(For other essays, see <www.brightworks.com/quaker/midpas.html> and for general information about the Pilgrimage, see <www.interfaithpilgrimage.com> To reach me by email: skipschiel@gmail.com. Or by snail-mail: 9 Sacramento St, Cambridge MA 02138. Comments appreciated.)
Greensboro: a word, a name, a place, a piece of a story that rings out to me. I was 20 years old when Greensboro entered my consciousness-1960. In college, studying diligently to be an engineer and businessman, looking for a mate, messages from the south landed on me at Iowa State University. I was insulated from the turmoil of what now might be termed United States apartheid. Also known as Jim Crow, southern African American people were kept by law, by decree, by tradition from voting, sharing toilets and water fountains with white people, eating in white establishments, and in many other ways confined to "separate but equal" facilities. In Greensboro, on February 1st, 1960, four young black men from a local college sat down at a lunch counter in Woolworth's Five & Dime and ordered cups of coffee. They were refused. The idea spread throughout the south. People formed organizations to support the sit-in movement. Six months later, Woolworth's in Greensboro was serving coffee to black people
The movement broadened, tapping a river current that included slave rebellions, the Civil War; the Emancipation Proclamation; the rise of black leadership in such persons as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, W.E.B.DuBois; the initiation of organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League and later, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Black Panther Party. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X swam in that river, as did Fannie Lou Hamer, as did the singing group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Pete Seeger.
I chose not to participate, too intent on becoming educated, building a career, starting a family. Within several years, I came to regret my decision not to join the river of liberation streaming through the south. Now nearly 35 years later, I came to Greensboro on our Pilgrimage's course through the history of slavery and resistance. We are now in Civil Rights country, North Carolina and beyond, on our way to New Orleans, retracing in reverse the journey of the transatlantic slave trade.
"How was Greensboro?" you ask. "What was your experience there in the hot summer of 1998, just 38 years after the first successful sit-in? Does the Woolworth building still stand? Is its history acknowledged? What else have you learned about that period? How do people speak of that era, with what tones? What is happening now, how is life these many decades later? How does what you learn affect your consciousness-and your actions? How do you personally, Skip Schiel, pilgrim, enter the stream of history, plunge into the river of liberation?"
On the first of our two days in Greensboro, we met with community people at the Faith Community Church one afternoon, heard from folks of different skin colors and ages, from 13 to over 60 years, who had worked then and continue now struggling for racial justice. I learned that Quakers had been active in the early 1800s establishing a station of the Underground Railway. Levi Coffin, known later when he lived in Indiana as the President of the Underground Railroad, worked here first, along with other members of his family. By about 1835, they and other Friends felt so persecuted that they left the region for Richmond, Indiana. But-as proud as I am of the vision and courage exhibited by my fellow Quakers, I only wish more of us were as active-their precedent might be an important substream for the river of liberation in Greensboro.
I learned also that in the late 1960s, students of several local colleges, including North Carolina Agriculture and Mechanical College, helped organize massive demonstrations against oppression, trying to dismantle the legacy of slavery in this region-the laws and traditions separating people. They were massively assaulted. Incarcerations, killings, and other forms of physical violence occurred. Ervin, then a youth, now with us, speaking so passionately, articulately, his arms sinewy, his frame lithe, his body balanced and strong, was part of that tumult.
His experiences have led him to a disturbing analysis of the contemporary social situation. "You need to learn," he implored us, " not to assimilate into the system. This system is based on greed, violence, power, and sets up buffers between people oppressed and those who oppress. For instance, one buffer is the array of community development centers that hire recent black graduates of planning programs, pays them good salaries, builds a few houses, and in other ways seems to contribute to the society, but serves mainly to the resistance. We need more-a revolution." He heatedly referred to Martin Luther King's last days, his words about needing a revolution of values, how King had openly opposed the trio of oppressive systems, militarism, racism, and consumerism, and that this had led not only to his assassination, but to other black leaders and organizations abandoning him. These were pain-invoking words for me to hear. But I am convinced of their truth.
Equally disturbing to me as a Friend was the message of Terry, a white woman with a quavering voice, working with Ervin and others on a project called, Future Leaders, building leadership among youth of all skin colors. The youth project was under the sponsorship of the American Friends Service Committee. She told us that because of Future Leaders' radical viewpoints, and its questioning of the racism implicit in its sponsoring organization, funding had recently been cut off. This reminded me of a perhaps similar story from my local AFSC in Cambridge, when a black youth organization under its sponsorship, Free My People, had also been severed. I wonder, given Friends early involvement in resistance to racially based oppression, where are we now, where can we go?
