Rev. C.T. Vivian

ANDERSON: OK. Welcome to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

VIVIAN: Thank you, sister.

ANDERSON: We're so pleased to have you. Again, I'm Laura. Anderson. I'm an archivist here.

VIVIAN: Mmm hmm.

ANDERSON: And I want to begin by asking you to please give me your full name, and your date of birth and place of birth.

VIVIAN: C. T. Vivian, but that means Cordy C-O-R-D-Y Tindell T-I-N-D-E-L-L Vivian V-I-V-I-A-N. Right. Mmm hmm. And that was July 30th, 1924, is when I was born.

ANDERSON: And you were born in--

VIVIAN: In Missouri. In Howard County, Missouri, really.

ANDERSON: OK

VIVIAN: Mmm hmm. Across from, the river from Booneville, Illinois.

ANDERSON: We won't get into-

VIVIAN: Oh, I mean, Booneville, Missouri.

ANDERSON: Okay.

VIVIAN: Pardon me. Yeah.

ANDERSON: Well, we won't get into whether Missouri is the South, we'll just move 00:01:00on and we'll talk about how you ended up in the South.

VIVIAN: It was the South, however, the reason my family left was two: one was because the Depression had hit, right, and the other one is because we were in a segregated state, and, as a result, I couldn't get the kind of education that the family knew I needed. So, since we lost everything, that, does things to a man. Right? It really does things to men. They had farms, they'd worked for three farms, and then worked and bought three farms, and then to have them disappear overnight was a little much for them to take. Both my father, who 00:02:00wasn't that old, but it shook the whole country. I don't care whether you were Black or white, you were shaken, right. But, if you were Black you had no reason to stay in a segregated state. As a result, the family moved to Illinois, as the best way to say it. But when they did, they stopped, for whatever reason, I don't know, but they stopped -- I know the real reason -- they stopped at a university town. In McComb, Illinois, right. As a result of that, I grew up in a non-segregated environment.

ANDERSON: Hmm. What university was there?

VIVIAN: Western Illinois University. Which is the name now, but at the time it was Western Illinois Teachers' College. And that's what happened during those 00:03:00times, that we were first a college, and then because the area we were in colleges were the norm, because we had to educate so many teachers, because there was a law about every square mile there had to be a school. And as a result of that, they needed lots of teachers, which means they needed lots of teachers' colleges, alright? And that's it. But the bottom line on that for me, was that I went to a teachers' college, which is what I wanted to do anyway, but I went to a teachers' college, but had never seen a Black teacher. So, how was I even to know, that I was going to ever have a chance to teach? But I knew I 00:04:00could possibly teach because, if you were a Black woman, you could not stay in the dormitory. And there was only a woman's dormitory at the time, and you couldn't stay there, so there were Black women who came to stay in the city. And in our town. And then in the smallest part of it was Black community, right? So, my grandmother rented out, rooms in our houses to students.

ANDERSON: Hmm. So, you went to teachers' college yourself?

VIVIAN: Mmm hmm. Oh yeah, yeah.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm.

VIVIAN: And you will hear me later talk about being in journalism and editing at 00:05:00the Sunday School Publishing Board of the National Baptist Convention, which was the largest convention of Black people in the United States. We had the largest publishing house, by the way, as well, and in fact Nashville was filled with publishing houses. Ours was the largest African American one, but there were two others.

ANDERSON: So you took a job in Nashville right out of school?

VIVIAN: No, oh, there was a lot of things happening --

ANDERSON: I'm sure.

VIVIAN: Then I had been, I had been in the YMCA. I'd been at the Urban, not the, I started to say, the Urban Training Center, but that was much, much later. But 00:06:00I had been at the recreation center in Peroria, Illinois, a Carver Community 00:07:00Center, is what it was called, and it was the largest place for activities for Black people, the largest between Chicago and St. Louis, which is a tremendous coverage. But that's how little that we had in the North. As well as in the South, you see. You see, I mention that because we thought going north everything was going to be perfect, and both white people and Black people think, oh, it would be perfect for Black people, now that they've run out of the South into the North, but the point is it wasn't perfect. But it was so, so, so much better than anything in the South.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: Much, much better than anything in the South. That it gave me a tremendous advantage.

