Interview Archive:King in the Wilderness/Interviews/Marian Wright Edelman
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN Mississippi Director, NAACP Interview by Trey Ellis March 20, 2017 Total Running Time: 1 hour 12 minutes Yellow highlight = possible pull quotes Blue highlight = research/fact check/etc. to do Wikidata #s contained in | / meant to indicate those two together as single concept
00:00:00
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Well, this is just- again, it’s such an honor to talk to you. And we’re just going to
00:00:15
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Well, I met him when I was a senior at Spelman College and he came to speak in Chapel. And Chapel was compulsory, and I was a rebel about that too, except that I remember more about Chapel now than about all of my classes. And the first thing that I did when I began to chair the Spelman Board was to reinstitute compulsory Chapel. But we had all the great speakers of our time, and- this was in my senior year of nineteen sixty- nineteen fifty- nine, sixty. I’d been abroad for fifteen months, studying abroad. Spelman was really ahead of the term then. And he came to speak in Chapel. And I remember it as if it were yesterday. And I quote him right now, and when I’m having a hard time I think about what he says about never giving up, but he talked about nonviolence and he talked about love. And, but more importantly, he talked about the importance of keep going forward and keep moving forward. And he said, if you can’t fly you drive, if you can’t drive you run, if you can’t run you walk, if you can’t walk you crawl, but keep moving forward. And it rings in my head when you are dealing with all these folk in Washington who keep wanting to move us backwards, but we’re never going to go backwards. Never. And we’re going to build on the progress of the last, almost fifty years, which has been progress, ebbs and flows, go forward go backwards, but we’ve gone forward a lot and we’re going to finish this job of ending poverty in America, but starting with our children.
child | Martin Luther King Jr. | Washington, D.C.
00:01:50
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Did you get a sense, when you first saw him speak, that you- that he understood the
00:02:04
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Oh, yes. He was always accessible. And I think that most of the times that I saw him, he was depressed, didn’t know what the world was going to do next. But he was always accessible, and I think I went to meet him right after that, said I wanted to come see him, he said, “Come see me,” and- and he- I loved him because he was one of those adults who didn’t feel he had to have all the answer, who could listen, who didn’t feel ashamed to say, “I don’t know what the next step’s gonna be.” And I guess most of the conver- many of the conversations I had was when he was struggling like we were struggling, for the next steps. He was not somebody who was chosen to lead- who chose to lead, I think he was chosen by Joanne Robinson and the people- and the women- and the ordinary people of Montgomery. He was new in the block- new kid on the block, didn’t have a whole lot of baggage, and they needed a spokesperson, and so Joanne Robinson picked this new minister at Dexter, thank God. And the rest is history. But he was always humble, he was always accessible, he was always struggling. And that gave you confidence that you didn’t know all the answers. And I know we used to laugh a lot about how terrified we both were of police dogs, what it felt when he was in that car going down after one of his arrests at Rich’s. And the isolation. I will cross a block to get away from a police dog since I first met them in Greenwood, Mississippi. But he- he was able to laugh, but to talk about fear, but to say you don’t let it paralyze you. And that was always reinforcing, I think, for young people struggling to find solutions to life’s questions.
solitude | fear | adult | Montgomery | Martin Luther King Jr. | police dog
00:03:46
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Can you talk about how your relationship with him changed- how it evolved from the first time you met him at Spelman?
00:03:52
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Well, when you’re nineteen and you don’t know- you say, “I want to come see you after that wonderful talk, okay?” And, and he said, “Certainly.” And again, the accessibility was always there. And I remember he had to bump me because President [unclear] was coming, but he kept his word. He was always there to kind of talk one on one. And during that year, which is when the sit-ins began to bubble up, and Greensboro happened, and obviously all of us in Atlanta were absolutely determined to follow. And we were- set up our own committee for human rights and published an appeal for human rights, and ere meeting with our college presidents who- and the chief of police in Atlanta, who was- they were about more containment, but wanting to listen and Doctor Mays was- all of our north star in many ways.
