Free to Be ... You and Me

"Feminism... I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me'."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg



"Free to Be ... You and Me" was a children's entertainment project starting in 1972 including a record album, an illustrated book, and an ABC special using poetry, songs and sketches to encourage gender neutrality (via).

The idea for Free to Be came to Marlo Thomas - then most famous for her starring role on That Girl, in which she played Ann Marie, a career girl who didn’t want to get married - as she was reading a bedtime story to her 5-year-old niece Dionne. Thomas was shocked to discover all the books available to her niece were the same books she had been read when she was a little girl, and “it had taken me 30 years to get over them.” When Thomas went to the bookstore the next day in search of better fare, she found the state of children’s fiction was “worse than I thought.” On the shelves she discovered the especially abyssmal I’m Glad I’m A Boy, I’m Glad I’m A Girl. Sample text: “Boys invent things, girls use what boys invent.” Says Thomas: “I almost had a heart attack right there.”

According to Thomas, there were three pieces the TV powers-that-be wanted to cut from the special. The first two were "William Wants A Doll" and "It’s Alright to Cry," because the network was worried showing them “would make every boy in America a sissy…that wasn’t the word they used.”

They also had a problem with "Parents are People," not because of the lyrics, says Thomas, but because there was concern that the scene featuring her and Harry Belafonte wheeling their own baby buggies down a sidewalk made it seem as though the two were married. The network told Thomas they “couldn’t put that out and certainly couldn’t play it in the South.” (via)

"When We Grow Up" by Roberta Flack and Michael Jackson:



When we grow up will I be pretty?
Will you be big and strong?
Will I wear dresses that show off my knees?
Will you wear trousers twice as long?

Well, I don't care if I'm pretty at all
And I don't care if you never get tall
I like what I look like and you're nice small
We don't have to change at all.

When we grow up will I be a lady?
Will you be on the moon?
Well, it might be all right to dance by its light
But I'm gonna get up there soon.

Well, I don't care if I'm pretty at all
And I don't care if you never get tall
I like what I look like and you're nice small
We don't have to change at all.

When I grow up I'm going to be happy
And do what I like to do,
Like making noise and making faces
And making friends like you.

And when we grow up do you think we'll see
That I'm still like you
And you're still like me?
I might be pretty
You might grow tall
But we don't have to change at all.
(via)

More "Free to Be You and Me" on YouTube:

::: Parents are People (Harry Belafonte): LISTEN/WATCH
::: Sisters and Brothers (song starts at 2.29): LISTEN/WATCH
::: William Wants a Doll: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Princess Atalantis: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Ladies First: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Boy Meets Girl: LISTEN/WATCH
::: It's Alright to Cry: LISTEN/WATCH

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image via

Harry Belafonte & the March on Washington: "That was America at its greatest."

The atmosphere that day in Washington was a mixture of hope and excitement. I think that everyone who attended the march felt empowered. There was a tremendous sense that we were pursuing a cause that was honourable, but, equally, that what we wanted was achievable. We were there as Americans and all of America was represented that day. It felt like we were witnessing a new moment, a renaissance of hope and activism. It was truly inspiring.



But, you know, it was not just the day, but the weeks and months and days leading up to it. As a civil rights activist, I had many conversations with Robert Kennedy, who was worried (...). We assured Robert Kennedy that it would be focused, well marshalled and non-violent and he wanted to believe us, but our detractors had his ear also. The city was surrounded by police and state troopers on the ready. So, we also had something to prove. And prove it we did.



It was glorious. We had high expectations and they were fulfilled. There was a young speaker I remember who preceded Dr King, a forceful young man called John Lewis from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and he was very outspoken about America's leaders even though he toned his rhetoric down after some of the civil rights people asked him to. That was a good speech. There were several rousing speeches before Dr King took the platform, as well as music and singing. It was an energising day.

Of course, the "I Have a Dream" speech was the event of the day. It has since been recognised as one of the great speeches of American history. I was not surprised by the content, because we had worked with him on it and we were in tune with the message, but what we were not prepared for was the delivery, the oratory. The imagery flowed, the language flowed. It was Shakespearean.

There is one thing I have to say about the speech, though, and I say it when I am called on to speak about Dr King to students all over America. I tell them: you need to study the whole speech because the text before the "I Have a Dream" part is a deeper reflection of what he was striving for. The details and the passion of the struggle are spelt out in the preceding passages.

The spirit that Dr King called forth was a profoundly American spirit, as was his struggle. What made me feel so good about that struggle was that it was ordinary people who were becoming empowered through his words, to realise their own possibilities.

