Religion and Social Protest Movements 2020056611, 9781138090255, 9781138090262, 9781315102542

Citation preview

RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROTEST MOVEMENTS

What role has religion played in social protest movements? This important book examines how activists have used religious resources such as liturgy, prayer, song and vestments with a focus on the following global case studies: • • • • • •

The mid-twentieth century US civil rights movement. The late twentieth century antiabortion movement in the United States of America. The early twenty-first century water protectors’ movement at Standing Rock, North Dakota. Indian independence led by Mohandas Gandhi in the early 1930s. The Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s. The South African anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

Prayer as a sacred act is usually associated with piety and pacifism; however, it can be argued that those who pray in public while protesting are more likely to encounter violence. Drawing on journalistic accounts, participant reflections, and secondary literature, Religion and Social Protest Movements offers both historical and theoretical perspectives on the persistent correlation of the use of public prayer with an increase in conflict and violence. This book is an important read for students and researchers in history and religious studies, and those in related fields such as sociology, African-American studies, and Native American studies. Tobin Miller Shearer is a history professor and the director of the AfricanAmerican Studies Program at University of Montana, USA.

“Religion and Social Protest Movements feels timely for American audiences with the increasing visibility of the Movement for Black Lives and the controversy over the kneeling posture associated with it. Tobin Miller Shearer helps us understand certain phases in the long international history of religious protests, including a detailed study of Christian civil rights activism through the 1970s. His work reminds us of the geographically widespread nature of the historic Black freedom struggle, and it provides analytical tools to help us recognize further developments in that struggle. Shearer’s attention to the cultural traits sometimes shared by religious protestors and their critics also drives home the importance of reconsidering artificial dichotomies during moments of crisis.” Kimberly Hill, University of Texas at Dallas, USA

RELIGION AND SOCIAL PROTEST MOVEMENTS

Tobin Miller Shearer

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Tobin Miller Shearer The right of Tobin Miller Shearer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shearer, Tobin Miller, 1965- author. Title: Religion and social protest movements / Tobin Miller Shearer. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020056611 Subjects: LCSH: Social movements‐‐Religious aspects. | Religion and social problems. Classification: LCC BL65.S64 S54 2021 | DDC 322.4‐‐dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056611 ISBN: 978-1-138-09025-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-09026-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10254-2 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by MPS Limited, Dehradun

CONTENTS

List of figures Acknowledgments Introduction

vi viii 1

1

Faithful fasting: the Indian independence movement

10

2

Invoking violence: the civil rights movement

35

3

Sacred surety: divine mandate and violence in the antiabortion movement

69

The Pope and the Black Madonna: ritual, word, and movement in the Polish Solidarity movement

95

4

5

6

Imagining the impossible: the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s and 1990s

121

Prayers permeated: water protectors and the #NoDAPL movement

142

Conclusion: a model for analyzing religious resources in social movements

165

Index

175

LIST OF FIGURES

0.1 Civil rights demonstrators pray in front of the Albany, Georgia, courthouse in August of 1962 1.1 Mahatma Gandhi surrounded by supporters during the Rajkot fast in Gujrat, India, March 1939 2.1 Nighttime crowd prays on Forrest County courthouse steps in response to the murder and funeral of civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, January 1966, Hattiesburg, MS 2.2 A young woman kneels in prayer on the sidewalk outside a city traffic engineering building during civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, AL, on May 5, 1963 3.1 Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry kneels in prayer outside the Woman’s Health Care Services abortion clinic in Wichita, KS, with over 1,000 other protesters, on August 6, 1991 4.1 Pope John Paul II presides at a mass in Gdansk, Poland, 1987 4.2 In 1979, women near Kielce, Poland, accompany a copy of the Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa during its pilgrimage throughout the country 5.1 Members of the Temba Women’s Manyano Society gather to celebrate Mandela Day on July 18, 2017 6.1 In this Thursday, December 1, 2016 photo, Virginia Redstar of Colville, Wash., and a member of the Colville Native American tribe, allows smoke from burning sage wash over her during a ritual after reaching shore by canoe at the Oceti Sakowin camp on December 1, 2016. Redstar traveled from Montana with

2 26

57

59

78 104

114 134

List of Figures

fellow tribal members on canoe for ten days down the Missouri river to reach the camp 7.1 Protesters engage in a prayer on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in remembrance of George Floyd in May 2020

vii

156 166

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book is never just the work of an individual. It always enters an existing conversation, often one that has been ongoing for years if not decades, and it generates a new conversation with those engaging with the text for the first time. The endnotes in this book document the existing conversation. I am grateful for the many, many authors whose work has made this book possible. The citations that appear in this text not only document their work but serve as the best recognition I can think to offer. Thank you all. A new conversation began with the collective of readers who gave me feedback. They responded with alacrity and clear insight. I begin first by acknowledging the detailed and careful responses I received from my long-time friend, colleague, and fellow activist/academic Felipe Hinojosa and from Aaron Parrett, a former fellow Humanities Montana board member and all around Renaissance man. They were both instrumental in helping me jettison two early chapter drafts that just weren’t working. Likewise, my colleague, friend, and East Asian religious studies scholar Brad Clough offered essential feedback on my treatment of Gandhi. In addition, deep thanks to Reagan Colyer, Stacy Keogh George, Les Horning, Michael Nichols, and Nykole Lee Wilmore for their supportive and insightful feedback. I presented an earlier version of the chapter on the Civil Rights Movement at the American Academy of Religion’s annual conference where participants in the seminar offered comments, as did the anonymous reviewers of the AAR’s journal for a version of that chapter which was published in their pages. Thanks also to those who have supported me in this work with funding including Tom and Anne Boone, donors to the University of Montana’s History Department Faculty Development Fund, my colleague Richard Drake who manages that fund, Gillian Glaes and the donor behind UM’s Institute of Humanities Baldridge book subvention fund, my colleague Nat Levtow who

Acknowledgments

ix

directed the Institute when I received an early writing grant, and my History department chairs while I was writing this book – Robert Greene and Kyle Volk – who were unrelentingly supportive of the project. My colleagues and I continue to mourn Professor Greene’s untimely passing in late 2020. Finally, thanks once again to my partner of thirty-four years, Cheryl Miller Shearer, for just being awesome.

INTRODUCTION

“Prayer has forever been one means of struggling against the forces of evil.” [Caption from The Mennonite reprint in 1963] I have examined hundreds of photographs that document the use of religious resources in social change movements. One has stuck with me. The photo (Figure 0.1) has been tightly cropped to focus on three Black activists kneeling in prayer on the sidewalk. Two men have bowed so low that the camera catches only the tops of their heads. In between them, a woman’s face frozen in a moment of ecstasy or pleading or exclamation – her mouth wide open – focuses the viewer’s attention. One of her hands is blurry, caught mid-arc slicing the air. Yet another Black activist’s clasped hands abut the top of the frame.1 The camera has captured the embodied act of praying in public in a pious register. The photo nearly vibrates with devotion. Scholars who have written about activists like those featured in this photo have most often focused on the utility of religion. In examining those depicted, they might comment on the religious institutions that taught these young people how to pray, noting the logistical support that churches, mosques, temples, and synagogues have offered to social change movements. Others might explore the leadership abilities that activists like these gained from involvement in their faith communities. A few might even discuss the ways in which the religious beliefs held by these activists motivated them to take to the streets and sustained them once they were there.2 We owe a debt to scholars like these for helping us understand the rich complexities and contexts of a photo like this one. Yet, I am drawn to this photo – and to the stories I have chosen to write about in this book – because there is, I think, more to say about moments like these than what has been articulated thus far by other writers. First, the activists’ prayer in the

2 Introduction

Civil rights demonstrators pray in front of the Albany, Georgia, court­ house in August of 1962.

