ATTN vets, friends, allies of Operation Breakthrough

[osop...@aol.com]

https://religionnews.com/2019/03/25/best-of-enemies-real-faith-and-racial-reconciliation-on-the-big-screen/

       Since the piece was for Religion

News Service I focused on the faith

angle. 

       The politics (for a change) were

quite good.  The book  is much more 

explicitly political/ideological, with a

broader consideration of Durham

history and politics, and features 

Howard Fuller and Ben Ruffin in 

their supporting roles. Also Jake

Phelps.

    Some of you may remember 

Ellis when he was an operating 

engineer at Duke. Ed McConville

wrote a long piece about both for

The Nation.

         MP

[Tom Campbell]

Really good article, Mark. I remember C.P. used to come into the bookstore in the 80's and 90's and we'd talk about Durham, race, life. (For those of you that don't know, I ran The Regulator Bookshop in Durham from 1976-2018. I was also on the Durham City Council from 1981-1989). It always felt like an honor to have C.P. walk into the store. The same feeling I had when John Hope Franklin came in.

I remember having some issues with the Best of Enemies book. Having gone through lots of trench warfare in Durham during my time on the city council, (my first two years the council was still controlled by a majority of the white, conservative good old boys who had been running things for decades), I thought the author too easily made blanket dismissals of all the white people in Durham, as if we could have changed things if we really wanted to. From my experience, it just wasn't that easy. I put this down to the fact that Davidson (the author) grew up and still lived in Iowa City, which at the time the book was published was something like 95% white.

I guess by instinct I don't trust Hollywood to do a very good job with this kind of story--but I hope in this case I'm wrong!

Best,

Tom Campbell

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[Boyte, Harry]

Thanks Mark -- splendid article, which brings me back to those days in Durham.

And thanks Tom. The discussion of race in the US these days is so fraught (with anti-racist whites tending to be very judgmental -- and ineffective) that it is wonderful to have a figure and leader like Ann Atwater brought to public attention. Part of this, as you say, is the importance of emphasizing the complexity of the European American (aka "white") folks in Durham in those years. 

This goes to a crucial theme it would be good to discuss on the list serve. Ann, whom I met when I was working for OB, always struck me as a remarkable embodiment of the black church belief in forgiveness, redemption, and transformation. This tradition proved fertile ground for  the world-historic philosophy of nonviolence as it became integrated into the American south (as Gandhi put it, it might well be American blacks who would bring the philosophy and practice of nonviolence to the world).

 Though we didn't talk about the connections in the support work for Local 77, I could see the philosophy of nonviolence in action which I was learning in the 1960s from MLK, Bayard Rustin, Dorothy Cotton and others in the movement. They stressed the dignity, discipline required not to hate adversaries. This was exemplified by Oliver Harvey, Hattie Williams and others in the organizing campaign. 

Nonviolence, nourished by the black church tradition, was a politics, as Karuna Mantena shows in an essay ("The Theory and Practice of Nonviolent Politics") in the new collection edited by Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry,  To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. just out at the end of last year from Harvard Press. The Local 77 folks didn't talk about nonviolence either -- or at least I don't remember any explicit conversation with them about nonviolence. But I could see the same ideas in their actions which I was learning in the SCLC citizenship schools where we taught nonviolence -- don't humiliate your adversaries; understand where they come from; separate the sin from the sinner; recognize that most everyone can be redeemed if one looks for the potential for good rather than blast them. "Uplift the personality of the segregator as well as the segregated" was MLK's constant theme.

I brought this philosophy to Edgemont working for Operation Breakthrough, from 1966 to 1972, organizing ACT, a poor "white" organization (I discussed a lot with folks that "white" was a word invented by the big shots to keep people divided. We had material on Scottish Americans settlement in the Piedmont in our paper, The Action). We had many conversations about the importance of making common cause with blacks. 

There were amazing leaders in Edgemont like Bessie and Doug Hicks, who had always battled racism and argued with KKK leaders -- Bessie saved my ass when I began organizing and the KKK was going around telling people I worked for Operation Breakthrough. I think I met Ellis at Duke while we were organizing Friends of Local 77 but I can't remember. I am certain he had conversations and arguments with people like Bessie and Doug in Edgemont.

So there is a background story that needs to be part of the narrative of this movie. It is tied to a different politics that the world needs more than ever. 

Nonviolence is finally beginning to get attention (it's driven me crazy for forty years that the depth of contributions to political philosophy and practical politics of the movement leaders like MLK and others has been ignored, both in academia and in the general narrative about the movement).

In addition to Mantena's essay in the King collection I want to bring to attention Danielle Allen's piece, "Integration, Freedom, and Affirmation of Life." Allen is a brilliant young African American political philosopher at Harvard, with a practical bent. In her essay in the collection, she shows how nonviolence goes far beyond conventional progressive emphasis on ending oppressive conditions, ideologies, and relationships ("negative liberty" in the theoretical tradition) to focus on how we can live together in a flourishing community ("positive liberty," as theorists put it). 