rector | human rights
00:05:10
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: But in planning the protests in Atlanta- and we started testing our nettles before the sit-ins actually occurred. Howard Zinn was our chairman of history and we used to have an annual ritual of sitting at the state legislature, in the white section, and the whole place would grind to a halt, “Tell the, you know, the folk to remove these students.” And we tested the public library, we tested a little bit of everything. But when Greensboro came, and that was clearly the signal to say “we can do this too.” And we met very, very quietly, and planned it, and then met with our college presidents and laid out what we were about. And I think it was one of the best sit-ins because we picked all public places. I went to City Hall, another delegation to City Hall. But we took public places, bus stations and the court statehouse. But it was always the places where we knew we’d have the best legal chance, and, and, you know, that was the first sound, and then the question was what was next. And Ella Baker- I’m sorry, don’t let me-
Greensboro sit-ins | student | protest | Howard Zinn | rector | city hall | courthouse
00:06:16
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Well. Sorry. The focus here, so we’re talking about Martin the man, but also, and your jumping forward to the later radical King, post- starting at the March on- the March Against Fear. The Meredith March. So, can we jump ahead-
00:06:33
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Don’t want to go quite there that quick because one of the things that we did was to plan a march across Atlanta. When- after this appeal and student stuff was bubbling up, the Klan had said- basically threatened us that if we kept making all this noise that they were going to put us in our place, and so we obviously had to push back. And we planned a march across town, when they said that they would meet us, and we were meeting with our college president and with Chief Jenkins, we had a great police chief. And all said “don’t go.” And we decided we would go. And- I think one of the loneliest mornings I could remember was each of us in our respective college students- college campuses, going up to tell the kids what time we’re going to meet and where. And our college presidents, after we had had this thoughtful process, double crossing us.
solitude | Lonnie C. King, Jr. | jumping | song | Morris Brown College | Clark Atlanta University | Herbert Turner Jenkins | Wheat Street Baptist Church | rector | Otis Moss Jr.
00:08:36
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: their students, but more importantly, Doctor King flew up from Montgomery to
Montgomery | rector | Ella Baker
00:09:09
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Wow. I did not know that story, that’s amazing. So, we talked about the- the March Against Fear, can you talk about your- how that came about and the- you know your- just tell us that story-
00:09:24
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: How are you defining the March Against Fear? That was James Meredith and that’s was many years in advance, and one big thing occurred with- my first plane ride, many of our first plane ride, we went to Shaw and we formed SNCC. And Ella Baker was the midwife, and Doctor King was the host, and we spent two or three days, and Ella Baker was very important because she told us not to become a part of SCLC. But we spent three days with him and again he sat through all the meetings, he listened. I mean, he listened. And we came away from that, my first plane ride, and we came away from that having decided we’d start our own organization called SNCC. He was the midwife, but we did not want to become part of SCLC. And so that was the second big support system that he provided. And between the time I finished Spelman- I mean, again he was always there to meet if you wanted to talk and to listen. And I went off to law school, and I would see him when he came to different colleges, we sort of have the younger generational programs, went to Wesleyan, went to different religious groups. But again, he was always, again, again, accessible. And that was really very important, I never lost touch with him during law school.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee | airplane | Spelman College | Martin Luther King Jr. | March Against Fear
00:10:50
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And then I went to Mississippi to practice law. And the Meredith March was a part of that. At the time we went it was still a hell hole. The Mississippi Summer Project had ended in nineteen sixty-four, everybody had left for different reasons. The press left when the white kids left. And, and Meredith didn’t consult with anybody, he still doesn’t- bless his heart. He’s all gray and gorgeous now. I just took my grandchildren to meet him this summer, went on a civil rights tour. But at any rate, he did this march and it wasn’t on anybody’s agenda, he didn’t consult with anybody. And so, Doctor King and civil rights leaders rallied around that, and we all walked from- almost from Memphis, down to Jackson. And that’s when the first- and every night, and again- accessibility, listening, we would stop and sleep in people’s houses because motels were not available.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee | Stokely Carmichael | Greenwood | Chicago | Black Power | tear gas | Martin Luther King Jr.
