Long Arc of Freedom Struggles

Topics

Dan's storytelling is like a tour de force... it's about love... light... empowerment... struggle... dedication

Ula Taylor

We did what we wanted to do. we didn’t sacrifice… our common link is love not just for each other, but for the work that we do and the people whom we were working with.

Michael Simmons

The Long Arc of Freedom Struggles

Event Description

On March 8, 2023 the American Cultures Center and the Multicultural Community Center at UC Berkeley hosted the first event in the Staff as Students of Social Justice (SSSJ) public discussion series, “Aspirations of Material Anti-Racism: What’s Next?”

The Long Arc of Freedom Struggles is a discussion of Dan Berger’s latest publication, “Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family's Journey” featuring Professor Dan Berger, Professor Waldo Martin, Professor Ula Taylor, and International Human Rights and Peace Activist Michael Simmons. A new history of Black Liberation, told through the intertwined story of two grassroots organizers  The Black Power movement, often associated with its iconic spokesmen, derived much of its energy from the work of people whose stories have never been told.

The event was part of the Staff as Students of Social Justice (SSSJ) Program's public discussion series, ‘Aspirations of Material Anti-Racism: What’s Next?.’ The SSSJ Program, during its third year, is supporting the growth of a staff-student community engaging in antiracist pedagogies through enrollment in AC courses and a specially designed weekly discussion seminar. The series continues to support this unique community of learning among UC Berkeley staff by centering a set of conversations between UC Berkeley faculty and affiliated contemporaries of their work beyond UC Berkeley.

Panelists

“Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family’s Journey” by Dan Berger

“Stayed On Freedom” brings into focus two unheralded Black Power activists who dedicated their lives to the fight for freedom. Zoharah Simmons and Michael Simmons fell in love while organizing tenants and workers in the South. Their commitment to each other and to social change took them on a decades-long journey that traversed first the country and then the world. In centering their lives, historian Dan Berger shows how Black Power united the local and the global across organizations and generations. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, “Stayed On Freedom” is a moving and intimate portrait of two people trying to make a life while working to make a better world.

“The Promise of Patriarchy: Women in the Nation of Islam” By Ula Taylor

The patriarchal structure of the Nation of Islam (NOI) promised black women the prospect of finding a provider and a protector among the organization’s men, who were fiercely committed to these masculine roles. Black women’s experience in the NOI, however, has largely remained on the periphery of scholarship. Here, Ula Taylor documents their struggle to escape the devaluation of black womanhood while also clinging to the empowering promises of patriarchy. Taylor’s book was discussed throughout this discussion and highlighted for its analysis of the intersection roles that religion and gender play in social movement building. [1:05:34]

“Black Against Empire” by Waldo Martin and Joshua Bloom

Martin’s Black Against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence. Bold, engrossing, and richly detailed, this book cuts through the mythology and obfuscation, revealing the political dynamics that drove the explosive growth of this revolutionary movement and its disastrous unraveling. Informed by twelve years of meticulous archival research, as well as familiarity with most of the former Party leadership and many rank-and-file members, this book is the definitive history of one of the greatest challenges ever posed to American state power.

Veterans of Hope Project

The Veterans of Hope Project is a community-based, educational initiative on religion, culture and participatory democracy. We gather and share wisdom from elder activists about the role of spirituality and creativity in their work for racial, gender, economic and environmental justice.

Through a video interview archive with older peace and justice activists; accompanying lesson plans; a community conversation series; and a variety of programs to support wellness and healing for activists and their communities, the Project emphasizes grassroots resources for social change from the collective knowledge of marginalized communities.