ANDERSON: Hmm. Well, so when you finally did venture down to Nashville, was your family worried for you?

VIVIAN: Yes, I'll tell you how it came, but they really got worried when the movement started. They began to talk about buying a house that I had liked in McComb, and a good place for us to be, and etcetera, and children, and all that. They were grandparents and that sort of thing, so they were very concerned. But they didn't start that until it was very clear that the movement was serious and people were being killed in the South. And, so, they didn't know whether that would happen to me or not. I remember telling them, and I'm doing this the long 00:08:00way, but I remember talking to my grandmother on the phone about it, and I told her, 'You see, grandma, what its like when you break an egg and it cracks but it doesn't really open, and then you try to peel, the cover off of the egg, because you didn't break through it, you see. And now we were in the situation where we had to break through not just the shell, but that inner thing that keeps things out, the energy, the food, the meaning, of the egg out of your reach.'

ANDERSON: Hmm. I got too into what you were saying to remember my train of thought. Well, we were talking about your family's concern for you coming South.

VIVIAN: Mmm hmm.

ANDERSON: And I understand that you just had to explain to them--

VIVIAN: Sure.

ANDERSON: Maybe why you had no choice, this is-

VIVIAN: Yeah, that's-

ANDERSON: -this is what you were convicted to be involved in.

VIVIAN: Yeah, that's precisely right. In fact, before I left McComb for instance, I had been the head of, or an important member of, every organization in high school. I was, in one situation in junior high where I lacked twenty votes of getting every vote in the school-- and it was a white school. There was very few of us Black, I mean, very few. I remember, in a class where there'd be 00:10:00two or three of us, and that was as early as fifth and sixth grade, second ward was the grade school, Lincoln, and then we went to Edison Junior High, and then McComb High School.

ANDERSON: So you were always out in the forefront?

VIVIAN: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Well, let's get back to the movement.

VIVIAN: In fact, all during the movement, the McComb papers carried anything that was said about me. You know what I mean? But in fact, they've named a street after me.

ANDERSON: Good.

VIVIAN: Yeah, no, that's very nice.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: And I'm very thankful. And they've already called me to come back, because I you know, the president is going to give me the medal of freedom.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: So they've already asked me to come back, it's just a matter of figuring 00:11:00out how soon I can get there.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm. That'll be a great day in McComb.

VIVIAN: Yeah. See, what I like about is it makes it easier for any Black people that come to McComb.

ANDERSON: Mmm. You and I were talking on the way up, when we were walking through the Institute, about the media, and about things that were aired locally, or not aired locally, that were seen by the rest of the country, Was McComb's coverage of what you were doing positive or negative? Were they-

VIVIAN: Well nobody expected any national coverage of McComb. But Peoria, that was different. At the time, Peoria was the second largest city in the state.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm. Well, I'm sorry, I don't think I phrased it correctly.

VIVIAN: Okay.

ANDERSON: I wondered, at the time, were you a troublemaker, or were you a proud 00:12:00product of McComb? They wanted to you know-

VIVIAN: Oh, oh, I was a proud product of McComb.

ANDERSON: Even then?

VIVIAN: Oh, yeah, oh yes --

ANDERSON: That's wonderful, yeah.

