to these champions of the New Order even the undeniable successes of the government's feeble anti-poverty efforts stand discredited at the hands of this loud and Powerful minority Johnson's war on poverty at full strength only between 64 and 68 save lives rather than took them and spent infinitely fewer dollars doing it than America's foreign war and this war at home one real victories it decrease the percentage of American poor increase the numbers of the poor who saw doctors Head Start provided a head start unsafe housing stock diminished the poor began to feel their potential for power. Today the drive for civil rights and economic Justice suffers not from its supposed and imagine excesses, but from the lies distortions and untruths of its opponents the opponent's tell us discrimination against minorities is no longer a problem Society has to protect the majority from reverse discrimination instead. They tell a school teachers and unemployed mothers are special interests. They tell us civil rights remedies produce civil Rome's they tell us class not race produces racial inequity that culture not colored divided black and white, they reject the intergenerational effects of racism as a cause for black disadvantage discrimination is dead. They shout and cannot be the cause but blacks will face discrimination as long as they exhibit discriminations badges when the topic is black unemployment rates twice those four whites past and present bias plays no role. But when the subject is welfare burdens or family breakups or other so-called pathologies these Neo segregationist never Tire of listing the cumulative effects of our races past 1989 ended with a blast and assassins bomb killed a judge in Alabama a lawyer in Georgia, reminding us that race and racism are ever with us. The entire year was filled with a Renaissance of racism the university became a Battleground against bigots. The list of schools were attacks on blacks or Jews have occurred stretches from Abraham Baldwin College in Georgia to Yale University in Connecticut from the University of Alabama to the University of Wisconsin Howard Beach and Bensonhurst remind us this virus is not Southern the daily headlines tell us that no region of the nation. No sector of our society is immune from hate and fear. In Boston when a white middle-class Suburban said a black man. Did it the press the politicians and the police took the white man's word and an innocent black man's Freedom ignoring the precept that the husband is the natural suspect The Establishment followed the precept that a black man in a black man is a natural suspect healthy skepticism proved no match for virulent racism even headlines from abroad summon recent memories of Terror here at home who could not have been reminded when Chinese students were shot down of the similar fate black college students met at Orangeburg and Jackson State last Monday Jack Kemp Secretary of Housing and Urban Development gave Coretta Scott King a photograph of Chinese students standing in Tiananmen Square holding a sign reading We Shall Overcome. Yet no president mourn those who died at Orangeburg and Jackson State no cries from on high demanded punishment from the states of South Carolina and Mississippi for the murders, they committed and when crowds of czechoslovakians and Hungarian swelled the streets demanding Freedom who Among Us did not remember the scorn heaped on the peaceful protesters of the American South when bold rumanians took up arms against a bloody Tyrant who could not remember angry condemnation when South Africa's long-suffering Millions did the same the first year of the Kinder gentler Administration only serves to remind us how much things remained the same nearly a year has passed now since the president of the United States chose as the nation's Chief civil rights lawyer a man. Most Americans would not choose to represent them in People's (00:17:09) Court. (00:17:11) Further revealing his contempt for civil rights the president prevented by the Senate from installing an incompetent has nominated. No one in his stead. The position remains empty as does the president's promise to restore civil rights to the National agenda. He chose as his attorney general a man who has continued the harmful practices of the past opposing School integration and affirmative action, the names have changed but not the actions and the assault on racial Equity continues with just as much determination as before if the 1990s promise expanded freedoms in Eastern Europe. We are right to ask what promise we may expect at home. We'll the end of the Cold War only lead to a cosmetic War on Drugs or will we divert resources the newly minted peace dividend to combating our real enemies poverty and its handmade in racism. President Bush and Secretary of Defense Cheney tell us there will be no dividend for peace, but simple arithmetic tells us. Otherwise, we do not like the resources to combat poverty and racism we simply lack the resolve for nearly all of the last 20 years the old interracial Coalition that champion civil rights at Selma's bridge. And in Congress Halls has been in full Retreat we knew we had lost a champion with the death of Martin Luther King. We never imagined support for equal rights would die as well King isn't the only Soldier missing from the freedom fight. He was part of an army