Ep. 1 – Race, Movements, and Moral Identity: A Conversation with Dr. Leonard Moore

[0:00:02 Peniel] This is Dr Peniel Joseph. I am the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, where I’m the barber Jordan chair and political values and ethics. And I am professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. And welcome to race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection of race, democracy, social justice, politics, culture, society and moral and ethical and political values. In our time, this is the first podcast for race and democracy, and we’re pleased to join with us. Ah, my friend Dr Leonard Moore, who’s the vice president and executive director of the Division for Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin and also the George Littlefield Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of History and a specialist on social movements, black power, black politics, intellectual, sultry social, cultural and political history. And for our first, um, podcast. This is October 31st. It’s Halloween 2018 and we are a week away, less than a week away from a really pivotal midterm election, perhaps the most important election that we’ve all faced in the last half century, and I really want to ask you, um, Leonard, about race and democracy and really morality. In our current political culture. There was a synagogue massacre, an attack that killed 11 members of a synagogue in Pittsburgh. There’s been other violence that it’s happened over the course of the last almost two years of this current presidential administration. And I want you to just talk about What do you think is going on in America? Are we unmoored from our values? What role is race playing in this transformation that’s occurred in our democracy?

[0:02:05 Leonard] Thanks, but no thanks for having me. And you know, brother, I’ve always appreciated your work in the classroom, your scholarship and and even at a deeper level, man. Just your engagement with students trying to get students into, Ah, you know, in to. You know, trying to get students active, trying to get students engaged, intellect, intellectual through some of your program. So thank you. And you’ve made quite an impact here at UT Austin your short time being here.

[0:02:26 Leonard] Let me say, in aftermath of the Pittsburgh shooting, I was sort of ah, taken back to my childhood. I’m from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. It is a very unique working class suburb on East Side of Cleveland inner Ring suburb. The suburb, when I grew up was about 40% African American, about 30 35% Orthodox Jewish and about 15 20% white. And if you came out of my parent’s front door within a two mile walk, Pernille there would be seven Jewish synagogues, a large Jewish community Jewish community center. We sneak into play basketball, a vibrant Jewish business district, um, three Jewish funeral homes. And so we were surrounded with this vibrant culture and Ironman. We’re probably only black kids in Cleveland who understood what Russia shine a young comport work because we got out for those holidays. But, you know, growing up in that neighborhood, I think one what happened in Pittsburgh is what Orthodox Jews in many ways have always feared, particularly the aftermath of the Holocaust. I remember a lot of my ah, school age friends. They go to public school money to Friday, but on the weekend, your neighbor go to Hebrew school, you know, take to learn about Jewish life, history and culture. So and when you talk about and really black folks just a relationship to historical relationship between African Americans and Jews, particularly in terms of housing patterns. How, since they faced housing discrimination, they understood what it was like and how particularly Northeast and the Midwest, a lot of Jewish neighborhoods became African American neighborhood.

[0:03:59 Leonard] So I think you know what kind of resonates with me. But I think what we saw in Pittsburgh, sadly I can say that I’m not shocked at all. You know what we saw in Charleston several years ago?

[0:04:09 Leonard] And even at a deeper level? You know what we saw in Kentucky just a couple days before the the Pittsburgh shooting? We know two African Americans were killed in a shopping center parking lot.

[0:04:18 Peniel] and when you say you’re not shocked at all, and you brought up the 2015 July massacre of nine black parishioners Ah ah, in in South Carolina, Um, and Reverend Clemente Pinckney and was one of those murdered. And President Obama gave a stirring eulogy, basically asking the nation who we who are we? He critiqued Confederate flags and the symbolism of Confederate flags. He traced that back toe racial slavery. I’m gonna ask you that question to who are we in the aftermath of not only just this Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, but we now have the president saying that he can repeal the 14th Amendment and we have a president who is saying that he can repeal the 14th Amendment, the notion of natural born citizenship. And we have other Republicans saying that we shouldn’t have some Haitians who get off the boat and have babies here be American born citizens. Who are we?

[0:05:16 Leonard] We’re a country who we’ve lost our moral compass. There’s a Scripture in the Old Testament. It talked about how you know, people stopped in many ways having reference to God, and they did what was right in their own eyes. And I think we as a country, we have no moral compass whatsoever. And this is sad because a country that professors ah, some faith, a lot of professes to be a Christian nation. And if you look at the script, there’s there’s there’s a chapter in Amos that talks about Let Justice roll down like rivers, and the Prophet Amos is talking about you know what happens when people start disregarding God and they have no regard for the poor whatsoever.