VIVIAN: See because we were never a segregated society in the first place, so they always felt and knew that they were far ahead of the South and did not want to be associated with anything like segregation or hate at all. And they had a right not to be.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: Now, socially I was different, I mean as I mentioned, got every vote in the school. But, anytime somebody wanted to invite me to a party that was happening on the other side of town, or to their home for dinner, it always 00:13:00reminded me of that famous film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Well I've had those, but the parents would say no.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: But, what that did for me, was to tell me everything was going to be alright eventually. Because there was the generation that didn't want segregation, but didn't want a social anti-segregation, right? So, socially they did not want a social bringing-together at that level. But any other level, they were for it. Well, I knew if wanted me to come to dinner, if my generation wanted me at parties, I knew that when they came of age it would be alright.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: And so, I had faith that the system would really work in the end.

ANDERSON: Hmm. How do you feel about things now?

VIVIAN: Oh right now? That it's just a matter of time when the full change comes. We're on the edge of it anyway. I'm more concerned about Black leadership right now than for the new changes, than I am anything else. But I see the cracked egg. We have a Black president, right? And although everything is wrong that he does--the same things I've seen from other presidents that nobody even 00:15:00thought about it. But when it's a Black president, that's a whole 'nother thing. And we call the Tea Party the confederate party, you know.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm.

VIVIAN: You know, because we see it only as that kind of impediment in the way. But that too will pass away. If I can use another one of my quotes.

ANDERSON: Hmm. What role do you think Birmingham played in cracking the egg?

VIVIAN: Oh, there were three -- Birmingham gave us, pardon me, Alabama gave us our freedom. See, Montgomery proved the method. By the way, I had used nonviolence in 1947, nine years before Montgomery. Alright? We had opened lunch counters in Peoria, Illinois. Nine years before Montgomery. My wife had been 00:16:00involved in Pontiac, Michigan, before we ever met. She had been involved in a group that were a very active group when she was a kid in grade school and high school. And they knocked on doors and all that sort of thing and asked people to come vote and that kind of thing, right. But when we look at what was coming, there was a drive-in in Pontiac, Michigan, that was broken the same way. They wanted to feed you out the window. And her minister took a group of young people, like the group I was telling you about, and went and when they gave them 00:17:00food in a bag, they went to the table, sat down, opened the bag, and ate, right? Well, after another one like that, they didn't try it anymore. So, little things like that were happening everywhere.

ANDERSON: Right, yeah it's a long movement. That's why I'm just gritting my teeth a lot this year when people use the phrase 'the 50th anniversary of the movement.'

VIVIAN: Yeah, yeah.

ANDERSON: I just have to--

VIVIAN: See, see and they, they're --

ANDERSON: But I know that's not direct--

VIVIAN: Starting the movement, but let's say why. You see, we still didn't know what to do-- all of that was north. Even when the NAACP won the school case in the West, that didn't mean anything to the South. Didn't change the South one 00:18:00iota, right? No schools opened in the South, right, you see what I mean? So it was so limited that we had to ask. Now what they were after was a new strategy. Remember Howard University Law School, they were the experts in constitutional law, cause that was the strategy they were going to use to open up everything. It didn't open up the South at all. I mean not one iota. So, as a result of that, what we were looking for was another strategy. So the real strategy started when Martin and Montgomery came together, right. See, and this is why I said Alabama was so basic to the freedom of Black people, because Martin King, 00:19:00who had studied deeply --as deeply as you could under the circumstances -- studied nonviolence and at one of the best possible places for it, one of the three or four best seminaries in the United States. He came out of there as a minister going to Montgomery, and when something happened, they met as his church, asked him to be the leader, he became the leader and the method was nonviolent direct action. You see what I mean? What we needed was a new strategy. And when we won that case, that bus case, right, within days -- within 00:20:00weeks, really, but within a few, short weeks, ten different cities moved. Please don't ask me what they were, cause I don't know, I'm repeating a given line, but a number of cities really, really opened. And, as a result of that, that was the beginning of the movement, you see. You couldn't say the experiment at Howard University was, because it didn't do anything that meant the full freedom. When Martin called together the SCLC -- an organization that would be named Southern Christian Leadership Conference, right, -- leadership coming out of there was deciding to do the same thing that Martin did, with the same strategy that Martin had. See, it was the strategy that made the difference, you see. Then 00:21:00things changed totally. And kept changing, kept changing, still changing.

