- Good morning, everyone.
It's great to welcome you today.
I am Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, I am the provost
at Fresno State I'm very pleased to welcome
all of you to this webinar called "Gandhi
and the U.S Civil Rights Movement."
At this webinar, we will explore Gandhi and
his legacy, especially as it pertains to how
he furthered the ancient Indian principle
of ahimsa or nonviolence in the U.S Civil
Rights Movements.
Here to start the webinar.
It is my true honor to welcome Dr. Joseph
I. Castro our president of Fresno State and
the sponsor of this webinar.
President Castro please.
- Thank you, provost Jiménez-Sandoval and
good morning and welcome to our three esteemed
speakers today who will
be introduced shortly and Professor Veena
Howard who played a pivotal role in organizing
today's event.
I'm also grateful to all the guests here today,
after hearing from hundreds of people from
around the world, from India, Pakistan and
around the United States.
In addition to those based here in California,
Central Valley.
It is evident to me that many people worldwide
want to learn more about Gandhi.
As the national conversation on issues of
race violence and inequality continues.
Fresno State plays a critical role in examining
history and the individuals who made lasting
contributions to a just and fair society.
Gandhi and the other individuals represented
in our campus peace garden are honored for
embodying the spirit of peaceful and constructive
activism or their intellectual and values
driven growth, not absolute purity that ultimately
led to inspired leadership and progress in
the pursuit of equality, social change and
justice.
The Fresno State Peace Garden was established
30 years ago as a student led initiative and
support of peace and nonviolent activism.
And I thank Professor Kapur for his vision
and leadership at that time and his continued
support.
The statues erected in the garden over the
years, our tributes to a diverse group of
individuals who dedicated their lives in the
pursuit of equality, social change and justice
through peaceful methods.
The garden reminds us all that change is possible,
and that the fabric of society is greatly
strengthened when individuals have the courage
to stand up for a just cause.
All four individuals recognize in the Fresno
State Peace Garden, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, Cesar Chavez and Jane Addams
embodied the spirit of peaceful and constructive
activism.
This transcendent quality is what the garden
memorializes.
It does not necessarily honor every facet
of their lives.
We applaud those who call for a clear dive
look at history and the individuals who shaped
it.
We also urge everyone to consider carefully
the overall significance of each individual's
lasting contribution to a just and fair society.
On that basis we believe that those we honor
in the Fresno State Peace Garden, occupied
important place in history, and should continue
to guide us in promoting courage, social justice
and tireless efforts to a world, make the
world a better place.
The current local discussion about the Gandhi
Statue is an opportunity for the university
and our communities to come together, to explore
his legacy from historical and scholarly perspectives.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
And I'd now like to ask Provost Jiménez-Sandoval
to proceed with this very important event.
- Thank you, president Castro for this beautiful
introduction of the meaning of our Fresno
State Peace Garden.
And now here to introduce our webinar and
our distinguished panelists is Dr. Veena
Howard, Dr. Howard, please.
- Good morning everyone.
Thank you, President Castro and Provost Jiménez-Sandoval
and thanks to all of you who are joining us
from local areas and other parts of the countries
and the world.
- Last October we hosted Gandhi's Global Legacy
International Conference at Fresno State.
Many of you were here to celebrate that, in
this academic conference scholars and activists
leaders, critically analyze Gandhi's methods
of nonviolent direct action and his philosophies
and they discuss the relevance for our current
times.
Today, this webinar will focus on the history
of connections between Mohandas Gandhi and
leaders of civil rights movement, as well
as a continuing struggle against racial inequality
and injustice.
Against a backdrop of current critical conversations
on issues of race, violence and oppression.
This event will highlight many of the lessons
that can be learned from the historic connection
between India's independence struggle and
the U.S Civil Rights Movement to fight racial
inequality and injustices.
In 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. articulated
this connection I'd like to share with you
that quote, "Gandhi was probably the first
person in history "to lift the love ethic
of Jesus about mere interaction between individuals
to a powerful and effective social force
on a large scale.
Love for Gandhi was a potent instrument for
social and collective transformation.
It was in this content emphasis on love and
nonviolence that I discovered the method
for social reform."
Now I will give you the format of today's
webinar.
I'll briefly introduce each of the three panelists
their complete bios are on the website.
I will introduce them in the order in which
they will speak.
Each presenter will have 10 minutes.
We would like to leave enough time for Q&A,
I know this is not, you know ample time, but
I'm sure we'll have a time for audience members
questions.
If you have any questions, please type them
in the Q&A section on the Zoom screen, not
in the Chat Box.
Presenters, please unmute yourself before
speaking.
Our first presenter is Reverend James M. Lawson
Jr. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described him
as the leading tourist and strategist of nonviolence
in the world.
inspired by Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent methods
in India in the 1950s, Reverend Lawson led
revolutionary sit in workshops in Nashville,
Tennessee, to fight against the practice of
racial segregation and the oppression of African
Americans.
Both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Congressman
John Lewis considered him a great teacher
and their mentor.
You might have heard his powerful speech at
the funeral of John Lewis.
If you have not, I highly recommend it is
on YouTube.
Reverend Lawson it's always a great honor
to have you at Fresno State.
Our second presenter is Dr.Vinay Lal.
Who is a cultural critic, writer, blogger
and professor of history, in ancient American
studies at the University of California, Los
Angeles.
His intellectual and research interests include
South Asian history, competitive colonial
histories, the Indian diaspora, the global
histories of nonviolence, and the thought
of Gandhi.
He has authored and edited 17 books, including
the two volumes "Oxford Anthology "of the
Modern Indian City," welcome Dr. Lal.
Our third panelist is Ms. Dianne Dillon-Ridgley
who has a 45 year career as an environmental
and social activist.
