Article from The Weekly Challenger
Originally posted 3/1/2012
SPECIAL TO THE WEEKLY CHALLEGER
ST. PETERSBURG — The Moore’s Chapel A&E Church in conjunction with The Weekly Challenger newspaper hosted a four evening viewing of the PBS documentary “Eyes on the Prize.” For four Saturdays last month, Pastor James Cleare treated anyone who walked through the door with a chance to witness the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today.
After the viewing, a powerful discussion moderated by Dr. Fredrick D. Terry, a retired Presbyterian Minister, was indeed an eye opener. He started the dialogue out with a question: “What did you feel when watching the film?” Answers from the audience ranged from anger to sadness to even shame as they watched history being played out on the screen.
Rev. Geraldine Gray, a retired school teacher, lived in segregated St. Petersburg and felt that this documentary should be shown in the classroom. ‘“Eyes on the Prize” is true history and should be shown in the schools to everybody. Because as blacks, if you don’t know where you come from, you just don’t know where you are going.”
Retired minster Eade Anderson commented to his wife several times during the film about the different people and places he remembered during his time living in Mississippi and Alabama in the 1960s. He later explained that he felt “shame growing up in a system where the power was all the way on one side…You look back and you wonder if you responded in the way that you should have…” Rev. Anderson received threats over his children playing with black children, and was told he could be arrested for his associations.
Bringing the conversation around to a local perspective, Gray explained how she had the charge of keeping her students sheltered from the discrimination and hatred of the outside world. With two of her former students sitting in the audience, she recanted heroic actions of protesters that were out risking their lives for equality. “It took a lot of risk for freedom,” she affirmed.
Dr. Terry further discussed how the prize has not yet been attained. “To some extent we still haven’t gotten the prize,” he explained. “We as a people ought to be ashamed of ourselves knowing the price that was paid on our behalf…and letting the opportunity pass by. He went on to relate that during apartheid America, “the whites eye’s were on keeping the blacks dehumanize; and the blacks’ were on we shall overcome.”
Have we overcome? Has the prize been won? One can only answer that with a yes if their eyes are shut. Self loathing, apathy, low self-esteem, sadness and frustration ring clear in the black community. The prize is far from being won. In 1957, The Little Rock Nine were followed by angry mobs who threatened their lives just because they wanted to attend school. Fast forward a few decades later, and many of our youth would rather stand on the street corner and sell drugs than sit in a comfortable classroom and learn. In this instance, the price that was paid goes in vain.
Audience member Lucius Dorsey, Jr., posited that finance is the eye on the prize. “We can talk about justice and peace, but it takes money to liberate people,” he stressed. “You see today, you have the one percent versus the 99 percent. And in the context of the 99 percent, we are no where close to the main focus…”
Instead of spending money on immaterial things, let us build wealth and pass it on to our children. The number one way to build wealth in America is through home ownership; yet, foreclosures in the black community are the highest among all other minorities. The prize clearly has not yet been won.
Dr. Terry ended the evening by encouraging everyone to continue fighting the battle to attain the prize. Let us keep this conversation going all year long and not just in February, for black history happens everyday.
Article from The Weekly Challenger
