Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories Courtland Cox 20240712

You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan three. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspan history. Up next, an oral history interview with cortland caulks cox. Urtland he talks about attending howard university, his involvement in the student nonviolent coordinating committee, participating in the 1963 march on washington, and serving as the secretary general of the 1974 sixth panAfrican Congress. This interview is part of an oral history project initiated by congress. It is included by these seven Oral History Program at the university of north carolinachapel hill. I was born in new york, in harlem, in 1941. In my sisters me to the west indies, teach it in, and my sisters to the west in 1940in trinidad five. I stayed in trinidad from 1945 until 1952. I came back, after my grandmother died in 1952 and lived in harlem for a couple years and we moved to the bronx. Attended Catholic School st. Helena is. St. Helenas. Froment to actually catholic, to saint aloysius grammar school, which was interesting because it was thecanamerican nuns at saint aloysius order. Then i went to st. Helenas, and then i went to howard university. My mother sent me to Catholic School because at that point it cost 10 a month, which was in 1953, 1954, but also she wanted to make sure i had the best education she could get. At that point, she was not too sold on public schools. I grew up in the projects mostly, in new york. You could see that in the 1950s. A lot of people were doing that. Look at these people. Probably only three of us graduated from high school. My sister, myself, and one other. The reason it was not impacted, inhink, was the time i spent trinidad where education was stretched in my family. The women have phds, the men have been accomplished in strongon, and it was a presence. There was no assumption you would not go to college. It was assumed that you did. Know, mother said, you your cousins are doingx, y, and x, your cousins are doing y, and z. Ts interesting when i got to st. Helenas, there were four africanamericans in the school. But the time i graduated i was by myself. That was interesting in the bronx . Mr. Cox in the bronx. That was the sense of isolation. Iwould go to school, but when was coming home i would hide my books because i tried to look in both worlds, the world of going to school and being where people its very interesting. The young people i grew up with, mike p group, because i had an accent, because i had a different history, they had respect for me. ,hey respected i was difference that i was going to school and not trying to do different things. They just thought thats fine. I had some space because of that. Your sister and other siblings . Is lorraine,ister lorraine cleveland, lorraine cox. Youngest by two and a half years. My father i think the last time i saw him, i might have been 10 years old. Did not see him he was not a major character in my life. It is but my sister still working. Nurse. Ame a registered went to medical school for a while, but had some issues. How did you get pointed towards howard . Went to my cousin howard. My house was the stop for all my relatives coming to the United States. Theother was the head of Family Branch here, so everybody came here. , who was a little older, but he came to go to howard. And he was, maybe in his late 20s. Maybe early 30s. E came here he spent maybe two and a half years and went to medical school, became a doctor, og ob gyn. At that time, you could go. I have not figured out what i was going to do. You could take a test. Sats, stuff like that you could just go take the test. , and came downs to washington by myself, took. He test, went back to new york and they said, hey, why dont you come on down . 7. 50. Time, tuition was basically you could save a 100, get your room, board was 40. I worked at the posts office. And save money to go to school. Were you political as an adolescent at all . In your High School Years . Not political, but i was aware. I was part of two or three discussions. The segregation of race was much more pervasive in terms of peoples assumptions of what you could do, the barriers that existed, and so forth. Theres always a discussion of that, kids who were 14 and 15. I think people were very aware at 14 and 15 of what is going on in society. At that point, it was maybe in the 20s. The music. Talk about they would talk about all these things. There was this culture. I was aware of what was going on, but also aware of other kinds of things, well organized kinds of political discussions. Tell me what your sense was in how you settled in . Mr. Cox i did not have a sense of what i was going to do, but i right and sense of wrong and what was going to go on in the south, particularly with emmett till. I was very much aware of what was going on with him until till. Of whatry much aware was going on in montgomery. I had a sense of it. I did not have any great depth of understanding. , you got too howard places all over the place. Washington was a very segregated city at the time. Whether you are talking about housing, whether youre talking thet black and white eds at Washington Post, whether you talk about trying close on at the various department stores, all those things existed. I was faced with it in a way i was not faced with it in new york. Also at that point there were citizens. There was a small group of people that decided to do stuff in washington, and we form to be. Onviolent action group and some were the people who later went on to really be group or in the sncc part of that. Did two things. We did sympathetic actions to things that were going on in the south, but we did we went out to the Eastern Shore of maryland , or michael,ted who was in school with me at the time, was famous. Going to goare demonstrate, but weve got a great party after the demonstration. So, young people want to do that. ,ome of the young things we did when the redskins were first noe, there were africanamerican football players. We were involved in those demonstrations. We were his shock troops. Julius was older than we were, but when he wanted a demonstration, he could call on us to be, you know, the shock troops. And we did other things. We do other things in terms of the demonstration. We also did project awareness. The first the first was the ofate on the question segregation versus