She has served on many national and international
boards, originally from Dallas she has advised
and served on over 23 U.S Delegations at the
UN and International Forums, spanning the
tenure of three U.S Presidents.
She has witnessed many struggles in the United
States.
She has a rich history of personal connections
with civil rights leaders and prominent South
African leaders.
I asked Ms. Dianne recently, "How old were
you when you learned about Gandhi?"
And she responded?
"Well, there was never a time I did not know
Gandhi."
So welcome Dianne Dillon-Ridgley.
And now I invite Reverend James Lawson to
the microphone.
- Reverend Lawson, please unmute yourself.
We still are not able to hear you Reverend
Lawson.
- I'm grateful for the privilege of being
here at Fresno State for this webinar.
Again, I wanna express my appreciation for
all who've planned it.
The Peace Garden which I saw in several years
ago for the first time needs to be seen as
a wonderful piece of the curriculum at Fresno
State.
In lifting up the statues, you have a place
for walking and a place for thinking.
And now I would like to urge students of the
campus to walk in that garden daily or every
other day to use it as a place of meditation
and to use it as a place also of shaping who
you are and the gift of life that is in you
and the people in the peace garden and others,
and let the peace garden be a tool, helping
you to shape your own vocation and calling
and your own young adulthood as you proceed
in life itself.
We do this in a time when United States has
experienced perhaps the largest and nonviolent
movement in our USA history.
Over 700 cities, had these demonstrations
for the discussion of how in a democracy police
should operate.
A discussion that the nation has never had.
And also a discussion about why we as a people
in the USA have continued to allow police
to be executioner of our citizens without
question.
When we insist or a nation of law.
I wanna lift up the fact that in the midst
of this massive nonviolent campaign, there
are elements of violence.
The culture itself is a violent culture and
the police represent that.
But then there are the Antifa people and the
Anarchist groups, both organized groups in
many places around the country that think
that little bits and pieces of violence, sabotage,
fighting the police is important for social
change, they are absolutely wrong.
They are more a part of a world culture of
violence, than they are a part of any movement
for the emancipation of life, from the shackles
of hurt and brokenness.
Then there are the looters, and I'm gonna
say something very harsh.
The folk who want to call Mahatma Gandhi a
racist are really to be classified in the
category of the looters.
Criminal elements coming to the foreground,
using the cover of a movement to put their
point of view on a display.
They are terribly wrong, they are the enemies
of all movements in United States for social
justice, political justice for gender justice,
for cultural justice and for ending our culture
of violence.
I recall in 1947, when I first read the Gandhi
autobiography, I found in that book no traces
of racism, the book was already a book against
casteism and racism.
Against the crippling of any segment of humanity.
I also discovered in '47, then that any number
of black leaders had gone to India for various
meetings and made a deliberate effort to meet
and see and talk with Gandhi about Gandhi's
work in South Africa and in India, and how
that work influenced and affected their thinking
of how to end the rapaciousness of our society
that was trying to become a totally segregated
society a totally unjust, unfair place.
I read for example, about Dr. Benjamin Mays,
President of Morehouse College, Dr. Mordecai
Johnson President of Howard University.
I read about Bishop Eddie Carroll United Methodist
Bishop, who went with Dr. Howard Thurman to
visit with Gandhi in 1935.
In the United States itself, there were people
like Dr. Charles Lawrence a host of others,
the Nelson brothers who were friends of mine
in Ohio were massively influenced by the Gandhian
perspective of love, nonviolence and tactics
of social change, that did not have to use
hate or fear at all.
These men are all men who knew racism United
States at its core, and yet they saw in Gandhi
a pioneering figure in the world who gave
them hope and directions for changing this
country of the United States of America.
The other thing I wanna say about this is
that I read in the forties late '40s about
the African National Congress, its organization
in South Africa, Albert Luthuli later people
like Bishop Tutu, all of whom sought to organize
their movement out of an apartheid society
and out of colonies into their own national
development and use the nonviolent philosophy
and tactics as their major form of pushing
for this change.
I would say very boldly that Gandhi was a
pioneer against every social, political, economic,
violent spectrum that was hurting people anywhere
in the world.
He was a pioneer against caste and racism.
And to try to mark him in something different
from that is a crime against humanity in my
own judgment, through the nonviolent methods
I learned from Gandhi and I was able to move
South at the invitation of Dr. King and then
to teach massive numbers of people all across
the South, how to use love nonviolence truth
not only to bear the slings and arrows of
racism, but then to resist it and end it.
The nonviolent paradigm is a call to Western
civilization and especially to my country,
the United States to move from violence as
a power for social political domination and
change to nonviolence.
Both Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi insisted
that the world must go in the path of nonviolence
sole force.
If we of the human race are not destroy ourselves.
Martin Luther King, put it this way, coexistence,
co annihilation the role of Gandhi and theory
in methodology was a massive blessing to the
United States and if we can urge our further
understanding and preparation using what is
going on primarily in the nonviolent campaign
today, we will make the change that our nation
needs through nonviolence.
The human race can not simply survive, but
live.
This is the contribution that Mohandas Gandhi
has made and will continue to make.
Good I'm finished.
Yeah.
- Thank you so much Reverend Lawson for your
wise words, Dr. Vinay Lal please.
- Thank you, I would also like to begin by
extending my gratitude to Professor, President
Joseph Castro of California State University
in Fresno for inviting me to present today.
And I would like to of course extend my thanks
as well to the office of the provost and the
staff and Professor Veena Howard for facilitating
and organizing really and thinking through
the whole program.
Now it's always difficult to follow Reverend
Lawson for all kinds of reasons, that should
be obvious by the remarks that he has already
made.