FIGURE 0.1

Source: Photo by Sam Caldwell of St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Used by permission.

midst of protest appears to be authentic. Whether they prayed differently while they knelt on the sidewalk than when they knelt in a pew cannot be assessed from this photo alone, but the intensity of expression captured in the photo speaks to an unreserved investment in the practice of prayer in public. By all appearances, they gave themselves completely to an act of prayer even as they did so in a setting where it was impossible to ignore that they had an audience. Any treatment of prayer as a kind of performance must be taken alongside the evidence that activists like these meant what they said while they prayed. That authenticity emerged from a specific historical setting. In this case, a photographer pointed a camera at the group during the 1962 Albany, Georgia, civil rights campaign. Movement organizers in that city regularly planned and sponsored prayer vigils to oppose the segregationist policies enforced by the police and backed by municipal leaders. Public prayer scenes proliferated that summer. Despite the efforts of police chief Laurie Pritchett to counter the protestors by

Introduction

3

analyzing and then undermining the movement’s nonviolent tactics, he found it far more difficult to disrupt the exercise of prayer in public. While he was not averse to verbally interrupting a spoken prayer uttered in the midst of such an event, trying to stop those who prayed from praying was another matter entirely. At the very least, he had to assess whether allowing the prayer vigil to move forward without interruption would prove less threatening to the status quo than shutting the prayer vigil down and, by doing so, providing the activists with evidence of the city’s disrespect for the free exercise of religion. So even though we cannot see outside the frame provided by the photo de­ velopers’ close cropping, we can and should approach the photo with the historical question of what else was taking place. This moment of high drama with all of its religious meaning and significance can only be understood when we examine it in light of the political, social, and cultural forces in which it is situated. This photo then provides an example of how I will examine the stories of activists who brought religious resources to bear on their social change efforts. First, I will assume that, unless I have concrete evidence otherwise, the activists’ displays of public piety were authentic. That is, they were not just put on for show. I am, in effect, less concerned about what was going on in the activists’ heads and hearts as they knelt to pray on the street than I am about what happened as a result of them praying. Secondly, I will situate those actions in the full his­ torical, social, and cultural context of the time in which they occurred. It makes a difference whether the photographer took the shot during the 1962 Albany, Georgia, campaign where such displays of piety were common or during the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, campaign where such displays rarely took place because the sheriff there, Bull Connor, had little patience with such religious performance and turned attack dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators with little warning. So, when public prayer did occur in Birmingham, it got a lot of attention.3 In Albany, the acts became to a degree both expected and commonplace. My commitment to treating activists’ religious rites as authentic and to placing them in context emerges from the underlying question that guides this work: What has happened when religious practices have been brought into public space to support social change movements? In asking this question, I am less concerned about overt statements of belief than I am about the visible, embodied practices of praying, fasting, singing, wearing vestments, and interacting with religious icons. Religious practitioners bring their religious resources to bear in hundreds of ways as they go about their daily lives. A robust body of scholarship has coalesced around this area of study under the broad heading of “lived religion.”4 Although I have been heavily influenced by this scholarship, my interest is less in informal religious practices than in the deliberate, public display of those practices in this midst of social change movements.

Of stories and theory In light of that central question, I then sought out historical sites that would allow me to explore what has happened when religious practitioners deliberately,

4 Introduction

intentionally, and publicly brought their religious resources into public space as part of change efforts. I looked for well-documented, sustained, and organized campaigns in which public acts of prayer, fasting, and religious devotion figured prominently. In addition I searched for sites that would demonstrate the breadth and consistency of religious practitioners having done so in a variety of religious traditions, time periods, and locations. This is the list on which I settled. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi fasted his way through India’s independence campaign. Midcentury civil rights activists like those featured in the photo that has stuck with me for so long regularly prayed while protesting. Latter twentieth century antiabortion activists did the same. During the Solidarity campaign in Poland in the 1980s, thousands gathered to listen to the Pope, celebrate mass, and gather before the Black Madonna, an ancient painting of the blessed Virgin Mary and the infant Christ. During the same time period, South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement featured church services that spilled out into the public, clergy in vestments, songs, and more prayer. And, finally, the Native American water protectors who sought to block the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017 prayed with drums and sacred smoke in nearly every event that they organized. That list thus features three US-based and three international movements. It encompasses Catholics, Protestant evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Hindus, Muslims, a few members of the Jewish community, and indigenous religious practitioners. To be certain, both the Jewish and Buddhist traditions get short shrift as do other eastern religions and a host of new religious movements, a deficit that I will address to a certain extent in the conclusion through the seven-step research process I introduce. As a historian of the twentieth century, I have fo­ cused on events in that millennia and beyond. Gandhi entered his first public fast in 1918. Law enforcement officials shut down the last of the water protectors’ camps in February of 2017. These are the chronological bookends of this project; they mark a span of ninety-nine years. The narratives represented in this breadth of geography, religious tradition, and chronology feature rich drama, memorable characters, graphic violence, and acts of courage, persistence, and embodied faith. They also provide an opportunity to explore a set of theoretical claims. To be certain, each of the six chapters privileges the story of activists using religion to seek societal change. Although I do introduce new terms and theories, I am also interested in telling stories that explore the full complexity of the ways in which those social change agents used prayer, vestments, song, fasting, iconography, and other religious symbols in specific times and places to pursue their goals. Yet, at the same time, those looking for new claims about the nature of religion and social protest in public space will not be disappointed. I offer insight into the recurring connection between crisis and the use of religious re­ sources in public protest as well as introduce the concept of ceremonial revolution as evidenced in the Solidarity struggle, the idea of sacred surety in my study of the antiabortion movement, and explore the broad outlines of the prophetic imagination and the threshold effect while discussing the anti-apartheid movement. In each instance, I