ANDERSON: There were quite a few years in there to hone that strategy, between Montgomery and Birmingham.

VIVIAN: Well, but it stayed the same. It was the same.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm.

VIVIAN: It was the same. It just proved itself to be workable.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: and to be work-ing, alright. There wasn't any real change that went on. The only one change was the children going on, but we'd already been doing some of that in Nashville.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: The real difference was we trained people in Nashville, right. For nonviolent direct action, you see what I mean. But we were all of one mind, 00:22:00about the strategy and how to carry it out. And we added to the strategy that had been used before in nonviolence by us. So the only change we renewed when we won Montgomery, you see what I mean? But, remember there had been a bus boycott by CORE, before coming into the South, but only at the top of the South. And they were beaten and left, right? You see, well, that didn't happen this time. And our group in Nashville said that violence cannot destroy nonviolence and we will refuse to let it do so.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: See, there wasn't any thought of backing up. And as soon as he had said, 00:23:00cause remember on the bus boycott, it was by CORE, right. John Lewis was in the group cause he'd been asked to and because they knew we were training and etcetera, and they didn't get very far. As you know, the busses were burned and so forth. As soon as he said, and then Jim Foreman said -- not Foreman, James --

ANDERSON: Farmer?

VIVIAN: Farmer. known Jim before. But then we were in prison together in Jackson, Mississippi. See when he said, 'Well, we've proven the point,' 00:24:00depending back on the legal stuff again, that a Black man, that even animals can be moved across country without having to be moved from one car to another, right, but not Black people. And this is in the democratic country, you see. And they refuse to stand up for the rights of African American people -- they meaning the administration, they meaning more than the administration, it meant the citizenship of the United State and that they had no intention of being a democratic country. That was quite different, but it wasn't enough for us. But we also were students -- well, I wasn't a student, there were about six of us 00:25:00that weren't students -- but the rest of them right. There were ten students that went to Montgomery, started to Montgomery that night. Police met them at the railroad tracks at the borderline, right, and told them they could not come across and go back home. The pretense was to turn around, but they never turned around, they came right back across those tracks that night, alright and asked people could they come into their houses and they said yes.

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: But in fact some of them took them on into whatever the city was, it's not coming to me at the moment, when we crossed the border

ANDERSON: Between Alabama and Tennessee?

VIVIAN: Yeah, yeah.

ANDERSON: Yeah, yeah. There's a little, Ardmore, is a little community there.

VIVIAN: Well, yeah, but we went on into--what was the major city?

ANDERSON: Well, I don't know what your group --

VIVIAN: Cause we had to leave it later. No, we had to within days, we left it. Not Birmingham, what was it, I'm trying to --

ANDERSON: Well, there --

VIVIAN: think of the name of the city.

ANDERSON: I've never heard of y'all stopping in Huntsville, but --

VIVIAN: No, no --

ANDERSON: that's --

VIVIAN: we went, we went into -- I don't know why the name's not coming to me, but --

ANDERSON: That's OK. And I'm no help because I'm --

VIVIAN: but you'll get it when it comes to you --

ANDERSON: Yeah, we'll--

VIVIAN: And we met the we stayed in a dentist, a Black dentist's home, and then --

ANDERSON: In Montgomery?

VIVIAN: Yeah, in Montgomery.

ANDERSON: Yeah. Yes, that was Dr --

VIVIAN: That's it --

ANDERSON: Dr. Bryant.

VIVIAN: OK, then the next morning we got up went to the bus station.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: See what I mean? Well, I joined them at that point.

ANDERSON: Oh, OK.