This project served as a key resource that aided Dan in writing his interviews with Zoharah and Michael. [01:06:42]

National Council of Negro Women

The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) mission is to lead, empower and advocate for women of African descent, their families and communities. National Council Negro Women (NCNW) is an “organization of organizations,” comprised of 330 campus and community-based sections and 33 national women’s organizations that enlightens, inspires, and connects more than 2,000,000 women and men. Its mission is to lead, advocate for, and empower women of African descent, their families, and communities. It was founded in 1935 by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, an influential educator and activist, and for more than fifty years, the iconic Dr. Dorothy Height was president of NCNW. Zoharah worked for the National Council of Negro Women for their project called Woman Power. [01:11:18]

"Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments" by Saidiya Hartman

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. Hartman's book served as a key inspiration for Berger’s newest publication. While Berger may have used different stylistic choices for Stayed on Freedom, he found her approaches embodied a similar spirit to what he was trying to accomplish in his own work. “In my opinion, Hartman's book is one of the most profound works I have ever read,” he stated. [00:44:27]

“Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power” Documentary

Through first person accounts and searing archival footage, LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County, Alabama. This documentary illustrates how documentaries can challenge the mythology of gender roles within the Black Power movement by sharing a narrative that is female-focused and sharing the real accounts of sexism that women experience in social movements. [00:22:04]

Spirituality, Love, & Commitment

Motivation through Love: Michael and Zoharah, the book’s protagonists, were able to sustain their organizing work through an expansive love, choosing to change not just for themselves, but for "all of us". [00:08:33]
“Stayed on Freedom’s” central message: love for one another plays in movement building. The commitment to love is key in social movements because it requires one to stay dedicated to people they don't know and may never meet. Therefore, staying engaged in struggle is love. [01:08:38]
Expansive Love: Michael states that the organizing and political efforts he and Zoharah accomplished never felt like a sacrifice even though it was an open-ended struggle and never stops. The love they had for others sustained his spirit to continue helping others find the power to change their lives. [01:14:59]
The role of an organizer is to be a conduit in helping people realize that they have the power to make change themselves. [01:09:41]
Spiritual Practice and Role of Religion in Politics: A central theme in the book is Zoharah’s spiritual journey to realize self-fulfillment and realization. In ‘Stayed on Freedom,’ Berger explores her journey by exploring the intersections of spirituality, religion, and political activism. One chapter specifically details Zoharah’s path to Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, and her involvement with the Nation of Islam as an activist. [01:04:20]

Analysis of Organizations Across Scale and Distance

Understanding Relationships Within and Between Movements

An Entire Career View from Lived Experience: Berger hopes to foster a more informed and nuanced approach to social change by giving an insight look into the personal relationships and career trajectories of organizers Michael and Zoharah Simmons. By emphasizing a "full humanness" perspective, Berger explores social movements through the background, experiences, and evolution of these protagonists and their relationships over time. [00:47:01]
The history of Black Power is extensive with contributions from various organizations and movements as well as locations and temporal contexts. Berger’s book unpacks and reframes how movements are fluid by exploring the relationship within Black Power and between the Civil Rights movement and their commonalities and conflicts. Zoharah and Michael's stories exemplify this -- they came from different regions in the U.S. and were involved in various movements, including Black nationalism and communist efforts. Despite being viewed as separate and antagonistic, they are closely connected and in constant communication with one another. [00:18:48]
Finding Unity within Organizations: Organizing is not just against oppression. It is also about finding unity within yourselves. There will be hierarchical, ideological, and value-based tensions and conflicts within an organization's members. Finding unity is a key component of the messy work of freedom struggle. [00:26:38]

Foot Soldiers & Lived Experiences

Long Distance Freedom Fighters: The foot soldiers, who came from across the nation and beyond, kept the movement together, dominated it, and structured communities. While anti-racist organizing within some of these spaces was often difficult, they persevered in creating spaces for Black people to participate in institutions and organizations, making these spaces amenable to their concerns, and engaging in local struggles. [00:13:00]
Reframe our understanding of Black Power: Black Power emerged from the struggles of the Civil Rights movement and people who made significant contributions to that movement over time. While our typical understanding of Black Power may not be wrong, it is important to realize that social change is made largely by people and places we’ve never heard of and in places we’ve never been to. [00:16:44]