Introduction

5

aim to offer both historical narrative and theory. In so doing, I focus on the how. I am less concerned in the end with the why.5 This emphasis on theory and narrative in the study of social protest and re­ ligious resources leads in turn to the importance of the human body. Time and again, it was the embodiment of religion that attracted attention. The release of written statements certainly helped spell out theological positions and religious orientations for a given community’s insiders, but those position statements mattered little in the face of baton wielding police, irate elected officials, and angry mobs. Actors knelt on the pavement to pray, donned religious garb before marching, denied their bodies nourishment, caused their vocal chords to vibrate as they made music, and walked down city streets as they thumbed rosary beads. It mattered that Lech Walesa of Solidarity fame did not just sit at home and say Our Fathers by himself; he did so at the shipyard in person where hundreds joined with him in uttering the Lord’s Prayer. These kinds of acts I categorize as corporeal conduct. The phrase simply offers a label that draws our attention to the physical form in the midst of religiously rooted social protest. It reminds us to carefully consider the embodiment of re­ ligious practice. Although the unseen and ethereal also demand attention because religious practitioners have long cared about the ways in which the intangible and invisible aspects of the divine shape their actions, I focus on those times and places where flesh and bone showed up to protest in the name of religion. At the same time, I have set aside questions about possessive ecstasy in the midst of social change. There certainly are important examples to consider: the Lakotan Ghost Dance movement of 1890 and 1891, spirit possession during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, the prophecies and possessions of a Buddhist nun and her followers in Tibet in 1968 and 1969 during Chairman Mao’s cultural re­ volution, and many others.6 Likewise, the related phenomenon of enstacy, a state emerging from deep meditative practices in certain schools of yoga, is also left unexplored.7 It is not that these arenas hold no significance. Rather, the narratives I have chosen for this study represent the more widespread phenomenon – at least in the West – of what William James once deemed the “volitional” type of re­ ligious expression, those in which practitioners maintained conscious control in the midst of their practice.8 Although such distinctions between the volitional and ecstatic are themselves weighted with cultural bias, my choice to center on nonecstatic expressions allows for a more rigorous exploration of the motivations and rationale for deliberately choosing to bring religious resources to bear in the midst of public protest. The stories that I tell in this book to a large extent speak for themselves. They offer examples of how sometimes religious resources have furthered the ends sought by organizers. The Catholic parishioners who hosted the Black Madonna in defiance of Communist officials helped open a way for Polish Solidarity to eventually come into power. Yet, the stories also show where those religious resources got in the way. Religiously infused anti-abortion rhetoric alienated as many onlookers as it attracted them to the cause. The robustness of religious

6 Introduction

resources like public prayer, fasting, and use of iconography comes through clearly. There has been no one way in which social activism and the public expression of religion have interacted. The stories told here make that plain.

Claims and interventions Taken as a whole, the stories I tell lead to one central claim. It is simply this. Religious resources in general and prayer in particular have as frequently amplified crisis and invited conflict as they have brought about peace and pacification. This idea would seem on first glance to support rather than challenge common sense. To keep the peace, family members avoid matters of religion at holiday gatherings. Some of the most intractable sites of long-term conflict – the Crusades, the Israel/Palestine conflict, the second Sudanese Civil War – bear religious markers. Several of the movements examined in this book such as the anti-abortion campaign not only used religious resources but were at root struggles over religious beliefs. Few would suggest that religion is an easy topic to discuss or that it pacifies rather than provokes conflict. Yet the stories told in this book dig deeper than the surface association of religion with conflict simply because differing sides in a contestation hold con­ trasting beliefs. Rather, I am instead interested in examining what happens when specific religious resources like prayer or kneeling or singing religious songs are employed by protestors in the midst of their attempt to change the status quo. From this perspective, many of those practices would indeed seem to hold the promise of pacification. The Christian dictate to pray for one’s enemies is the very emblem of a nonviolent ethic. Singing songs would seem to invite unity rather than disrupt it. Kneeling down before an adversary evokes humility and submis­ sion rather than aggression. The stories relayed here, however, reveal a more complex dynamic in which prayers become tools of aggression, songs a battle cry, and kneeling a precursor to violence. Much more could be said about the particular relationship of religious resources to fostering crisis. At this juncture, it is enough to note that the pattern present in the Civil Rights Movement, one that establishes a strong correlation between public prayer and social crisis, was far from historically unique. As much as I have privileged historical specificity in this work and favored particularity over gen­ erality, I have been struck time and again over just how often a broad array of religious resources created crisis. Although the resolutions of those crises varied widely, the recurrent linkage between moments of social instability and activists’ use of religious resources cannot be ignored. The contribution I offer in highlighting the linkage between crisis and religious resources is joined by specific interventions into the fields of social movement theory, nation/state history, and religious studies. The first of these three is re­ latively uncomplicated. Social movement theory has long explored the mechan­ isms involved in the organizing and launching of social movements.9 Scholars working in this field have understudied, and subsequently undertheorized, the role of public prayer in the development of those social movements. As I will soon

Introduction

7

show, public prayer has served to build social cohesion within a broad variety of movements while simultaneously garnering the attention of onlookers who might not otherwise have given much notice to the activists’ interests. Social movement theorists need to invest much more attention into how prayer in particular and religious resources more broadly function to bring about social change.10 The historical literature of the modern nation/state in a global context is likewise robust and replete with examples of marginalized groups who have en­ gaged in protest to bring about change. Much of that literature has surfaced the tensions that emerged when national claims to justice, community, and democracy foundered on the shoals of racial, ethnic, and class oppression among many others.11 For all their depth of historical positioning and contextualization, scholars have generally failed to recognize the multiple ways in which public prayer emerged as a social protest mechanism in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries specifically in the setting of the religious nation-state. Activists did not employ it as a method of social protest in the same way during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’ abolitionist movement for example. It appears to have emerged in tandem with both the increasing union of religious affiliation and national identity – especially but not exclusively in the United States and Canada – and the intensified claims of egalitarian values held by nation-states in the West. I have already noted the need for religious studies scholars to pay more attention to religious resources embedded in protest movements. Yet scholars in this field need to consider more carefully the ways in which public prayer is a consistent function of the expression of religion in public arenas. Rather than a tangential or haphazard manifestation of publicly expressed religious values, it appears to be central to the very substance of religion – in whichever way it is defined – and suggests that religion inhabits the street as much as it does the sanctuary even in those settings that claim a disjuncture between the two.12

The woman in prayer again The longer I spent time with the photo of the young woman kneeling in prayer amid those who struggled alongside her, the more I wondered what happened after the photographer clicked the camera’s shutter. Did the police rush over and drag her off to a jail cell? How long did she engage in prayer? Did any onlooker bow their head with her? What sort of table conversations took place that night over dinner in response to this moment? Did anyone talk about it that evening in a local bar or a church bible study? Was that moment remembered, referenced, or recalled in any of the political debates over segregation in Albany? Or was it simply forgotten, captured only in the photo itself ? As of this writing, I haven’t yet found answers to those questions. I may some day. But for now, I am grateful for the stories and answers that I have documented. Together they deepen our knowledge of the times and places where the exercise of religion – that incredibly complex, ever changing, and unrelentingly powerful presence in the human story – mattered to the work of pursuing social change.

8 Introduction

Regardless of what one thinks about the particular goals of the social change movements examined here, the relevance of religion as an indelible human practice shines through. The devout demonstrators who took religion into the streets show us once again that not only does prayer, fasting, the wearing of vestments, the singing of songs, and the veneration of icons matter, but they matter because of the crises they so often have introduced not in spite of them.