VIVIAN: That's where I got off on this because I had to go home and tell my wife. You know, we had children, and not to ask, 'Could I?,' as much as to, you know, we had to announce it to each other. We weren't going to leave without -- we were going to enter Jackson, Mississippi --

ANDERSON: Yeah, you were kinda signing your life away, weren't you?

VIVIAN: That's the point. And the wife and I'd always felt as though it was the same, I mean we were doing it together. We were not doing it separately. In fact, a new library and archives will be founded, is being founded, as we speak. 00:28:00And it's going to be named after both of us. And the symbol of it, is she's standing over me, so that we don't have to worry about 'it's CT's thing,' you know?

ANDERSON: Hmm.

VIVIAN: Because we both wrote books but I mean she, it was meaningful to her, I just knocked mine off because I had to --

ANDERSON: Hmm

VIVIAN: But I have more books in my collection. I mean but together we have about 4,500 books. But almost a thousand books that are part of my seminary on thinking and experiencing, preaching, and etcetera, I'm giving it right off the bat. But I'm trying to do something different. The best materials to express 00:29:00what was happening intellectually in the Black community is done through a magazine there, and so I'm putting the two together. And giving it and putting it into our muse.

ANDERSON: Okay.

VIVIAN: Because I'm concerned that they see the intellectual and spiritual side of Black America and the argents back and forth, but never, a separation of the two. Because this is what Martin led, a moral and spiritual movement. He didn't lead a political movement and what nonviolence was about was moral and spiritual. It wasn't about politics, right. And that's two, Martin understood 00:30:00that politics is just not deep enough to deal with the fact of the depth of racism in this society. And that you have to go beyond it, right. What we should have done -- well, pardon me -- one of the things we could have done -- is as soon as we won was to attack the Christian church for not being Christian. Because it's not. My point being is what do you tell people who believe in every tit and jot and tittle of the scriptures? What do you tell them about the Old Testament? Obviously got mistakes all the way through it and two or three, up to 00:31:00five, books of the New Testament were not written by the people they say did it, right? You don't tell Black people that, either, by the way. You don't preach it, in fact you try to not preach it, or use it as an auxiliary to the real stuff. But my point being is that we have a moral and spiritual movement based around the Sermon on the Mount, right, and John 15 16 and 17, John 15, 16, and 17, right, --is that the understandings of love as central. And as Jesus said, 'You can't be my disciple unless you love one another.' Now, you can't tell that to Southern Baptists, either. It took them 30 years after the death of Martin to 00:32:00even admit that racism was seriously wrong. In fact, more than seriously wrong, that hate in any form could not be accepted as Christianity. I was going to tell you some other stuff, but it's not necessary; let's keep going.

ANDERSON: Ha. Well, I would like to know--

VIVIAN: It's not important --

ANDERSON: Any special recollections or insight you have into SCLC's decisions about Birmingham.

VIVIAN: About Birmingham. There was only one point, actually, that Fred Shuttlesworth was one of the people that Martin invited to SCLC. Now, there's -- 00:33:00well, there's two or three points -- but one is that the governor of this state before Wallace--

ANDERSON: Patterson.

VIVIAN: Yeah, said that you couldn't have an NAACP in this state. Well, when he said that, Fred said, 'that's alright,' and he went around the country with a new name. And they realized that anytime they tried to stop one, we'd come up with a new name. But they'd be the same people and working on the same issues and going forward, right? But Fred did that, right? And he did it all up and down the state. That's the tremendous change point for this whole state, right? 00:34:00And Fred had the courage to do anything. You know, when you walk into, with your family, into a group of white people who are ready to kill you and try to prove it and you keep coming back. I don't mean to keep coming back at that moment, but that it doesn't defeat you. And when they try to bomb you twice, right, blow you out of your bed with bomb and it still doesn't stop you, right. Blow your church away and the people rebuild it. Then we're talking about what do you do, to them, so that they don't come back anymore? Well we had the answer in song, 00:35:00'you can't kill us all.' And we will be here, but we're not gonna die on your terms, right, we're gonna die on ours. And we will prove to you, right, by our dying, quite like Jesus did, there, that you really can't stop what we're saying. And you can't end truth with violence. And see that's the main thing we did is that we proved to this country that violence can't end truth. And that we refused to allow anyone to think it for any length of time. And we will be the example for it. This is the meaning of nonviolent direct action. Mmm. Yeah. But 00:36:00that's one of the points, in terms of answering your question --

ANDERSON: About Birmingham?