Globalization / Internationalism

The Anti-Apartheid struggle is global: Most people’s understanding of the Black Power and Civil Rights Movement tends to be limited to a domestic perspective, failing to recognize how they were part of a global human rights campaign and human rights struggle. [00:24:58]
The emergence of Black Power within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Civil Rights Movement was characterized by an internationalist perspective from its inception. It was closely intertwined with the self-identification of ethnic groups as part of the Third World. The linkage of Vietnam and Mississippi racism in the Black Power statement was fundamental to this conception of Black Power. [00:34:51]
The intersection between Quakerism and the global expansion of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) raises questions about how to connect the struggles for freedom and democracy on a worldwide scale with the African American freedom struggle, and how individuals within an organization can contribute to these causes. While it may seem contradictory, it is important to note that the political space created by Quaker philosophy enabled SNCC to undertake actions that may have been met with expulsion in other contexts.[00:24:40]
Through Michael’s role as an international director for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), he recognized the importance of fostering a strong sense of international solidarity that centered a Black Power global approach. In this role, Michael worked with the Roma people, and their experiences resonated with Michael's worldview, becoming a central focus of his life's work in Black Power as a genuine global project. [00:35:48]

Tension, Bias, and Complexities within Movements

Sexism

Sexism in the movement: Many women like Diane Nash, Gahafi Eight and Gloria Dandridge, were leaders during this time but, unfortunately, were not recognized in the Civil Rights Movement and were not even invited to speak at events like the March on Washington. Challenging the mythology of gender roles within the Movement gave rise to the foundations of a global international movement called Black Feminism. [00:22:47]
Zoharah had to confront pervasive sexism directed towards women, especially women workers and those like her who were traveling across the country to organize. African American women in organizing roles was a new phenomenon, and Zoharah’s work marked a new beginning of a self-defined women's organizing that was distinct from women organizing with men. [01:14:02]

Racism

Affirmative Action: Affirmative Action isn’t about being unqualified, but rather giving a chance to people who are overlooked to showcase their skills and abilities. Without adaptive affirmative action, Michael would not have interviewed for the ASFC European Director role. People approached Michael to congratulate him and tell him “You’re the first African American ever done this job right” and he would say “Wait a minute, now, you started the group in 1917. This is 1986. That’s the history of racism.” [00:32:25] It was the support of other people of color, not just African-Americans who made this opportunity possible.
While it can be a painful process to bring diversity into organizations, diversity builds long-term positive effects as people of color bring their culture, and unique ideas. [00:33:32]
While serving a two and a half year sentence for refusing to join the Army, Michael Simmons encountered Quakers who were also incarcerated for conscientious objection (CO). Although they had been granted CO status and declined it, Michael was not given this opportunity because African Americans were ineligible for such a classification. Nonetheless, the Quakers and Michael engaged in successful organizing efforts in jail, breaking down racial divisions that authorities employed to pit inmates against each other. [00:27:45]

In-Prison Organizing

The Rise of the Carceral State and its links to suppressing Black Power: In-prison organizing is a key component of the Black Power movement. For example, the Pelican Bay hunger strike and call to end racial hostilities highlights the importance of cross-sectional organizing in prisons. However, much of what transpires within prisons remains opaque to the public, with the state intentionally perpetuating this veil of secrecy. [00:54:23]
In prison, Michael witnessed how racism was used to divide people. Authorities would try to manipulate all sorts of perceived grievances between Black, Latinx, and other racial and ethnic groups to divide inmates and maintain control. However, when in-prison organizing and political inmates began to break down racial barriers, the system quickly became destabilized. [00:58:16]
Prison as a learning hub: As Michael and others utilized and acquired new skills and knowledge in prison,he witnessed new talents emerge. For example, individuals who had dropped out of high school left prison as organizers; individuals gained knowledge and fluency in law. Projects like Dan Berger’s ‘Captive Nation’ detail the existence of robust civil societies within prisons. [01:01:15]