Ervin warned us, "Not easy, assimilating, become part of the mainstream, receiving applause, honors, awards, sponsorship, a salary, can make you not so willing to question authority, see the truth." In the very words of the AFSC "speaking truth to power" becomes more difficult the more established we become.
On the second day of our Greensboro visit, already reeling from the community conversation I've only touched upon-so much to say and do, I hope to have more when I make slide shows about my journey-Ervin, Terry and a young white man from Future Leaders led us on a short tour of Greensboro. First stop: Woolworth's! Yes, Woolworth's exists! I gaped at it for a few moments, unwilling to believe this was the site of my image of the Civil Rights Movement. It appeared vacant, a relic. I photographed it, tried unsuccessfully to look inside, was the lunch counter still intact? I noted a small store front office adjoining it, announcing the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, being established. One of the pilgrims trotted in, quickly emerged, an excited expression on her face. "Someone will open the doors, we can go in!"
Inside: like a tomb. Stale air greeted us, dim light, some fallen plaster on the floor, a few flyers about the Center and Museum, some old menus. But way across this cavern was a lunch counter, the lunch counter. The director of the project told us the building had been occupied as a Woolworth's until 1993, then closed, and might have been demolished except for the foresight of some town citizens who began raising funds to buy and begin to restore the building. He outlined the plans, due for completion by February 1, 2000. Among the sponsors, the tobacco companies, RJR Reynolds, and Lorillard, as well as the city and county. I can only wonder, given the sponsorship, what the message will be.
Pilgrims sat at the counter, Tasha sat upright, stiffly, perhaps in a deep mediation, Jake likewise. Billy, my photographer colleague, suddenly appeared behind the counter crouched, photographed Tasha. Later I also sat at the counter, tried to imagine the feelings of those four men of courage, not sure what would happen when they sat, ordered, were told to leave. The four began with one, he brought his three friends, the four brought more friends, until most of the seats were occupied by black people asking simply to buy and drink a cup of coffee. A well know photo shows this group, catcup on their heads and chests, poured by recalcitrant white people, citizens then of Greensboro expressing their outrage at the turning of the river of resistance.
Moving behind the counter as Billy had, first to photograph as he had, I then tried to imagine the feelings on those days of the employees. Shock, confusion, anger. "Sorry, but our policy is to not serve Negroes here. You can buy goods, you can even buy food, but you must take the food elsewhere to eat it. Sorry, that's our policy."
And if I, the customer, were to ask me, the employee, "Why is that, can you explain your policy?," as the man behind the counter, I might explode, call the police, or I might hit me, the customer. But I the customer, being a person of nonviolence, and in a movement avowedly nonviolent (was it at this time, I don't know, was it influenced yet by King's work in Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery, five years after the bus boycott), might stay cool, leave, bring friends, form a community. Or I might likewise explode, throw the menu in the face of me, the employee only doing my job.
I can't say I stood there transfixed by these reflections, but I do now, not sure how I'd act in those times. I only know what I do now, as a pilgrim, walking the route in reverse of the slave trade, and its resistance. Am I part of the resistance, part of rebuilding the nation, or, as a white man not fully recovered from implicit racism, am I part of the problem, fostering attitudes, traditions, influences, wielding white privilege left and right, pretending to be a good fellow, on the mend, but in reality, only a facsimile, an actor, whether sincerely or not, saying, I walk the good walk, talk the good talk, fight the good fight.
Our tour continued to the new monument erected by the city to the Confederacy. Greensboro had also played a key role in the Civil War-manufacturing weapons, transporting men, a conference site for Jefferson Davis and his cabinet deciding about surrender. This monument, quoting Christian scripture, glowingly portrays the "Lost Cause," and is now regrettably in the black section of town. Ervin sees it as a major affront to people of color.
And from this through a portion of the black section of Greensboro, not a happy site. The city is proposing to raze all the black schools, while building new white schools. Ervin concludes, "Little has changed, despite the sit-ins, the mass protests, the beatings and jailings, the lives and deaths of people like King and Malcolm. We as black people are living in a kind of hell, we call for you to see our reality, and to act."
In a private conversation with someone from Future Leaders, I learned that knowing the history-events, characters, stories, locations-is only part of the reality. Another part, one more difficult for me to achieve, is to discover how the history affects my mentality, my sense of reality, my believes and practices.
So I struggle with the next step, not the relatively easy step of our Pilgrimage, on the road, walking, praying, but the step of knowing how I've been affected by what I learn. How has the story of Greensboro, North Carolina affected my world view? What am I led to do? As the motto of my daughter's alma mater, Hampshire College, so pithily puts it: "To know is not enough."