VIVIAN: Yeah, about Birmingham, is when we came to this town to finish the job that Fred had done, right? We may have had to wait three years longer, had it not been for the two or three years that Fred had already put in, or three to five years that he'd already put in, you see what I mean?

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: And when we think of that, how important that really was --

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: And that we went from, and here's another one of those changes -- in the middle of the movement here, the election that was gonna be held, right? We 00:37:00would have been used by the head of the police and fire department, trying to run for mayor. He would have used us as being so for the other guy. He being the best racist, and the most racist of racists, that he could have been elected. But we were at the March on Washington. See and, boom he loses, and we come back to Birmingham and to win.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: See, but that could have been that moment, that time, that period right there could have been very different.

ANDERSON: So you all are very well aware of what all was going on with the 00:38:00municipal --

VIVIAN: Oh, oh, oh --

ANDERSON: change of government --

VIVIAN: Very, very. You couldn't --

ANDERSON: Because, you know, you --

VIVIAN: You had to be, you had to be knowledgeable of everything. Pardon me --

ANDERSON: Well, I know would have been knowledgeable, but it often, in the mythologizing of all of this, a picture gets painted that puts you all on one side, like, 'well, we don't care that they're trying to change the form of government, we've got to do what we have to do,' and I'm sure that --

VIVIAN: Oh, no --

ANDERSON: was true on the one hand, but --

VIVIAN: In fact, we were concerned about the change --

ANDERSON: Yeah, tell me more about that.

VIVIAN: The thing is that why let your enemy win, when you don't have to? And when you can step out of that or whatever for a month or two. And while they're having an election, you're gaining the world on your side. See, it's not a 'we're doing what we have to,' in terms of Birmingham. It was because Birmingham 00:39:00was never our issue, America was our issue.

ANDERSON: There you go.

VIVIAN: And not just Black people, white people. Everybody has to be changed in this nation before a sin and an evil that deep in a culture, for so long, like 400 years, you don't change that by simply saying 'we're doing politics in the way that its always been done,' right? I mean, that's kind of stupid. The point being is that you win by knowing your total situation. And you want to win nonviolently. You don't want to win by trying, by even suggesting, that you're trying to beat somebody out of the way, or you're trying to shoot somebody out of the way, see what I mean. What we really taught is that you can change, make 00:40:00deep and important social changes, without violence. See, that was the important thing.

ANDERSON: Alright.

VIVIAN: The line I just used for you is a great line. And people like myself didn't even say it until long after.

ANDERSON: Mmm.

VIVIAN: And not because we thought it but was afraid to say it, we didn't even think about it.

ANDERSON: Yeah, but it's so helpful --

VIVIAN: Yeah--

ANDERSON: It's helpful even now, because --

VIVIAN: Yeah, that's the point.

ANDERSON: I've heard you use the phrase "we won" and you know, but what was the win --

VIVIAN: Oh, sure--

ANDERSON: it was a national --

VIVIAN: Oh, of course, but you see, we couldn't have won in any local place. One of the differences in strategy, SNCC thought about winning in a location. We thought about winning in the nation. See, ours was not to win a handful of Black 00:41:00people, only, right? But we realized that Black people could not win until they broke through white hatred. Now, how do you do that? -- you do it with love and truth and justice, alright.

ANDERSON: Mmm.