[0:05:53 Peniel] And Dr Martin Luther King Jr loved that quote. Often time talked about justice rolling down like a mighty mighty stream. You, um, and And when we think about the civil rights movement, especially the modern civil rights movement, that heroic period really called upon the nation tohave Ah, moral compass. And it linked that moral compass with racial justice. So I want us to talk about I want you to talk about this coming election this coming Tuesday, this presidency. We’re seeing these racial massacres, but we’re also seeing just a climate of racial hatred that I’ve truly have not seen in my lifetime. Um, what can we do about this? What? How can we have impact to try to transform what we’re seeing? Especially, we’re here on a college campus, one of most vibrant, ah campuses in the country. It’s a public university, but we’re also in the state of Texas very, very diverse state, but a state where there’s unequal power relations. There’s two million Latinos who are unregistered to vote. 750,000 African Americans were unregistered to vote. There’s all these allegations of voter suppression right here in the state of Texas. What can we do when we’re saying you’re saying we’re unmoored? How do we get that moral compass back?

[0:07:07 Leonard] I don’t know that. That is a great question. And, you know, you talk about racial hatred and the voter suppression, and they’re just some of the outright comments that politicians are making as the election approaches, you know, I mean, there were the situation in Florida where the governor said that the person running for governor against the Republican candidate for governor said, You know, he didn’t want a monkey. The race up, you know, going against his African American gubernatorial candidate, President Trump two days ago called them the black gubernatorial candidate in Florida said he was a thief, you know? So I mean this.

[0:07:40 Leonard] We haven’t seen this since the days of Ah James Eastland in Mississippi. Um, you know Wallace in Alabama? I mean, we’re really going back 50 or 60 years with some with some of the rhetoric I think is a very pivotal period for the black protest movement, because if you think Pernille from the march on Washington moving in 1954 44 up until the recent present, our protest has always been, has always been in many ways structured to get some kind of government interference, you know, to get some kind of government response. But what do we do in 2018 when the government response is not coming? And so I don’t know what we do with the black protest movement? I really like what this younger generation of black folks are doing. Black lives matter, and lot of people criticize them. But I think for people, our generation, you know, we don’t know what to do.

[0:08:33 Leonard] You know, if you can’t appeal to somebody’s morality and you can’t appeal to elected officials in the state and across the country. In many ways it seemed like we may be approaching the nay dear an African American life once again. You know that period after the post reconstruction period where Rayford Logan said it was the lowest point of African American life.

[0:08:53 Peniel] So some some ways you’re talking about hearts and minds and institutions and who do we appeal to? But in our contemporary context institutions, we think about the Department of Justice led by Jeff Sessions Exactly. We think about ah, Congress that, um, really doesn’t speak to the needs of racial and economic justice. We think about a president that really has other rise successfully blacks, Latinos, Jews, immigrants, Muslims, people who are non-able bodied. LGBTQT Um, we’re really we’re really left with nowhere else to turn but to really organize, to try to demonstrate, to try to gain political power, but also to try to spread consciousness.

[0:09:38 Peniel] Because I think one of the things that the black lives matter movement has done is try to spread this consciousness about racial justice. It’s made an argument that mass incarceration is a gateway to criminal toe to racial oppression and class oppression and gender oppression. But right now, when we think about this coming election due, democratic institutions work in the context of voter suppression, racism and violence. And, like you mentioned the nay dear, the post reconstruction era of redemption and white violence and white racial terror against African Americans and others. It seems like we’re echoing that right now.

[0:10:17 Leonard] That that’s where it seems like we’re at and I tell people that the voter suppression is not a joke, and I’ll give you one example. I live in Williamson County, Um, when Trump went against Clinton two years ago. My wife voted early and I woke up one morning and she said, Where you going? I said, I’m a go vote early She said, You got to check the website because the early voting location changes every single day. And I’m like, This is nonsense, you know? But literally, you know that the early voting it was available. But you have You really had to, you know, be strategic because it moved every single day.