00:13:40
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: I didn’t feel I had to make a choice. I mean, there’s always going to be a continuum of views and I had- I mean I knew all my SNCC colleagues very well- didn’t agree with them a lot. The role of women in the movement was always complicated and I wasn’t somebody who was going to take a lot of guff off of any of them. And, and it was- you know, and they were my friends and friends disagree, husbands and wives disagree, people in complicated situations disagree, and when some things are moving very slowly, it is the job of young people to be more impatient and to push it. And I remember what it was like to be a young person and to push it. And- but my job was to get them out of jail, and try to keep them alive if I could, try to keep us all alive. So, no. I strategically disagreed. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget until I die, the stricken look on Martin’s face when they stood up in several places publicly saying that, and he would constantly try to understand, I mean, “Is it that bad? Are you- I mean, is it really that bad?” But he stayed present.
woman | prison | Martin Luther King Jr.
00:14:44
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: So, going back to this, sort of, the black power bit- what were the discussions like after the- at night, between, in the cabins, and the talking- was Martin-
00:14:55
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: They were heated, they were, I mean, the young people say what they got to say. Okay? And with the shooting of Meredith and with the aftermath of the nineteen sixty-four Summer Project, and everybody left Mississippi, the repression was not terrific, you know. People were bitter about the slow pace of change. And the Vietnam War had begun to encroach upon us and people were preoccupied with other things. And I was left there not only as a lawyer with hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of cases to handle, and everybody had gone and the press had gone, but the issue was how were people going to eat, because that was the first thing that began to emerge after the folk left. Mississippi wanted black folk out. After the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenged in- challenged in Atlantic City, they just wouldn’t get out, so they tried to starve them out. And they switched from poor- food commodities, which were not wonderful, but they were free, to food stamps, and they charged for food stamps. And many people had no income and could not afford food stamps, and so in the aftermath of the Summer Project of sixty-four, hunger became a very big problem.
Atlantic City | Vietnam War | Commodity Supplemental Food Program | the media | hunger | James Meredith | Freedom Summer
00:16:10
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And secondly, the poverty program emerged in nineteen sixty-five and the state turned down the Head Start program. And there was a provision built into law, which I’d like to see built into every federal law that’s designed to serve people- poor people- was that if the state didn’t want to take the Head Start program, or the community action program, that community groups could apply. Boy, we should have that in the Medicaid program with all these governors turning down tens of billions of dollars to give basic healthcare to their folk. And so, community groups applied. And King is in this story too, because we ended up getting the largest Head Start program in the nation. The Child Development Group of Mississippi, CDGM in nineteen sixty-four, that created the first- in sixty-five, I’m sorry- first jobs free of the plantation structure that had ever existed, because they were pushing people off the land, wanted them to go north, most people didn’t have enough literacy or enough money to get on the bus or find a bus station or to pay for the ticket. But it turned out to be a revolution in many ways. Folks saw that children could be excited, they saw that they could build schools, didn’t matter how ugly they were, with their kids they saw books that reflected the images of their children, and it was a revolution and the state cracked down. And Senator Stennis and Senator Eastland were- and Jamie Whitten were among the most powerful senators with seniority in Washington, and they immediately demanded that they cut off this communist program- this, this, this thing.
War on Poverty | communism | child | book | James Oliver Eastland | Medicaid | literacy | state law (United States) | Martin Luther King Jr.