integration. Fromecond was the debate khan on thes and question of nuclear warfare. It was moderated by sterling brown. And the after party, sydney poitier flewiney in to see what the boys were doing. For people our age, we were whatever we were. Sidney poitier. In thesearmichael was student council, student government. Random the newspaper, got great awards for the newspaper. So, we function, externally in terms of demonstrations, that terms of howard, in terms of people who could organize and do things, we were there. We were in the leadership of it. And we were also encouraged by a lot of professors. They thought they adopted us as their children. Brown. Larly sterling he would invite us to his house. He would have discussions. He would talk to us about the voice. Talk he would not only play at his house, the jazz music, the blues. The poetry. K about we have the professors. Wehad others who thought were doing what they would like to do. Tell me a little bit more about this group in your role in relation to all of these other folks you mentioned. , it was really run by three people, three large people. Ed brown, the rascal, the brother. Stokely carmichael, and myself, and i think, you know, people youto us in terms of know, in terms of leadership issues. I did a lot of stuff on the project in terms of organization and pulling it together. Also a lot of stuff on the demonstrations and so forth. I did not do so much with the student council, did not do so much with the student newspaper. In the nag, deep in your sncc engagement with . In cox at that point, sncc the early days student nonviolent cord knitting committee. It was really a coordination of student groups across the country. Was one of the student groups across the country. Nashville was another. Atlanta was another. O, we sat in i sat on the coordinating council. Executive committee at some point to help hold the organization together. Going down on highway 29. I remember gas was . 29 a gallon. I could not drive, but i would drive down there. Was . 29 a gallon, cigarettes were . 20 a pack. Until 1971 and i was on my way to africa. And i saw i was at laguardia and i saw that cigarettes got to . 70 a pack in the machine. In i said, i know where this is going. Its time for me to end this conversation. So i stopped smoking. That stand out in your memory from those early trips . Mr. Cox the sncc meetings or the trips . I think both would be interesting. I think the sncc meetings. Mr. Cox interesting. The discussions were interminable. Probably the thing that is most important as i think about i just thought about know, most of the ,oung people were asking why given the basis, given the kinds of things they face, they were asking why. Meetings at the , you thought about change and you are asking why not . It seems to me the difference in the real genius of the young people we are talking 17 to 22 of that group is we move from asking why the situation existed the way it did to talking about why not change it in a way that we should be living . And once you cross that barrier and dont feel you have to ask those who created the situation change to make you free. I think those conversations, the , thehe 22yearold intellectual thought is ro ken. The discussion about where we should be going, what we should be doing, and so forth, is limitless. It did not strike me then, but it strikes me now. That context, you mentioned that your care group saw you, your group saw you, could accept you as something is someone different. Mr. Cox yes. Was there any parallel to your experience with these young activists inside sncc . Did you feel your personal history distinguish you in some way pertinent to this conversation . Your perspectives, your philosophies . I didnt think so. Ok . There was always this discussion. It even appeared in time or or newsweek magazine, if people could consider people myself to beor different because we came from environments that were less restrictive. I never bought into that. Mr. Cox actually want to go back to the malcolm x debate. Mr. Cox it was amazing. It was amazing. They had just built the auditorium at howard university. The capacity was 1500. Tried top to it, we get the professor who was the to moderaternment the debate. I am not going to say his name. He thought it was beneath him to have malcolm x at howard university. Emt to him at dorsey of adorsey, a big bear man. And he would say that racism in to the is architectonic constitution of the United States and he would point to the 3 5 clause. We had a dinner. Malcolm was invited. Professor dorsey was talking and malcolm said, professor, i think we better let you speak tonight because you have much more information than anybody in this room, which was really true. We got to the debate, malcolm followersbe about 300. Gets up and he speaks first. Minutes. Icipant has 30 he takes 15 minutes and he said, you always see my point of view through the press, through everything. I want to give malcolm 15 of my thates to help to give you perspective. And malcolm was a dynamite speaker. The thing that struck me, if you listen to the grassroots message, the speech that he gave i had not heard this is 1961. He would tell a joke or Something Like that and when he disciplinet was the was phenomenal. I will tell you from that debate , people at howard saw it different. T we could bring malcolm x 50 people were pounding on the door the whole night trying to get in. Because that was a big auditorium. Pizzazz. Big kind of people look at us totally different after that. At hey, these guys have something we dont have. Cachetve us a little that we probably would not have had ordinarily. On,arly online, early how did you gauge the prospects structuralial, true change through the nonviolent protest strategies that were emerging through sncc . We had big debates mr. We had big debates about that. The National Group had one view. The howard group had another. Believed in group nonviolence as a philosophy and a way of life. Probably the poster child for that. Diane nash. Jim lawson in. Those guys. People at howard, we viewed nonviolence as a tactic. One of the things the nonviolent peoples philosophy they feel that you can appeal to mens hearts. , you might as well appeal to their livers because they are both organs of the body. There was nothing to that. You did not engage in nonviolence because the oversight had overwhelming force. There was not a sense that the other side would do the right thing if you told them because at the end of the navy other side knew what it was doing to you better than you did. So its not that they did not know what they were doing. They wanted to do it. Mean, had huge, huge i that was a source of early tension. 