[0:10:48 Leonard] And I think, what we see what’s going on in Georgia with that gubernatorial election, you know, you have the secretary of state who is in charge the election running as a Republican candidate versus an African American woman for governor of Georgia, right? And he is supervising the elections. And I think, as we talking out their allegations that 50 to 60,000 African American voters have been removed from the phone of foot perks and so the voter suppression Israel.

[0:11:13 Leonard] But let me say this, Peniel, we talk about the Nadiya, although it was the lowest point. That 25-30 year period was the year we did a ton of institution building in the black community. AW Fraternities and sororities civil of our large black African American church denominations were created. Ah, a ton of HBC use were created in that period, and you also begin to see these black business districts come to life in the in the Nadiya as well.

[0:11:40 Leonard] So it may be an opportunity for us to turn inward and what some young people believe. Peniel, that voting has been over utilized as a tool of liberation. And that’s what many young people say they don’t vote in. That may sound sacrilegious to some of us, but in their lifetime, they haven’t seen African American political power. They haven’t seen that in many ways leveraged to lead to black liberation.

[0:12:05 Peniel] The only thing about voting exactly in terms of what you’re saying young people in Ferguson boo Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in 2014 2015 and I think the reason they booed them and the reason why young people in Ferguson don’t vote Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael Brown was murdered and uprisings occurred in 2014 in 2015. The reason why those young black people are booing civil rights heroes is because that they my arguments that they don’t they don’t feel like their citizens.

[0:12:37 Peniel] And when we think about voting, voting is an extension of citizenship rights. But it’s not the end all be all of being a citizen. So being a citizen and Dr King, I argued for this when he was organizing the poor people’s Campaign in 1967 1968 Dr King said. Citizenship rights means a living wage. It meant healthcare. It meant a good environment. It meant food, justice and food security. Dr. King said it met a public school integration and residential integration, and he said it also met voting rights and civil rights. But he said, economic justice was part of citizenship. So when we think about young black people and we’re not talking about necessarily young black people from Harvard, Yale, Morehouse, yes, Spellman, we’re talking about the grassroots, the black quotidian, that big word we use quotidian of organic everyday people. A lot of them are not voting because one they don’t have access, but they don’t see the utility, and it really is, ah, political and moral shame that as a society we have millions of people who don’t see the utility in voting.

[0:13:43 Leonard] Oh, absolutely. And I think you know, we we are to blame for that. I think what they would say is that the black middle class that we get caught up on symbolic victories and I’ll give you an example in New Orleans. Um, you know, the mayor was very courageous. Previous mayors, very courageous and bringing out those those Confederate statues Mitch Landrieu land you. But if you talk to poor black folk in New Orleans, what they will tell you is that the statues air down. But I still don’t have a job. You know, if I get a job on the other side of town where the public transportation won’t take me, I still don’t have access to health care. You know, um, there are food deserts and inner city New Orleans.

[0:14:23 Leonard] And so I think you know, So I think the challenge for those of us man who want to be social activists, how do we, on some level, Peniel, put our ideology to the side. And how do we act in the best interests of the black poor? Not not as challenging, you know, but I’m aware of the privilege that I have absolutely got a house. I got a little money in the bank, got a retirement. My kids, you know, access to health care. But I think too often, man, we don’t put things in terms of what the working poor needs. That’s why when you had the disturbance and Baltimore and in Ferguson over police brutality, those activists were speaking to an issue that they confronted on a daily basis.

[0:15:02 Peniel] I’m gonna I’m gonna extend what you’re saying because I think you’re talking about citizenship. I’m working on a book on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr Now and I talk about Malcolm talking about the struggle for black dignity and king talking about the struggle for radical black citizenship in the convergence between those two. And when we think about Malcolm Malcolm confronted police brutality. He prevent he per confronted. Economic imm is oration in a in a in a disrespect and do dehumanization of black bodies right away before James Baldwin. It’s Malcolm doing that right and King talked about citizenship and citizenship being more than just being able to ride on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, citizenship encompassing access to ah whole plethora of institutions and a quality of life that African Americans weren’t used to. Maybe aspects of the black middle class were, but most black people weren’t used to. And I think that’s what we have to organize around now because I think voting rights are connected to Mass and Carson Corporation. They’re connected to public school education. They’re connected to residential segregation. They’re connected toe unemployment and the fact that even in this booming economy, African American unemployment is twice as high as white unemployment and black youth. Unemployment is a national catastrophe.

