Freedom Fighters Then and Now
y Bob Parsons, De
When I read Carl Dix’s thoughts on being in court with his reflections on the Jim Crow oppression of Black people in the 1950s/60s – how the Stop “Stop and Frisk” campaign stands on the shoulders of the legacy of the 1960s Freedom Fighters, how the prosecutors are the modern day version of those who put 1960s freedom fighters in jail and worse – it made me recall my own personal history. I did not experience Jim Crow as Carl had – I had been totally ignorant of it.
I grew up in a white segregated area of the country. I had the occasion at 12 years old in 1958 to travel through the Deep South with my father and 11-year-old brother. We stopped at a gas station in Mississippi or Alabama. My brother and I went to the side of the building to use the rest room. We saw two – one labeled “white” and one “colored.” We had never seen this and were totally confused. We asked my father what it meant. He said only, “Use the ‘white’ one, boys.” We used the rest room and then being curious, opened the door to the “colored” one. The entire rest room – every square inch of surface, floor, walls and ceiling – was smeared with feces. We ran away, more terrified than after viewing any horror movie. And, more horrified because we had no idea what it meant, why anyone would do that. And, after the way our father had answered us, we were scared to ask him.
Fast forward to 1968, and a 21 year old who was being slowly awakened by the war in Vietnam and the beginning of the civil rights movement, though not aware of much of it and having never known a Black person. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, I watched TV news that showed scenes of Black people rebelling and 100 cities burning. I thought to myself, “Black people are very intensely, deeply angry about something…. and I don’t know what it is. I think I’d better find out.”
A 45-year quest ensued, begun because the oppressed rose up and slapped me awake. I learned there were white people who took up the battle to end Jim Crow segregation and even gave their lives. Now we have the new Jim Crow, mass incarceration of 2.4 million people, a huge percent Black and Latino, with the NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” policy a pipeline to that mass incarceration. As Carl Dix has said, this amounts to a slow genocide that can turn into a fast genocide. Too many people, especially white people, are not aware of either aspect of this. Carl Dix and Cornell West initiated the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and then the Stop “Stop and Frisk” campaign as a way to raise that consciousness and act to stop them.
This Trial Reminds Me of Jim Crow & the 1960's by Carl Dix
Sisters and Brothers,
Sitting in the court in Queens listening to the prosecution and the judge talk about this trial isn’t about Stop & Frisk but about whether Jamel, Morgan, Bob and I ‘broke the law,’ took me back to the 1960’s and the struggle to end Jim Crow segregation. Whites only facilities, Black people having to ride on the back of the bus or sit in the balcony in movie theaters and the lynch mob terror the enforced all this. That’s the legacy our campaign to Stop “Stop & Frisk” stands on the shoulders of, and those prosecutors are the current day version of those who put 1960’s freedom fighters in jail, and worse.
We’re one week into this trial. The trial is recessed till Monday,(now probably Thursday 11/1) and we have a chance to make the fact that 4 people who protested that racist, immoral policy are facing time in prison a major story in NYC and beyond. On Monday, the prosecution will put on its major witness and show the video of the protest at the 103rd precinct. The next day, a couple of the defendants will testify. In strategizing over these next few days, we should remember the impact our protests had last year. Think about the youth who faced being harassed, disrespected and worse by police every day, who drew hope and inspiration from what we did. The people who didn’t face being stopped and frisked themselves, but who were horrified to learn that people faced this treatment because of the color of their skin and felt it was wrong. We need to figure out how to tap into all this.
Bloomberg and Kelly are doubling down on Stop & Frisk, defending it in the face of continuing exposure, mounting resistance and disagreements among the powers thqat be over whether and how to continue that policy, with elected officials and the NY Times expressing concern that the controversy over this policy is feeding broader discontent in society. We need to reach out to the people who are disgusted by Stop & Frisk with a simple message. “If you don’t like Stop & Frisk, then you need to have the backs of the people who stood up against it and are facing time in jail for that righteous stand.”