JOURNEY TO FREEDOM

States are prohibiting teaching about events none of us will ever forget. They’re banning history and discussion of the damage done by years of violence and discrimination. But Paul Murray did his part in keeping it available.

You may know Paul. His children went through Albany Schools. He headed the School Board and taught at Siena College. In 1966, Paul went to Mississippi with the American Friends Service Committee to help with the Civil Rights Movement. Later he went back as an expert witness in civil rights litigation.

At Siena, Paul organized a course on the Civil Rights Movement. Instead of lecturing, he got people from this area with personal experience in the Movement to discuss it with his students, and took some of his students to Mississippi to meet people Paul had worked with.

Students loved the course and made a video of Professor Murray’s last class. But the passing of someone he’d invited made Paul realize the need to preserve their memories and keep the history alive.

Here’s a sample.

Miki Conn worked for Bayard Rustin, principal organizer of the March on Washington, where King shared his dream. Miki organized the fleet of busses that brought people to the March – a huge undertaking that brought some hundred thousand people to Washington in 1963 – then she ran the information booth. Paul had her talk about it.

My wife and her college friends integrated a movie theatre in Greensboro, NC, while the famous Woolworth sit-ins were taking place downtown – Paul asked her to talk about it.

Paul had me explain crucial legal cases to his students but since I was at the March and heard King describe his dream, Paul had me talk about that too.

Alice Green grew up in the Adirondacks and fought discrimination of every kind in this area since childhood, creating and running the Center for Law and Justice. Paul had her talk about it.

Julie Kabat wrote about her late brother who taught in a Mississippi freedom school in the summer of 1964. Paul brought some of her brother’s students to describe how different it felt to be treated with respect by a young white man.

Nell Stokes was a teenager in Montgomery, Alabama, when the community organized the bus boycott to protest being forced to give their seats to white people and move to the back of the bus. Nell volunteered with the cab company providing rides during the bus boycott and talked about it at Paul’s invitation.

Those are just a sample. Now retired from teaching, Paul wanted to preserve their experience for anyone interested in the Civil Rights Movement. He arranged interviews, a videographer, and inclusion on the Siena College website. We just celebrated the video’s release. (It should be available at Siena.edu/Journey to Freedom by the time this airs, indexed by those interviewed.)

For some participants, religion played a large part. I know Paul is deeply involved in describing the efforts of the Catholic Church to address the violence and segregation to which African-Americans were subject. It’s a matter of great pride in the Jewish community that there were rabbis on the podium with Martin Luther King – after slavery in America and the Holocaust in Europe, they understood each other, the humanity of people of all backgrounds, the cause of freedom, the threat of racial hatred, the violence that follows and the importance of overcoming it.

Compensating for wrongs done is what law usually does. What’s unfair is letting it fester. Thanks to Dr. Murray and Siena for making this history available to all.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on February 6, 2024.