Civil Rights Movement: 10 Questions to my Mom

This year is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Today my mom said 'oh yeah, I did some protesting.' I had no idea.

In 1963, my mom -Yvonne Boston- was a college student in Daytona Beach, Florida. She went to the historically Black college, Bethune Cookman. I wanted to record these details from 1963.

Name: Yvonne Boston Squire

Hometown: Columbia, South Carolina

Current Town: Miami Gardens, FL. 


Q: What did you do?

A: We held protests at Morrison Cafeteria when we were in college. Marching around with signs to get them desegregate the entire restaurant. Back then, Morrison had a big chain in Daytona and Miami. I never ate there before because it was too far from campus.


Q: Why didn't you tell me this before?

A: I don't know. Everyone was doing it back then. I was in college and I think the NAACP came to our campus and asked us students to be a part of the movement. We signed up. Our non-violence training was pretty simple. They just told us 'this isn't Malcolm X. We're not trying to punch people. Don't respond to their comments. Just walk and hold the signs.'


Q: Were you able to stay completely non-violent?

A: Sort of. We were marching back and forth in front of the cafeteria. There was this middle-aged White woman who kept breaking our line. And she would bump me. And then she would come back through and bump me again. So the third time I put my elbow out. (laughs) It was very subtle but I just nudged her and kept marching. It was little...just some people are bullies, you know that. And they just need a little encouragement...(laughs) to stop. She didn't come back through our line again.


Q: How many of you showed up?

A: 20-30 depending on the day. Bethune was a small college. A lot of people were on Malcolm X's side. They wanted violence. I really didn't know what I wanted. I just floated through. I remember coming back from protest and having to go to German class (laughs). "Machen sie das buch zu!"


Q. How long did you march?

A: A few hours each day. We marched maybe a few weeks or a month or so, don't quite remember. It was around November. And then Kennedy was killed.


Q: How were people back then?

A: Daytona isn't a place people were born. People come from other places. So we had catcalls from people in cars and on the sidewalks.


Q: What would they say?

A: Go home...and 'other things.'


Q: Did you march on the day when Kennedy was killed?

A: Yes. And a car drove by and someone yelled out, 'your president got killed.' Your president. As if they are from another country. 'How do you feel now, your president has been shot! Go home!'


Q: How did students react to Kennedy being assassinated?

A: People were shocked and sad. They were crying. It was unbelievable. Someone heard it on the radio and it spread around the campus. But we still got out there that day and the next.


Q: And what ended up happening?

A: They desegregated. Very soon after that. But I ate at Morrison's years later in Miami...after they had desegregated. The food was actually good.

NO PEACE, NO JUSTICE

The protest call is 'NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE' All around the world people chant this simple battle cry.

Give me justice! I demand justice! And if I do not get justice, I will not be peaceful. 

To barter justice for peace, implies that one must come before the other. That the victimized, abused and accursed will no longer be peaceful until they are given what is owed to them. The chant underlies a belief that justice is in the hands of those 'others' out there. These 'others' are more powerful and must be called to task with the threat of unrest.

Trayvon Martin is the latest in the line of tragedies in which we demand justice or there will not be peace.

Today while skimming through the headlines it suddenly struck me that it should be the other way around.

NO PEACE, NO JUSTICE

There will always be injustice as long as there's a lack of peace. But while the former calls for others to do something, the revised call demands my hand in creating peace. No justice, no peace is a battle cry shouted for cameras. No peace, no justice is a heart mantra to be repeated softly throughout a day when facing any conflict.

If I could remember that all the justice I seek comes out of peace, then it would be very hard to get angry. The goal shifts and I must find the peace. There is only one place to look for this peace.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King were peace activists. Their marches stirred the disharmony present in the system and brought it to the surface in all its ugliness. Once in the light, the disharmony could not continue in its hidden state. It had to change because Gandhi and King were coming from a God-centered consciousness. This is a state of being that is the pure non-duality of love. It doesn't demand, differentiate, or hint. It offers love and peace that extends out to all who are willing to accept it.

The difference between peace marches and 'no justice, no peace' movements couldn't be any clearer. Peace marches employ God-centered consciousness, which removes the systematic injustice. 'No justice, no peace' marches seek to fight anger with anger.

Last year's Occupy Wall Street movement was an example of a successful group awakening that could not organically sustain itself. The marchers were mostly peaceful, they had not specific demands, and they merely wished to highlight the issues. But OWS could not succeed in the long-run. There was no God consciousness. Bereft of love, all social movements turn to hatred and accusation. There has never been an exception in human history to this rule.

In Myanmar there was an election this week for the first time in decades. Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has carried the message of peace into the heart of a brutal dictatorship. When she was urged to raise up a rebel army, she sat and prayed. When the military junta put her under house arrest, she sat and prayed. When her followers demanded that things go quicker, faster, that justice appear at their beckon call she merely shrugged her shoulders. The timing of peace wasn't up to her. Her job was to just surrender to it and allow. Allow for peace. Create the space of love. They fought her, killed thousands, censored her voice, but they could not stop this God-centered consciousness. It flowed out effortlessly and shifted the axis of global debate. This love shined a light on the injustice that was so bright that countries with no immediate interests or dealings with Myanmar began speaking up on the people's behalf.

Justice and peace go hand-in-hand. One does not precede the other. They move in-sync with each other. It is my impatience that sees the error in other's hearts before I check the one in my own.

PEACE>>>JUSTICE<<<<PEACE