that measured tens of thousands while all valued his leadership few waited for his Direction before an attack on evil began in every city where he mounted a campaign a viable local movement existed long before King bought his leadership to the scene. In countless Southern towns and cities aggressive anti-segregation activity had a history which began in slavery time today. We wait for others to sanction our protest to lead us yesterday's movement was a people's movement it produce leaders of its own but it relied not on the noted, but the nameless not on the famous, but the faceless in 1968 the Kerner Commission warned we were becoming too Societies in America one largely white and Rich one largely black and poor drifting further and further apart more than two decades later. It's projections are our reality all of the indices crime school dropout rates teenage pregnancy single parent families and unemployment describe a growing underclass in America disproportionately black locked into a losing life. No present no future. Nowhere to go but down. We look back there for on the king years with some Nostalgia for these were the years. We were truly able to overcome our inability to do. So today is conditioned at least partially by the way, we recall Martin Luther King. We don't honor the man. We honor his imperfect memory. We don't honor the movement. We honor the myth we ought to remember that we honor Martin Luther King's birthday not his death day. We ought to imitate the well live life and not simply mourn the martyr's death for most of us particularly the Young King is little more than an image seen in grainy black-and-white television film taken in Washington a quarter of a century ago the gifted preacher who had a dream but Martin King was much more than that and the movement much more than Martin Luther King. He did more than tell the nation of his dream at the March on Washington in the years before and after he addressed The Human Condition the larger World Beyond America's Shores. He came from a long tradition of black leadership in America leadership, which never felt limited to black civil rights alone and the movement which he led Grew From that tradition to he lost his life supporting a garbage workers strike in Memphis a right to decent work at decent pay remains an unfinished item on the movements agenda today. Today the movements focus seems to often aimed at accumulating Capital instead of winning jobs at set-asides instead of wages when both not either alone are required Negroes King said in 1961 are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few negro Millionaires and few negro employers that there are more black millionaires today is a tribute to the movement king led that there are fewer blacks working today is an indictment of our time and our economic system a reflection of our failure to keep the movement coming on. He opposed apartheid in South Alabama and South Africa at the same time more than a hundred years ago Frederick Douglass fought against tyranny in Europe and tyranny here at home. Today's movement must fight to end American subsidy to terrorists in Angola and Nicaragua as it fights inside our borders against the Shouldn't Terrors of poverty discrimination and decay in some ways. We have become king dependent summering his memory as a substitute for action, but we forget that he stood at the head of thousands the people who made that Mighty movement what it was from Jamestown slave pens to Montgomery bus boycotts these ordinary women and men labored and obscurity and from Montgomery forward. They provided the soldiers of the freedom army, they walk to work in dignity rather than ride in shame. They faced mobs in Birmingham and death in Mississippi. They sat at lunch counters, they stood and they March they understood and assumed the risk and they won. Let no one tell you that their movement was not a success. Listen to Hartman turnbow of Mississippi. He said if anybody had a told me for it happened that conditions would make this much change between the black and white and Holmes County here where I live. Why did you just said you're lying. It won't happen. I just wouldn't have believed it. I didn't dream of it. I didn't see no way but it got to work in just like the citizenship class teacher told us that if we would register to vote and stick with it. He says it's going to be some difficulties. He told us that when we started we was looking for he said we're going to have difficulties going to have troubles folks going to lose their homes folks going to lose their lives people going to lose all their money and just like he said all of that happen, he didn't miss it. He hit it K tap on the head, but it's working now and it won't never go back to what it was. We will never go back to where we were one proof of which is the recent installation of Douglas Wilder as governor of Virginia. You can be sure that if anyone had told Hartman turn bows counterpart in Virginia that the Wilder family would go from the slave ship to the ship of State. He would have said you're lying. It ain't going to happen but it did happen and it can only happen in America and then only in the American South the one region of the country, which was forced to confront Cade app on the head the issue of race. What remains is to put the political process to a constant test not as an election day effort alone. First we ought to immerse ourselves in politics both in the narrow partisan definition of that art and in a larger definition which includes the shaping of every relationship between people and the institutions both public and private which affect and control their lives fairness growth full employment economic democracy. These are the issues upon which yesterday's defeated can become tomorrow's Victory Roosevelt Truman Kennedy the candidate in the 1980s who summoned up their memory one for defeated Democrats to believe they can succeed by turning their backs on their principles is a clear misreading of the public mood building such a movement is a difficult task but not impossible surely. Everyone of us wants to have a say in deciding our common fate. There can be no better prescription for relieving this current crisis or for Reviving some interest in it. Then by recreating that old nonpartisan National Coalition of need of parents who want care not warehousing for their children of workers who want work at a decent and protected wage of people who work for their living but can't live on what they make as well as those who can't find work but can't live on what we so grudgingly give of all those who want an end to welfare and capitalism for the poor and subsidy and socialism for the wealthy and all who must learn that sufficiency for those in the bot at the bottom is compatible with stability for those in the middle all these people now live in America divided Now by race and class fearful of each other contentious and impotent a massive political movement came too near maturity in the United States in the 1960s fueled by the fire from the southern civil. Movement and the National anti-war Drive drawing leadership from the Grassroots it threatened to challenge the foundations of racial and economic arrogance that had created vast reservations of The Unwanted on this country soil that movement became the partial victim of its own success it fought for and won the right to sit in the front of the bus to cast a vote to sit at a lunch counter it helped to launch a southern black political movement, but it failed to sustain and extend itself and instead saw itself dissipated by struggles on the edge one beneficial result of yesterday's people movement is the proliferation of progressive interest organizations representing those for whom almost no one spoke just 20 short years ago. These groups work well together on the national level in setting up Progressive political agenda. They have failed however to develop local level solidarity at the Grassroots or to lead their membership to work together as closely as their leadership does during the decade of the 1960's a great social movement fought to win a place at the table for those citizens previously consigned to eating in the kitchen. If indeed they ate it all now that the legal and extralegal barriers have been largely removed the battle for the remainder of the 20th century is to close this widening Gap. None of us has much difficulty envisioning the world we want or the programs which if adopted would ring the new dawn in We want a society whose single aim is the Democratic satisfaction of the needs of its people we want to guarantee all Americans and equal opportunity to participate in the organization of their society and in the shaping of public and private decisions, which affect their lives we want to guarantee that no one goes without the basic necessities food shelter Health Care a healthy environment personal safety and adequate income instead the hopes and dreams of generations that each succeeding year would be the year in which the land of the slave became the home of the free has been set aside in favor of defense spending corporate domination of the economy in spite of the progress made so far the real problem remains to be solved as dr. Dubois put it the greater problem which obscures the basic one. The problem of the color line is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in Comfort even when the price of This is the poverty disease and ignorance of the majority of their fellow men. What we need to be about today. And for many many years to come is a version of politics which cannot be labeled by the old terms. If there is an opening for an American era of politics different from the past, then it must be a citizen's democracy Insurgent. But with its focus am seriously at Power when I speak here of democratic, I do not mean the political party I belong to but rather the system of equally Distributing wealth and power in an organized Society through institutions based on the premise that we all have equal ability and equal right to make decisions about our lives and our future this will require the creation of a large Cadre with the strategy skill and vision to build a democratic movement in the mainstream a reassertion of the plain truth that ordinary women and men have the common sense and ability to control their lives. Given the knowledge and the means the instruments involved in building such a movement are more than electoral races as important as they may be the lesson we ought to have learned from the 1960s as this mass movement must have an organized base without organizations that are stable continuous and mass base the movements at do emerge eventually flounder and