BI^CK INK
FUTURES
Section B
Chavis Believes Civil Rights Movement Still Alive
Sterling Swann
Staff Contributor
Reverend Ben Chavis represents a
unique Black leader to emerge from
the civil rights movement of the six
ties. Among the last generation of
Blacks to be born and mature under
the old “separate-but-equal” sy
stem, at twenty-nine, Chavis can
freely recall the rugged realities
and imposing indignities of the late
Jim Crow South.
Born seventy-odd years after
radical Reconstruction gave way to
a North-South detente less con
cerned with the fundamentals of
human rights, especially racial equa
lity, Chavis became involved in ci
vil rights at age fourteen. The then
high school freshman and CORE
worker joined the first sit-ins in
a successful attempt to break the
grip of Jim Crow (Southern styled
apartheid) at the lunch counters
in Greensboro and Durham. After
fifteen years of civil rights work in
the South, Chavis is now a co
defendant with the Wilmington
10 and faces a possible thirty-
four year sentence in North Ca
rolina prisons.
Q. Would you like to start by tell
ing us something of yourself.
“I am Reverend Ben Chavis, one
of the co-defendants in the Wil
mington 10 case. I am a native of
Oxford, North Carolina and twen
ty-nine years old. I’ve been involved
in the civil rights movement in the
South for the last fourteen years. I
previously worked with the South
ern Christian Leadership Confer
ence (SCLC), Congress for Racial
Equality (CORE), the NAACP and
for the last seven years I’viJ been
working for the United Church of
Christ Commission for Racial Jus
tice which is headquartered out of
New York.
But I was mainly working for the
commission in the South and that’s
what led me to go to Wilmington,
North Carolina in 1971 and subse
quently led to frame-up charges
which then led to the Wilmington
10 being sentenced to 282 years
imprisonment in North Carolina.
Q. As a product of the sixties, are
you personally satisfied with the
“progress” of the overall Black si
tuation in America?
CHAVIS. No, I’m very displeased.
From being involved in the sixties
and from personally witnessing the
gains that we made in the sixties
through the ■ struggle, I think that
we are in worse shape today than
we were in the sixties.
First of all, in terms of the vitali
ty of the movement, it’s at a very
low ebb now. I don’t think the
movement is dead; some people say
the civil rights movement is dead
Photo by Henry C. Thomas
Ben Chavis, a Wilmington 10 co-defendant on why he and colleagues are imprisoned:
because we fought against racial discrimination and for the rights of all people.
now. I think it’s alive, but it’s cer
tainly at a very low ebb.
The momentum is down, the
movement has decreased in terms
of numbers, and that’s for a whole
lot of reasons why the movement
decelerated instead of accelerat
ing. One of the most important
factors contributing to the decline
of the civil rights movement was
the assassination on April 4, 1968
of Martin Luther King, Jr. Since
that time, there has been a week by
week, month by month, year by
year decline in activism around
Black issues.
I guess it’s one out of fear, one
out of apathy on part of Black
people supporting Black organiza
tions and movement organizations.
A third and real factor is go
vernmental repression of the civil
rights movement. I think we’re
finding out now that even some
part of the government may have
had something to do with the assas
sination of Martin Luther King.
There have been well documented
cases of prosecutor-police organiza
tions - particularly in the South,
framing up many civil rights organi
zations and civil rights activists.
And that’s one reason why I’m in
prison today, not because a grocery
store burned down in Wilmington
in 1971. The reason why we’re in
prison is because we were fighting
racial discrimination and because
we stood up and took a vocal stand
and still stand vocally for the rights
of all people. Black and white.
That’s why they’re trying to keep
us in prison.
Q. So you are saying that there is a
Black movement but it’s at the
point of apathy?
CHAVIS. Right. It’s at the point of
apathy. There’s a lot of fear. And
I think that one of the things we
need to engage in as Black people is
a period of self-criticism — Why this
apathy has set in?
I think the state of our oppres
sion is not only the white man’s
fault, but we have to accept some
of the responsibility as Black
people, in terms of leadership and
how sincerely we support the few
organizations that are still alive.
And if we are to survive as a people
and if we are to gain ultimate liber
ation, then we’re going to have to
go back to the sixties and do some
of the things we did in the sixties
all over again. But this time keep
the momentum going. Statistically
and socio-economically, we as
Black Americans are in worse shape
today than we were ten years ago,
and part of it is our own fault.
Q. How do you feel havmg grown
up in the South under segregation
in a small town affected your out
look?
CHAVIS: I think if I had grown up
in some other part of the country,
I wouldn’t have become as involved
as I did and I am now. I grew up in
small town Oxford in a rural tobac
co economy, agriculture situation
where there was gross exploitation
even on the menial level, where you
had hundreds of Black families just
trapped on still plantations, harvest
ing crops every year for the man
and still having no money.
And then, when I grew up, 1 re
member when 1 couldn’t sit down
stairs at the local movies. I remem
ber when 1 couldn’t use the public
library. I remember when I couldn’t
sit down at the lunch counter in
Roses, Eagles, or at the five and
dime store. I remember I had to use
a special ‘colored’ water fountain,
use a special ‘colored’ bathroom.
And all that affected me at a
very early age and when 1 got
around twelve years old, then thir
teen, I decided that if I saw an op
portunity to challenge some of this
I was going to join. And 1 did. Back
in the early sixties when they had
some of the first sit-in movements
in Greensboro, and some in Dur
ham, I joined CORE (Congress for
Racial Equality) and have been in
volved ever since.
Q. Was this the point where you be
came active in civil rights, during
the sixties?
CHAVIS; Right. During the early
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