Notes 1 “Fervidly praying and chanting, demonstrators kneel in front of the Albany courthouse. In their prayers, they repeatedly asked that the city commission hear their grievances. They were told that they could appear before any regular city commission meeting. However, the commission has not met since the time it was rumored that the Negroes might attend.” photo caption, p. 11, Photo by Sam Caldwell of the Pictures Staff, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sunday, August 5, 1962. 2 Sociologists have in particular developed a robust literature on the role of religion in social movements writ large. In 1996, Christian Smith edited a collection of essays by fellow sociologists – as well as a couple of political scientists and one anthropologist – who examined in depth what religion did when disrupting the status quo. This group of scholars articulated many important findings. Religion, they argued, explains movements’ goals, applies ethical pressure, inspires commitment, sets moral standards, motivates ac­ tion, sustains involvement, calls forth self-sacrifice, and offers legitimation. On a more practical level, they added that religious communities also identify trained and experi­ enced leaders, garner financial resources, amass participants, proffer communication channels, provide authority structures and deviance-monitoring mechanisms, and help bring about new movements through supporting new organizations. And, Smith and his colleagues also discussed religion as a source of collective identity, self-preservation, unification in the face of external threat, and bringing together people from diverse social levels. Other sociologists have noted religion’s role in developing social capital and re­ lational networks, joining diverse perspectives in common cause, and constructing in­ terpretive and motivational “frames” for social movements themselves. Further work on the power of religious symbols to complement secular icons has deepened analysis of the particular efficacy religion holds in social movements to motivate action and sustain oppositional culture. For more on these findings, see: Christian Smith, Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social-Movement Activism (New York: Routledge, 1996). 3 See, for example, “Birmingham: A Girl Prays,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, May 18, 1963. 4 For more on lived religion see, Robert A. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion,” in Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of Practice, ed. David D. Hall (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); David R. Swartz, “New Directions in North American Mennonite History,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 81, no. 1 (2007); Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950, Third Edition ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); Ansley L. Quiros, “God with Us,” University of North Carolina Press. I have also found helpful Paul Lichteman’s focus on the multiple ways in which religious practitioners signal their identities in the civic arena: Paul Lichterman, Elusive Togetherness: Church Groups Trying to Bridge America’s Divisions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 3. 5 In this narrative, actor-centered approach, I echo the work of Sharon Erickson Nepstad in her treatment of religious actors in the Central American solidarity movement of the 1980s. See: Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), viii, x, 7, 8.

Introduction

9

6 Each of these movements have been carefully studied elsewhere. See, for example: Joel W. Martin, “Before and Beyond the Sioux Ghost Dance: Native American Prophetic Movements and the Study of Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59, no. 4 (1991); Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Melvyn C. Goldstein, Ben Jiao, and Tanzen Lhundrup, On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet: The Nyemo Incident of 1969 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009). 7 Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), 77–84. 8 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, 1901-02 (New York: Random House, 1902), 206. 9 The work on social movement theory is robust. Here is a sample of authors who have used that work effectively even if not paying adequate attention to public prayer and other religious resources: Richard Ballard et al., “Introduction: From Anti-Apartheid to PostApartheid Social Movements,” in Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa, ed. Richard Ballard, Adam Habib, and Imraan Valodia (Scottsville, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006); Dallas A. Blanchard, The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Rise of the Religious Right: From Polite to Fiery Protest (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994); J. Stewart Burgess, “The Study of Modern Social Movements as a Means for Clarifying the Process of Social Action,” Social Forces 22, no. 3 (1944); Jean Daudelin and W. E. Hewitt, “Approaches to Studying Churches and Politics in Latin America: A Review and Critical Assessment,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes 21, no. 42 (1996); Carol Ann Drogus and Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino, Activist Faith: Grassroots Women in Democratic Brazil and Chile (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005); Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, “Editors’ Introduction,” in The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts, ed. Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003); Ziad W. Munson, The Making of Pro-Life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); T. V. Reed, The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005); Thomas Robbins, “Milton Yinger and the Study of Social Movements,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 17, no. 3 (1978). 10 I am indebted here to the anonymous reader who prompted me to better articulate these three interventions and provided a framework, language, and approach for doing so. 11 The exploration of the tensions between egalitarian claims and oppressive social con­ ditions is especially evident in the scholarship on the long Black freedom struggle. See, for instance: Zoë Burkholder, Color in the Classroom: How American Schools Taught Race, 1900–1954 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Charles Euchner, Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010); William P. Jones, The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2013); Gary May, Bending toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy (New York: Basic Books, 2013); Clay Risen, The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2014); Rebecca de Schweinitz, If We Could Change the World: Young People and America’s Long Struggle for Racial Equality (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009); Clarence Taylor, Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City (New York: New York University Press, 2019). 12 For additional interventions into public prayer and religious studies – especially around notions of crisis and performative prayer – see: Tobin Miller Shearer, “Invoking Crisis: Performative Christian Prayer and the Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 83, no. 2 (2015): 490–512.

1 FAITHFUL FASTING: THE INDIAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT

In the course of activism, Gandhi engaged in seventeen public fasts. Very often, he declared that he would keep on fasting – until death if necessary – until a demand he had set was met. Of the many public-facing religious elements found in India’s campaign for self-rule, practices that also include the saying of prayers and the taking of vows, it is fasting that I find so fascinating. Gandhi fasted again and again – and evoked a massive response nearly every time – managing in the process to shape and channel a nation’s struggle for independence. In short, Gandhi bent an entire nation to his will. And he used religion to do it. This chapter will follow the arc of Gandhi’s life and history of protest to explore the use of religious resource in the Indian independence struggle. Although the story of India’s independence movement is much larger and more complex than the narrative of one man’s life, Gandhi provides a focused means of following the religious thread in the independence saga. Gandhi’s life did not define or determine swaraj – that is, self-rule – for India, but his story did correspond to the primary events that shaped it. And the religious frame he crafted through his frequent use of fasting in the end defined his death as well as the subsequent memorialization of the life he had lived.

India’s religious context Hinduism’s dominance in India amplified Gandhi’s seamless approach to religious practice. One commentator observed that Hinduism in India “is a way of life which meshes with the mythological prehistory, the history, the economy, the geography, and the ethnography of India.” As a result, given Hinduism’s widespread practice, “religion is the sum total of the national experience.”1 The practice of religion, and especially of Hinduism, was for Gandhi and his con­ temporaries a complete way of being, from first breath to death a unifying whole.

The Indian independence movement

11

Two more elements of religious life in India need brief discussion: the caste system and fasting. Traditional Hinduism promoted a system of social hierarchy consisting of five divisions: Brahmans – priests; Kshatriya – warriors; Vaishya – traders and farmers; Shudra – artisans, the largest group, consisting of sixty percent of the population; and the Dalits, technically outside the caste system itself, who dealt with meat, the dead, and refuse. At the top, the Brahmans defined the very notion of purity while the Dalits – formerly referred to as the untouchables – carried the stigma of being defiled and polluted.2 Sub-groups within the four main castes, known as jati, further defined one’s position in society and numbered more than 3,000 distinct levels. Seldom did a member of a given caste shift or change their position regardless of hard work, education, or wealth.3 Gandhi was born into the third-ranking caste, the Vaishya, and would focus a significant portion of his activism on treatment of the Dalit caste, whom he renamed the Harijans or “children of God.”4 Fasting also figures prominently in the narrative of India’s struggle for in­ dependence. Gandhi’s seventeen public fasts make that evident.5 In addition, participants in many nonviolence campaigns committed themselves to fasting as a means of spiritual preparation for the demands that awaited them.6 The cere­ monies that often marked the end of one of Gandhi’s fasts honored multiple re­ ligious traditions. In particular, he found the biblical example of Christ’s fasts to hold much promise for ethical transformation.7 But it was Hinduism that provided a particularly rich context for what those fasts meant and how the public received them. Hindus often fast to purify themselves. A religious pursuit of this kind has little political application other than demonstrating the character of the one who fasts. The practice of dharna, however, has direct political import. Dharna refers specifically to the practice of sitting quietly at the door of a debtor and refraining from eating until the debt is paid. In addition to the social pressure applied by the public nature of the fast, the debtor risks losing merit in subsequent reincarnations if the one who is fasting should die. Dharna also could be used to influence deities by demonstrating self-sacrifice and the focusing of the will.8 The fasts that figured so prominently in the pursuit of swaraj drew heavily on the tradition of dharna to effect political change.