[0:16:18 Leonard] And Peniel. We are living in a city where, according to the mayor, the fastest growing economy of any metro nation metro metropolitan state in the country and also won the fastest growing cities of any measure about air in the country. I remember I was on a plane, Pernille and I heard a venture capitalist. I was overhearing, he said, that there is money growing on trees in Austin, Texas. But if you think about that, with all this wealth being generated in Austin, we are in a city with a declining African American population,

[0:16:48 Leonard] and if depending on what happened next week, we could have an entire city Council Austin City Council with not a single African American representative. And so the question is, I wonder, is the black community in Austin a microcosm of what you were talking about? Where nationally, the economy is booming. But to black folks, you know, we aren’t reaping that prosperity. And I wanted that’s happening right here in Austin, Texas, as well.

[0:17:14 Peniel] Yeah, I think absolutely it is. There’s hyper segregation here. Racial and economic segregation in Austin. This goes back to the city plan of the late 19 twenties that force black folks on to the East Side just to get plumbing just to get access. Um, places like Clarksville of wheat still went from 15% African American to less than 1%. UT Austin was not desegregated until 1950 we’re still facing the implications and more than just the legacy of that the evolution of racial segregation. So I think No, you’re you’re you’re You’re absolutely right. I think the City of Austin is a case study for unequal power relations and the convergence between race and democracy in both positive but also very negative ways, especially for for for African Americans. I want to go back to the election. What can we What can we expect in terms of this is a midterm election. 2018 is gonna be a presidential election in 2020. Um, in a lot of ways. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, aspects of the black community were blamed for the current president being elected. People said, Well, black women, they went. Their points went down 7% points. Black men both their voting totals went down, but a robust number, maybe 12% voted for the current president. Um, In that context, black people were blamed for not supporting Hillary Clinton. And at the same time, the Democratic Party was blamed for not supporting the working class, which was defined as white males from West Virginia who were coal miners Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania and in other places. So what? What’s gonna happen? Because black folks tend to be blamed when bad things happen and it sticks

[0:18:59 Leonard] I’ll say this by largest anecdotally, you can’t motivate me to go vote because I don’t like somebody. You have to give me a candidate that I like, and I believe it. And I’ll say this about Trump. And of course I don’t agree with hardly any of its policies. But he says something. When he got elected in 2016 that I wish a lot of other politician politicians would pick up on,

[0:19:21 Leonard] And he said: “If you don’t like me, vote me out four years later.” And what I see, Peniel, and I know I’m treading on thin water. When you look at the Congressional Black Caucus, we have some people who have been in office more than 30 years, and I really believe when you look across the national spectrum with one exception, I would argue of Atlanta where they have you have had some younger African American mayors, Keisha Bottoms is mayor now,

[0:19:46 Leonard] we have missed out. I believe, Peniel on two generations of black leadership. I like John Lewis, but its 2018 and he’s still talking about Selma. You know what I mean? Um, and some of these folks have been in office 10 12 13 14 terms. And so how do we get a new generation of young African Americans in the political process? Because I think that’s what it’s going to take for this young generation ago vote. They need to see people who look like them people who think like them, as opposed to them going to vote for someone looks like their grandfather or the grandmother.

[0:20:22 Peniel] And a case in point is the support for everybody from Alexandria Ocasio in In in New York. So I on a Presley in Boston. Stacey Abrams, candidate for governor of Georgia Andrew Gillum.

[0:20:36 Leonard] So there’s excitement, you know? I mean, I think Gillam his hope, his whole platform strategy was birth daughters time at Florida A and M, you know. So if you got you got that based 10,000 students, there is significant alumni base, and that’s what is going to take, Peniel, Young people. We aren’t going to go vote because we don’t like Trump. It has to be got to give me a reason to get out of bed and go vote

[0:20:56 Peniel] And one thing we have to admit. They eight years of President Obama, we didn’t necessarily see a strong black agenda advocated for a number of different reasons, right? So one level Obama was being attacked by white supremacists by racist by the tea partiers by the Birthers. For another level, assed people like Michael, Eric Dyson and other people have pointed out Obama at times Um uh, stereotyped young black men. He talked to Morehouse graduates and told them about being deadbeat dads and Morehouse men know nothing about being deadbeat dads. So there wasn’t necessarily a black agenda. Obama thought that by passing health care and other universal programs that a rising tide would lift all ships. But when When black people have been, um, um, exploited and placed in ghettos, you need targeted programs like the only way you’re gonna help out poor black people on the east side of Austin is not giving everybody in the city of Austin $1000. You there in such a deep economic whole right that you would have to have something targeted to get them a level playing field