But I have to say that he has wonderfully
laid the ground for some of my remarks.
I am going to take a few minutes to in the
first instance offer a very brief historical
perspective.
And then towards a conclusion, I would like
to address an aphorism if I may put it this
way, that appears on any statues of Gandhi,
including the one I believe that Fresno and
the Peace Garden where Gandhi is attributed
it as saying quite correctly that "My life
is my message."
I'd like to try to understand what that might
possibly mean.
So let me first begin by saying that, you
know we and Reverend Lawson has spoken about
this quite often.
I've heard him mentioned this many times that
he has some reservations, rightfully so with
the phrase civil rights movement, because
he has often insisted that we should think
about the nonviolent movement.
I would also like to suggest that we can think
about something called the Long Civil Rights
Movement.
In other words, when we think of the civil
rights movement, let's just assume that we
can use the phrase that we're really thinking
about something that originated roughly with
the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and then lingered
on as it were after for some little bit time
for after the assassination of Martin Luther
King.
But we're really speaking about, let's say
the period from 1956 to you know let's say
the late '60s which was the most intense period,
but I want to suggest that particularly when
we're looking at it in relationship to Gandhi,
we have to really think about the 1920s or
the 1920s.
And so when I speak of the long civil rights
movement and really thinking of the period
from 1920s through the 1960s, which in mind
judgment is the richest period in American
history with the respect to the contribution
of African American intellectuals, activists,
musicians, writers.
The vast number of whom all had an engagement
with Gandhi in one way or the other.
Let me give you one brief illustration of
that and then I'll go back to my point.
So we have all heard the great point coming
out of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes
right.
Now, Langston Hughes was someone who in his
younger days, and until the '30s was deeply
committed to communism.
And in fact, he paid a visit to the Soviet
Union and he in 1932 called "Goodbye Christ,"
which I'm gonna read out very briefly and
then we'll see what happens 10 years later,
which is really quite remarkable.
So he says, "Goodbye Christ, Jesus, Lord,
God, Jehovah "be on our way from here now
make way for a new guy "with no religion at
all, "a real guide named Max communist, Lennon,
"peasant, , worker we, I said me, "go ahead
on now you're getting in the way of things,
Lord, "and please take the St. Gandhi with
you when you go."
Right, so we see from this point, that Langston
Hughes had no time for Gandhi at this point.
And when he writes this poem good by Christ
in 1932.
Now in 1943, right?
So 11 years intervene in between.
And of course those 11 years represented a
sea change and the world in many ways, world
war II had come there, one of the things that
Langston Hughes was not aware of at 1932,
but he was certainly aware of that in 1943,
was the atrocities that had been committed
in the Soviet Union under Stalin, all of this
had come to light.
But what was very clear was that it was apparent
to everyone, that violence the crushing burden
of violence was something that humankind had
to deal with.
So in 1943, he writes a poem called "Gandhi
Is Fasting," and he says, "Mighty Britain
tremble, "let your empire standard sway, "let
it break entirety my Gandhi fast today."
And he doesn't just say Gandhi fast today.
He says, "My Gandhi," it's a matter in which
he has almost taken possession of Gandhi,
that this is my man for the day now, right?
You may think it foolish that there's no truth
at what I say that all of Asia is watching
as Gandhi fast today.
I mean, it's what George Orwell wrote after
the assassination of Gandhi.
When he said that, "You know, look "I mean,
I have some reservations about this person,
"but it's quite extraordinary.
"This man would go on a fast "and the whole
world would come to a stand still."
Right, I mean, how did he achieve this miracle,
time after time, right and the point goes
on.
So now we can see what an extraordinary change.
And well of the leading writers of the United
States, someone who has come to a very different
understanding of Gandhi.
And I think that when we studied Gandhi intensely,
I would submit that this kind of thinking
about Gandhi, our thinking really begins to
evolve.
We begin to have a deeper appreciation what
he's about, but let me go back very briefly.
I had said that this long civil rights movement
as I'm describing it really begins in the
early 1920s in some fashion when W.E.B.
Du Bois who edits a journal published from
by the NAACP called the "Crisis," and he really
the founding editor, he really made the journal
his own for a couple of decades.
In 1922, he writes the first of 18 long articles
on Mohandas Gandhi.
All right, the first of the 18 long articles
and the last one is 1959, just shortly before
his death in Canada.
So he had a lifelong engagement and once again,
we're talking about someone who was really
a nonbeliever, he's an atheist, he's a communist,
but yeah.
And he knows the kind of profound religiosity
that Gandhi embodies, but this doesn't come
in the way.
I mean, there's very interesting conversation
that Gandhi has with an atheist and the book
is called "An Atheist with Gandhi," which
describes a manner in which Gandhi said that,
"Well, you know, when you think about."
"Truth it encompasses everyone."
And that is why he always, he moved from the
formulation God is truth to truth is God,
this is a significant shift in Gandhi's understanding
of how one attempts to encompass everyone
through the idea of ahimsa.
And if we go through it, which of course we
cannot do over do that over here.
We see that through the 1930s, 1940s, the
African Americans press had an extraordinary
engagement with Gandhi and the Indian independence
movement.
I mean, there are over 2000 articles published
and the "New York Amsterdam News," the "Atlanta
Daily World," the "Pittsburgh Courier," "The
Messenger," "The Crisis," several other newspapers
which are predominantly black newspapers and
run by black people and largely the constituency
was African Americans you know.
And then this journey takes us through the
'30s as Reverend Lawson has pointed out we
have black theologians.
He mentioned Benjamin Mays.
The, one of the more extraordinary visits,
of course as a visit of Howard Thurman to
India in 1936, where he meets with Gandhi.