00:17:43
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And, and we were determined, having seen the life that was there, that came from this program, people say, you could tell the CD- the CDGM kids they don’t sit still, they always ask all these questions. And parents began to understand how to help their kids and learn to read with their kids. And so, they cut it off after a few months, after the first thing, and we had knockdown, drag out refunding struggle with Sargent Shriver and others. And in the middle of the toughest negotiations- it was in Atlanta at the regional office and I called up Martin and said, “You got to help,” and he showed up, and I’ll never forget Shriver’s face when Martin walked in to help us and he said, “I didn’t know you were inviting outsiders,” I mean, come on, I mean, he was there along with his staff. And again, just the presence, and whenever you needed him he would come. And, and that was that accessibility I try to remember, remind myself of when, when every seventeen-year-old wants to talk, or when you’ve got something that really needs to get done. But I think that, you know, he was wounded, but trying to understand and to listen to see where this bitterness had come from. And they maintained the contact, and when he began to take a position against the war, and Stokely was in church and told him to come to the Ebenezer one Sunday, he had something he thought he’d like to hear, but never kind of let go of trying to sort of build a line of understanding.
Stokely Carmichael | child | reading | Martin Luther King Jr. | Atlanta
00:19:16
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: So from the Georgia- from the Head Start program, I’d like to talk to you about the Poor People’s Campaign, how you, how that came about. You talk really eloquently about visiting RFK and then bringing this message to King and then King being depressed until you give him this idea. Could you walk us through that?
00:19:39
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Mississippi wanted black folk to leave, they didn’t want to be there to vote, they didn’t want to feed them, they were trying to starve them out. They were trying to- the violence continued. The attacks on federal programs and moving to food stamps where people had no income and it was inconceivable to many people back then that there was no income. And it was terrible in sixty-five and sixty-six and sixty-seven. And hunger was epidemic. And the- if you went out, as I did try to go out every day or every week in the communities, you just saw the suffering. And- you had to do something. And the Poverty Program and CDGM brought a lot of hearings and harassment about why the federal government was giving this group of church folk and civil rights folk and that we were mis-spending the money. I was its general counsel. And one of the things that I feel very strongly about is that poor people have to have better management than non-poor people. And some of the SNCC kids were not managing everything right, and I always would say, “Don’t screw up the program by not making sure that every dime is spent.” But most of it was wonderful. And parents came alive and children came alive, and the school people began to say you can recognize the CDGM children, they’re just always asking these questions, thank God.
hearing | income | War on Poverty | budget | the poor | child | Mississippi | vote | money | violence
00:21:03
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And so that that became an ongoing struggle, but meanwhile the hunger increased. And we got called- I got called to Washington to testify about the child development program and about poverty and what was happening in Mississippi, to Joe Clark’s subcommittee. And we had Jacob Javits back then, we had Joe Clark, we had- where are they today? And in the middle of it all, I asked them to come see for themselves, because they were- the repression and the misuse of the dollars, and the attacks on the Head Start program were all unjustified, and they agreed to come. And Bobby Kennedy came with them. And- I hadn’t- I was supposed to talk about food and misuse of dollars, and they did politically use the community action program- Mississippi misused everything. But in the middle of it all, I saw a wonderful picture recently, with Unita Blackwell and Amzie Moore who was somebody that ought to be put up on every billboard as a servant leader who was the wisest, smartest, he kept us all alive, he was where we all kind of lived in the Delta.
poverty | hunger | Head Start Program | Joseph Sill Clark Jr. | Unita Blackwell | food | testimony | Mississippi Delta
00:22:15
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: But in the middle of it all when I was talking about Head Start and Stennis was there to testify, I said that people were starving in the Delta and that they should come see it. And to my absolute joy, they agreed to do it, and Amzie could tell you exactly where to go out on one day’s notice, a half days’ notice. And so that was the thing that really sealed me with, with Robert Kennedy, because I had had an image about Kennedy’s. And, and that’s when I first met my husband because they sent him down to advance that hearing and I was really very busy. And I was expecting somebody like Pierre Salinger with a cigar and arrogant and all the other, and it was quite the opposite. But the bottom line is we went up in the Delta, and we- and Amzie found these children with bloated bellies and with- had had no food, and poor parents. And watching Robert Kennedy, outside of the cameras, was one of the most moving experiences. And there’s a famous incident of going in the back door of the baby with the mother in a dark room, I don’t think they even had a wooden floor, sitting there, and I watched him just poke to try to get any kind of reaction out of that child, and couldn’t and you know- and I- it changed my whole sense about who he was, and he came outside, he was somebody who touched a lot, which was surprising, I mean when I would say hello, he would just kind of, you know, do a little pat. And he touched a child, there was some older children standing outside with lots of reporters who hadn’t gone inside to look at Annie’s child, and we asked the little boy what he had for breakfast, said he had nothing yet, and asked him what he had for lunch and, said nothing yet, and- you could just see how any adult and parent would respond to that.