1961. 1962, we did not believe in nonviolence as a philosophy. Early years, especially as things heat up in the south, what was your evolving sense of what you might be able to expect . Mr. Cox slim to none. I think there were individuals, particularly john doerr, Burke Marshall with these civil rights division, who were very helpful, there was a story. A house was bombed in macomb. I think this was 19 63, 1964. Maybe 1964. We went down there. In mississippi . Im sorry. We went to macomb. The fbi was there. They said to us. Look, dont make any mistake about it. We are here to protect the evidence. Guard you orre to protect you. Ok, that is first. How many guns do you have . And we said, we dont have any guns. He said, well, ive got two and im scared to death. He had two issues. First, the mandate was limited because of the local political issues, which affected the federal clinical issues, and at of end of the day, most these guys as individuals that they would be overwhelmed. Tried tonow, we communicate to the federal government as much as we could and tried to, in certain circumstances do that,ut many people of sncc including myself, felt that most of those agents who came from the south were off the south and were sympathetic, not to us, but the communities they lived in. Back to theing you 1960s for a minute. , you set and Robert Kennedys office . Mr. Cox oh, yes. Other, butchs the khan and tom. You really done your research. Can you tell us about that . Mr. Cox we went to kennedy of austrias office. They basically said, just leave them there to read we went to kennedys office. They in the afternoon, were going to move inside of the building. , butch called the press. At the end of the day they were dragging as out. Stokely says, wait a minute, wait a minute. In thet something office. So, he gets up, goes and gets himself into the office. Goes back to exactly where he was. Ok. So they took us out of the office and they say, goodbye, see you. Thats what i remember about it. Is interesting. One of the things that is so interesting about doing the interviews in 2011, the emotions are so much. We recall these things with a smile. We were very serious. We thought the Kennedy Administration first of all, we thought the Kennedy Administration, particularly the way they dealt with martin waser king earlier, basically an opportunistic approach to the things. And theht Bobby Kennedy Justice Department was not being very serious. They were also very opportunistic and had a view they would only do what they were pushed to do, even though the law of the land, which changed in 1954 would be on the side of ending segregation. They went into the do not disturb approach, the do not cause any political trouble for my brother approach. We felt at the end of the day they were worried about themselves and not making this country a better place. You twosk episodes are a focus of a lot of attention. The struggle over the john lewis later atlanticar the national convention. Having to deal with that bumping push, it really into very, very rugged power. I think it had a much more profound impact than the march on washington. The march on washington, i was the representative from sncc, the steering committee. And for whatever reason at this point i cant remember i beforeout johns speech the march. To the press. I wanted tog promote john a speech. That is why he was doing that. Then we were at the march and. Ohn, we get a call the archbishop says he is not going to participate on the march on washington if the criticism of the Kennedy Administration and the whole reference about marching through it was a ruse, because the real, they did not want the Kennedy Administration criticized. Thatyou know, we, at point, when i say we john former, and myself. The archbishop came to us. And we said you can tell the archbishop to go straight to hell. They made changes to the speech. What bayard did, and he was a very clever person. He said i have worked since 1941 to make this happen. It is important that the coalition is held together. Philiprespect for a. Randolph, we went in the back of the lincoln memorial, jim lewis, myself we changed john of austrias speech. The way that was perceived in we changed john speech. The way that was perceived in sncc was we caved in. It was individual to us. The broadest at the time. I think Atlantic City was different. Worked all summer. They faced tremendous hostilities. The rules they played by the rules they were supposed to play in and everybody was engaged in that. Withnt to Atlantic City again, youhat if, presented the facts to the nation then it would make a difference. Clueirst thing, the first Lyndon Johnson called a nonserious press conference to say today is tuesday, ok . Bowels of Atlantic City convention center, bob moses, all of us, people scrubbed, put on suits and ties. Some of us had not had ties on for some time. But we went around and we were able to pigeonhole enough people credentialshe committee level. That we hadknown representatives, Lyndon Baines johnson really started acting ugly. He told them if you want the vice presidency, you better stop these people. He called people who were up for judgeships. He said if you dont do this, you are through booking. We had a list of people. We had a list of people. Bob moses and i were in a meeting. The congressman asked for the list of people who were not supportive. It was to show Lyndon Baines he had in fact the kind of support could move the agenda in our direction. Bob, dos i said to you think he is going to steal the list . Bob hesitated a little more and he gave a whistle. If you saw the list, you have seen it. What the congressman did was to get the Johnson Administration to go after each one of these people to capitulate. Sufficient minority mr. Cox sufficient minority, minority report, yes. So, this congressman to the list and then went and gave us, you i would not use the word betrayed, but close. At that point, we had we had basically played by the rules that were established. When it came out that they the groupsed meme of minority representatives, the representatives who would participate in the minority was theyhat happened then