And he and you know they have an extraordinary
conversation at the end of which Gandhi says
that, "I dare say that the next great phase
"in this history of nonviolent resistance
"will be among your people."
I mean, those are practically the words that
he uses at 1936.
And this long civil rights moment would include
people like obviously Paul Robeson who in
a sense understood that one had to think about
South exchanges, the global South, the solidarity
of people, colored people, the solidarity
of oppressed people around the world.
And then of course, people like Pauli Murray
and the activists, including Reverend Lawson
himself who become a major force in the boom
and which I did not talk about.
Let me, however, in my concluding remarks
here, very briefly move on to this aphorisms,
if we may call it that.
My life is my message.
Now, what did Gandhi really mean by that?
And how might that be interpreted?
I'm going to be very brief here because I
think one could do a book on this very single
phase.
But I want to suggest on me three things by
way of a conclusion and interpreting this
remark, which you find on the statue, I believe
of Gandhi at the Peace Garden and also statues
of Gandhi elsewhere, many statues of Gandh
elsewhere.
And the first is that Gandhi did say that,
"You know I want my writings to be buried
with me."
Thankfully we didn't take that very seriously.
All right, but what he did mean by that in
addition, and is that I want to be judged
by what I did.
Okay, I want to be judged by what I did.
Now so we have to look at the relationship
and I'm not setting up that old dichotomy
here between the vita contemplativa and the
vita activa.
That is a life of contemplation and the life
of action.
This is not a plain straightforward dichotomy
between thinking and acting.
There are instances in which thinking is the
highest form of action, can be so right.
But I think it is imperative to understand
one thing about Gandhi and this is what it's
quite important because it can be misleading
for many people if they don't understand how
to interpret it.
See Gandhi was always aware of the constituencies
that he was addressing.
Now he is when he returns to India from South
Africa, he understands as he moves around
India, no one traveled as extensively as Gandhi
did in India, he went to the remotest villages.
He understood that these, he was dealing with
people who were largely illiterate, but simply
because they were illiterate didn't mean that
they were devoid of wisdom of course, but
they were largely illiterate.
He understood that there were certain practices
which had been available and which were oppressive,
so to speak for a very long period of time.
So his pronouncements are often conservative,
but you have to see what he does.
So for example, he would say that, "Well,
you know there is a gender division of labor."
Women should work largely at home and men
should work in the public sphere.
As so if you read what he says there you're
think to yourself, "Oh, well, he's another
sexist here."
Not at all.
Because if, because what we see is that if
you look at the ashrams where he lived all
labor was divided, not according to gender
at all, women worked in the kitchen and outside
as demanded.
And so what we see here is something very
different with most politicians, a vast majority,
they'll say things that are very "progressive,"
right?
But their actions really point to something
that is quite conventional.
With Gandhi it's the other way around.
All right and finally, let me end with an
anecdote about this idea of my life is my
message.
Because what Gandhi of course is also suggesting
is that do not instrumentalise human beings,
do not ask something of someone that you do
not asked first of yourself, do not use others,
right?
And this is the anecdote that you know people
would be lined up every day to see him to
receive as it were, to talk to him, to get
his opinion.
So there's this old woman who's standing right
there with her grand son in line to see him
one day.
And she's been standing under the hot sun
for a long time.
And finally her turn comes and she appears
before Gandhi and says, "Mahatma G, I have
a problem."
And he says, "What can I do for you?"
And she says, "Well, there's little grandson
of mine "next to me, he's five years old "and
he's constantly eating sweets "and his teeth
are going to rot.
"And he's, worried about him getting diabeties
"but he won't listen to me.
"He listened to you perhaps "because you are
the Mahatma," right.
And so Gandhi simply says to her, come back
a month later, that's all he says to her.
Now she's really puzzled, but she Gandhi Mahatma
has spoken, the Oracle has spoken, right.
So she comes back a month later and she is
in line.
And then finally she sees Gandhi once again
with the little son and she reminds him and
he says, "Oh, yes, yes" you know with this
toothless smile he says, "Yes, yes."
And then he tells the boy, "Well you shouldn't
eat sweets and all of that, "because it's
bad for your teeth "and you can you know get
diabetes "and your teeth will rot."
And the old woman says to Gandhi "But you
could have said everything you said now "a
month ago."
He says, "Yes, but the problem is "I was eating
too many sweets myself.
"So for the last one month, "I've had to give
up sweets.
"And now I have the authority to tell her
"and your grandson the same thing that I could
have said, "but then I didn't have the moral
authority to do that," Right, this is in part
what he means when he says, "My life is my
message," thank you.
- Thank you Dr. Lal.
Ms. Dianne Dillon.
- Okay, I too want to add my great thanks
to President Castro to the provost, especially
to Dr. Howard, she clearly cares so much and
has curated this entire program with such
a thoughtful way and I am truly honored to
be on a program with both Dr. Lal and with
Reverend Lawson, it is very daunting.
And I thought and I've been impressed with
how many people have contacted me.
I know Dr. Marion Reynold a good friend is
watching us from Avenue on tonight.
I've heard from people literally from Japan,
from all over the world.
And obviously an hour is just nowhere near
enough time to cover what we're doing.
So we have to think of this as a moose bush,
as a bit of an appetizer.
I hope it's opening the doors, for particularly
the students.
And you will see that there is so much more,
that is so rich that we could spend hours
and hours.
And in fact, courses on this and I encourage
Fresno State to figure out ways in which we
can follow up and do more in this.
In talking with Dr. Howard, we thought that
what I could perhaps best contribute is the
personal side of this, born in the 1950s.
I'm a fifth generation Texan.
And I literally was born at a time, as this
period of nonviolence and that some people
call it the civil rights movement was literally
opening up.
And I happened to be born into a family that
was intimately involved in this.