Decay. We must develop a political program broad enough to attract a large segment of the population real enough to have some expectation of implementation and human enough to solve the problems, which most Americans have in some measured in community after Community around the country one can see such a movement began its practitioners are many it's focused diverse, but there seems to be a Common Thread throughout the notion that small changes can become larger ones. We can take some heart from the words of Nobel Laureate George Wald. Who said about 2 million years ago man appeared he has become the dominant species on the Earth all other living things animal and plant live by his sufferance. He is the custodian of life on Earth and in the solar system. It's a big responsibility the thought that we're in competition with Russians or Chinese is all a mistake and trivial We Are One species with a world to win. There's life all over this universe, but the only life and the solar system is on Earth and in the whole universe. We are the only men are businesses with life not death. Our challenge is to give what account we can of What Becomes of life in the solar system this corner of the universe, which is our home and most of all What Becomes of men all men All Nations colors and Creeds. This has become one world a World for all men. It is only such a world that can now offer us life and the chance to go on. Thank you. That was former state. (00:32:33) Senator, Georgia Julian bond from the state of Georgia speaking last week at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Julian bond is now an activist in a variety of civil human rights and World Peace organizations is also a visiting lecturer at several colleges and universities around the country following his address which was entitled crisis in Black America past present and future Julian Bond answered questions from members of the audience at Luther College. He restated some of the questions so they could be heard and I will have to narrate in between some of the others. (00:33:08) Well before the rush of questions begins. Since we're in this academic setting perhaps we should set some academic limits as to which kinds of questions will be tolerated and which kinds won't this is not any attempt to impose censorship. I don't believe in censorship. And it's not any attempt to dodge any difficult questions because I believe like your teachers and I can answer any question on any subject at any time but it is an attempt to make those people not ask questions who actually do not want to ask a question, but who want to make a speech and there's only one speech schedule for this room tonight and it's through now, you can tell these people because they generally preface their remarks by saying isn't it? True that or doesn't everybody know that or in it a well-known fact that or don't the best authorities agree. Well, if it's true of everybody knows it if it's a well-known fact and if the best authorities agree, why bring it up here are there any questions? The question I ask whether it's too late to reverse the downward Trend in Black ownership of farmland. And if not, what can be done to reverse it? I don't know if it's too late. I hope it's not too late. It's an alarming Trend that black people who used to be a fair proportion of the farmers and the United States are shrinking shrinking population shrinking faster than the farm population is generally and shrinking faster than the farm family population is generally the biggest difficulty a great many of these smaller business people face is lack of cash like a lack of capital as is true in the farm population generally in the past. There was an organization called the National sharecroppers Fund which sounds as if it helps the people who worked on farms, but actually developed to be an organization to help people who farmed farms and it has gone into some decline, but I don't know but I like to think there are no insoluble problems and it's never too late to do something about something but it is an awfully awfully Grim (00:35:04) picture and a chance during this speech. Get into some very timely sorts of questions as well and Julian Bond was asked then what he thought about the recent arrest of Washington DC. Mayor Marion Barry on drug charges. (00:35:19) Well without knowing much more about it than you do from reading the newspapers and giving mayor Berry the presumption of innocence that all of us would want were we in his situation or in a situation like it. I don't doubt that. He was targeted by the Department of Justice. They have been trying for a number of years to catch him in some kind of wrongdoing and apparently settled on a kind of wrongdoing. They were fairly sure they could catch him at shouldn't end your sentence with a preposition. Now why they targeted him or whether it was because he's black or not. I'm not really sure. I think it interesting to me. I live in Washington and the week ago the chairman of the County Commission of the bedroom community. That's right up to Washington Montgomery County was implicated for having bought cocaine from an undercover agent and has resigned his position entered a treatment program has never been arrested and ever so far as I know will never face a criminal charge and here's a man chief executive of a large government in contrast to Mayor Berry Who's chief executive a large government and you wonder why these two different modes of treatment for two men accused of essentially the same crime. I rather think that what has gotten into the prosecutor's office in Washington is Peak. They have been trying for years to get something on mayor Berry and they've gone to enormous lengths and impanel grand juries and spend millions and millions of dollars and subpoenaed Witnesses arrested. People and threatened others with Jael and send some to jail and until this moment, we're not able to lay the proverbial glove on him and I think they were simmering and angry and somehow another they concocted this scheme bought this woman and from California had the FBI babysit with her children for two weeks spent several thousands of dollars and renting hotel rooms for two weeks and having cameras installed and I think they were just you know saying, oh, we got him now, we got him now and sure enough. They have him now. He's charged with a misdemeanor the cost of those of us who are taxpayers is several hundreds of thousands of dollars, but no Penny should be spared and stamping out crime. So I guess we all think it's money well spent Well, the question is what do we do to have a Renaissance of This Grass Roots Roots activism from which Martin Luther King grew I think the Grassroots activism is still very much with us because it does not have a Martin Luther King leading it. It's not on the evening news or in the morning newspapers. But wherever I travel around the country, I generally found some small group of people doing something some form of citizen action, whether it's something as innocuous as trying to get a stop sign installed in a dangerous intersection or something larger wondering why Johnny and Mary can't read or something larger wondering why even if Johnny and Mary can read they can't get jobs or something even larger than that, even though they can read and have jobs. They can't afford to find a place to live and on and on and on so I think there's a lot of activism out there and I'm not really worried about when or whether the next Martin or Mary Luther King for that matter will come along because I think he or she will come we make a big mistake though if he keeps saying gee we could start the protest now, but maybe you'll be You know if we wait for him or her to come we have to go ahead move ahead. You know, those old joke about Gandhi saying someone saying where are you going and he says they're my people I must catch them for I am their leader. I think we you know know that we need to move ourselves. We ourselves need to be in the middle of doing things and not waiting for these King like christ-like figures to appear they'll come they'll appear as you know, it'll be the fellow sitting next to you say gee I didn't know you had these leadership qualities, you know, but it'll be someone you least expected from but we don't need to wait for these people to come they'll come and in fact when they'll come to be too many of them you bethink get (00:39:18) back. Julian Bond was asked next if he supports the Reverend Jesse Jackson for president. And if Bond thinks of major political party will nominate a black for president. (00:39:31) Well at several different questions, I supported Reverend Jackson and his Run for the presidency in 1988. I didn't support him in 1984. I was already supporting someone else when he came on the scene and believed in the old saying have to go home with the one you bought. You know, the one you took to the dance. That's the one you should go home with and that's what I did. I don't know. I'm a big Democrat. I'm a yellow dog Democrats, you know, if the Democrats nominated a yellow dog, I'd vote for it and have many many times in the past many many times in the past. But I really I mourned I mourn for my political party. I'm my head hangs when I think about my political party when I see the leadership of my party more interested in compromised and in confrontation and see them. Draw lines in the sand between them and the opposition I miss speaker, right? I thought he was a real dyed-in-the-wool down-home Democrat a man who knew the difference between right or wrong who didn't hesitate to speak out against the special interest to man who only been get me started here. I thought he was in many respects just a perfect leader for the Democrats in the House of Representatives and had the exact amount of partisanship that ought to have gone into that job, and I'm not sure if his successors all of whom were very decent people really know the difference between the two political parties and the people of the United States will prove every time as they did in this last election as they did in 84 as they did in 1980 as they did in 72 that when given the choice between the real Republican party and a phony Republican party, they'll take the real Republican party every time and unless my party can wake up and realize that by the next time election comes around then they don't deserve to win. So I The answer is I don't I'm still hopeful. I'm still an optimist that my party will wake up and do the right thing, but hope is fading fast. Jackson I don't know what his plans are. I would be surprised if he ran for mayor of Washington, I could only assume that he would run for president again, but I don't know I'm not