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The 50th anniversary this year of many landmark U.S. Civil Rights Movement battles reminds me of a discussion that intellectual Bok Go-il had with Freedom Factory staffers. He asked: If man were immortal, how long would people live?
Unlike most intellectuals, he had an answer to his own question: Six thousand years. Bok, who is suffering from cancer but rejected chemotherapy, didn't present statistics. He reasoned that people would still perish from accidents, homicide, and suicide.
Bok's question about immortality comes to mind whenever I read about another prominent 1960s U.S. civil rights activist passing away. Marion Barry, the four-term Washington D.C. "Mayor for Life" and former student leader who organized sit-ins during the 1960s, passed away late last year. Had he been immortal, he may have been remembered throughout eternity for his failings.
My first deep talk with Barry came in 2004 after we had both championed a school choice bill for low-income children in the Washington, D.C. He called himself a "situationist." (Yes, I did ask him if "situationist" was a real word.) More eloquently, 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass would say: "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."
Barry united with our strategy. In 1981 as mayor, he had opposed education tuition tax credits, warning they would bankrupt the city. Two decades later, as a city council member, he supported school vouchers. During a school choice rally, I asked him why he had reversed himself. He insisted he hadn't; the situation had changed. In 1981, he said, "Didn't nobody give us no money." In 2004, city leaders joined us when a new generation advocated that each education sector (public, private, choice) receive $13 million in Congressional funding. Lesson learned? A "good" argument isn't enough in politics. Figure out what people want, and make a deal.
Another late former civil rights activist I learned from was Lawrence Guyot, the director of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 who was beaten numerous times for his activism. He listened, carefully, when we were the featured speakers at an event in 2003. He later gave me advice and promised not to oppose our educational freedom efforts: "I will remain silent, if asked, which will speak loudly." The lesson I learned: Listen to others, let them present their ideas, give your feedback ― without pulling the "I was there!" card.
Julian Bond, a cofounder of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in 1960, passed away on Aug. 15. He wanted me to know one main thing: He had been fighting for civil rights before I was born. He was the dismissive " have underwear older than you" type.
There are generation gaps, but imagine the size of the gap if people lived 1000 years or more. "I don't care what history books say about the War of 1066. I was there!" Bond, born in 1939, may have lectured people forever. As I get older, it is getting tougher not to tell some whipper-snappers, "Son, I've been around, I've forgotten more than you know." Then I remember how Bond treated me, and I try to listen before responding negatively.
With his friends, Bond was cool, and in 6,000 years, we may have found common ground. Mr. Cool did seem to reflect on his life when I asked: Did you imagine that more than three decades later you would be fighting the same causes with the same tactics?
Fannie Lewis is another late civil rights activist I met, in 2002 at a school choice event. She said she had been trying to improve public schools in Cleveland since 1951. After confirming that she had actually said 1951, I mentioned to her that there was no time machine for a do-over for miseducated generations of kids. Then in her mid-70s, she said she wished she had tried new tactics earlier ― when she was in her sixties.
The late Derrick Bell, one of the few black lawyers at the Justice Department in the 1960s, was infamous in the 1990s when he was a professor at Harvard Law School for saying that then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas "looks black" but "thinks white." Nevertheless, Prof. Bell became an adviser of mine on school choice. I asked Bell at a discussion in 2003 what he would tell opponents of school choice. He responded, "We don't have the luxury of rigidity."
Immortals have time to get things right, the luxury of rigidity. When people ask about my ideology, I sometimes say I am a "situationist." I won't live forever; I won't even have 6,000 years. That might not be such a bad thing, because I would probably brow-beat young people born only 5,000 years ago: "I was doing this before you were even born!"
The writer is the Director for International Relations at Freedom Factory Co. in Seoul. He can be reached at: CJL@post.harvard.edu.
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