As some of you may know Dr. C.T.
Vivian, Cordy Tindell Vivian passed away on
the same day earlier as John Lewis did last
month.
Well, I first met C.T. when I was five years
old.
He and my mother were the dearest of friends,
for 50 years until she passed away.
And he became a godfather for me.
And I'm going to try to in my 10 minutes to
touch on a component of C.T.
Vivian and what he taught me personally, about
how the lessons of nonviolence and the word
that I'm going to focus on is the word of
love, a connection that I had personally with
him over years of being an example.
For Desmond Tutu, I also happen to be a multi-generational
Anglican.
And the longest conversation I've ever had
with Bishop Tutu was focused on this triangulate
that there is between the particularly the
blacks of South Africa the African-Americans
in the United States.
All of a sudden expanded, but I'm talking
about in at the time we were talking.
And role of Gandhi from his time in South
Africa, which was the catalyst for much of
his activism.
Because prior to that time, he had been very
much of his own designation and empowerment.
And he had and I always sort of referred to
it, not unlike St. Paul.
He had his epiphany out of being challenged
on a train and not being allowed to go into
the first class cabins after that.
And it cricks something in his head that I've
been reading all this, but currently these
words and these dictums don't apply to me,
I thought I was above all of this.
But with only 10 minutes, it's really just
a sampling, it's really hard.
I also want to touch on, and I hope people
who may not know much about her, Wangari Mathai
who was one of my dearest friends.
I gave one of the eulogies for her.
We were friends for the last 17 years of her
life.
She was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2004.
We were there in Norway for the Peace Prize
Ceremony.
And there was this moment in 2004, and it
was exactly 40 years after Martin Luther King
received the Nobel Peace Prize.
And the program they have, it's multiple days
of commemoration and celebration, but on the
day when all of the school children from Norway
do the programming, we close the booklets,
we turned them over, we stood and we all stood
and we sang, we shall overcome.
And there was just for me, this, my personal
epiphany moment of realizing that innovation
real sense, this Negro spiritual, this simple
pure song, had become a global Anthem of addressing
issues around liberation and equality.
And I was I had to think of the words of Theodore
Parker, Martin Luther King used them very
often, but they originally were the New England's
abolitionist cleric Theodore Parker who passed
in 1850, who said and I'm paraphrasing.
I don't my eyes see, but it's short wave.
But basically he was saying, "My soul knows
that there is an arc of humanity "and all
I can see, and all I know and trust "is that
it bends towards justice."
And as I said to Dr. Howard, when we were
discussing this program and what we would
talk about.
I said, I recalled the very first media interview
I did in the Century for 2000, I was asked,
"What would be the word "that you would think
of for the century?"
And I said, "Well I, the word to me is the
word of justice.
"This is the century of justice."
And in a very real sense, all of this action
that has been going on.
And while Reverend Lawson said it and Dr.
Lal said it I'm gonna go an even step further
that not just this time period, but I'd like
to think of this country that the United States
certainly did not start out anywhere near
egalitarian or inclusive.
But as Thurgood Marshall often said, You know
when he would go through the constitution
and then the Bill of Rights and the rest of
the amendments.
He said, "We've got a pretty good start."
And we should really think of, we have the
impatience of our individual lives that we
live, but if we can step back and be students
and children of history, we realize that the
arc of this country is in of itself an arc
that is towards this bending of justice and
Gandhi as Dr. Lal was just mentioning, traveling
in India and the route from South Africa back
home to India, and the recognition that for
whatever reason, brown people all around the
world seemed to be subjects of empire and
colonialism.
And I will put in the piece that I often use
as a reference point, the doctrine of discovery.
I hope when we mentioned these pieces along
the way that as students you will take note
of these and you will go back with see Pope
Alexander and Nicholas V, if I remember correctly.
From the papacy they secured this papal doctrine
was secured and was the justification for
the explorers, the Henry, the navigators,
Columbus et cetera.
For them to take the spoils that they found
as they went around the world and send them
back to empire in Europe.
And we are very much still working our way
out of the struggle.
And I encourage all the students to also look
at the impressive and important work of 1619,
which was curated by Nikole Hannah-Jones in
the past year, looking at the 400th anniversary
of when African Americans came to the shores
of the United States.
She and I both I'm old enough to be a mother,
literally, but we both were prompted to investigate
this by a book by Lerone Bennett Jr. called
"Before the Mayflower."
And we have distortions of history, but we
also have components that are being, I said
this past year in particular, we're at this
racial reckoning moment to me, it means that
we've ripped off the bandage and the scars
and the transparency of truth and sunlight
is allowing for all of the distortions and
the lies to be cleansed and to be exposed.
The other person that I want to mention is
I'm also very fortunate to have been able
to have Benjamin Mays in my life.
He and an uncle of mine were classmates and
fraternity brothers as they were omegas, for
people who know what that means Omega Psi
Phi.
And he would come, he had this circuit that
he would preach in addition to being the president
at More House.
And in Boston my John B Garret's wife, Virginia
used to cook for them when he would come to
preach in Boston and she had gotten a little
old for this.
I was a young wife and a mother at the time
in Boston.
And one year when he came, I got to fix a
meal for him and the importance of food we
could go off on that.
But to sit around the dinner table and have
and just to absorb, you know the stories and
people that I had read about all my life and
have them sitting and I'm sitting in the same
room with them.
So I mentioned being born in the '50s and
growing up in this time of the Civil Rights
Movement, I wanna honor my time, so we have
some time for questions.
And we just, this past week and a half ago,
I had the 57th anniversary of the March on
Washington and it was chosen to be on the
28th, because that was the date 65 years ago,
that Emmett Till was murdered.