offered two seats in about kenny somewhere, two seats on the floor and others could be sitting in the balcony. Who are on our side, i would save the National Council of churches, the ,flcio, Martin Luther king aacp. Yl acp, n everybody. Everybody said you should accept this. Said, ok. It was bob is idea. He said, it was bobs idea. He said, ok, make a presentation. And, they, you know, talked about it. They said, we came here believing that if you played by the rules, the rules would be observed. , not only thenow Johnson Administration it was not only it was the whole liberal establishment that said the rules, when it comes to power, these rules do not obtain. At the end of the day, the of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to deal with, you know, the socalled sensemise and the kind of of power that prevails, not the and the the ideals things that people as fouls. Capitalism always trumps democracy. Mean, in 1960 four, you know, i was 23. Everybody else was around that. And they said, hey. This is the way it happens, huh . In that stuff that we read the books. It was not idealism. These are the rules you put out there. This is what you said the party and when the deal came down this is what the rules were. And they said, hey, we no longer trust you. I think people started disengaging from the electoral process. [indiscernible] mr. Cox rights. Right. We created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. We went to all of the counties in mississippi. We held meeting after meeting. When the rules of the party said did thesect, if you things you would be seated because you would be representing these things and you function by the rules so when you went to Atlantic City, you functioned by the rules of the Democratic Party itself, we expected to be seated. We expected to be, you know, the Democratic Party in mississippi, when we got to Atlantic City, we found out the rules have changed. If you would, please, talk about the transition after alabama and the way you thought about the project. I think the term he used was unqualified . I think of all the , i am mostve done proud. The reason we went there was the deal with the kind of , particularly the shooting of iowa lewis. We went to a county that was lewis. Is viola had a law that allowed you to have a political body at the county level. A rooster for the right above it. How dostion then became you achieve political power and how do you achieve regime change. Because before we were all registering people to vote, if you play by the rules, then the rules would be supported. Is here are view the rules and how do we manipulate them. We know what they are going to be. Ok, you have an 80 journey. The sheriff, the office of county assessor, the county clerk, the county court, the judge, the problem is a lot of , and two, the idea they did not know a lot about the offices. And you had to get them to leave they had to do it. The research guy in atlanta was absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Once we found out you can have a party at the county level, we said, ok, lets have the county. We research the roles and the responsibilities of each of the offices. We knew that people were not going to sit down. What we did is we created comic books which talked about the rules and responsibilities. We got people to run for sheriff. We put their pictures out there so people could see them in that particular context. The other thing we did, you know a propagandated man. Itled mr. Black is something i did with a colleague who now works for pbs. She did the graphics. I get the text. I used a phrase i heard from a woman in mississippi. She said, you know, us black people have been using our mouse to do two things. Sm. At and say ye to say no. I did that to give the impression that we have been doing all kinds of things. It is now time to support mr. Black man. It could be so in so for sheriff, soandso for tax assessor. Protesting police brutality. The way to do it is to get a sheriff who exceeds to your to your view of the world. As we went on the plantations and obviously deal with a lot of reaction. Jackson, wed, mr. Found he is a guy who owns his land. Coming outke he is of earth. He was very strong. Educated, buthly he was very strong. He gave us his house and he all night to protect us. So that basically our thinking in 1965 said, youve got to create your own rules. Youve got to assume power. The discussion is no longer about protest. The discussion is about power. Given you assume power the democrats the democratic it manage . You do research. You now understand how to go peoplet and convincing to run for sheriff and others, to run for able every position in the county. I wrote a pamphlet. I cant find it anymore. There was a pamphlet that i wrote that said what would it profit a man to gain the vote and not be able to control it . An issue oft it was control and organization to move that control was particularly important. Let me ask you a couple things. In alluded to the violence that era. Say a little more. [indiscernible] just a little bit more about the experience of being there and confronting that. Mr. Cox the reason we went there was to show after jonathan was killed and ruby was almost were not going to be afraid. We came in after that and particularly people like Stokely Carmichael, we came in after that to make sure we were not going to be run out. Community, which saying we which is ourselves would live in the community. We would be at risk with you. We had no running water. We had to prime the. What it would take in the living is a hole in the roof, so when it rains, you have to have a pan under the bed. But, i mean, you know when you wanted to get relief excuse me for a second we used to go to selma to get a bath or take a shower, to go to the chicken shack, listen to some music, get some fried chicken, and then drive back to the county. But, i mean, people saws living their daytoday, and that gave them comfort that we were serious people and the kind of that was visited on the andty by those people almost shot ruby and so forth, that we would stand up to it. County or in the southwest georgia or mississippi that was our trademark. We lived the way we were. You, personally, how did you deal with that kind of pressure . I think i always told myself there is fear there and you should not be paralyzed by a. I was driving with this young. Uy mr. Jacksons young son. , on those dirtng roads, we