Gandhi’s religious formation Religion infused Gandhi’s childhood. Born on October 2, 1869, Gandhi wit­ nessed his mother’s devotional practices from a young age. Putlibai refrained from drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and eating any kind of meat and would fast regularly as part of her religious observances.9 A daily attendant at the local Vaishnava temple where she would engage in worshipping Vishnu, the preserver, one of Hinduism’s supreme deities, Putlibai nonetheless did not provide any formal or regular religious instruction to her children. A precocious child, the young Gandhi did not find the form of devotion practiced by his mother, with all its pageantry and formality, satisfying.10 He desired more.

12

The Indian independence movement

The land of his birth certainly had much more in the way of religion to offer him. Hinduism alone presented a pantheon of gods and goddesses, multiple worship practices, and distinct theological traditions.11 Although Hindus were – and remain – dominant in India, accounting for more than eighty percent of the population, other religious groups flourished. Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all call India the country of their birth, and Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and the Bahá’i count numerous followers.12 Historically, those religious groups have co-existed with relatively little overt violence.13 It is not by accident that Gandhi would go on to promote a religious universalism accepting of truth in all faith traditions. He had plenty of exposure to many different religious communities as a youth and young adult. Before settling into his identity as a Hindu, Gandhi considered several other spiritual paths. At the age of thirteen in 1883, Gandhi entered into an arranged child marriage with fourteen-year old Kasturbai Makhanji, a union that would foster much spiritual turmoil for Gandhi over his eager sexual relations with his partner and lead in part to his eventual vow of celibacy. Five years after his marriage, Gandhi travelled to England to study law. While there, and then be­ ginning in 1893 in South Africa where he worked as a barrister, Gandhi searched for his spiritual home. He studied the Parsi faith with its Zoroastrian roots that had influenced his mother’s Hindu practice. Theosophy, a synthesis of science, religion, and philosophy that emerged in the 1870s, also attracted Gandhi.14 But Christianity, by his own admission, influenced him most significantly in his journey back to Hinduism. While in South Africa he studied the Old Testament, which he found boring; focused on a New Testament passage known as the Sermon on the Mount, which he found compelling; and attended an evangelical revival, which he found unconvincing.15 The writings of Leo Tolstoy, in parti­ cular The Kingdom of God is Within You, also proved influential as Gandhi de­ veloped his insight into the ability of social institutions and political organizations to undermine the Truth.16 Despite these interactions, as well as efforts of a group of proselytizing Quakers and members of the South Africa General Mission to convert him along with a brief affiliation with the Esoteric Christian Union, he ultimately concluded “that to be a good Hindu also meant I would be a good Christian.”17 Later in life, he wrote positively about his interactions with Christians, describing his debt “to them for the religious quest that they awakened in me.”18 By 1896, his path as a Hindu had been made clear.19 His religious identity came to rest on three fundamental convictions: God’s ultimate reality, life’s unadulterated unity, and love’s fundamental necessity. Gandhi returned to the topic of God’s existence numerous times, finding all the proof he needed in the order of the universe, the presence of light in the darkness, and divine leading – which he referred to as the “still small voice” – to take action in pursuit of truth.20 As his life progressed, he referred to his reliance on God in ever more concrete terms. Mere weeks before his death, he wrote of God, “I dance as He pulls the strings. I am in His hands and so I am experiencing ineffable peace.”21 Building from his bedrock belief in God, Gandhi saw a profound unity

The Indian independence movement

13

throughout creation held together by divine presence. He quoted from the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita, to describe that unity: “At the heart of this phe­ nomenal world,/within all its changing forms,/dwells the unchanging Lord.”22 And it was love, especially as expressed through moral courage and a commitment to truth, that bore his belief into the world. The expression of these three foundational values hinged on dharma, the moral duty to enact religious commitments. In Gandhi’s view, the realization of dharma required a total commitment to incorporating one’s beliefs into all aspects of life: prayer, public sanitation, clothing, food.23 That commitment came before any other concern, including pursuit of personal salvation.24 To do so required moral courage to overcome an irresolute will, which he referred to as akrasia from Aristotle’s use of the Greek term.25 And the primary means through which Gandhi fostered the moral courage to live out dharma was through the taking and keeping of vows. He expected those who participated in his nonviolent campaigns to not only keep the vows that they had made but to see them through even if they resulted in suffering.26 Through vows, even those acts of self-sacrifice that would otherwise be impossible become possible despite the persistence of fickle and fainthearted human will.27 Gandhi took vows himself and asked that others do so based on his hope in and belief that human perfection could be achieved. Hindu teaching on the cycle of death and rebirth, and through that cycle the chance to improve and become ever more faultless, joined with his commitment to self-reflection and atoning for one’s errors as the means of arriving at a perfect state.28 The Bhagavad-Gita provided further instruction on the path toward perfection with samabhava or equability and aparigraha or nonpossession offering particular potent guidance for Gandhi’s journey. From samabhava, he learned to strive for a state in which he would remain unflustered by either pleasure or pain, at peace in both defeat and victory, and constant in the face of failure or success. Aparigraha led him to unencumber himself of any possession that curtailed spiritual growth.29 Ultimately, the Gita formed his attitude of detachment from life itself.30 These core beliefs resulted in a seamless unity of political and religious commitments. As he wrote in 1924, “[F]or me there are no politics devoid of religion. They subserve religion. Politics bereft of religion are a death-trap be­ cause they kill the soul.”31 Because of his belief in the totality of one’s com­ mitment to dharma, religion perforce had to permeate political commitments. Separation of the private and public as well as the sacred and secular meant little to Gandhi.32 Harkening back to the teachings of one of his mentors, the political independence leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Gandhi maintained that “the dream of every Indian … should be … to spiritualize the political life of the country, and the political institutions of the country.”33 Even as politics and religion interpenetrated throughout India as a nation, the two realms united in the efforts led by Gandhi.