And then also in that week, we had the 100
Anniversary of the 19th Amendment.
And you know you hear these dates and times,
well, that was a 75 year process of getting
to the 19th Amendment for women's suffrage
in the country.
But let's be clear if you look at people like
Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Wells an African
American women in particular, there was no
real franchise that occurred for them at the
time.
It wasn't 1964 and LBJ and the Voting Rights
Act and the things that we learned and came
up against so much when we looked at John
Lewis's legacy.
But the point I wanna make is, five weeks
after the March on Washington, there was the
Birmingham bombing, where four girls were
killed on a Sunday morning when they were
in Sunday school.
One of those girls was named Carole Robertson.
She was in a national organization called
Jack and Jill.
I was in the same organization, we were the
same age.
If she had not been killed that day, she would
be my age.
And I felt my life, part of my life must be
dedicated to that bending that heart, to being
focused on civil rights, to live out the quest
for equality and justice, that she was denied
the access to live out because she was murdered.
We have so many of those who have become veterans
in this struggle.
They didn't sign up to be veterans, but by
virtue of lynchings and killings, they became
veterans in this long legacy.
There is so much that is pregnant in this
moment of reckoning, so much that is in black
lives matter.
And it's important to know that we also have
the legacy that is compounded by what has
happened with native Americans in this country,
with Latinos, with people who've come from
China and other places in Asia.
And we've made this statement that we are
going to be this big tent, this open country.
But we have by many of our actions along the
way, been anything else but, and so there's
an intentionality and so let me let me quickly
go back to C.T.
Vivian.
If you've never seen the television series
Eyes On The Prize," I hope you will look at
it.
I wanna remind you as students, you are you
know 18, 19, 18, 20 years old.
That's the age that I was, I went to Howard
University.
That's the age that I was, you know going
through of these experiences.
We were living them, you are living in this
history now, and we need to have a consciousness,
a patience, but also a thoroughness.
We need to be very, very careful that we don't
quickly take a teeny little piece of information
and then assume a much, much longer piece.
I remember vividly one long conversation with
C.T., everybody in the world called him C.T.
with C.T. where he explained to me why we
had to have the movement had to be nonviolent.
And you should learn about the Highlander
Institute where you literally practiced and
you learn and you study.
It is not necessarily easy to be nonviolent.
We as animals and we are, when you are confronted,
your instinct is to push back.
It takes strength and courage to respond with
love.
Jesus calls for that as well.
In fact, if you look at the base of the world's
religions and I'm not gonna try drive be a
theologian, I'm not.
But if we look at and this is also what a
Bishop Tutu said to me, and we've I'm very
familiar with John Lewis's famously saying,
"Hey, is too heavy a burden to bear."
Bishop Tutu told me that for the reconciliation
process in South Africa after you know Mandela
became president and apartheid was ended.
He said, we had to go in and find love, the
forgiveness it may be beneficial to those
forgiven, but it's fundamentally for the forgiver
because you are in your way of being able
to move and go forward.
And we as human beings must go forward for
subsequent generations.
Now, the time is short.
- [Veena] Thank you so much.
- Listen can I just, it's only a paragraph,
Mahatma Gandhi quote that I wanted to read
that concludes this.
When I despair, I remember that all through
history, the ways of truth and love have always
won.
There have been tyrants and murderers, and
for time they can seem invincible, but in
the end they always fail.
Think of it always and that's my favorite
Gandhi quote.
Thank you again so much.
- Thank you so much our presenters.
We have 272 participants and we have a great
number of questions.
The questions range from the Black Lives Matter
Movement and the nonviolence methods, discipline,
practice of discipline training as Reverend
Lawson has done some academic questions about
dichotomy of violence nonviolence.
But I want to start with the question.
Gandhi always said that I want to speak to
my critics first.
And he always said that the dissent of opinion
must not mean hostility.
So I like to read couple of questions and
I have combined, there were several so that
either Reverend Lawson or Dr. Lol, because
they have the you know research and experience
in this area can answer.
The, one of the question is please address
the issue of racism that Gandhi allegedly
had in South Africa and also the acquisition
of Gandhi and pedophilia.
And then there's another student who is a
high school student said and these questions
are combined.
"I'm a student from the MLK Freedom Center.
How can we view these leaders such as Gandhi
with an unbiased perspective and focus on
the lessons they taught us, as well as help
others to do as well.
So these two are combined, the student is
sort of kinda trying to answer.
So I like to give time to Reverend Lawson
and we don't have to end the webinar right
at eleven.
And I think the people can still ask questions
because there's some very wonderful questions.
Reverend Lawson or Dr. Lal Please unmute yourself.
- Yeah, I was gonna say Reverend Lawson why
don't you go ahead first and then I'll follow
you.
- [Lawson] No you go ahead.
- All right.
- All right.
- So let me just briefly address both the
questions of Gandhi's purported racism particularly
in South Africa and the question of pedophile
here which is really, you know the second
one is really the oddest way of putting it,
but I'm aware of the question of course, because
others have posted too.
So that reference, let me begin with the second
one that reference is to a particular you
know what are to use the English word and
experiment that was carried out by Gandhi
towards the end of his life.
This is an experiment he carries out with
his grandices and his personal physician,
not at the same time all three of them of
course.
But it the word experiment here is not, doesn't
render the word that Gandhi would use on the
Sanskrit word which is yajna that is a sacrifice
that he's undertaking.
It's a very complicated scenario, which I
can't go through here.
I've written about it at enormous length,
but let me put it to you this way.
So what, for those of you are not familiar
perhaps with this particular accusation, what
it refers to is a Gandhi going to bed naked
with these young women including Abba and
Manu and Dr. Sushila Nayar, who was his personal
physician.