Much of my political outlook was already in place when I encountered Dr King. I was well on my way and utterly committed to the civil rights struggle. I came to him with expectations and he affirmed them. Like many black American men of my generation, I had lived through two defining moments: I had been born into the Great Depression and I had fought for America against the Nazis in the second world war.

To then come back to an America where black people were denied their basic rights as citizens was to come back to a so-called democracy where political evils still taunted us. Then we looked around us and saw that England, Belgium, France, the great colonisers, were hanging on to their colonies even after the second world war. I believe to this day that it was that experience that underpinned the beginnings of the civil rights struggle in America. We had to take on the challenge, fight these injustices, these evils. (...)



That is why I sometimes say in my speeches that we have to stop this deification of Dr King and look at him as an ordinary man who empowered himself and others through politics and activism. Look at the details of his struggle: the strategy, the speeches, the mind, the intellect. Then you can begin to understand how an ordinary man is empowered to find himself. Who was Martin Luther King before he was Dr Martin Luther King? He came from somewhere and that somewhere was the same hardship and struggle to survive of many of his followers. He had the same fears and hopes and anxieties and aspirations. To deify him is, in a way, to reduce his achievement and to remove the radicalism from it. I would counsel against that and argue for a real reappraisal of his achievements, which were of the highest order.

One of my abiding memories of the day was something I will probably never experience again: such a tide of people leaving with such a sense of satisfaction and hope. That was America at its greatest. And I have no doubt we can get back there again by moving forward. We need leaders, though, spokesmen and women we can have faith in, not this compromised form of leadership that is cynical and speaks out for the power of the few at the cost of the many. (...)

But there is also a new passion for struggle on the horizon. (...) In my experience, when people feel they have had enough, activism grows and, from activism, comes change.

I can feel it in the air when I speak at colleges all over America, which I am being asked to do now more than ever. Young people are hungry for change. They carry an optimism and a great sense of hope but it has not yet been articulated. But, it will be because it must be. That, too, is Dr King's legacy. He made history, but history also made him.

Harry Belafonte, 2013



Related postings:

::: Martin Luther King Day: LINK
::: I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze: LINK
::: Sammy Davis, Jr. Gets a Letter from Martin Luther King: LINK
::: I have a dream: LINK
::: "And we shall overcome." From Selma to Montgomery: LINK

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literally via/complete text (The Guardian, 11 August 2013)
photographs via and via and via and via

"And We Shall Overcome." From Selma to Montgomery.

The "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." 

15th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on 3 February 1870



"The Fifteenth Amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one. It prevents the States, or the United States, however, from giving preference, in this particular, to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Before its adoption, this could be done. It was as much within the power of a State to exclude citizens of the United States from voting on account of race, &c., as it was on account of age, property, or education. Now it is not. If citizens of one race having certain qualifications are permitted by law to vote, those of another having the same qualifications must be. Previous to this amendment, there was no constitutional guaranty against this discrimination: now there is. It follows that the amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right is exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The Court, 1876



The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870 (with a clear limitation: the Court had held that the judiciary did not have the power to force states to register minorities to vote, via). Black US-Americans and other minorities, however, had to fight almost another 100 years for their right to vote which was officially gained with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (via). Voting started with the registration process which again started with an application form that was four pages long. Registering in the courthouse, which was open only every other Monday for a few hours, meant taking a day off. Taking a day off meant asking the employer for permission. And if white employers gave black employees permission to take a day off to register they were driven out of business (via). In 1963, for instance, 32 black school teachers applied to register as voters. All of them were immediately fired by the all-white school board (via). The few hours the registration office was open, the board arrived late and took long lunches (via).




In addition, tactics such as physical intimidation, i.e., violence organised by the Ku Klux Klan, poll taxes, the grandfather's clause and literacy tests kept voting "a white thing". The tax had to be paid in order to vote while the grandfather's clause allowed adult men "whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax" (via). In other words, those whose ancestors had been allowed to vote before the Civil War had the right to vote - practically no black person. In fact, the grandfather's clause was a very effective tool to prevent poor and illiterate black US-Americans from voting without denying poor and illiterate white US-Americans the right to vote (via). Many counties had a "voucher system" which meant that black persons needed a registered voter who vouched under oath that they met the qualifications. White persons did not dare vouch for black persons and black persons did not have the possibility (via). At the time protesters were marching through Lowndes County during the Selma to Montgomery Movement in March 1965, 81% of the county's population was black, 19% was white. Not a single black person was registered to vote at that time (via).