privy to his plans a (00:41:43) question and answer session with former state senator Julian bond from Georgia speaking at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa last week Bond was asked next if he foresees a black party or a third party in the United States, (00:41:58) I used to hope for a third-party. I think we're really a two party people and we're really schizophrenic about it. We have actually several sets of parties. We have this Congressional party, which is democratic and so successful just wins all the time can't be dislodged from the House of Representatives goes back and forth with majority in the US Senate. It has most of the governor's Mansions most of the state legislatures. Most of the mayor's office has most of the City Halls most of the county commissions and the sheriff's that That Democratic party is alive and well and healthy and thriving doesn't stand for much but it's there it stands for victory and has been real successful at it. Then there's another Democratic party. That's the presidential Democratic party and its confused doesn't know what it's doing and doesn't know what it stands for. It doesn't know the word the two words Franklin Roosevelt. It is never heard. This man's name doesn't know who he is what he stood for what he did the Vaguely Familiar with Lyndon Johnson some Mythic figure from the past John F. Kennedy good-looking guy nice-looking wife. That's it. No idea. They begin each presidential campaign as though no one had ever run for president of the United States before and they've got to invent it all over again. They choose candidates who in this last election thought that the country was bounded by a Boylston Street on the North and the Charles River on the south who think that people in Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts and Texas all Think alike all of the time and are motivated by the same things. All of the time that Democratic party is an abysmal shape and just gasping for breath about to slip into Oblivion, but I'm not too sure if we could maintain three political parties in this country the current Republican party used to be a third party and it eclipsed that one and put us back on the two-party path. I think we're pretty much a two party people. I think there's some future for third parties in local elections and Municipal and County and perhaps in some State elections, but in the National picture, I think we're a two party people. There will be Damage Done to the South with the election of David Duke. No, we've had worse people in David Duke and office. We could we could sustain him. I was in New Orleans day before last week. I was in New Orleans last week and I tell you who I met there. I bet you half the people not have two people many of the people here who are roughly my age. I met a fabulous entertainer from the 1950s and 60s whose last name is forte. Anybody know who that would be sang a song called Turn Me Loose. Fabian that's right Fabian. What a thrill Fabian I met Fabian. Anyway, I was in New Orleans last week Fabian Forte from Philadelphia. Look good too. Just like he did and the concern people I talk to in Louisiana gave me the impression. They don't think Duke is going to go far in his race for the US Senate that he gets supported all his frightening but not unexpected his kind of kind of button-down bigotry is saleable and popular now, but I don't think it's a reflection on the south the differences between north and south and east and west are not as great today as they were 20 and 25 years ago. The part of the New Orleans suburb. He represents could be a suburb of Chicago or Milwaukee or New York City. The people are not that radically different they talk differently. They don't have these pronounced accents that people do here, but But they're essentially the same people are it's like people say well marionberries arrest reflect badly on black politicians in the same way. I guess that Spiro agnew's Scandal reflected badly on those Greek politicians, you know, those Greek Greeks are surely not to be trusted since agnew's demise and the way the arrest of a succession of Jewish politicians in New York is just put the kibosh on the election of Jews to public office in America. So I don't think it reflects badly on the south. I think it reflects badly on the people who vote for him. But so many of those are immigrants from up here, you know, so it's hard to tell The question asked about my views on religion in the Civil Rights Movement past and future had it not been for the Christian church in the South and a variety of denominations primarily Baptist, but certainly not exclusively and particularly a Lutheran Pastor in Montgomery. Reverend Gratz. There would not have been a southern Civil Rights Movement had there not been a church and had the movement not had the physical building to me 10 and its independence from controlled by outside forces and the pastor and independent Spirit employed by his congregation and not by other forces who could manipulate him. Then there would not have been a movement had there not been a church. There would not have been the succession of colleges and universities that educated men like Martin Luther King and others and gave them the chance to gather some of the appurtenances of that would be required in their leadership. So Heather not been a church. That