were probably going 70, 80 miles per hour. Yourselfnow, you tell you could deal with it. You fantasize all sorts of stuff. I had that problem in alabama. About alabamavous then i was mississippi because i thought they were bombing alabama and they would shoot in mississippi. Therefore, you could tell , this is a dangerous situation. Sometimes i looked around. I looked around in the courtroom and i was the only person of color in the whole courtroom. And i served to what did those kids that i went to what were they doing . I said, you are really crazy. When you are and it, you have mechanisms that go into place that dont calculate the. Anger i think it is only when something actually happens to somebody you know that brings it home. I think when you get outside of littlet is a interesting. Affected i always try to rationalize it. There were others in sncc who were not so lucky. That is the way i dealt with it. What can you say about the 1965 period in sncc . Just how you move through that period, your perspectives on those transitions . Think i think, basically, which goes back to Atlantic City, the organization was becoming much more militants. Of since 1962 we had one group who felt the philosophy and the others who felt that this was a tactic. So basically it started getting and wider and wider. Again, a true believer, but we do needed to appeal to the people in power, and he started to believe less and less discussion. Is that is, you know, this something that wasnt i dont think, looking back on the discussion, from the beginning john had a view about if you talk to people and they did the right thing, other people like that, they would actually do the right thing because in their hearts they were decent human beings and we didnt believe any of that. At that point it became a critical point, especially after the experience in Atlantic City. Can you say a little bit more specifically about those two transitional moments . One, the decision to expel whites from sncc and when carmichael replaces lewis . Think i think that a lot of the stuff, i mean, a lot of the stuff about replacement carmichael replacing john, i mean stokely he had ae out of lot more energy than john in terms of that. He probably reflected the mood of the black community and a lot of younger people at sncc. And i think john held on to the and his viewsnew of, you know, how things should be. That, you know, the country i mean, you know, ofer the whole discussion black power, which came at the this wholerch, and discussion, you know, the Washington Post the and the newt started generating editorials in saying this is a bad thing. Even today, people say be good priod of sncc and the bad eriod of sncc. Wasgood is when sncc believing in the American Dream and whites were involved in it, and the bad period was when sncc did not feel that you know, the people who are making the decisions were ever going to be in their favor and they think the whole with peg leg debate think the bates, i jimc position of sncc, articulated it. He said, the problems we face are not in the black community, the problems we face are in the White Community, but the way they think about things. So we think it is important for the whites who are organizers and sympathetic to us, should go to the White Communities and begin to organize those communities to create sympathetic relationships. The way it got characterized was unfortunate, now, people who had been with sncc for a while, particularly whites, felt they had a home and getting into this new thing was difficult. Some did a good job and found a southern student organizing committee. On, pegfight that went leg bates, where i guess i was i guess itaying, was, race is necessary, but not sufficient, Something Like that. Was that we were trying to deal with problems, trying to figure out how we end these barriers. But people started saying, how come you dont love white people anymore . Destruction, and this discussion of, why dont you like whites anymore, we were saying to the White Community, help us go into the White Community to help us make changes there. Andway it was characterized is still characterized is unfortunate, but it is what it is. Interviewer because the funding was so much harder to get. Courtland no question, and people like theodore making his statements, and other people, it cut funding tremendously. Let me switch to a one ofhat takes us into of a widening frame of consideration in this era, vietnam. I want to ask about your 1966,ipation in stockholm the war crimes tribunal, Bertrand Russell, can you spend on thate on the fourth for us sometime on that for us . Courtland you have done your homework. [laughter] early statement on vietnam and the palestinian issues, and the statement on vietnam impacted julian greatly. But the arguments for some of the established Civil Rights Movement was that you could only youk on issues of race, have no right to speak on the issues of vietnam. Understand that most of us in sncc, including myself, got wise. Because even before the tribunal piece, the view at sncc was, you want us to fight a war over there, when we are facing this here . Set in terms of this discussion. So we were invited after a number of statements by the Bertrand Russell people, and i was asked to go. Sncc people had gone to north vietnam, charlie cobb and julius lester. I was invited to go, but i declined. But i went over there to represent sncc in the group. , and i reallydon dont know much about the european scene. And i go to this dinner, sevencourse dinner with all sorts of liquor and stuff like that, and i had just come out of alabama. [laughter] what is all this . And you know you are either going to get to full or too drunk. But it is interesting, at the dinner was Bertrand Russell, John Paul Sartre, others, all europeanweight of intellectuals. And what struck me, this may be silly, but both those guys, Bertrand Russell, with such yuki goes with such huge egos, they were about five foot five inches at best, they were little guys. The yugoslavian, huge guy. We get to the thing and we participate. Would russell was at the dinner, but not very active, because he was 94 or so. But the real leader was sartre. Sartrerikes me is that is smoking and smoking, would say whatever, and everybody would genuflect. Like he was the everybody. Ng this was in london. So they agreed to have this thing in stockholm. I go to stockholm, first time in stockholm, and it is