Orville Freeman | Jackson | Joseph S. Clark's and Robert F. Kennedy's tour of the Mississippi Delta | Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program | Robert F. Kennedy | Mississippi Delta
00:25:31
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And he said- I told him I was going to stop through Atlanta and see Martin, and he said, “Well, tell him to bring the poor to Washington.” By this time, he was running, he had decided he was running for president. And I went down to Atlanta from there before I went back to Jackson, and went to SCLC, and he was depressed. I mean he was sitting in his office by himself. He was- all of us were struggling- he was struggling to see, what do you do next? You had the Vietnam War; the country’s attention was moving away from civil rights- and from the poor. And I walked in, and he was by himself in the back of- I loved it, he always lived very modestly, and this was a very modest office. And he was- he was depressed. And I told him what Robert Kennedy said, he ought to bring the poor to Washington, and he lit up, he just lit up. And he went home, and you can see what Coretta said about it. And he immediately began to sort of get the staff, who was not happy, I’ll just tell you that- engaged and people came over from Marks, Mississippi just to talk to him. And he had been in Marks, he’d been in Marks for a funeral and had gone to a center and saw children who were- the teacher had one apple for lunch, and she’s carved up that apple for four kids. And that was the first time Ralph Abernathy said that he’s ever seen Martin cry in public, but he had to leave the school because he couldn’t believe they were each getting a fourth of an apple. And the hungry Marks was palpable.
Martin Luther King Jr. | civil and political rights | mental depression | hunger | educator | Ralph Abernathy | Southern Christian Leadership Conference | Marks | Robert F. Kennedy
00:27:08
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: But any rate, he responded immediately, and called his staff together who was not happy about this. And there was robust debate over the ensuing months about whether Vietnam should be the big issue or whether it should be economic opportunity and jobs, and obviously it was by- obvious by then that the next step that the talking about changing laws was to get people jobs. They had to eat, they had to survive, they had to work, they had to have an income. And so that was a very interesting follow on set of months, but he stuck with it. And committed himself to doing a Poor People’s Campaign. And…
Martin Luther King Jr. | Poor People's Campaign | job | deliberation
00:27:45
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: So, talking about the- I’d like to talk in depth about Airlie House in September of sixty-seven and the, the sort of divide between- you should talk about- like Baez and sort of the- non- the anti-war factions and you sort of- leading the anti- poverty sections. Those kind of- what was the mood there and what were the discussions like?
00:27:45
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Well, they were always robust discussions [laughing]. And I-
00:28:16
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
00:28:16
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Well, Airlie House was a gathering or a retreat, where- I don’t remember how many of us there were, I mean, whether it was forty, whether it was fifty, Joan Baez was my roommate, but I’d never saw here. And- but Andy and all of his people, with some outside folk. And it was about where do we go next? And I always loved him because he had very big tolerance for different views. And Bevel is not a- was not an easy man to- and I loved Hosea Williams. I mean, they all had very strong views. And Jesse preached, in fact I remember Jesse really did preach. And, and Martin listened. But it was a very robust discussion about where one should go next with a lot of resentment about this Poor People’s Campaign. And that Vietnam was the issue and that black boys were dying over there and that was draining all the money. On the other hand, you had all these hungry people right here in America with no jobs and no income. And I don’t think he wavered, and he waited for Andy always to find the bridge- Young to find the bridge between all these robust discussants who never were lacking for a word or a view. And again, the patience of Job, as far as I’m concerned, I go- I’m for having opposing views with some folks- here’s where we're going. But he was amazing, but it was a very moving meeting. A good meeting of open- I’m not going to say- debate.