14

The Indian independence movement

South African religious and political roots The first concrete expression of the unity of politics and religion in Gandhi’s life came not within the confines of India but rather in South Africa. Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian mercantile company in their suit against a competitor. Having successfully resolved the suit through mediation, Gandhi stayed in South Africa to practice law. With the exception of two short sojourns back to India, one in 1896 and another in 1901, as well as brief sojourns to England during the following eight years, Gandhi would go on to stay in South Africa through 1914, a twenty-one year residency. During that time he became involved in and eventually helped lead a movement to end injustices against Indians living there. Most centrally, during his time in South Africa Gandhi formulated, tested, and realized the methods that would prove so central in his campaign for Indian in­ dependence. Having been awakened to the ill-treatment of Indians in South Africa in May of 1893 when he refused to leave the first-class compartment of a train bound for Pretoria after a White passenger objected to his presence, Gandhi began to develop the principles that would coalesce under the term satyagraha.34 A combination of the Sanskrit words for “truth” and “holding on to,” satyagraha offered Gandhi a way to avoid the confusion introduced by the term passive re­ sistance.35 He introduced the term in 1906 as he led the initial stages of the campaign for Indian human rights in South Africa, a struggle that significantly did not focus on or include attention to the rights of Black South Africans.36 It took seven more years until the satyagraha strategy achieved full expression. In 1913, Gandhi organized 2,000 striking Indian marchers in a march from the province of Natal to the neighboring province of the Transvaal in direct defiance of restrictions on Indian travel. In addition to the travel restrictions, the “Great March” drew attention to an annual tax placed on Indian immigrants, the de­ claration of all Hindu marriages as invalid, and registration requirements placed on all Indians in the Transvaal. In the course of the nearly two-week, thirty-six mile march, South African officials jailed and released Gandhi three times before his final incarceration in the Volksrust prison. Yet, the march attracted the kind of international attention Gandhi had invited and pressures built on the fledgling South African government – then only four years old – until Colonial Secretary General Jan Smuts negotiated an end to further demonstrations. In return, the South African parliament repealed the annual tax on Indians, validated their marriages, and removed travel restrictions.37 The religious commitments at the root of satyagraha shaped the 1913 Great March and led to its success. First, the marchers demonstrated the conviction that their South African oppressors could not control their souls. The laws regarding marriage and travel may have exerted power over their bodies, but those reg­ ulations did not dictate their religious essence.38 Likewise, those who participated in the march recognized that the discipline of nonviolence could lead to suffering up to and including martyrdom, as some did in the course of the satyagraha

The Indian independence movement

15

campaign. The willingness to bear those sacrifices encompassed, in Gandhi’s view, a religious commitment.39 The very nature of the struggle itself – a “righteous struggle … between truth and falsehood” as one biographer has noted – en­ capsulated religious striving because of its pursuit of truth.40 Finally, Gandhi’s belief in the unity of the ends and means, his assurance that there could be no disjuncture between the goals one sought and the methods one used to achieve them, blended politics and religion. To refuse to cooperate with South Africa’s unjust laws through the principles of satyagraha was to seek truth in action, and any act of seeking truth was a religious act. For Gandhi and those who followed his lead, the two could not be separated.41

Violence and nonviolence in political campaigns The religio-political unity born out in the South African campaigns remained consistent as Gandhi developed his satyagraha philosophy in the context of his birth nation. Following the successful passage of the 1914 Indian Relief Act, Gandhi suspended his nonviolent campaign in South Africa and prepared to return home. He arrived back in India in 1915. Received as a hero for the success of his South African campaign, Gandhi prepared to enter the independence struggle there. In the forty campaigns he led and helped organize between 1917 and 1947, his religiously based satyagraha philosophy matured and expanded.42 The vows, fasts, and prayers brought to bear during India’s independence struggle made satyagraha’s religious character visible. Using religious vows as their model, satyagrahis pledged themselves to refrain from certain acts – Gandhi’s vow of sexual abstinence in the bounds of marriage being the most well-known example – and to commit certain others – such as participating in a march or demonstration. As satyagrahis prepared for action, they also fasted for atonement, penitence, and spiritual reflection. Likewise, activists sought to purify their motives and empty their egos as they readied themselves for nonviolence cam­ paigns; prayers figured prominently in that preparatory process.43 Gandhi himself first fasted for a public cause in the course of the 1918 Ahmedabad labor strike. Textile mill workers in Ahmedabad, the largest urban center in the state of Gujarat, had demanded cost of living wage increases of fifty percent to deal with inflation resulting from World War I. Gandhi agreed to assist in the initial arbitration attempts with the mill owners and then stayed to support the worker’s, strike for a revised cost of living increase of thirty-five percent. As the strike wore on, Gandhi declared that he would “not touch any food” until the strikers won.44 This first of his seventeen fast declarations motivated the strikers and helped bring the owners to the negotiating table where they eventually agreed to binding arbitration.45 The final decision awarded a thirty-five percent increase in wages to the mill workers.46 Not all of Gandhi’s initial attempts to implement satyagraha principles ended so positively. The noncooperation movement of 1919 showed that a satyagraha campaign marked by a lack of nonviolent discipline could escalate out of control.

16

The Indian independence movement

As World War I came to an end, a series of terrorist acts directed at British oc­ cupiers spread across India. In response the British-controlled legislative body – the Imperial Legislative Council – passed two acts empowering the government to arrest at will anyone suspected of terrorism, keep them in prison without trial for up to two years, and then hold secret tribunals where the accused had no right to legal counsel. If eventually released from prison, those accused had to pay a se­ curity and could not participate in any religious, political, or educational events or activities. The Rowlatt Acts, named after British judge Sir Sidney Rowlatt who led the committee that drafted the anti-sedition legislation, infuriated Indians from across the country, uniting them in their opposition to British rule. Some called the Acts “the parents of the nonviolent movement.”47 Gandhi joined other leaders in condemning the Acts and called for a wide-scale satyagraha campaign, the first such nation-wide campaign he organized. From the start, Gandhi closely managed the campaign’s details. Satyagrahis prayed and fasted in public, organized work stoppages, shuttered their shops, and participated in nonviolent demonstrations.48 To organize this activity, he drafted the satyagraha pledge that called participants to maintain a discipline of nonviolence, pacified violent mobs in person, and controlled the pace of the overall campaign.49 As Gandhi ramped up the protests, satyagrahis in the thousands boycotted the leg­ islature, governmental offices, courts, and schools and risked arrest in so doing.50 The first, national-scale satyagraha campaign seemed poised to succeed as more and more Indians became involved. The campaign, however, quickly became marked by violence. Rioting fol­ lowed demonstrations in major cities like Bombay and Delhi, prompting Gandhi to order an end to the satyagraha campaign.51 Holding him responsible for the violence, British officials arrested Gandhi. In light of these events, on April 10 further violence erupted in Amritsar, a city in the state of Punjab, where crowds killed several Europeans and destroyed buildings. General Reginald Dyer, the British army officer in charge of the troops posted in Amritsar, responded by retaliating against the civilian population. Dyer’s most extreme response took the form of a mass shooting on April 13, 1919, in what would become known as the Amritsar Massacre or the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. That morning, the day of the Hindu and Sikh Baisakhi festival, Dyer and other city officials announced a series of restrictions including a pass system, a curfew, and a ban on all public gatherings and processions of more than three people. Few paid attention or heard about the orders until much later. By mid-afternoon between 20,000 and 25,000 Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, a large, walled garden, surrounded by houses and accessible only by a series of narrow entrances, many of which had locked gates on the day of the festival. Having assembled to listen to speakers and pray, the festivalgoers had no warning before Dyer blocked the main gate with armored vehicles and ordered his troops to fire into the densest sections of the crowd.52 Although official accounting of the wounded varies, the Indian National Congress later reported that more than 1,000 died, and another 500 suffered injuries from the