strange the weather is up and down, but it is the cleanest place i have ever been, great, clean place. I am sitting next to simone de , and they are talking, a colonel from the vietnamese is talking. And what struck me about him is about thete humility war, about the mistakes they have made, the need to change and correct, and so forth. Every time John Paul Sartre would say something, simone de beauvoir would turn to me and say, do you understand . Myself what io thought, i said yes. Then she said, you comprehend, and i said yes. So then i asked the colonel a series of questions, because remember, they were using pellet bombs. This was when the United States started using pellet bombs. In wars,d colonel lo, there are generally institutions ,hat people tend to attack infrastructure, the economic infrastructure, factories, political infrastructure, the and il and so forth, said, it seems to me, in guerrilla warfare you dont have those infrastructures that you can attack. All you have is the people. So do you think that by of what you have, that guerrilla warfare between that the only way an twostrialized country has attack against guerrilla warfare becausemmit genocide, you have to attack the people. And he said, yes. Again, did ied me comprehend or understand. , because ised wested that the war the , wars of national liberation, had to be wars of genocide. She never asked me another question. [laughter] lets take a little break. The things ie of onnd out is, i was put several lists, mainly fbi and cia. They followed me wherever i went. Whenever i came back to the would beates, i surrounded by agent, and i would say, you just picked me out at random, and they looked at me and checked everything to make sure i had documents and stuff. On my way to africa, i london, they stopped me at heathrow, and at that time you didnt have planes going to africa every day. That would not let me in london, so i had to sleep in the airport nights, and they took me on armed guard on a plane and took me to africa. At that point i was ,iewed as an enemy of the state and was treated as such by both the fbi and cia. The fbi was a little more igressive, in the sense that, was going to speak at cornell, and the fbi said to the people who invited me, dont you know who this guy is . Why are you inviting him . So they tried to discourage, i was told that. But i have my fbi files, cia files, and irs files. And when i look at the work the fbi did, as a taxpayer i am ashamed they did such sloppy work. I thought the cia did a little better, but the fbi, they need to pull up their socks. They need to do better work. Courtland this was under the freedom act interviewer this was under the freedom act . Courtland yes, the freedom act. Interviewer [indiscernible] interviewer they were called kluth courtland they were called cluster bombs. You have one big bomb that has a lot of little bombs in it, and once those bombs got close to the ground, they would explode, would be ints those, so they couldnt destroy a building or anything, they were designed to kill and injure people. We have already touched on, in important ways, the question of where this work is leading. You mentioned that you are closely watched by the government agents, surveillance and national security, but im curious about the development of the effort that culminates in tanzania in 1973. Courtland Stokely Carmichael and i talked a lot about moving because after, the Atlantic City convention, i began to understand that you have to think much differently, you could not keep asking people who were benefiting from the status quote to change the status quote. That felt it was important benefiting from the status qu o to change the status quo. And to change our communities and so forth, it was clear to me that there was nothing in the black communities, whether talking about harlem or other places, where you had any kind of economic infrastructure that would make a difference. So rhetorically and politically, it was good to talk about how these communities could defend themselves and do for themselves and so forth. They didnt grow any wheat, they had no agriculture, they had no industry, they had nothing. And they had no resources that could make a difference. Therefore, the question of making alliances and getting to work with people outside the country, particularly the african continent, which was converging itself, became important to me. That point, i met paolo, his name was brown. James, an authority on cricket and intellectual, and the man who wrote the black jacobeans. And they talked about, it is 1945, and we thought it would be important to get African People on the continent of africa, and the diaspora, to begin talking about how there could be a corporation to help. What people in the United States at and the diaspora was technical skills, engineers, at africans thing had land, resources, and so forth. And the other thing going on at the time was the liberation movement, so how could we be supportive of all those kinds of went around, and the president agreed to host the conference. Jamest around with clr and fletcher robinsons, who was a medical doctor fletcher robinson, who was a medical talk to ad we went to number of african leaders. We went to the oau. At they African Congress, i was named secretarygeneral. Talking, now i am 32 years old. [laughter] to theo to talk , and it isf guinea interesting. I stayed in guinea for two days and then i was told, the president will see you. Old, he is known, and i walk in the office and he has this entourage of people and i have my note pad. Waske this speech, and i perspiring from both arms. My calmied to maintain and cool and collective nest, and presented a case. He agreed. He was inclined to agree, he invited me to lunch at his place and we had some fish and rice. It was very nice. Burnham inee forbes guyana to talk about it, and i talked to a number of radicals in the discussion. PanAfrican Congress, we had the same kind of problem, state power versus insurgents, particularly in the caribbean. And also in ethiopia. Stateappened was, governments said that would not participate in the six man African Congress from the caribbean, if the insurgent types work invited and allowed to come. And the tanzanian government sided with the governments. Eritreae conflict of was going on, and the tanzanian government said they couldnt the tanzanian government was supportive of the liberation movement, so they