Arresting
Remembering moral giants of protest
Diary of the Late Republic, #14
As I follow the dismaying events at Columbia and other colleges and universities around the country, I find myself reflecting on the life and work of two magnificent women who played such an important role in the great political struggles of their time: Ella Baker (1903-1986) and Septima Clark (1898-1987). Baker, the founder of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), trained Civil Rights activists in key techniques of the method: how to get arrested—going to jail was a given—how to absorb blows (literal and figurative), how to comport oneself while taking a stand against bigotry. Clark, who studied at Columbia, served on the Executive Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (which also sponsored SNCC) and founded a series of so-called Citizenship Schools that taught literacy and civics to African Americans and trained a generation of future leaders. Both struggled with sexism within the movement and racism from without. But both embodied the power of their struggle at its best, combining fortitude, persistence, and spiritual discipline against resentment. Their approach wasn’t for anybody; within a few years more militant leaders in SNCC were calling for Black Power (though they were no less sexist than King). And the movement they led splintered and met growing resistance. But few of us would argue that the work Baker and Clark did was in vain—most of the legal and political victories of the Civil Rights Movement are directly attributable to it.
I’m sure that there are brave and principled protesters on college campuses today; perhaps there is even another 21-year-old John Lewis, who was savagely beaten while on a Freedom Ride in 1961 and later served for 33 years in Congress. More often than not, though, their sense of privilege reflects righteousness more than fervor. (And I can’t help but observe just how often student protests seem to occur at the end of semesters when academic reckonings are at hand.) Though they are educated in some respects, I wonder about the civic literacy of these kids and how well they have been schooled in good citizenship.
This is all easy for me to say. I know in my fallible heart that I would have had trouble seeing Baker and Clark back then with the clarity that’s obvious now. But taking this into account, I have not been impressed with what I’m seeing and hearing on the campus quad. And I wonder if the students occupying it have considered the adage of being careful for what they wish for in terms of politically reaping what they sow.
There is another massive difference here. These students are not bravely standing up against a society or powers that are oppressing them, in the hope of creating change; these students are shouting loudly and disruptively at other folks who have nothing to do with the purported issue. It is as though I were to go into my neighbor's and say I was going to squat on their couch until the price of gasoline goes down. We have become so addicted to virtue-signaling that we now confuse it with making a difference, and believe that our voices are inherently so valuable that we are entitled to scream at random strangers under the guise of enlightening them.