ture of the civil rights movement in this country? Bell: First of all, we wouldn’t have a country, because the confederation construct that had been set up after the Revolutionary War just wasn’t working. There was no strong central government. They couldn’t collect taxes. Each state was setting up serious tarriff and other barriers that greatly restricted trade. Anarchy was threatening and the people that came together in 1787 in Philadelphia—the Founding Fathers—were all property owners, and they knew they had to do something. Otherwise, there went the country and their property as well. So they set up a stronger central government with a lot of protections against that government. And also against the masses who were not voting—who were not seen as participants in government. One of the biggest obstacles was that the Southern states wanted to maintain slavery and the Northern states didn’t think slavery was going to be advantageous to them. Slavery pretty much died out in the South after the Revolutionary War, or was dying out. And the industrial system was, if not started, at least imminent. They feared slave revolts; and they would just as soon not have them. There were a few who were saying, here’s a country where we’re talking about all these individual rights. How can we do it? But it became obvious that they couldn’t have a country unless there was recognition of the Southern demand to maintain slavery. So you know the results. We have two or three provisions in the Constitution specifically, though not by name, providing for the protection of slavery. That’s a compromise in which blacks didn’t come out very well. In later years, there were other struggles in which blacks did better. The Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves was basically a political document that Lincoln was reluctant to issue, again because of protection of property. But he was forced to do so because it had a lot of benefit for the North. It enabled the recruitment of blacks into the Union Army. And blacks constituted 25 to 35 percent of the Union forces by the time the war came and they participated in all the major battles. It also disrupted the workforce in the South because as soon as blacks heard about the document, they started leaving the jobs and feeling they were free. It had great impact on the political situation in Europe. Some of the countries were thinking of siding with the Confederacy. But the Abolitionist forces were strong enough that once Lincoln had done this, they intevened and prevented those countries from coming in on the side of the Confederacy. As a matter of fact, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single slave, because it only What we really need is a whiteJesse Jackson. We have some very articulate white ministers, but they are busy pointing theirflock toward heaven for their relief, and toward the American way as the ideal, without really examining very carefully what the American way really is. took effect in those portions of the seceding states that were not under Union control. But it had great moral impact. While it was intended to benefit blacks, it really benefited whites far more. The same is true of the other civil rights efforts that have been taken. The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, and also enabled the hundreds and thousands of blacks to be mustered out and changed the rules so they wouldn’t be able to keep their weapons, as had been the case before. At that point, they said no one could keep their weapons, but before, everyone had been able to keep their weapons. And it also served as a promise because blacks were ready to stay in, and hey, there’s no sense to laying down our weapons if we are not going to be free. So the Thirteenth Amendment helped to kind of mollify their concerns. Of course it proved to be fairly empty. And after the Southern states started reacting with the black codes and the lynchings and everything else, it was decided that the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary in order to provide citizenship for the freeman and basic rights to due process and equal protection. The Fourteenth Amendment is, of course, the most important of our individual rights. All of our other connection to the states is through the Fourteenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Corporations, white Americans of every stripe, benefited from the Fourteenth Amendment by just long margins before it was ever given much meaning for blacks. I just can’t imagine our Constitution without a Fourteenth Amendment. And yet, but for the need to do something on a political basis to insure that the Republicans would be able to stay in power back in the 1860s, we probably wouldn’t have a Fourteenth Amendment. I argue that even the Brown decision benefited white society far more than black society. All of the South, what we now know as the sunbelt, was totally segregated, and therefore the policies of segregation posed a serious barrier to growth and development there. Many writers have pointed out that desegregation and air conditoning made it possible for people to flow back and forth and allowed the sunbelt to develop. Blacks there are still in the subordinate position in the main. It’s interesting that the benefits for white America came in 1954 with the issuance of the decision. At the end of that decision, they said, “That’s the relief for blacks, you guys come back next year.” And of course the Court handed down its “all deliberate speed” decision as to how implementation would take place. And that kind of delayed everything for at least a decade and slowed it even further because by that time there was such tremendous resistance built up. So that even Brown, one of the outstanding decisions the Court has ever handed down, that was certainly of value to blacks was, I would argue, of more value to white America. CSQ: What kinds of things do you see coming up in the future? What might be the next decision that would motivate more civil rights legislation or change? Bell: It’s really very hard. Obviously I’m not good at predicting the future. Otherwise I would not have worked so hard to do my part to get us into our present fix. I think that while the situation at the present time is hardly ideal, far less good than we would have thought when Brown was decided, the character and the faith and the soul of blacks that enabled them to survive slavery—one of the more vicious forms of slavery the world has ever known—and the era after the Reconstruction period ended which was almost as bad as slavery—to survive all that indicates to me that survival is still possible. What the tactics are going to be, it’s hard to say. In fact there shouldn’t be one set of strategies and tactics. Different groups in different places will use different means. Much of what’s happened in Portland, for example, in terms of resisting discrimination and racist policies, has been a kind of direct action rather than a court type of effort. In other areas it might well be in the courts. In other areas—politics. But I think the patterns will have to be established based on what the local conditions provide; what local individuals are concerned about and willing to do to manifest their concerns. "the cornerstone of good health” YOGURT KEF ,R L C O S R W O E F U A A R M T C Y C R H O E E G A E U M S R E T COTTAGE CHEESE Springfield Creamery k Springfield, Oregon J eugeiAe eidgerve eugene eugene eugerve DON'T BE LEFT BEHIND • Exceptional Balance & Handling • Protective Foot Guards • Easy Mounting • Enjoyable • Intimate • Safe Ages 2-5 Pat. Pend. 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