[0:22:05 Leonard] and, you know, and I forgot the author. But brother Columbia wrote a book called The Price of the Ticket. You know, Frederick so typically you get an African American in the position and all kind of black protest stops we like, you know? No, we can’t protest, you know, give the brother sometime good assistance. Sometimes you know what she’s dealing with and what happens. You know, we don’t get our issues met. And when that person leaves office, there is no legacy of African American protestors has been put on hold for 4, 6 to 8 years. And I think that’s what we saw with the Obama administration,

[0:22:36 Peniel] except for the black lives matter movement of those young people from the grassroots. And that was because of the murder of Trayvon Martin. The murder of Sandra Bland. All these different people who were killed under law enforcement or from domestic racial terrorists really sparked the black lives matter, movement.

[0:22:55 Peniel] And we’ve seen a lot of social movements. We’ve seen me to march for our lives. We’ve seen Dacca and the immigration rights protesters. Um, we’ve seen the women’s march. So what can we What can we expect me? This ferment of social movements? How can they actually impact both the political process, but also all these institutions?

[0:23:16 Leonard] That’s a good question. But what concerns about all the social movements that there seems to be a that we all seem to be under the same umbrella. You know, we don’t like Trump, so let’s come together. But what worries me is we resistance, right? We are not dealing with the Intersectionality, and I’ll give you an example. There was, Ah, some women on campus at a, uh ah, rally for sexual assault survivors and on the fliers they were handing out about, you know, being sexual assault survivor. They had to black power fist behind it. And some African American women came to the protest and they were upset.

[0:23:50 Leonard] They said you didn’t invite us to the protest you didn’t invite. You didn’t care to ask about ask us about our experiences. But now you’re appropriating the black power symbol for, you know, for the survivors of it. So the intersectionality piece I’m worried about because I believe that when Trump is no longer the source of the anger, then I think you will start to see some of these fissures in in these movements where people begin toe say, Well, you’re not really speaking to my issue. Hope that makes sense.

[0:24:17 Peniel] Yeah, I think it does make a lot of Santa. I think we’re we’re wrapping up, and I wanna I wanna ask you a final question. OK, Now it’s 2018. There’s the 50th anniversary of 1968 the year that Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated is also the year Richard Nixon was elected. Uh, some people think that democracy, racial, justice, economic, justice, social justice progresses in a linear way. As historians, we know that’s not true. Where we gonna be at, um, 50 years from now when we think about 2018 as a pivot point? Just like 1968 was a pivot point in terms of racial justice, American democracy, the intersection between race and democracy. Where do you think we’re gonna be at?

[0:25:01 Leonard] Peniel, I don’t know. I think many people in America are suffering from racial battle fatigue. When I hear well meaning white folks talk about Leonard, you know how much longer should should affirmative action go on When Leonard, I think if if people would just comply with the police, they wouldn’t get shot. And I believe these are well meaning folks, but I don’t know what the catalyst for this is, but I think you know this.

[0:25:27 Leonard] You know this. You know this experiment. Post civil rights has been going on about 45 to 50 years. I think what I would like to see I would like to see maybe social movements formed around class, and I’ve always been amazed coming from a blue collar city. I’ve always been amazed. While the black steelworker didn’t hook up with white still worker at the Ford plant, you know, Why do why does the white still worker identify with CEO and the board of directors? And I think the one thing we haven’t tried in this country in terms of bring about economic justice has been sort of a working class, the working class movement. But what we see what Donald Trump? I mean, he is running a brilliant campaign. Don’t agree with it. Just if you just if you just look at it. Abstract Lee you know he is speaking to his base. His base is responding.

[0:26:17 Leonard] And, like he said when he got elected president, he said, What quote? I could shoot somebody in Times Square and people would still support me, So I really it’ll be really interesting to see what happens man over the next five decades.

[0:26:30 Peniel] Well, I think that’s a somber, sobering note. I think it’s been great having this conversation with you, and I want you to come back. Thank you for being our inaugural guest on race and democracy and, you know, just thank you for your time.

[0:26:46 Leonard] Well, thank you so much.

[0:26:48 Peniel] Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P E N I E L J O S E P H and our website csrd.lbj.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you