Between August 1964 and July 1965 there were about 100 different so-called literacy tests in order to make sure that applicants could not study for them (via). Last year, Harvard students took the 1964 Louisiana Literacy Test (30 questions in 10 minutes) black voters had to pass before being allowed to vote. Not one of the "bright Ivy League minds" passed the test. According to their tutor Miller, "Louisiana’s literacy test was designed to be failed. Just like all the other literacy tests issued in the South at the time, this test was not about testing literacy at all. It was a legitimate sounding, but devious measure that the State of Louisiana used to disenfranchise people that had the wrong skin tone or belonged to the wrong social class."  The test was designed in a manner that every question could be interpreted as wrong (via).

- Here is the Louisiana Literacy Test: link
- Here is the test used by voting rights pioneer Rufus A. Lewis: link



On 7 March 1965, the day that made history as "Bloody Sunday", about 600 protesters gathered in the little town of Selma, Alabama, to march 87 km / 54 miles to the state capital in Montgomery. The County Sheriff had ordered all white males in Dallas County over the age of 21 to report to the courthouse to be deputised. The protest "went according to the plan until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge (...) where they found a wall of state troopers and county posse waiting for them on the other side" (via). Edmund Pettus Bridge has, by the way, become a symbol, "a landmark that holds so much significance for the civil rights movement" that civil rights activists believe it is time to change the name of the bridge into "Freedom Bridge" or "Bridge to Hope" and therefore started a petition which is, by the way, not far away from its 150.000 signature goal. The reason why is that Edmund Pettus was a Grand Dragon of Alabama's Ku Klux Klan (via).
Update (March 2017): 189.490 persons signed the petition on change.org, the bridge has kept its name (via).


Photograph: Singing "We Shall Overcome" in front of Brown Chapel in Selma (James H. Barker/Steven Kasher Gallery, via)

On 9 March, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a second march to Edmund Pettus Bridge, the place where the first one had ended with police and troopers brutality (dogs, fire hoses, bullwhips, tear gas, batons, and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire) (via). This second march is also referred to as "Turnaround Tuesday" because the marchers turned back after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
After a nationwide call for supporters, on 21 March, the third and final march started with about 8000 people assembling at Brown Chapel (via). Protesters marched through chilling rain and camped overnight. On 24 March, a "Stars for Freedom" rally was held, with Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joan Baez, Tony Bennett, Nina Simone, Frankie Laine, Odetta and Pete Seeger, Johnny Mathis, Anthony Perkins, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Shelley Winters, Ruby Dee, Nipsey Russell, George Kirby, and Peter, Paul and Mary (via and via). Among the ones who had completed the entire walk and helped other volunteers to erect and break down the tents for camping were Pernell Elvin Roberts (Bonanza) and Gary Merrill (All About Eve) (via). The march ended five days later at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery with a petition for Governor Wallace. More than 25.000 people were there (via).




"Let us march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena. Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs will be transformed into the calculated deeds of orderly citizens. Let us march until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence."
Martin Luther King



There had been a great many attempts to gain voting rights before the Selma Voting Rights Movement. Many lost their lives, many were arrested.
The Selma to Montgomery Marches led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. on 6 August. This time, to really enforce the voting rights of minorities.

"Even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause, too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome." President Lyndon Baines Johnson, speech in front of Congress

::: Selma to Montgomery March, film (17 minutes) by Stefan Sharff: WATCH



- photographs: first two ones by James Karales (1930-2002) via and via and Joan Baez with line of state police by Stephen Somerstein via and "Folk singers performing in front of 25,000 Selma to Montgomery civil rights marchers in front of the Alabama State House. Harry Belafonte, Leon Bibb, Joan Baez and Oscar Brand. On March 25, 1965 in Montgomery, Alabama. (descr. via)" via and "The actor and civil rights ativist Harry Belafonte smiles broadly while marching with National Urban League director Whitney Young (1921 - 1971) and NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins (1901 - 1981), from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965. The actress Ina Balin is partly visible over Young's right shoulder (descr. via)" via and "Artist sketching Selma to Montgomery civil rights marchers at City of St. Jude school grounds. On March 25, 1965 in Montgomery, Alabama." via and "Martin Luther King with others via and via and Martin Luther King from the rear speaking in front of 25.000 civil rights marchers at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery march in front of Alabama state capital building on 25 March 1965 in Montgomery" by Stephen Somerstein via and "Demonstrators, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stream over an Alabama River bridge at the city limits of Selma, Ala., on March 10, 1965, during a voter rights march (descr. via)" via and "Marchers cross the Alabama River on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 21, 1965" via and Bloody Sunday via and of police line by Flip Schulke via; all copyrights by their respective owners
- Alabama Voter Literacy Test, Parts B and C: link