James Bevel | Vietnam War | job | Joan Baez | discussion | Martin Luther King Jr. | Jesse Jackson
00:29:53
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: I’d read that in those sort of battles he’d said, “I just want to go back to my little church at some point,” where the patience broke and-
Jesse Jackson | Poor People's Campaign
00:30:27
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Well, I’m sure his patience broke often and I’m sure he did want to go back to his little church, and that was a whole lot of stuff he had to go through. I mean, it was a very tough life. And we used to laugh a lot because I will go across the street before police dogs, right, but then- he could always see when I was afraid and going out to Georgia during the period where John Kennedy’s, you know, made that right call- Daddy King- but boy, we could laugh about police dogs. I will cross over two blocks because of the first time they brought out police dogs in, in the south was in Greenwood, Mississippi in nineteen sixty-one. It was my first visit to Mississippi and Bob Moses is the bravest man I’ve ever seen. He didn’t move as the dog ripped his pants down. But, but, but again he could laugh. He could be- and he was- he didn’t hide his depression or hide his uncertainty, but he would always struggle to try to find the way through. And I really try to remember that a lot, ‘cause I’m not a patient person.
patience | 1961 | fear | laughter
00:31:41
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
00:31:41
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Do a lot of singing. We always sing. And when the music stopped the movement stopped. And music really was the glue that tied us together. It was the glue in all of our meetings and I always remember Hosea Williams in one of the worst incidents in- periods in Grenada, Mississippi, and there was some feds down and my dearly beloved Carl Holden and others who had come down to Mississippi because the place was exploding around school desegregation, and there were two mobs that night. And one was the police mob- the cops mob- and the other was the white folks mob. And I just never remember- I chose to go with the, the white folks, the bad folks mob, but not with the police who I think were more dangerous- there are all these dances in the state, but Hosea jumped on top of a car and started singing “This Little Light of Mine.” And I said, now, he could have been just mowed down on any- but that music was always the thing that would keep us going. And when the movement stopped- the music stopped, the movement stopped.
Mississippi | Stokely Carmichael | music | Debriefing
00:33:40
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And I don’t think we reached any formal conclusions out of that, but I did- I left there knowing that we were going to go ahead with the Poor People’s Campaign in some ways, and they were a very complicated crew to kind of keep altogether. But I think that he uncertainly, without clarity, without knowing where the money was going to come from, and with the country really not being very interested anymore, you know, he was moving ahead. And I, again, it may seem to me, it’s the tolerance he had for- so many different points of views. And Andy was kind of the mediator.
money | Poor People's Campaign
00:34:40
Speaker: 00:34:22:00 TREY ELLIS
00:34:40
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: It was awful. It was awful. And on some level, I think, it was inevitable. I wasn’t surprised, but it was shocking. It was awful. And riots broke out, as you know, everywhere. And my first thought, including in the district, and my first thought was to go out and tell children not to loot and not to riot and get- and ruin their lives. And Robert Kennedy went to church that Sunday, we went to Walter Fauntroy’s church, and then we went for a walk, and Marian Barry, my old SNCC friend, who’s in- wanted to know what the hell he was doing here. That was- and but- I went down to the schools to try to tell kids, for goodness sakes don’t, don’t, don’t loot and don’t ruin your future, and this little boy about twelve looked me straight in the eye and said, “Lady, what future? I ain’t got no future, I ain’t got nothing to lose. “And I’ve been trying to answer that boy for the last forty-five years. And I think about him, telling the essential truth in this incredibly rich, powerful nation that has not the decency to assure every child a future.
poverty | leader | sermon | Martin Luther King Jr. | Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. | social safety net
00:38:18
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: So, in terms of- so for Martin, you’ve written about it and I’d like you to talk about it- if, if he had lived, would the, would the Poor People’s Campaign have been different? Would- where do you see the- where do you see the trajectory of the- of the struggle?