would not have been a movement. I'm not sure if the next movement is going to Spring from the church or have the same close relationship to the church as did this first one but I sure that the church will be an integral part of it because for black Americans particularly. This is the single point where most of us gather at least once a week. There is no other institution like it with its degree of Independence its leadership and its potential for energizing large numbers of people into some kind of social action. I don't think it would play quite the role the church did before the church had a little competition and this earlier period and has much more now and some parts of the church haven't met the competition, but I'm sure it will be an integral part of whatever movement develops any ropes. (00:48:04) Next. Julian Bond was asked if he thinks they're what is what might be called a glass ceiling above which black Executives in the private sector never seemed to rise. (00:48:14) Well, I think that's largely true that there is a glass ceiling and Black people and women rise to a certain level and in Corporate America and beyond that level they can go no further. I think that's largely true the black people who have become corporate leaders in mainstream America are so few as to be numbered probably on half the fingers of one of my hands one man. Black man who bought Beatrice Foods did it with this despicable leveraged buyout method, you know and isn't role model we ought to all be looking up to you know, I'm happy for him. But there I can't think of a single example of a black man or woman working his or her way up through the corporate ladder and coming the top. I can think of many who've worked their way up to middle management many but almost none who have broken out of that and none who have made it to the top (00:49:10) Julian Bond at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, then he was asked what he thought about educational institutions. They should do to educate people about the Civil Rights Movement. (00:49:21) Well, I think there's a number of things they could do one to watch the first version of eyes on the prize the six hours of Television documentaries on the Civil Rights Movement between 1953 and 1965. Just excellent quick presentation of what this movement was who its leading players were what it did wear it one where it lost what some of the tensions were. If you want to do more than that. You should read a great book published last year called parting the waters written by Taylor Branch received the Pulitzer Prize just a marvelous marvelous marvelous book and there dozens and dozens of other books or you can hire distinguished Professor from Harvard University who's just wrapping up his last two weeks at that institution and now is available to come to other places to lecture on this course. So any of those things would do but I think most importantly what Biggest lesson to be learned about this movement is as important as Martin Luther King was and there is no denying that he was the premier leader of this movement that it was essentially a movement of ordinary women and ordinary men with no special skill or Talent or training and no special genius, but who simply said I won't do this anymore. I'm tired of this I'm going to do something else people who got to say no think of Rosa Parks high school education work for the NAACP for 25 years active in helping to free the Scottsboro boys helping save the Scottsboro boys an anonymous toiler and the Civil Rights Vineyards put off the bus in Montgomery in 1941, 42 43 by driver named Blake and then Along Comes 1954 and she's sitting on the bus and my Lord if it's not the same man again, and he tells her to move and she doesn't say gee I wonder what Martin Luther King would think about Or I Wish U n-- double AC p-- would help me on this one. She said no, I'm not going to do it. She said why don't you treat us like human beings. Why don't you treat us like human beings I'm not going to move and she did it. She began a movement five years later in Greensboro, North Carolina for young black guys sitting in the dormitory room saying what would happen if we went into the Woolworths department store and bought some toothpaste and bought some pencils and then went over to the lunch counter and sat down what would happen one time said, well, we probably be beaten said well, you'd surely be arrested. They'll say well what would happen? What are we doing? And on Monday morning February the 1st 1960 Ezell Blair and James Richmond and two other guys go and they go by a couple of other items and they sit down to lunch counter and woman comes over and says, you can't we don't serve you here and they say, yes you do. We just bought a pencil and we just bought a tube of toothpaste Jesse's for guys, you know, just for young guys like for young guys here. They didn't wait for Martin Luther King to say, come on, let's March they just did it. So we should just poured lesson to learn is it was people who said let's do it and it was done. It's a lot of passage in Genesis. I was just reading just for I came in here chapter 37 doesn't sound right in the revised version of the Bible says behold here comes the dreamer. Let us slay him and we will see what will become of his dreams now. They're talking about Joseph. This is Joseph's