‘Ethical People Can Be Effective’

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Remembering the life of Bob Moses, and his mission to build a more equitable America from the bottom up. From teaching in New York City to registering Black voters in the 1960’s Mississippi, Moses was a measured man who believed leadership was about listening, not talking. Rutgers University Professor of African American Studies Charles M. Payne joins us to recap Moses' life’s work -- and his big ideas, from Freedom Summer to a radical education initiative that’s still used in schools today. Companion listening for this episode: The Origin Story of Black History Month (2/1/21) We’ve got complicated relationships with this annual celebration -- from joy to frustration. So to launch our Future of Black History series, we ask how it began and what it can be. The Short Life and Early Death of Voting Rights (7/12/20) Birth, August 1965. Death, July 2021. So now what for multiracial democracy? “The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the United States of Anxiety, a show about the unfinished business of our history and its grip on our future.
0:08.0	Robert Harris, Moses was a civil rights activist, education advocate. What made him stand out was... was his calm courage.
0:13.0	What made him stand out was his calm courage.
0:17.0	The Student Unviolent Coordinating Committee,
0:19.0	they seek radical change in race relations in the United States. The world is upset and they feel that if
0:26.6	they are ever going to get it straight, they must upset it more.
0:31.1	Our America will be led not by the small-mindedness of a powerful few, but the imagination of a mass movement
0:41.9	that includes all of us.
0:43.7	These kids need to be at least at this benchmark
0:48.3	because they don't have a safety net.
0:50.2	You can turn your back on me, that you cannot turn your back upon the idea of justice.
0:57.0	Welcome to the show, I'm Kay Wright.
0:59.0	Harry Belafante tells a story in his memoirs that for me perfectly captures a part of the civil
1:06.0	rights movement that is too easily forgotten or maybe erased. The story is set
1:11.1	in 1963 in Greenwood, Mississippi.
1:14.0	This is right as things are really coming to a boil in the South
1:18.0	because a group of young activists are forcing the issue of voting rights.
1:22.0	That group is the student nonviolent court. are forcing the issue of voting rights.
1:23.0	That group is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC.
1:26.8	These are the kids, college students, who set in at ledge counters
1:30.8	and road buses across the south and generally put themselves in grave danger in order to dramatize the fight against segregation.
1:38.5	It's John Lewis and Marion Berry and Stokely Carmichael and all those names and Harry Belafonte was an important
	...

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