There is never been any insinuation by anyone,
including his harshest critics at that time
that this involved anything like what we would
call sexual intercourse or sexual intimacy.
The best way to really, to answer this in
a word, because I, as I said, I've written
enormously on this, and there are so many
complicated aspects to it, but the best way
to answer it, is that I would like to remind
everyone that Manu who was one of the women
who took part in it and all of these women
did so well to use the modern word, their
consent.
Of course, people have asked for what would
it mean if the Mahatma asked, I mean would
it be possible to decline their consent?
So I'm aware of that criticism as well, but
it was done with their consent, but the easiest
way to take care of it is to remember that
Manu wrote a book subsequent to these experiments,
which is called "Bapu My Mother" now let's
ponder over that, Bapu is of course a term
of endearment for Gandhi and the word literally
means father.
So it's father, my mother if you wanted to
translate it into English.
See Manu, when she goes into bed, she says,
you know "I go into bed with him "and within
one minute, I'm snoring away, right?"
And to her Gandhi was like mother, you know
Gandhi would oil her hair, comb it and at
the same time, he's having discussions with
all the political leaders about the future
of Indian Independence.
All right, so we cannot interpret this.
I mean, this whole idea that he was you know
a pedophile that he was sexually exploiting
young children.
This is a complete fabrication of what is
represented by this.
And of course he understood that he was taking
a risk so to speak.
But this is public, this is not something
that is you know hidden away in the corners
here or there.
All right so that's addressing this subject
very, very briefly.
On the question of racism and so this refers
to remarks that he made in South Africa.
There are two components to this question
frankly and the first component is certain
remarks and observations that he makes about
black people in South Africa over a period
of time.
So over a period of let's say about 15 to
20 years.
And secondly, the other component of that
is a question as to why Gandhi did not include
black people in his struggle in South Africa.
Okay, those are the two components to this
question.
Let me take the second component, address
it very briefly and then move to the first
one.
The second one is that the first thing I would
ask people to reflect upon is that Gandhi,
it is very clear, never undertook if I'm a
put it this way, a struggle on behalf of someone
or a group or a community, unless he was asked
to do so.
Let us not forget the politics of representation.
What I mean by that is this, let's supposing
that Gandhi had actually included black people
in the struggle.
I can assure you that today, the critique
would have been how dare he did so, how dare
he spoke for a black person?
Okay, that's the critique that would have
been present today that people speak for themselves,
which is not something fundamentally I agree
with.
I think that, you know we can't simply say
that only black people can speak about black
struggles and only white people can speak
about their struggles or Asians speak about
their struggles.
No, but important thing is number one, that
there is nothing, no evidence on record that
he was ever asked by any black community or
organization or people to say, "Well, we want
you to agitate for our rights as well."
Now we have to understand that in South Africa,
the Indian community itself was highly fractured.
It was an enormous struggle just to get all
the Indians on board.
These Indians included indentured laborers.
These included people like Gandhi himself,
who came from a different community in South
Africa, these are called passenger Indians,
as opposed to the full Indians.
It included people who spoke many different
languages.
They were Gujarati they were Tamilians.
There were people who spoke, other South Indian
languages, right.
It was an enormous struggle just to get all
the Indians on board.
I haven't, of course, even given you the conventional
explanations that are usually put into place
here, namely, that Gandhi evolved because
we find that the word carafe.
So this goes to the first point now.
Yeah, the word carafe which he uses.
And I think we have to understand the historical
circumstances under which he use that word.
Because I can assure you've look up the Oxford
English Dictionary and you look up the historical
record of how this word has been used.
That it is that at that point in time, it
did not have generally speaking the pejorative
connotations it would begin to acquire later
on.
In fact, it referred to a whole, several different
classes of people.
All right, the other thing is that if you
track down these use of this word, you find
that 1913, he seizes us to use it, okay.
He sees us to use it all together and we can
do a very detailed analysis to understand
how is it that Gandhi's views on the question
of race began to evolve.
In some ways he is following the conventional
views.
In some ways he is actually setting the trend
for changing our thinking on the question
of race, right?
That is, I think actually very fundamental
because we find that that Gandhi, I would
argue quite to the contrary or what has been
argued when people say that he may have been
racist that in fact the way in which our thinking
on race has evolved owes largely to Gandhi.
And we have to look at the role that he plays,
which was a role that W.E.B.
Du Bois recognizes in the "Crisis" when he
started to write on Gandhi.
So that that's briefly my response, yeah.
- [Veena] Thank you Dr. Lal Reverend Lawson
would you like to make a comment or should
we move to a different question?
- Yes I wanna say to great extent that I agree
with my colleague, Dr. Lal in the way in which
he analyzes this and points to the history
of Gandhi very clearly.
I want to come back however, to my theme,
I have been engaged with all sorts of fringe
people and groups across eight decades, beginning
in my high school year.
And I had often in those early years, stood
toe-to-toe with them, with anger, rejecting
their fringe position on religion, on antisemitism,
on racism on violence and nonviolence.
In almost every struggle in which I've been
engaged across this nation.
They have always been those outsiders who
want to use the campaign for whatever their
own purposes are, do not want to join the
focus struggle, which Gandhi had in South
Africa and India all his life.
I come back to the point that those, what
some scholars are calling the radical fringe
and do not have a solid argument for the position
that Gandhi was a racist.
They are wanting to deprive the movement and
the major struggle against racism and economic
privation and sexism and violence.
They want to cause that movement to fracture
and disappear they should not be taken seriously
period.
They have neither the human experience or
the intellectual posture or historical understanding
to represent anything except a kind of, I
maintain criminal element in the street.