 She gives detailed attention, using examples from Harvard, to how a nonviolent political approach can change the strategy and language about micro- aggressions on college campuses. 

the power of nonviolent politics elsewhere is not hard to see. I gave a talk on this topic and its relevant to democratic change in professional systems generally,  at Wisconsin Campus Compact last Friday in Milwaukee - Campus COmpact is a group of colleges working on civic engagement. People were very engaged.

I'm eager to start this conversation in the Vigil network. Although it wasn't very explicit, we were all educated as students by the nonviolence of the movement. And it is more important than ever. 

Harry

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Dr. Harry Boyte

Senior Scholar in Public Work Work Philosophy, Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship

Co-director, Public Work Academy

Augsburg University

612 330 1453 (work), 651 280 5353 (cell)

Author, Awakening Democracy through Public Work

Preorder at https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826522184

"Awakening Democracy is the book we need in this historical moment to remind us of our democratic vision and call us to the urgent work of mending the tears in our communities and co-creating our future. It is not a book to be read as a Democrat or a Republican, but as a Citizen in the most expansive, constructive, and elevating sense of the word."

Adam Weinberg, President, Denison University

[Ninian Beall]

Harry,

Thanks for talking about negative liberty and positive liberty. I was
unfamiliar with the concepts.

Ninian

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[Rusty Wright]

Mark,

 

Outstanding piece.  After seeing the film and studying much of the primary source material you cite, it seems clear to me that both plainly illustrate how genuine faith in God can help change a racist's heart.  An adversary's heart, too, as Ann had to deal with her own hatred toward C.P.  Very inspiring story.

 

Rusty

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>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Harry Boyte
> Senior Scholar in Public Work Work Philosophy, Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship
> Co-director, Public Work Academy
> Augsburg University
> 612 330 1453 (work), 651 280 5353 (cell)
>
> Author, Awakening Democracy through Public Work
> Preorder at https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/book/9780826522184
>
> "Awakening Democracy is the book we need in this historical moment to remind us of our democratic vision and call us to the urgent work of mending the tears in our communities and co-creating our future. It is not a book to be read as a Democrat or a Republican, but as a Citizen in the most expansive, constructive, and elevating sense of the word."
>
> Adam Weinberg, President, Denison University
>
> --
> To contact the group administrators: dukev...@gmail.com
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[Boyte, Harry]

Dear Friends,

This may be of interest in the context of our discussions over the last year.

In today's St. Paul Pioneer Press

https://www.twincities.com/2019/04/19/harry-boyte-lessons-from-the-the-best-of-enemies/  

Yours in the democratic spirit

Harry

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[Robert Creamer]

A fascinating review…. regarding something I previously knew nothing about… Thanks, Harry

Robert Creamer
robert...@democracypartners.com

847-910-0363

[Arnie Katz]

I enjoyed the movie. What an inspiring, uplifting story. For me, the most positive thing about the film is that it motivated me to go back and re-read the book. "The Best of Enemies" is the best kind of history book, well-researched, well-documented, engaging, accessible. I was away from here for much of the period covered, but for the time I was here, and for the events I participated in, this book rings true. I agree with Harry. It describes a politics that is crucial right now, and that Durham, thanks in no small part to Ann Atwater and CP Ellis, has been working on and living for decades. If you haven't read the book, I urge you to do so.

On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 1:29 PM Dabney Hopkins <dab...@yahoo.com> wrote:

I appreciated it, also.  Thanks for sending it along.

Dabney Hopkins

[Boyte, Harry]

Dear Friends,

I've been giving talks about the need for a shift in paradigm from resistance and polarization to a movement of hope and democratic renaissance. 

All draw from the Local 77 story (as well as my work in the movement's citizenship schools), about how Oliver Harvey, Hattie Williams and others inspired the student body at Duke by claiming the public purpose and dignity of their work as "educators," and set some of us, at least, on a different path.  

Here's one I gave last weekend at a conference on the Green New Deal and the Future of Work at Arizona State University (this text doesn't recount Local 77, but I did it separately in a plenary; here I build on that telling).  

My academia site "from resistance to renaissance" has a long treatment of Local 77, as the basis for rethinking civic engagement, "Off the Playground of Civil Society," if any are interested https://augsburg.academia.edu/HarryBoyte

In the democratic spirit,

Harry

--

Harry C. Boyte

Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy

Co-Director Public Work Academy

Augsburg University

330 1453 (work), 651 280 5353 (cell)

"Democracy is a journey, not a destination," William Hastie, 1944

preferred pronouns, he, him, his