Author of “Freedom Rider” speaks at MN Historical Society

BY DWIGHT HOBBES

Freedom riders on their way to the Deep South in 1961.

A great many books get called important. This one actually is. And fluidly written to boot. Raymond Arsenault's "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice" (Oxford University Press, $32.50) chronicles, exhaustively details and seamlessly articulates the embattled turning point at which Americans of conscience and courage dug their heels in against evil, laying their lives on the line for freedom.

Arsenault was at the Minnesota Historical Society on March 3, leading a remarkable afternoon program. He gave a fascinating address, "Organizing Freedom: The Freedom Riders," after which he welcomed a panel made up of Marv Davidov, Zev Aelony, David Morton, Claire O'Connor, Bob Baum and Peter Ackerberg, six survivors from the bus rides that took northerners, bent on equality, into the hellish maw of the Deep South, as rabidly racist a society as ever existed this side of Nazi Germany.

Thankfully, Raymond Arsenault pulled the covers off the myth that President Jack Kennedy and his brother Bobby (U.S. Attorney) gave so much as a tinker's damn about black citizens. The Kennedy commitment to civil rights came about in two ways. Jack needed to trump Richard Nixon in a hair-tight election campaign. And, once in office, Kennedy caught pure hell from prominent blacks-—including playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who walked out of a meeting at the White House, basically giving Jack, Bobby and anybody else dragging their feet in the fight for civil rights her ass to kiss.
Around that time, I was a ringleader at my high school, along with a brother named, of all things, John Brown; we were raising hell to get Black History in the curriculum. We had a riot and the whole nine. I'd go home, though, and watch news coverage of the bus riders and think, "No way in hell would I have to guts to go face them hateful white people." And it was my fight. I confessed suchcowardice to Marv Davidov. He relates that the timeless hymn and civil rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome," yes, was profoundly inspirational. And promptly adds, "The second verse goes, 'We are not afraid." Well, bullshit. Everybody was scared to death." Davidov ranks "Freedom Riders" right beside the PBS documentary, "Eyes on the Prize."

"It's a great book. Ray did an accurate job. [He did] 10 years of research on it. It's the first major study ... [it's] groundbreaking. People now have a book which they can look at for their own research, which informs youth about what that [era] was."
Which makes it all the sadder that you could count the black audience members on one hand. Among them was Mahmoud El-Kati, a retired historian and scholar from Macalester College who is lauded as a griot throughout African American communities. Asked about the lack of soul folk, El-Kati reflects, "That's where we are. First, our community is in disarray. With the other thing, Minnesota History Center is an institution that hasn't paid a lot of attention to the African American community." Davidov concurs, "Outreach [for the event] was never done to the black community." On the other hand, membership in the Minnesota Historical Society, which sponsors the lecture series, is not exclusive. All anyone of any color has to do to join is fill out a form and pay some money.

El-Kati said of Raymond Arsenault's presentation: "It was good, very analytical. Also revelatory about the people who participated in the freedom rides. Most of them were black. A lot of [us] don't have that image of the composition of people who took part. And there were only 436 all together. That shows you what a thoughtful group of organized people can do" against what he describes as "one of the most brutal places on Earth. It was a police state." Some things never change.

Racial profiling of black Americans by police departments is prominent throughout the land. Some things, however, have changed. A black person no longer risks his or her life to attend school or to vote, directly owing to the revolution documented in "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice."