The Children Quotes

“That made him a perfect match for Philip’s new brother-in-law, Jim Lawson. For if Curtis Murphy was weird, then Jim Lawson was even weirder, not only because he was already going to divinity school at the most unattainable of Nashville schools, Vanderbilt, but because he had simultaneously started holding classes on how to challenge segregation in Nashville.”
― David Halberstam, The Children

“It was [James] Bevel at his most original. Back when they had worked Jackson two years earlier, Bernard Layfayette, himself an accomplished recruiter, had been struck by how deftly Bevel had worked the young people, how skillful he had been at reaching something important inside them. He did not, Layfayette thought, speak down to them; instead he let them discover what they felt about things, what they believed in. There had been one memorable moment in Jackson when Bevel had cooled a minor riot; it had happened when some black teenagers had become enraged by an incident of white violence and had wanted to retaliate. Apparently some white hoodlums had assaulted a black girl, bound her to the hood of their car with wire, and had then driven through the black neighborhood, showing off their victim. Bevel had arrived just as the black teenagers were about to retaliate. They were going to go out, they had said, and kill them a white boy. Who? Bevel had asked, which white boy? The person who had committed this act? Were they going to kill anyone in particular? No. Did they have the names and addresses? he asked. No. Well, suppose the person they assaulted was innocent? Suppose it was a doctor driving to the black neighborhood to help a black person who was sick? "Suppose it's a white doctor visiting your own mama if she's sick?" he said. Was that going to help anyone? "I'm tired of that kind of courage," he had said, "courage in the dark. All the cowards in the world have courage in the dark. All those white hoodlums, all they have is courage in the dark. You're going to be just like them. Why don't you show your courage in the light of day? Why don't you take your courage- if you're that brave- and join me and fight segregation? Come and sit in with us. That takes courage, and we'll do it downtown in the middle of the day when all the cops are watching. Or does that take too much courage for you?" He had not only calmed them down and ended the idea of vengeance, but he had gotten five or six recruits that night. p441”
― David Halberstam, The Children

“In her [Gloria Johnson's] senior year, as she prepared to apply to medical school, she faced something of a financial crisis. She planned to apply to four medical schools, and at $75 a shot for an application fee, that was $300, a great deal of money for her. She was still wondering how she might be able to borrow the money when she received a letter from the dean of the college. The letter said that someone at Mount Holyoke who admired her wanted to make an anonymous gift of $500 to pay for her medical school applications. She was to accept the gift in the spirit in which it was given. She was not top know who gave it, and she never did- only that it had been given in the spirit of admiration and respect. She was deeply touched- it was, she thought, the most sensitive and practical gift imaginable. And it saved her life that spring, because she did not want to put any additional pressure on her mother for funds. p373”
― David Halberstam, The Children

“When Rodney heard about the workshops being held by Jim Lawson, he suggested that she come along with him, that this was what they had both come to Nashville for. She went along and was immediately impressed by Jim Lawson. She and Rodney agreed that they would never work together on the exact same team, for fear that if one of them was being hurt by a white assailant, the other might not be able to sustain the vow of nonviolence. p89”
― David Halberstam, The Children

“The problem with police work, he once told Ray Jenkins, was that by its nature it tended to attract a certain percentage of sadistic people, who enjoyed the job because it legitimized their natural meanness. So, he added, the first thing any good police chief had to do was set the limits for his”
― David Halberstam, The Children