VIVIAN: But you must be willing to suffer for it. But you've had the cross on the wall all your life, so you knew that it wasn't gonna come easy, and you knew there was life and death. And we didn't understand why white Christians didn't understand that, right? Everything about racism is anti-Christian. Right, there isn't anything about racism that that is not anti-Christian. And yet the so-called Christian church of white America thinks it can represent Him. See, 00:42:00it's just ridiculous. And this is why one of the first groups to come to our side was white Christian ministers, who came to walk with us in Selma, for instance, right. But the theologians at the seminaries were coming throughout the movement, right, showing support. But you see they didn't have to face a white racist audience, because they were in seminaries where you argued those things out, talked them out, alright. And they were arguing for us at the places of teaching and concern, right. Well that was very very helpful because if the 00:43:00value-producing agencies, right, absorb truth, justice, and love as their high points then eventually the whole society has to say, either we're for it or we're against it. And when they say they're against Christianity -- listen, in South Africa, the white Christian church came around years and years before we even got in the battle. Right? They knew they were wrong. Said it and you know preached it, and lost churches based on it, right. I remember going to the Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville, very early cause they asked me to come 00:44:00down to talk at the seminary, not at the church.

ANDERSON: Big difference.

VIVIAN: Big difference is right! And so I go, and I give the speech and I give the sermon, And one of the things I talk about, the only thing from the speech I really remember, was the fact that ministers can stand up there and do it, but eventually if they get rid of a minister that tells them the truth, they can never walk in that church without the blood flowing that they see flowing down the front of that pulpit. Because they have crucified a disciple of Jesus 00:45:00whether they like it or not. And if they want to come back and rub their nose in it every Sunday or try to run it away, their conscience won't let them. They will know that they were totally wrong, and that they're really not Christian. Because we're not talking about some little thing about do you drink something on Sunday or Monday, or do you wear something [indistinguishable]. We're talking about the very heart of the issue. That do you love somebody. That's the way I teach sex education to our church, when they're talking about gays for instance, right. I hate to say it that way, I wish there was another way to say it, right. 00:46:00Cause it's already a negative, you know, the way you say it --

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: Does did God create gays? And then did God love gays? And they know where they got to go. And I'll say and where does God in the New Testament have anything to say about hating anybody, but much less killing? Putting down, destroying the personalities and drive of people. Now you tell me something about 4,000 years ago -- haven't we learned anything in 4,000 years? -- but that's Old Testament. Are you an Old Testament Christian or are you a New Testament Christian? And you can't be both, because the concept of love won't let you put up with that hate game.

ANDERSON: We've got some recordings, I think there's just one, and your voice is on one of them --

VIVIAN: Is that right?

ANDERSON: It's from a mass meeting, at one of the churches here in that spring, and you were pretty fired up then, too, like you are right now.

VIVIAN: Ha ha. That proves, that's proof it's authentic.

ANDERSON: Yep. That's what I'm sittin' here thinking. It's such a privilege to be sitting here with you.

VIVIAN: Mmm thanks.

ANDERSON: I don't want them to get upset with me for wearing you out --

VIVIAN: By going over, right.

ANDERSON: But I really, --

VIVIAN: One, one more question.

ANDERSON: I really do want to ask you, yeah --

VIVIAN: And I'll make it short.

ANDERSON: you said, 'No. We never wanted to come back, SCLC, coming back to Birmingham, but you said there were reasons --

VIVIAN: Yeah --

ANDERSON: Can you speak to that for me?

VIVIAN: Oh oh oh, the reasons is because we won. Is that the question you really 00:48:00asked me?

ANDERSON: Well--

VIVIAN: See I was giving you two reasons why we were not having to, oh, see I was thinking. Was there a reason we had to come back to Birmingham? See, there wasn't any reason we had to come back to Birmingham--

ANDERSON: No, that's not my question.

VIVIAN: Yeah.