were there en masse. And the conference itself was a big success. Even people today, it is interesting, a professor from ,arvard who taught obama theles ogletree, he was at six African Congress panAfrican Congress, and there were a lot of people, mary barak so the people who were there from the United States were the people who had been involved in the movement, but are moving along. You had that group, you had the liberation movement, you had the irious african states, and think it was an important statement in terms of what we needed to think about, but the problem was, once that congress was over, we didnt have that. Nfrastructure somethings happened, support for liberation movements continued. Other things that happened, we did send some technical people to tanzania and some others and there wasnia, a lot of intellectual discussion back and forth, particularly but the kind of broad discussion we wanted to have, and maintaining that discussion and building on it, we didnt have the infrastructure. It pointed the direction that we needed to go but did not allow us to really have the kind of relationships we want to. But the sixth panAfrican Congress grew out of our view that if we were going to deal with something, the economic issue was going to be important. And we did not have anything that was fundamental to the Economic Development of our communities in our communities. That was particularly important. Lets go back to thathe story unfolded so you emerged as secretarygeneral. Courtland the intellectual godfather was clr james, he wrote the manifesto and stuff. Ike that , in somer or worse ways we have been perceived in sncc as intellectual types. Hether that is good or bad and i guess people also assumed i had some organizational skills, and i understood the. Uestion and as i put the time and energy into it, people thought that i not always understood the issues , and it was a little bold, my thinking i could deal with heads of government and heads of state and talk to them about a. Roposal but what gave me cover i think, two things. First, clrs narariement gave n credibility in the conversation and his involvement made other heads of state think that this was serious. So i thought that if i didnt mess it up, it would be all right. Interviewer interesting story. Let me take you back to 1968. Two main things i want to ask about. One is the bookstore. Climate that year with king, rfk, nixon. I had decided to come back to washington. Me, can ir forgive ask one other thing, because it comes chronologically in front. About vietnam. Do you have an interesting story about that decision . Had just come back from the war crimes tribunal. We were invited. I didnt want to be the person who was always doing something. Now, i was invited to go to russia, but i didnt go because i thought february be too cold. Talking about north vietnam, i didnt want to go because i thought other people should go. Interviewer ok, the bookstore . Courtland after i came back from the war crimes tribunal, decided to settle in washington. Holloway, andrvin holloway, charlie cobb, judy we decided information was important and we decided a bookstore and a press would be good. On 14thened a bookstore and fairmont street, dealing with african and africanAmerican History, and also things that dealt with palestine, vietnam, issues of war, stuff like that. It was a great political venture, but i am not sure it in a great Business Venture the sense that we did a lot of stuff, but i dont think we ever made any serious money. Becauseas important, people remember it today. In fact, there is a plaque on that building that the bookstore was there. And from the sphere, we were able to publish clrs book and palestinianwe did, poetry and other things, a book of african names and so forth. How do youwas about, now organize information about the african community, in addition in addition to the bookstore and d enterprise,ookstore it was, how do you do things differently, how do you read different books, how do you do things differently and that was our thinking and how we established the bookstore and the press. Interviewer your reaction to king . We were going to make a speech somewhere in pennsylvania, and were riding in a volkswagen, volkswagens in those days, uphill was a struggle, downhill was all right, and we heard about king being killed. Was a total shock. Total disbelief. Because i dont think any of us, even though we knew that this was a dangerous situation, dangerous, the concept of king being shot was a bit beyond what most people would conceive to be within the realm of possibility. And when he was killed, it was a shock to everybody. I think most africanamericans thought, if they could do that to him, what are they now prepared to do against us . And we came back, we were in and the poor people s march was march had headquarters at 14th and u street. And the next day or so, stokely and others started making a lot of noise about kings death and started marching up 14th street. And what people characterize as rebellions took place. It was interesting, there were two things going on at the same time. Externally to the White Community, there was a lot of hostility. Rebellionn the actual there was a lot of peace and polite tole were very said, can isomebody help you get this television so you can take it away . To each other, the sense of solidarity was very strong, and iternally it was very remember i was sitting on the hill on third 10th street, seeing what is happening, i was thoughtching it and i there was nothing that could be done. I thought people were leading with their frustrations. I thought it would get them nowhere. 1. 