The Indian independence movement

17

more than 1,650 rounds shot by the British soldiers.53 The religious conduct of the festivalgoers had offered them no protection. Seeking additional reprisals on the Amritsar populace, Dyer employed his own religious resources. He declared that a 200-yard section of a street where a British woman by the name of Marcella Sherwood had been assaulted was now sacred and could only be accessed by those crawling on their bellies, an order designed to require the same sort of obeisance as traditionally reserved for acts of worship before Hindu deities.54 The order effectively cut off all traffic to the street, thereby trapping inhabitants in their homes without access to provisions or medical care. The dictate remained in effect for six days. These reprisals further cemented opposition to British rule among many sectors of the Indian population and helped bring Gandhi into political power. By December of 1921, Gandhi assumed leadership of the Indian National Congress, the political party with widespread support across India for its pursuit of Indian independence. He instituted a series of reforms that increased women’s partici­ pation, called for boycotting British merchandise, and enforced discipline throughout the party. It was at this point that Gandhi also called for the daily practice of spinning khadi as way to further encourage discipline in the movement. He used his authority to launch a major nonviolence campaign that called Indians to resign from British positions, reject British titles, boycott British governmental agencies from courts to schools, and ultimately refuse to pay taxes. The campaign demanded complete adherence to satyagraha principles. At first, Gandhi seemed to be successful in maintaining nonviolent discipline. Acknowledging that many of those who participated in the noncooperation campaign did not have love as their primary motivation but rather a desire for justice or even hate, Gandhi nonetheless remained pragmatic. It mattered only that participants conformed to nonviolence as a principle; whether they did so out of religious belief, tactical assessment, or baser interest was not important.55 By January 1922, thousands had joined the movement in each of India’s provinces, some through less risky actions such as wearing khadi and others by more perilous measures such as direct civil disobedience. By mid-1922, four separate areas re­ ported more than 1,000 convictions resulting from noncooperation initiatives. Most significantly, the movement brought together a wide swath of Indians ranging from lawyers to farmers and from teachers to tea-garden workers.56 A mass movement showed signs of emerging. Yet these signs of success blossomed alongside an eroding commitment to nonviolence. Rather than a disciplined army of satyagrahis, an unruly mass of protestors pushed back against British rule. Gandhi no longer could claim com­ plete control of his troops, a reality brought home by the events of February 5, 1922, in Chauri Chaura, a town located in the Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces. Following the imprisonment of several local movement leaders after a protest against high meat prices, organizers called for a demonstration against the police. More than 2,000 responded. Again, the police arrested a leader as the group picketed a liquor store. The protestors then became angered after the police

18

The Indian independence movement

fired a warning and started throwing stones. As protestors approached the police station, officers shot into the crowd, immediately killing three and wounding others.57 In response, protestors set the police building on fire, forcing the officers into the street where demonstrators slaughtered them or threw them back into the burning building. Twenty-two officers died at the mob’s hands, some of them shouting “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai” – “Glory to Mahatma Gandhi” – as they did so.58 In a demonstration of both the power of his command and his commitment to satyagraha, Gandhi cancelled the noncooperation campaign once news of the massacre reached him. Participants in the movement as well as other leaders in the Indian National Congress expressed consternation and distress over Gandhi’s decision, many of them feeling that, while regrettable, this one instance of vio­ lence should not shut down the entire campaign especially given the widespread support and participation levels. Gandhi, however, publicly stated his failure to maintain nonviolent discipline in the movement ranks and asserted that future campaigns would have to wait until the masses received proper instruction in nonviolence.59 Regardless of the fidelity of his religious commitment to satya­ graha, Gandhi’s allies had begun to question whether his tactics offered the most effective political payoff.60

Gandhi’s 1924 Hindu–Muslim fast Two years later internal dissension between Hindus and Muslims had become so severe that Gandhi decided he had to intervene. The precipitating event this time did not stem from British action but from Indian attacking Indian. In September of 1924, violence broke out in Kohat, a city located at that time in the North-West Frontier Province of pre-partition India, now modern-day Pakistan. More than 150 people died in the religious violence, the vast majority of them Sikhs and Hindus at the hands of Muslims, and nearly the entire population of more than 3,000 Hindus left the city in fear of their lives.61 Again, Gandhi led with a religious resource. And, once again, he returned to the tactic that would serve him well throughout the Indian independence struggle.62 He fasted. The process Gandhi went through to arrive at his decision reveals the close association between his political and religious commitments. Having entered into discussions with religious leaders, penned articles, and pled for tolerance on all sides – all to no avail – Gandhi turned inward. He spent several days in prayer and reflection, wracked with uncertainty and anguish, until he experienced an abrupt spiritual insight. Gandhi felt compelled to start a three-week fast, living on water alone, in which he would pay penance for his failure to bring about unity and offer a prayer for concord. His fast, he explained, would motivate leaders from all of India’s religious communities “to meet and end this quarrel which is a disgrace to religion and to humanity. It seems as if God has been dethroned. Let us reinstate Him in our hearts.”63 From his perspective, the fast would release him from the psychological torment he had been feeling and bring him peace. The knowledge

The Indian independence movement

19

of the divine origin of his decision to fast – one that he said had arisen after “deep prayer and clearest possible indication” – would finally end his fretting and worry.64 Within this political and religious synthesis, Gandhi shouldered responsibility for his nation’s religious fracturing but found it difficult to explain his sense of guilt and responsibility to his friends and allies. In the early stages of the twentyone–day fast, one begun on September 18 at the Delhi home of prominent Muslim leader Muhammad Ali, Gandhi attempted to explain his reasoning for fasting in penance for actions that seemed to have no connection to his personal behavior. He explained that he unleashed an energy throughout the nation that, unchecked by his own imperfect application of nonviolent discipline, had resulted in the internecine conflict. Yet even Ali, his host during the fast, did not agree with Gandhi’s method and used the Quran to correct him by noting that God forgave the breaking of oaths made in haste.65 Despite this opposition, Gandhi’s continued fast drew widespread concern and prompted a religious unity conference that brought religious leaders together from across India for interreligious dialogue. Organized by Motilal Nehru, a lawyer, activist, and two-time leader of the Indian National Congress, the gathering on September 26 attracted nearly 300 participants including Hindu leaders like Swami Shraddhanand and Pandit Malaviya, Muslim luminaries such as Shaukat Ali and H. A. Khan, and Christian dignitaries like Anglican bishop Foss Wescott. Their deliberations resulted in a resolution, written in large part by Gandhi, that addressed tendentious issues such as the killing of cows, playing of music at mosques, and settling of disputes through arbitration. In additional action, conference goers appealed to Gandhi to end his fast and join their gathering. Gandhi replied that he would see the fast through to the end because he had taken a vow to do so before God. His religious motivation remained steadfast. He informed Nehru, however, that he did not intend to die. Rather, he insisted that he could serve his country best by continuing with the fast.66 Nearing completion on the twentieth day, Gandhi made his prayer public. He dictated a prayer-cum-pronouncement of the spiritual insight gained from the fast. Noting that he would soon leave the peaceful state of fasting to enter the strifefilled arena of public life, he declared his dependence on God. “I can do nothing. God can do everything,” he stated, “O! God, make me Thy instrument and use as Thou wilt.”67 He then observed that both Napoleon Bonaparte and Kaiser Wilhelm II found themselves in reduced circumstances due to the will of God, enjoining others to “contemplate such examples and be humble.”68 For Gandhi, the fast had afforded him “grace, privilege and peace.”69 Gandhi saw the fast through, ending with a religiously grounded flourish that may not have had the impact he desired. After a full three weeks of fasting, Gandhi greeted large crowds who had gathered to view the completion of his act of personal and political devotion. Having begun to assemble before dawn to pray, the supporters kept vigil until Gandhi completed his morning devotions and gathered the crowd around his bed. Ever attentive to the power of symbols,

