We shall be heard: Images of American activists

[seafan]

We shall be heard: Images of American activists

Bud and Ruth Schultz have spent 25 years interviewing and photographing Americans who have stood up to their government in the name of civil rights, from the First World War to the present day. Here are their stories


7 June 2008


ALL PORTRAITS BY BUD SHULTZ

Scott Nearing
1919

In the patriotic fervour of the First World War, more than 2,000 people were prosecuted for disagreeing with the government's war policies

Every day, every day, the rah-rah boys – preachers, teachers, newspapermen – were saying, "Whatever you do, don't rock the boat". The boat was on the way to war. The war hysteria mounted. The right to conduct meetings was cancelled. When people tried to hold meetings against the war, we were called traitors. People who opposed the war were fired. They lost their jobs widely and freely.

.....

Louise Thompson Patterson
1934

In Birmingham, Alabama in the 1930s, demonstrations for relief from the Depression were attacked. Police beat up speakers and raided the homes of suspected leaders

I came to the International Workers Order (IWO) in New York as an office worker in 1933: a fraternal group for immigrant workers, it gave them a base in this country, and provided them with low-cost insurance. I expressed an interest in organising for them, so I went down to Alabama, Georgia and New Orleans, and got groups together through churches and local trade unions. This I did in 1933 and 1934. I was in Birmingham when the coal strike was on. I had gone to a meeting in a middle-class, white neighbourhood, but when I opened the door, the police were in the middle of a raid.

.....

Minoru Yasui
1942

In the Second World War, a notice was suddenly posted throughout Japanese neighbourhoods: "All persons of Japanese ancestry will be evacuated from the above designated area by 12 o'clock noon"

There was nothing in the evacuation order or in any public law that allowed the United States government to keep Americans within any restricted area. But the War Relocation Authority, by pure executive fiat, detained us under their jurisdiction and sent us to camps. The military, without imposing martial law, was ordering the civilian to do something. In my opinion, that's the way dictatorships are formed. And if I, as an American citizen, stood still for this, I would be derogating the rights of all citizens. I had to stand up and say, "That's wrong". I refused to report for evacuation. Sure enough, within the week, I got a telephone call saying, "We're coming to get you".

.....

Frances Chaney Lardner
1947

In the McCarthy era, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) blacklisted actors, and those deemed "subversive" quickly found themselves unemployable.

I was an actress and I had a decent career in New York. But after the HUAC hearings, I couldn't get any real work.

.....

Anne Braden
1954

When Anne and Carl Braden bought a home in a white suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, for the Wades, an African-American family, the house was fire-bombed. Andrew and Charlotte Wade and their young child escaped injury, but the Bradens were charged with sedition.

.....

Pete Seeger
1955

For more than half a century, Seeger's songs have provided the soundtrack to protest: at union halls, civil rights marches and anti-Vietnam War protests. As a result, he has been investigated for sedition, harassed by the FBI, and called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities

I was hauled up before the HUAC along with about 30 other actors and musicians in New York. The committee claimed that it was investigating the Communist conspiracy in the entertainment business.

.....

A year later, the appeals court unanimously acquitted me. I'm only sorry I hadn't done what Paul Robeson did. He stood up and shouted, "This whole hearing is a disgrace. You are the Un-Americans!"

Ruby Sales
1965

Those who defied segregation risked their lives, such as civil rights activist Jonathan Daniels, killed in broad daylight. Despite death threats, Ruby Sales testified at the trial – but the all-white jury found the killer, Tom Coleman, not guilty

I was a 16-year-old student at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. After the terrible beating of the people in Selma on Bloody Sunday , we felt we wanted to make our own statement. About a thousand of us marched to Montgomery and had a sit-in. We were hemmed in for a day and a night, surrounded by dogs and by very menacing white vigilantes who called themselves policemen. For the first time, I saw people resisting police in a non-violent way. That was the turning point in my life: I became part of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee .

.....

Stokely Carmichael
1968

Kwame Ture – known until the late 1970s as Stokely Carmichael – was arrested while pressing for the right of African-Americans to vote in the South. Elected chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, the FBI sought to silence and discredit him

When I was an organiser in Greenwood, Mississippi, Bob Moses informed me that I should report the beatings, the shootings, and the burnings to the FBI. But I didn't want to waste my time. They never did anything with the reports. And we saw the FBI exactly for what it was. We saw its racism.

.....

Linda Hajek
1982

When the FBI infiltrated the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a group opposed to Ronald Reagan's policy in Central America, Linda Hajek, a Catholic sister, found herself under scrutiny

We started our community-based chapter of CISPES in Dallas about 1980. Up to then, there had been a small group of church people exchanging information on Central American events. We tried to speak to as many groups as we could about El Salvador. We did lobbying. Our first demonstration was during Central America Week in 1981.

.....

Varelli (FBI informant) also said they had a device that could record conversations. He said they used it mainly to keep track of the numbers we phoned. And Varelli said they tampered with our mail. They watched where we lived, the Bethany House of the Holy Cross Catholic Church. They sat out there in the parking lot and copied down the licence plates of all the people who came here. But in a sense, Frank Varelli was not the problem. The real problem was that the government believed it had the right to break into citizens' homes, put taps on their phones, and send people to meetings to spy on them if they dissented from the government's policy.

Maher Arar
2002

Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen whose name was on a "terrorist look-out list", was sent by the US government to Syria, where he was tortured. He was later exonerated in Canada

On 26 September 2002, on my way back to Canada after a vacation in Tunisia, my plane stopped at JFK airport, New York. At Immigration they pulled me aside, took my fingerprints and my picture. I saw a bunch of guys coming. They said: "There's just a couple of questions and we'll let you catch your plane."

.....

They drove me to an airport in New Jersey and put me on a private jet, chained and shackled. They flew to Amman, Jordan, where six or seven men were waiting for us. They put a blindfold on me, and put me in the back of a van, then sent me to Syria. The interrogation started the first day, then they took me to a cell the size of a grave. I spent 10 months in that place. Sometimes they put me in another room, where I could hear people being severely tortured. They wanted me to say that I'd been to Afghanistan. I am not a terrorist, or a member of al-Qa'ida. There's nothing on earth that justifies what they did.

Today is the first day of our new beginning. We shall go forth in large numbers.

[cynatnite]

1. Proud to be the first to K&R :) n/t

[Dude_CalmDown]

2. Kick

[liberaltrucker]

3. To those who came before us

:patriot:

:toast:

[babylonsister]

4. What a great post, seafan. Thank you so much, and recommend! nt

[bluesmail]

5. Happy to K&R. I knew about most of these people.

I am educated on the rest, thanks to you.

[givemebackmycountry]

6. Hero's one and all

kicked and rec'd and all that stuff

[Hissyspit]

7. k & highly r

[intheflow]

8. New song about Anne Braden:

This is by The Flobots, a socially conscious band out of Denver. Uses some of Ms. Braden's own words, in her own voice. Very powerful biography. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vmdrmo0-e4

Thanks so much for this thread. I just met Bud Schultz in April, he was an unassuming man, soft-spoken and very humble about his photographic legacy. I haven't seen his work before, so this is very interesting--and timely in my life.

[intheflow]

9. Kicking for the people who fight the good fight

without being violent. :kick:

[pleah]

10. K&R We should never forget these brave people.

I won't.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[yellerpup]

12. Remember these names and faces.

These are heroes of our time. K&R :kick:

[midnight]

13. Today is the first day of our new beginning.

We shall go forth in large numbers. Thank you for posting this.

[Myrina]

14. .. too late to R but as a student of Social Change ...

here's a BIG KICK!!! :kick: