Refuse to Stand Silently by: An Oral History of Grass Roots Social Activism in America, 1921-64

by Eliot Wigginton

All the men and women who tell their stories in Refuse to Stand Silently By played critical roles in some of the first--and most decisive--struggles for social justice America has experienced in this century. Yet none of them were elected or otherwise sanctioned to act on behalf of others. These are people who faced injustice and refused to stand silently by and allow it to continue. In this engrossing oral history they give not only firsthand reminiscences of seminal events in the American labor and civil rights movements, but forthright narratives of their lives, their family and educational backgrounds, their early influences, and the unlikely roads that led them to activism. Through their words, a history of grass roots social activism in America emerges. Rosa Parks tells of the days preceding the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, precipitated by her refusal to give up her seat on a city bus. At that time she was a member of the Montgomery NAACP, struggling to help blacks register to vote in the face of poll taxes, racist registration committees, and the Ku Klux Klan at the polls. Her memories detail the period that would, in many ways, fuel blacks' outrage in the South during the decades that followed. Pullman-car porter Edgar Daniel Nixon remembers how a boyhood exposure to integration in a Northern train-station cafeteria set him on a course that would one day compel him to defy a Southern white passenger who demanded, "Go get that bag, boy!"--and to dedicate his life to the causes of labor and civil rights. Julian Bond recollects his experiences as a Northern-born middle-class black who organized student protestors in the strife-ridden South of the early 1960s. And Studs Terkel recalls his beginnings as a writer and social observer, and reflects on what we can learn from both the labor and the civil rights movements. These remarkable individuals are among the many here who recount risking arrest--and often their lives--in order to battle the societ

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Oral History

430 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 1992

About the author

Eliot Wigginton (born Brooks Eliot Wigginton) is an American oral historian, folklorist, writer and former educator. He was most widely known for developing the Foxfire Project, a writing project that led to a magazine and the series of best-selling Foxfire books, twelve volumes in all. These were based on articles by high school students from Rabun County, Georgia. In 1986 he was named "Georgia Teacher of the Year" and in 1989 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Wigginton was born in West Virginia on November 9, 1942. His mother, Lucy Freelove Smith Wiggington, died eleven days later of "pneunomia due to acute pulmary edema," according to her death certificate. His maternal grandmother, Margaret Pollard Smith, was an associate professor of English at Vassar College and his father was a famous landscape architect, also named Brooks Eliot Wiggington. His family called him Eliot. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English from Cornell University and a second Master's from Johns Hopkins University. In 1966, he began teaching English in the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, located in the Appalachian Mountains of northeastern Georgia.
Wigginton began a writing project based on his students' collecting oral histories from local residents and writing them up. They published the histories and articles in a small magazine format beginning in 1967. Topics included all manner of folklife practices and customs associated with farming and the rural life of southern Appalachia, as well as the folklore and oral history of local residents. The magazine began to reach a national audience and became quite popular.
The first anthology of collected Foxfire articles was published in book form in 1972, and achieved best-seller status. Over the years, the schools published eleven other volumes. (The project transferred to the local public school in 1977.)
In addition, special collections were published, including The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery, Foxfire: 25 Years, A Foxfire Christmas, and The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Toys and Games. Several collections of recorded music from the local area were released.

Reviews

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Refuse to Stand Silently By is an oral history of social activists connected with the Highlander Center in Tennessee in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Most interesting if you like oral histories about labor, civil rights and community organizing in the South in the first half of the 20th century.

Since 1932, Highlander has gathered workers, grassroots leaders, community organizers, educators, and researchers to address the most pressing social, environmental and economic problems facing the people of the South. Highlander sponsors educational programs and research into community problems, as well as a residential Workshop Center for social change organizations and workers active in the South and internationally. Generations of activists have come to Highlander to learn, teach, and prepare to participate in struggles for justice.

Highlander's work is rooted in the belief that in a truly just and democratic society the policies shaping political and economic life must be informed by equal concern for and participation by all people. Guided by this belief, we help communities that suffer from unfair government policies and big-business practices as they voice their concerns and join with others to form movements for change.

Over the course of its history, Highlander has played important roles in many major political movements, including the Southern labor movements of the 1930s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s-60s, and the Appalachian people's movements of the 1970s-80s.
Source: http://www.highlandercenter.org/

The book begins with the stories of the childhoods of five activists as told in their own words: Septima Clark, Edgar Daniel Nixon, May Justus, Ralph Tefferteller, and Don West. It then follows the story of these and other social change activists through the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Others included in the oral history are Pete Seeger, Rosa Parks, Andrew Young, Studs Terkel and Julian Bond. Their stories are sometimes dramatic and inspiring.

If you are interested in labor union organizing in the south in the 1930s and 1940s, if you are interested in early civil rights organizing in the south, if you are interested in grassroots community organizing, you will find first person accounts in this book. Here you will find the personal stories of those who worked for social change in spite of threats of job loss and isolation. Refuse to Stand Silently By covers a collection of black and white people joined together by the Highlander Center who did what needed to be done to make a better world. Of course, if you were an organizer during that era “they’ll call every one of you a god damn red.” (Source: http://www.peteseeger.net/talkunion.htm )Red baiting (commie pinko) was an epidemic then that still has not been completely cured.

In an oral history, you hear from people directly about their life and experiences. You will hear from those who were barred from teaching in public schools because of membership in the NAACP. You will hear from one of the leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott who found himself excluded due to being outspoken. You will hear from black and white people who were discriminated against because of their direct actions to oppose segregation. You will hear from people who broke the law by eating and being housed in mixed race settings at the Highlander Center where legally enforced segregation was knowingly ignored.

Since the book covers a time span of over forty years, it is by necessity incomplete and sometimes cursory. The Highlander Center is the glue here. Many of the events are covered with personal touches, heart and courage. Oral history can also sometimes be self serving since negative self disclosures are not guaranteed. However, people do share about fears and uncertainties and disagreements.