Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Activists: Civil rights requires courage

The movement to improve minority rights must be reinvigorated if it is to create positive change in the United States, said NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and activist Minnijean Brown-Trickey on Wednesday to a crowd of 125 Northwestern students and community members.

The discussion at the Owen L. Coon Forum was sponsored by For Members Only and Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Inc. It addressed the civil rights movement’s current and historic issues.

“Latino children in California are more segregated today than the black children in Alabama,” Bond said. “That’s some measure of how far we have to go. We’re going backwards because of an absence of presidential leadership, an absence of senatorial leadership.”

To enact social change, Bond said, students need to take a more active role in the political process. He cited the 527-vote margin by which President Bush won Florida’s Electoral College votes in the 2000 election.

“I know at this university there are more than 527 students who are not registered to vote,” he said. “These people are going to do things to you. If you want them to do things for you, you’d better have a hand in selecting them.”

Brown-Trickey said students who feel they cannot make a difference must not be afraid to take a chance. She referred to her 1957 experience in helping integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., with eight other students.

“We didn’t know at the time we were doing this that it was going to change the world,” she said.

Threats of physical violence only served to strengthen Brown-Trickey’s resolve.

“I figured if they were doing all that crazy stuff, then there was something I needed in that school,” she said. “And I was going to keep coming.”

Bond, who has served as chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since 1998, said today’s student activists cannot wait for older generations to transfer the movement’s leadership to them.

“Nobody passed me a torch,” he said. “I had to grab the torch and pry people’s fingers away from me. You want this torch, come and get it.”

Today’s civil rights movement can only be successful through communication among different cultural groups, Brown-Trickey said.

“Discussion is probably one of the most powerful forms of social change,” she said. “It works and it has worked. You get to see that there are commonalities.”

Weinberg freshman Emerald Morrow said she enjoyed the discussion but not the turnout.

“I’m disappointed in the apathy of the community to not come out and support an issue like this,” she said. “The chairman of the NAACP is here, and there are 100 people here.”

David Ely, a Weinberg junior and the ASG senator for FMO, said he thought the discussion was successful despite audience size.

“Any opportunity to have dialogues of this nature is a privilege,” he said. “Above all else, to be able to invite fixtures of the civil rights struggle of this caliber, that’s a wonderful opportunity.”

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Activists: Civil rights requires courage