budget | protest march | civil and political rights
00:40:43
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Well, gosh, we missed his eloquence, we missed his ability to kind of bring us together, to tie together the complications of our- other competing- the competition between competing interests, all of which, I mean how he could tie together Vietnam and the Vietnam Speech April fourth was terribly important, because it was the same groups that were going to be affected, it was the same kind of values that we still need to challenge. And I- and the warnings about excessive militarism. And, I mean, the greed and materialism. Boy are they as- look at today. So, he really was a prophet who spoke the truth about who we are and, and I site often his, his concern that we are going to integrate into a burning house riddled by excessive militarism and materialism, and greed, and that when somebody who heard him that night, ‘cause he was very depressed at the end, I mean, he got nobody- the country was going to hell. That when they asked him, you know, “Well what should we be doing?” And he said, we, we, we, we all had to kind of become- raise our voices and, and, and go to a different level of protest.
Vietnam War | ethics | the poor | Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. | African Americans
00:44:21
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Do you miss him as a man, as a person?
hearing | Presidency of Richard Nixon | Poor People's Campaign
00:50:30
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: What’s your favorite memory, or sort of surprising memory about Martin Luther King?
theater | Tennessee | stations of the cross | demonstration
12:10:27
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Favorite or surprising. Let me just think about that. Those are two different things.
00:52:31
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: Maybe just, sort of, something that makes you smile.
00:52:31
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: The way he used to always say “well,” [laughing] “well.” One things I couldn’t stand about him, I always thought he had a bad- a cold handshake, you know, a cold fish- I wanted to sort of teach him how to shake hands to be more whatever [laughing]. But… what is my favorite… it was- you know, he was always- I mean, I think that seeing him as a twenty-one year old, or twenty year old, having gone against your college presidents and we marched and the Klan was there, and to have him be thoughtful, to come there- and all of our college presidents were sitting on the front room but we didn’t hear one- on the pulpit- welcoming their students that they had tried to keep from- but to see him come up just to be encouraging, to be there, is probably one of my best memories of, of him. I try to remember it when I’m impatient and don’t want to take the time to see that kid or those ten kids. And it was- and it was the listening at- in Raleigh ‘cause he sat there in all the sessions, almost all the sessions during the three days we were there. And Ella Baker was wonderful, but she was saying, you know she wanted us to have our separate- don’t become a part of SCLC, do your own thing, and we flamed out in four years. But it was this- but you need this continuum.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas | adult | history | election in the United States | Freedom Schools
00:54:41
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And I think Doctor King educated us in many ways. He didn’t have silos, he didn’t want to be put in silos. And he knew how to laugh and to have a good time too. And- but- and the accessibility, and just the humanness. I mean, he didn’t have any of the pomposity that we see too many leaders, I can’t stand pompous leaders. And- but he, he was just kind of there. And I think that- I’m not a patient person and I’m, you know, listening is a very important thing. But, but he always came when you needed him. And, and I… I was so glad I was in Atlanta on September Eleventh where- we were- Luther Smith, who is wonderful, who’s- Emory professor, emeritus now at Emory, but we were doing this interfaith children’s day. And there was this wonderful children’s choir. And we were trying to bring children across all things together and it was wonderful and then Andy met me at the door to say, “You won’t believe what just happened.” But, you know, the first thing I wanted to do was to go talk to him, I mean, to go cross town and just to tell him what happened, and to walk around Morehouse and to say, “What would you do here?” I mean, “What would you say?”
history | Riverside Church | Martin Luther King Jr. | prophet
00:58:26
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: The real misconception- J. Edgar Hoover tried to destroy, you know, his character, whatever, but he was a man of deep faith and deep courage who loved his country so much he was willing to die for it, but to die for it nonviolently and at the hands of violence. And if we can’t and if- you know, if- what he talked about in terms of gun violence and the violence of war, and Bobby Kennedy after he was assassinated gave a great speech about violence. And we need to hear him. We need to hear him and not to deify him. Not to, to make him into something he wasn’t, but his message was the message as Abraham Joshua Heschel said, he was a prophet for our time. And so we don’t need to praise him and build statues to him, we need to follow him. Because he was not a perfect human being, didn’t pretend to be a perfect human being. Was always struggling, was scared like the rest of us. But he was a man of god who had a message.
poverty | education | community | Martin Luther King Jr.
01:01:38
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: No. That’s a part of the job, okay? I mean, I lived through- we lived through- I mean, if you’d been through Mississippi, and you’d been through the south- and that’s a part of, of what you might expect as a witness for justice. That didn’t make you not scared. It just made it not paralyze you. I was so moved when I took my children- grandchildren- but Medgar’s daughter was there, and I asked her, whom I love, and his stains- his blood stains are still on the driveway and my grandchildren are eleven and twelve and nine and I didn’t want to hear the lady who runs the-, the- whoever the person is from the, you know, the service that covers these historical places. And I asked if, if we could just have Rena tell us what it was like being an eight or nine-year-old and how they survived and what happened that night. And it was really so profoundly moving and when you think-
shooting | Greenwood | law school | arrest | Jackson | Medgar Evers | Washington, D.C. | courthouse
01:04:12
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: When I think of Doctor King and his- despite the depression, despite the spying, despite the chances to discredit him, despite the criticism and the abandonment of his friends, hanging in there because he knew he had a more important mission, that I think was a divine mission, and I think of the people who changed this nation who didn’t really have anything, who weren’t really well educated, always, but that didn’t mean they weren’t really smart, and wise, and when I used to get tired and Ms. Hamer always used to call me, “You better move here, you gotta go do this, and you gotta do that,” and Ms. Mae Bertha Carter and my last case in Mississippi was for the Carter family, a sharecropper family, in Sunflower County, Mississippi. And they had eleven children, ten children? Eleven children? But they wanted the last nine children to get an education. And, and Sunflower County was a place I didn’t- I tried to get out of before dark- I sent her to Eastland’s County. But they came to me right before I was about to move to Washington to say, “I want you to file me a school desegregation case that my children go to that white school ‘cause I want them to get an education.” And I said, “Now, Mrs., Mrs., Mrs. Carter, y’all know what that means?” And they said, “Well, we know what it means.” And I did. And- we won. But they lost it, they got pushed off their plantation, they got shot at, they don’t have any jobs, which is why that Head Start program which was mighty imp- had become very important.
education | Fannie Lou Hamer | Head Start Program | Martin Luther King Jr. | Mississippi | surveillance
01:05:41
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And they all- the last nine of those kids went- finished high school and she taught them not to hate. She would say, “I pray that school bus out, and I pray that school bus in with my children,” but she taught them not to hate white folks. And they all became professionals, the ones who did end up going to college, they all did go to college. And about five, six, seven years ago, I lose time… Connie Curry, who was a stalwart of our- a white woman from Atlanta, called me up to say, “You got to help. Mrs. Carter’s grandson is in Parchman Prison.” And I said, “Not Mrs. May Bertha's- Mrs. May Bertha’s grandson in Parchman Prison? How could that possibly be? And that’s how I learned about the cradle to prison pipeline, about all these black boys and black men with an average education level of sixth grade in that- just filling up the jails in Mississippi. And that’s our challenge today.
child | Mississippi State Penitentiary | high school
01:06:45
Speaker: TREY ELLIS
: I wanted to ask you about Bobby Kennedy and did you know, I mean, when did you know that he had authorized the- wiretaps of…
01:06:59
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: Can we talk about nonviolence then and how is nonviolence misunderstood as a tactic?
Peter Edelman | telephone tapping
01:07:40
Speaker: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
: And so, he is as prescient today, as relevant today and is issuing as much of a call to us today as he was calling to us in nineteen sixty-eight, and I hope we will honor that call and hear that call and finish the next phase of his movement.
job | education | United States of America | hunger | the poor | child | African Americans
