[BearwWthoutBorders] A FEW REPRESENTATIVE COMMENTS ON "BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL ORGANIZER"

[Hunter Gray]

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

My recent piece on Being a Militant and Radical Organizer -- And an Effective One  has been getting around very nicely indeed -- literally to the Four Directions.  It's drawn many welcome comments -- in writing and orally -- and all have been most positive.  Here, I've picked out twelve representative comments from eleven people.  If you read my piece and didn't comment, don't fret -- I can receive and appreciate good thoughts.  If you didn't happen to read it, I've given its link here at the beginning of this -- and also at the conclusion.  In cases where the following commenting persons are generally known on our several lists, I have given their full name.  If not really known on our lists, I've simply given their first name.  (H)


Again, My reflection on Being a Militant and Radical Organizer -- and An Effective One:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm (On the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website)

JYRI KOKKONEN -
  
Hunter,
Minor though they may be, sins of omission are still sins, despite your generous view of the matter. Your post reminded me of what the Germans call Vergangenheitsverwaltung, which could be translated as 'management of the past'.  It has various meanings, many definitely positive in the sense of addressing,  owning up to and dealing with  the horrors of  German history in particular, but the term also entails a more general  aspect of maintenance of historical facts and details, for the purpose of  constructing politically suitable narratives. And as we know, any good story can benefit from a bit of editing. Hence, air-brushing and sanitization, actors ignored or forgotten and inconvenient agendas set aside or buried in footnotes.  Naively put, history as recalled and recounted  is just as political as when it happened.

Even more naively, I would nonetheless  place my faith in research and scholarship. There are still serious historians out there  in the salt mines of academe addressing subjects of major importance such as the American civil rights movement.  The machinated popular versions may obscure and overshadow many things but the truth, or truths if you like, will out in the course of time. We may never quite know "what actually happened", as my old positivist church father of historiography Leopold von Ranke put it, but that shouldn't be for want of trying.
Best,
Jyri 


JOHN SALTER  -

The piece on Mississippi looks solid. That's pretty direct! I hope it wends its way to the right people.
 


PETER SALTER  -

This is really good. Humble but direct. Nobody else has the experience or authority to write something like this. Pisses me off that they're too timid to include you in marking the anniversary. If they drew up a real list of those responsible for the success of the movement, you'd be at the top.


SAM FRIEDMAN  -
You got that right.

It has been my experience too--not that I ever played the kind of role you did there. 

And not surprising--the last thing that the liberals or others with power and money want is for people to come and talk about how things really get done.





AMY -

Dear Hunter,

Now more thanks. I was very surprised to receive the print by your father--and very moved. I can't explain why it made me cry; I can only say that I find the image very powerful and the art itself appeals to me, speaks. Holding it in my hand and knowing the lineage of your father's art all the way back to his Art Institute training and the support of the James estate, I felt sure that William James would be proud indeed. (You know, I'm sure, that William James considered becoming an artist himself, and although his style was much more that of classical portraiture, given his era, I just know that he would have liked your father's art.)

Thank you also for your reflections on the way historical memory has an agenda of its own. I know that's not the way you put it, and I have to say that your tone of peaceful acceptance together with your content of radical integrity impresses me greatly. Your critique of the soft liberal posture and pragmatic approach to politics is provocative, and important. I have long thought that it is the radicals who force the center to move, but what a difference it would make if that force were acknowledged! I'm glad you're speaking out and that your book and words are out there, making a difference.

I also really liked this: 

A truly effective organizer rides over the mountains and crosses the rivers into new horizons of meaningful struggle.  That's the true joy, the ultimate satisfaction, and the great and enduring lure. 


Meaningful struggle and joy, that actually is pragmatism. The way you use the term is correct also, a 20th c. adaptation, but what you write here is what James meant, and what Salter believed in his best moments too. I know you're familiar with James's works, but this makes me think of one essay that James wrote, in which he quoted Salter, and actually I believe took this 1895 argument from work Salter had done in the early 1880s: http://www.archive.org/stream/islifeworthlivin00jameuoft/islifeworthlivin00jameuoft_djvu.txt

Thank you again, Hunter, for sharing your richness with me. Now I go back to my own meaningful struggle to represent Salter's work! I may get to Haymarket today...

Wishing you all the best,
Amy


SUSAN  M. POWER:

Thank you for this reflection piece which holds so much critical advice!  They're crazy not to tap you for the wealth of information and history you could offer a new generation.

Love to you and the family --

Susan


BRUCE HARTFORD (CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT VETERANS)

Well said. Would you like to post this in the "Our Thoughts" section of 
the CRMVets website? If so, please look it over for any changes you 
might want and then send me a clean copy.