ANDERSON: Just whether -- I just want to know about the relationship of the organization to Birmingham, and -- VIVIAN: Oh, oh --

ANDERSON: and after this so-called victory --

VIVIAN: Oh yeah --

ANDERSON: I mean, I think it was a victory

VIVIAN: Well, we saw it as a victory --

ANDERSON: Tell me more.

VIVIAN: But you see we saw it as a victory, so we didn't have to come back.

ANDERSON: But life went on after '63 and -- VIVIAN: Yeah, but Fred was here.

ANDERSON: Okay.

VIVIAN: See and the troops were here, and we ended up with a white mayor. You see what I mean? Not immediately, but with a white mayor shortly afterwards. Right? We didn't have to come back -- Fred was in charge. We just came back to get Fred over the hump. You see what I mean? It was never meant for us to stay 00:49:00in any place, alright? It's that once the people had won, they could keep it, cause we had a strategy. You see what I mean? And that was the real thing, is that they knew what to do under a leader and a people that had been through the fire and had won. They weren't going to give it up. See?

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm.

VIVIAN: What we had to do was be about another place, you see what I mean? That we could make as bold as this one.

ANDERSON: So, for you, was that place Dallas County?

VIVIAN: In Selma? Yeah, oh, in fact, that was just the next place.

ANDERSON: That was the next step.

VIVIAN: Oh oh oh, I'll tell you what, I woke up after we'd known we'd won in Selma, right? I woke up one morning, and knew that this was going to be our last 00:50:00great battle. And I just woke up, and I was in my room, and I knew that was the last great battle we were going to fight around any of the city kinds of things. See, we'd fought in city after city after city to win legislation in one city or the other, get my point? We didn't go to a city to win the city as much as just to win the legislation, that would free everybody, you see what I mean? Now, this was it, when we had the right to vote, that was the importance of Selma. When you put 20 million people where they can vote, that changes things. Alright? And that causes everybody else in the country like you to say 'whoo.' But that also changed everybody who had a gripe -- the women's movement won, 00:51:00right, as a result of, I mean, we won it all at once. We got the law for the women's movement, right? We got the law, remember there was a youth movement going on for a while?

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm

VIVIAN: Alright, is that we won, we won that. Right? And so that even the old folk, is the way I preach it, even the old folk, understood it well enough to call themselves the panthers. See that's why the gays came, hmm? Had we lost, none of them would have been free. See what I mean? But having won, all of them are free. See? That's the biggie, that's what changed the nation. Very few people are left, and within, I'll say 10, 15 years, nobody'll be around that can even remember, what went on before. See that's why your history is important. 00:52:00But let's give it to you, is that Black youth can't believe -- see, they can't believe what was. It'll be the same way with white people, short time. See? In fact, will not want you to remember that they, and that they reared their children, to hate folk. They'll want to run you out of the house. You see what I mean? Because but you --

ANDERSON: Yeah, I know.

VIVIAN: see, and that -- ha ha ha! You already know that, right?

ANDERSON: Ha!

VIVIAN: See but that that's, the thing, that's the importance. I know a guy, I know a family, where the woman of the family, really the grandmother of this 00:53:00guy, the mother of this fellow that I'm gonna talk about, told him if he--see because the name Vivian was in both cases, and he was saying we're all relatives, he says and she says, 'if you tell folk that that my family were slavers,' he and says, 'I'll cut you out of the money, I'm not gonna have anybody going around and saying that we owned slaves and stuff like that,' right. And I thought it was so good, because it makes the point so well, see.

ANDERSON: Mmm hmm.

VIVIAN: Is that 'whaaat?' She was gonna put him out of the out of her will, right?

ANDERSON: Pretty classic.

VIVIAN: To say that you're gonna do that--Okay, sis, that's it?

ANDERSON: Thank you so much.

VIVIAN: Alright.

ANDERSON: Thank you, thank you. If we can't have six hours--

VIVIAN: Yeah.