50 would get them on the bus. But that is what they wanted to do. The reaction of the man, walter washington, when he declared Marshall Bolland had martial law and had tanks on the street on 14th street, it was interesting in another example of what power will do, analogous to Atlantic City, to protect property, to protect its own interests. That was, to me, big lesson. In 1968, the other impact was Bobby Kennedy being shot. , he really showed a great deal of humanity and sophistication after king was shot. Probably of all the public people, he understood, it was not an intellectual discussion with him. He had been there. And i think his words were and what hepriate, said in south africa was also really good. So i think he found his voice,. Hat was really very important think what people begin to with the chicago i think kings death and kennedys death, people just thought about this as a very where you have rap singwrap saying that violence is as american as cherry pie. Iece, for me, i was not involved in it. When i say not involved, i wasnt only physically not there, i was emotionally not there. And i thought it had a lot more , and peopleietnam acting out their sense of ending aon in terms of people felt people were dying and there was no way to deal with it. People felt the government was not listening, and while i knew a lot of the players there, i was an observer. I was not a participant. Either physically or emotionally. I just was watching it. We will take a quick break and come back. I have done a number of things and i have seen a lot and ites and so forth, is interesting because stokely and i use to about stuff and view this like an onion. We knew that the basic issue was economic. We were brought to the united andes for economic reasons, the only way would be able we would be able to deal with it was economic issues. But there were several liars in several barriers between where we were 40 years ago and where we could get today. So when i think about it, it seems to me that the modern civil rights era, and what i call the political era starting in 1955, really ended in 2008. We had three accomplishments in that time. We ended segregation of public accommodations. We did voting right and spread it to the south. And we did Political Organization of electoral politics. All the election of obama, the presumed barriers that we had before us are now gone. We had to look, at the naacp and the things that they did for us. Theyowed the country functioned in the courts, so they allowed the country to now say, segregation is no longer the law of the land. Versus ferguson in 1896, and established a new frame of reference in 1954. So you look at that, and before to endhe whole fight chattel slavery and establish the africanamerican is part of the american society. Inthese things dont exist oneoffs, they exist in a continuum. We are now able to do what stokely and i discussed 40 years ago, we are now able to focus on the economic discussion. Because what we have is an andrmation economy, manufacturing and so forth, while important, they are not the drivers. Intellectual property in the conceive ideas, and move the discussion, is particularly important. And to the kind of literacy that forwardsary going includes english, math and computers. We now have to think of these things a lot differently. And my role in the role of people like myself is to understand what the fundamentals are. I was talking about moses the other day, and he was saying that nothing we did was really radical. Sittingpeople to vote, at the lunch counter, organizing politically, it is not radical. Who we triedcal is to include in the discussion. Wethat is the same fight understand that we have to bring, that we have to broaden the economic base, we have to include not only africanamericans, but poor astes who are being used and nobodyr purposes even cares about them, they talk all of heroes, and then when they come back here, nobody cares about them, native americans and so forth. All thesehave to say, people at the bottom now have to be part of the american economy, and have to begin to get a quality education that allows them to participate in the american economy. At those people who have intellectual property should be able to monetize it and create wealth and institutions. Given todays discussion about who gets cut off and to doesnt come about is a radical concept. Nothing i said about what we should be doing is radical. What is radical is who is included in the conversation. That is a lesson that we have to talk to young people about, because they keep looking back at what we did in the 1950s and 1960s and so forth, and try to figure out, what are the Lessons Learned . Learned has to be the broadest inclusion of people, not the particular act and so forth. That is what we have to figure out, and how do we now put that in an economic context . That is what i am interested in doing going forward. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv on cspan3, where each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. If you like American History tv, keep up with us during the week on facebook, twitter and youtube. Learn about what happened this day in history, and see preview clips of upcoming programs. Follow us at cspan history. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story, every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on oral histories, an interview with civil rights activist korten courtland cox, covering his time at howard university, his involvement in the student nonviol. Ent coordinating committee, and serving as secretarygeneral of the 1970 4 6 pan African Congress. On sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern the 1963 newsca, report, the American Revolution of 1963, a program on the status of the Civilrights Movement with programs from albany, georgia, birmingham, alabama and the northern cities of englewood, new jersey, chicago into brooklyn. At 7 00 p. M. , a discussion on congress, Political Parties and polarization, with a historian and political scientist norman orenstein. And that it 00 p. M. On the presidency, and author talks two days ink, june john f. Kennedy in the 48 hours that made history, about two days in 1963 that defined jfks response to the Nuclear Arms Race and civil rights. Exploring the american story, watch American History tv this weekend, on cspan3. American history tv is on cspan3 every weekend. And all of our programs are archived on our website at cspan darker work history at cspan. Org history. See our schedule about upcoming programs. That is cspan. Org history. On reel america, we work again, a 1937 film promoting new deal programs that put unemployed africanamericans to work in infrastructure, health care, education, and the arts. The final four minutes of the film shall the final scene of a federal theater production of macbeth with an africanamerican cast. According to the library of congress, the play was directed by orson welles and on the , Opening Night of the play in 1936, 10,000 people crowded the streets of harlem in an effort to score a ticket. [lively orchestra music] narrator only a few years ago, we were a discouraged people because we were forced to lose , our jobs when old man