Still keeping on...

Bruce

(Note by Hunter:  Done, with no changes.)



DAVID -

Thanks for your perspective and equanimity here. It applies, as you indicate, to most movements. 

David


BLUE SAPPHIRE-

Hunter,

You should be proud and glad that you are not one of the corrupted. Nowhere is it more true that "The more things change, the more they stay the same," than in the politics of people who were once in "the Movement" and now are in some kind of power, whether in the White House, Congress or other capitalist institutions. Every day I am disgusted by people who claim to have been in "the Movement", or whom I know for a fact were active in it. I see them silent about Palestine, or actively supporting the Israeli genocide. I see them silent about the abuses of corporate power. They are silent about the abuses of labor.

I am talking about the Obama Regime and everyone who supports it. Those are the ones I know about. And I am talking about people I know personally.

If they don't want you to speak to them, it is because they do not have the ears to hear you. It is because they are afraid of what you will say, because they have lost their moral compass.

You just have to keep reminding them of the struggle. It really isn't over yet, but they don't want to think that.

Just my opinion,
Blue

ALICE AZURE -

Hunter & Jyri,
What a marvelous word--Vergangenheitsverwaltung-- that means management of the past!  And thanks for your Nov. 25 reflection about Jackson--and the exhortation not to be caught in a "time-lock."  This is a danger point for poets and painters, too, I suspect.  Move on!


MARY ANN -

Hi Mr. Salter,
I,too, have often wondered why you haven't been recognized, particularly by Tougaloo for your leadership & participation in the Jackson Movement.
Recently I learned that Lawrence Guyot , a  Tougaloo graduate (1963) and a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party .passed in the D.C. area.  Was he active in the Movt. when you were @ Tougaloo ? His obit which was extensive was in the Washington Post and the Chicago Sun-Times.
I forwarded your report to several  Tougaloo graduates who were in my class (1965) who knew you and several were former students of yours if my memory serves me correctly.
Regards to the clan.
WWW,
Mary Ann



Hi Mr Salter,
Don't wish to bore you with my little notes but I've learned a significant amount of what was going on @ Tougaloo back in the early 60s via your recent notes . I had thought I was relatively aware of the happenings. :) I don't remember the name of the chaplain @ Tougaloo in '61.Certainly unaware that he tried to have Lawrence expelled . Happy that Mrs. Branch was of help to him as I had always looked at her as interesting character .Don't remember you mentioning to me that you had given Lawrence your original copy of Darrow's speeches . Wow ! That was extremely generous of you. 
Currently we're having a heatwave in Chicago for this time of the year, i.e. 40s, 50s and 60s. 
I ,for one, will always remember yours' and Mrs. Salter's contributions  to the Movt. Dianella Williams called me yesterday after she received my e-mail. She, too, agrees with me .
WWW,
Mary Ann

(INSERT BY H -- TO MARY ANN AND OTHERS:

I knew Guyot.  He was from Pass Christian, as I recall.  Here is something I wrote a couple of days ago on a discussion list when someone asked me:

Good man for sure.  He was a student of mine and I also knew him Movement-wise.  Tougaloo had a very poor chaplain in the fall of '61 who targeted Lawrence and pushed for his expulsion from Tougaloo.  Dr A.D. Beittel, college president, was aware of my very strong tilt on behalf of students, and had put me on the  chaplain's "discipline committee" to safeguard students' due process. Academic  Dean A.A. Branch's good spouse, Mrs Rose Branch, also on the committee,  joined me in defending Guyot successfully -- as we did a whole succession of other targets of the chaplain  In the spring it was learned that the chaplain had faked his credentials so he, and the discipline committee, faded fast.  Dr John Shannon, a Unitarian who didn't really believe in God, became fill-in chaplain. But he believed in students.  He and his wife were from Terre Haute, Indiana and came down to Tougaloo for a couple of years. In Indiana, they lived in the old Debs house.  Ed King came back to Mississippi from the North in January or February. '63, to become chaplain.  I think I've mentioned before that I gave Guyot my original copy of Darrow's speeches that I'd gotten in Arizona.

Again, a good man indeed.  (H)


STEVE -

Thanks Hunter, you have been an outstanding mentor for many, including me!
Best Regards,
Steve


 
Again, My reflection on Being a Militant and Radical Organizer -- and An Effective One:  http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm (On the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website)


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See my reflection On Being a Militant and Radical
Organizer -- And an Effective One:
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded, and with more photos in Fall 2012. Material on our Native
background.)  And see Personal Background Narrative: 
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm  (Updated into 2012) 

For the new (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement
of 1962-63:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
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