And by no means, should we take, should they
be taken seriously period, I've met them in
Los Angeles and Memphis and Nashville and
Oakland and Olympia in Washington D.C, in
Boston, in Orlando Florida, where I've in
my work across the decades I maintain that
they seek to do damage to stop the movement
towards the movements towards equality, liberty
and justice for all in my country.
And I resent those positions that I would
call a radical fringe position that has no
merit.
In the meantime, the movement for a different
United States of America, through nonviolent
struggle, through nonviolent theory and tactics
must become the mainstream.
And no doubt, many people cannot join that,
but every movement of power is a minority
movement, but the discipline of a nonviolent
work is the thing our activism in the United
States needs more than anything else.
And so I'm gonna stick to the fact, and I
have floating through my mind, many of the
arguments I've had with that fringe group
of people in Los Angeles since 1974.
Every struggle we have had in Los Angeles,
we've had fringe groups that have pretensions
that are not connected to anything except
their own spiritual condition and inability
to be in the struggle for truth and justice.
- Reverend Lawson, that those are very profound
words that you give us.
Would you end this webinar with thoughts on
the following? Gandhi dealt with the challenge
of this.
how does nonviolent movement today remain
nonviolent when all of the bad actors, such
as vigilantes walk the streets and people
in power might seek to ferment violence and
make sure that the truth of their nonviolence
is reported in this time of misinformation
or distortion of truth.
This is one of the questions that came through
as well through the webinar.
So how is it that, how is it that you can
teach us nowadays to promote this nonviolence
movement in a time when there are powerful
forces that are acting upon the country and
upon the movement as well?
- That is, I think perhaps the most important
practical question and I do not know.
- [Veena] Reverend Lawson please unmute yourself,
please.
- Beg a pardon.
- We can hear him.
- We can hear him, okay.
- I consider your question.
The most important practical issue.
I do not know many of the details in the present
struggle in the United States, but I'm assuming
that the Black Lives Matter Network before
every demonstration and in their own meeting
to where I've been with some of the leadership
in Los Angeles, keep emphasizing the nonviolent
character of their demonstrations.
That they repudiate the radical fringe groups,
as well as the police in their violence, but
they call the marchers to keep the discipline
of nonviolent work, both inside and outside,
both in their gestures and their walking and
in their own hearts.
That has been the model of many struggles,
the Birmingham campaign, the St. Augustine
campaign, the Memphis sanitation strike The
Nashville Movement.
In Nashville I was able to do this to what
I called the central committee.
So John Lewis, for example, and C.T.
Vivian had actually more than a two year experience
of demonstrations and actions with different
targets.
Plus the fact, we were always sitting down
late at night, early in the morning, analyzing
what we were doing and analyzing it from a
perspective of Gandhi and nonviolence or Jesus
nonviolence.
So a C.T. and John and I, and others like
us.
Had the advantage of in Nashville, doing this
constant reinforcement of the theoretical
look at what we were doing from a nonviolent
perspective, as well as then in the streets,
engaging in a great variety of actions to
desegregate Downtown Nashville, which was
a very long process.
So I'm assuming that in case of the Black
Lives Network, they are doing that daily work
or weekly work with the demonstration itself.
Remember a part of the model that I use, the
metaphor that I think of, is that a great,
a good strong athletic team, like a football
team.
A part of the coach's role is always to remind
the football team of the strategy for the
game and of playing hard with knowledge and
character.
So the athletic metaphor is a far better one
for us in the nonviolent world, than the soldier
warrior metaphor.
- [Saul] Thank you very much.
- [Dianne] Can I say one thing very quickly.
- [Saul] Of course.
- I just want to say something about the night
I met Patrisse Cullors, who's one of the three
founders of the Black Lives Movement.
I you know was, I don't wanna say skeptical.
I was meeting her and taking it in.
She came to this discussion with such a grounding
in love.
Part of what we've been all talking about
is how do we make love a public policy care
position?
You know you have people like Hazel Henderson
who talked about the love economy.
You have Gloria Steinem who at the end of
the day says "The whole Feminist Movement
"is about how do we figure out "how we have
love distributed."
Patrisse spoke you know about being attacked.
She was traveling with a guard to keep her
safe.
And yet everything in her message was such
a message of love this was two or three years
ago.
And I think you know I go back to the quote
that I used, the tyrants in the murders, and
those who will give false witness and testimony
in the media may seem to work to be winning
or invincible for awhile.
But as Gandhi said, "They always fail always."
And we must hold true is Reverend Lawson says
as Dr. Lal has said, as C.T. always said to
me, as I got to Martin King's papers, it is
a focus on love.
My favorite Alice Walker book is "Anything
We Love Can Be Saved."
We can save this country, we can save ourselves,
we can save our souls, but we must do it through
nonviolence and we must do it through love,
thank you.
- Thank you very much.
And with a focus on love, I like to sincerely
thank our distinguished panelists who have
given us much to think about today.
As we heard the struggle for justice and peace
continues, Fresno State is a leader in facilitating
the conversations to assess our history and
to build precisely on that.
We honor leaders like Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Tavis, Jane Addams and our own Reverend
Lawson.
So we can all learn aspects of their lives
to improve on them to address our contemporary
challenges.
My deep representation to Dr. Veena Howard
for having spent countless hours organizing
this informational webinar, and finally my
admiration appreciation to President Castro
for having sponsored this webinar and for
upholding the ideals of what Fresno State
represents.
What are these ideals?
Our university is a space of dialogue, where
we respectfully explore ideas and build bridges
of knowledge that allow us to better relate
to each other, to forge a stronger community.
I want to thank everyone for participating
and please be on the lookout for the second
webinar on Gandhi tentatively, titled Gandhi's
Vision of India.
The Question of Partition And the Quest For
Unity And Harmony.
Thank you everyone again, and have a great
day.
