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Fifty Years On: Was SNCC Our Finest Hour?
Apr. 17th, 2010 07:48 amJohn Lewis recalls his 1963 election as president of SNCC:
I had no thoughts, ever, of being chairman of SNCC. There were too many other things to think about, especially that week. The murder of Medgar. The President's speech. Our SNCC campaigns in Arkansas and Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama, and up in Cambridge, Maryland, as well. A swirl of thought went through my mind as I sat in the back seat of Sue Thrasher's car that afternoon, looking out the window at the darkening sky as we raced down the highway toward the SNCC meeting in Atlanta.
There were five of us in that automobile -- Sue, Lester McKinney, Paul LaPrad, David Kotelchuk, and I. Lester was driving. Not far from Murfreesboro it began to rain. We were rounding a curve just outside town when Lester lost control. I'll never forget the car leaving the road, turning over and throwing us through the windshield. There were no seatbelts, or at least we weren't wearing them -- this was 1963. Incredibly, none of us was seriously injured. Maybe we were meant to make it to that meeting, I don't know. [p.199]
...No decision was made that evening, but I knew by then that I was probably going to be the choice. The reason, I think -- and I don't want to sound arrogant or boastful or presumptuous -- wasn't my commitment to nonviolence so much as my actual experience, the fire I had been through. At that point [aged 23] I had been arrested twenty-four times -- seventeen in Nashville. [p. 200]
....Ralph Featherstone's funeral that March [1970] was like a SNCC reunion. It was held in Washington, and it was the first time many of us had seen one another since 1966. I didn't mingle much with the people there. My feelings were still too raw. It hadn't been that long since I had left. But I wanted to be there for Ralph, and we all shared our sorrow about his death. During the wake they kept playing one song over and over -- Ralph's favorite, just out that year from Aretha Franklin -- a song titled "Call Me":
...I know we've got to part,
...It really doesn't hurt me that bad,
Because you're takin' me with you,
And I'm keepin' you right here in my heart.
Call me the minute, the second that you get there.
Everyone was just crying, really weeping. [pp.407-8]
-- Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, John Lewis with Michael D'Orso
Nonviolence is an orphan among democratic ideas. It has nearly vanished from public discourse even though the most basic element of free government -- the vote -- has no other meaning. Every ballot is a piece of nonviolence, signifying hardwon consent to raise politics above firepower and bloody conquest.
-- At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-8, Taylor Branch
I had no thoughts, ever, of being chairman of SNCC. There were too many other things to think about, especially that week. The murder of Medgar. The President's speech. Our SNCC campaigns in Arkansas and Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama, and up in Cambridge, Maryland, as well. A swirl of thought went through my mind as I sat in the back seat of Sue Thrasher's car that afternoon, looking out the window at the darkening sky as we raced down the highway toward the SNCC meeting in Atlanta.
There were five of us in that automobile -- Sue, Lester McKinney, Paul LaPrad, David Kotelchuk, and I. Lester was driving. Not far from Murfreesboro it began to rain. We were rounding a curve just outside town when Lester lost control. I'll never forget the car leaving the road, turning over and throwing us through the windshield. There were no seatbelts, or at least we weren't wearing them -- this was 1963. Incredibly, none of us was seriously injured. Maybe we were meant to make it to that meeting, I don't know. [p.199]
...No decision was made that evening, but I knew by then that I was probably going to be the choice. The reason, I think -- and I don't want to sound arrogant or boastful or presumptuous -- wasn't my commitment to nonviolence so much as my actual experience, the fire I had been through. At that point [aged 23] I had been arrested twenty-four times -- seventeen in Nashville. [p. 200]
....Ralph Featherstone's funeral that March [1970] was like a SNCC reunion. It was held in Washington, and it was the first time many of us had seen one another since 1966. I didn't mingle much with the people there. My feelings were still too raw. It hadn't been that long since I had left. But I wanted to be there for Ralph, and we all shared our sorrow about his death. During the wake they kept playing one song over and over -- Ralph's favorite, just out that year from Aretha Franklin -- a song titled "Call Me":
...I know we've got to part,
...It really doesn't hurt me that bad,
Because you're takin' me with you,
And I'm keepin' you right here in my heart.
Call me the minute, the second that you get there.
Everyone was just crying, really weeping. [pp.407-8]
-- Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, John Lewis with Michael D'Orso
Nonviolence is an orphan among democratic ideas. It has nearly vanished from public discourse even though the most basic element of free government -- the vote -- has no other meaning. Every ballot is a piece of nonviolence, signifying hardwon consent to raise politics above firepower and bloody conquest.
-- At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-8, Taylor Branch