brothers, but you could say that about Martin Luther King. Let us slay him and we will see what will become of his dream. His dream has just become a dream and nothing but a dream (00:52:55) the next question for a Julian bond is what he thinks of some segregated organizations at the University of Georgia. (00:53:02) Well, they don't have segregated black fraternities because none of the black fraternities or sororities are segregated. They all have had and will have and do have white members Alpha Phi Alpha Kappa Alpha Psi Omega Psi Phi all of these ancient hundred year old black institutions have always been open to Men and or women in the case of sororities of any race. Why they have separate I know why they have separate beauty contest. If you want my Frank Opinion, they ought not have any beauty contests. At the risk of incurring either even greater wrath. They ought not have any fraternities of any kind, but I imagine they have these separate Miss Georgia contest that they may stem from the original decree integrating the University of Georgia and maybe hold ozone that I don't know. Why else it's not something I would. Oh my my list of things I think important. It's not something I think is very important. Perhaps the students are feel. It's important to them. (00:54:18) Julian Bond was then asked if he were a student organizing a so-called Coordinating Committee, would it still be nonviolent the reference of course to the fact that Julian Bond was one of the organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee back in the 1960s. (00:54:33) Oh surely. Yes. Absolutely. I Feel less committed personally to it myself today, but organizationally absolutely absolutely without a doubt no question (00:54:47) a member of the audience then wanted to know if Julian Bond thought the rise of the black upper-middle-class would increase or diminish the strength of Grassroots movements on behalf of black Americans. (00:55:00) Well, it's peculiar. You know that if you examine most American ethnic groups in most there is this split between well-to-do and poor people. And in many of them this split has created a conflict within the group. This is less true among black Americans that it is among others among groups of Asian Americans for an example. There are some who are relatively affluent and there's some who are near poverty stricken depending on who they are and where they're from and when they came and is difficult to count these people as a cohesion cohesive group politically fact, they demonstrate almost no political cohesion at all. That's not so for black Americans despite the fact that the income gap is relatively large a small group at the top with very decent income and large group at the bottom with very little in a group in the middle. It's sort of going up and down a couple of paychecks away from poverty despite this fact this group exhibits political Behavior that's near unanimous 90% of the time and I think it is because the economic condition of black Americans is so tied to the racial condition of black Americans that these Inescapable no matter how rich you get Bill Cosby still gets insulted. Michael Jackson still gets insulted Michael. Jordan still gets insulted his skill their wealth are not insulation against the Hostile World. They still are subjected to slurs and the taunts and two people don't want I just heard a story about a black guy who played for the USL usfl the other Football League whatever was and wanted to move in this exclusive sir. Suburb in Birmingham Mountain Brook where the judge was killed and the people called a meeting and get one of them to address the meeting and you know, the real worried about this guy moving in there and he said they're real question. Is is this neighborhood ready for an Auburn graduate? I guess you had to be there I guess. So anyway, so no matter how well to do you are. You're not protected from the difficulty of being black in the United States. Whether your name is Bill Cosby or whomever. It's it's no different for Bill Cosby than it is for the guy standing on a street corner in Des Moines. They are likely to be subjected to the same (00:57:27) difficulty. That was former Georgia state. Senator, Julian Bond speaking last week to an audience at the center for Faith and life at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. The speech was produced by Brad Hodges of Minnesota Public Radio member stations que él se + K Zs e in Rochester field recording by Tom Henning of Luther College. And that just about wraps up our midday Prague program. It is now 1 minute before one o'clock. Good afternoon. This is Gary. Eichten. There's a new report out today on whether the bridges in Minnesota are safe to use. We'll have a report on that report on NPR journalist afternoon. Also on the program Mike Hatch on his campaign plans Hatcher course is trying to unseat Rudy perpich. We'll look at a new way to train Hospital workers in rural communities and we'll hear from black activist Dick Gregory. We invite you to join us five o'clock in our music stations 5:30 on our news stations skies are mostly sunny around the area temperatures ranging from several degrees below zero to the mid teens this afternoon major funding for Minnesota public radio programming is provided by 3M maker of Scotchgard brand protectors. That's midday. This is Bob Potter.