20

The Indian independence movement

Gandhi orchestrated a fast-breaking ritual designed to demonstrate the inter­ religious unity he sought. First a Muslim read from the Quran, then a Christian sang the hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross,” and finally a Hindu read from the Upanishads and another Hindu closed with a Vaishnava hymn. Gandhi’s words – directed to his Islamic acquaintances but barely audible due to his weak state – completed the ceremony. He then broke his fast with orange juice. The emotional power of the ritual had little long-lasting effect. By the end of 1924, Gandhi admitted that he could no longer speak with any authority on behalf of the Muslim community in India.70

The Salt March Despite a lack of unity across religious lines, efforts to achieve Indian in­ dependence continued apace. At the end of 1929, National Indian Congress President Jawaharlal Nehru raised the Indian flag and invited others to do so across the country on January 26, 1930. At the height of his power and popularity, Gandhi conceived and organized a new, highly symbolic civil disobedience campaign to undercut Britain’s control of even the most basic of commodities. He proposed a march to the sea where he would, upon arrival, illegally harvest salt. Local residents of the coastal town of Dandi had long harvested the plentiful sea-salt until British law deemed the practice illegal in order to maintain a monopoly on the commodity. Although the industry only brought in 25 million pounds of the 800 million pounds sterling Britain garnered from India on an annual basis, British officials had used force to prohibit the villagers from engaging in any form of salt harvest.71 Gandhi aimed to bolster support for the in­ dependence campaign by marching to Dandi from his Sabarmati Ashram 242 miles away. He planned on marching from March 12 through April 6, 1930, ending with a symbolic act of civil disobedience in which Gandhi would harvest salt from the Dandi seashore. In what became known as the Salt March, organizers drew on religious re­ sources for multiple purposes. Foremost, the discipline of satyagraha proved largely successful due to its spiritual packaging. Gandhi began by recruiting seventy-nine satyagrahis to join him on the march. He chose them from his own ashram where the members had been trained in nonviolence techniques both in terms of their own discipline and in instilling that discipline in the crowds that grew in size up to 100,000. Each new satyagraha registered on the march took the same vow to maintain nonviolence as well as the three spiritual disciplines that Gandhi pro­ moted: daily prayer, keeping a dairy, and spinning cotton thread for cloth.72 By the time the march concluded, British officials had arrested more than 60,000 Indians for their acts of civil disobedience.73 Prayer and related devotional practices figured prominently in the march. On the morning of March 12 the satyagrahis gathered to sing Hindu prayers, the march having garnered little support in the Muslim community. Gandhi declared, “We are marching in the name of God.”74 During the march, the ultimately

The Indian independence movement

21

two-mile long column of demonstrators would sing the Hindu bhajan “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram” to maintain their resolve. This spiritual song, popularized by Gandhi, offered praise and devotion to Lord Rama, the god Vishnu’s seventh avatar who is considered the Supreme Being in some Hindu traditions. The cadre of core marchers spent the night of April 5, the night before the march’s con­ clusion, in prayer.75 On the morning of April 6 when Gandhi proclaimed that he was “shaking the foundations of the British empire” by picking up a muddy lump of salt, boiling it in seawater, and making illegal salt, Gandhi first offered a prayer.76 When the British came to arrest him in the aftermath of this act of civil disobedience, members of his ashram sang a Hindu hymn, and he bowed his head in prayer before being led by a magistrate to the truck that would take him to prison.77 The prominence of prayer in the midst of the Salt March reflected a longer tradition of prayer in Gandhi’s life and that of his followers. At Gandhi’s ashram, each day began with congregational prayers from 4:15 to 4:45 a.m. and concluded with prayer in the evening from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m.78 During the various walking tours he took to promote Indian independence, Gandhi held prayer meetings where he would both pray with those who gathered and offer discourses on themes ranging from the just distribution of land to sanitation and water quality.79 When describing interfaith dialogue, he framed his comments around prayer saying, “My constant prayer therefore is for a Christian or a Mussalman to be a better Christian and a better Mahomedan.”80 Prayer infused Gandhi’s spiritual walk and his daily practice. No wonder then that he spoke of prayer’s reality. Rather than superstition, Gandhi maintained that prayer – whether as an act of adoration or supplication – was “more real than the act of eating, drinking, sitting or walking.” He invested little in the thought of prayer as an act of eloquence, done for show. On the contrary, genuine prayer flowed from a heart made pure by being “emptied of all but love.” In that humble state, prayer did not need words or a believer’s “sen­ suous effort” to be received by the divine.81 Prayer, like breath, had become natural to Gandhi. The powerful combination of spiritually focused actions, politically charged symbolism, and globally widespread publicity got the attention of the British government. Although officials allowed the march to proceed to the sea unin­ terrupted, when Gandhi publicly defied British law by preparing salt at Dandi, they did intervene. As news of the open defiance of British law spread across the country and around the world, satyagrahis planned parallel acts of civil dis­ obedience in the production of salt and other forms of noncooperation including resigning from British posts, demonstrating at liquor shops, boycotting British goods, and refusing to pay British taxes.82 In response the government passed restrictions on the press, free assembly, and protest. Even the Indian National Congress was declared illegal.83 Despite these measures, satyagrahis maintained their nonviolent discipline. On April 23, for example, protestors in the town of Peshawar prepared to demonstrate

22

The Indian independence movement

at an open-air market known as the Qissa Khwani bazaar. British troops and ar­ mored cars quickly flanked the demonstrators. Those who gathered in protest had been trained in nonviolence techniques by an Islamic acolyte of Gandhi’s, Ghaffar Khan. Refusing orders to disperse, the crowd nonetheless maintained their non­ violent discipline even as troops fired machine-guns into the crowd over a period of several hours until more than 200 had been killed. In a remarkable turn of events, members of the Royal Garhwal Rifles refused to open fire, an action that resulted in their court marshal and sentences up to and including life imprisonment.84 More so than the massacre at Peshawar, the march on the salt works at Dharasana brought the world’s attention to the Indian independence struggle. After arriving in Dandi on April 6, Gandhi had set up an encampment from which he encouraged the growing demonstrations and boycotts. While there he wrote a letter to Lord Irwin, the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, informing him of his plans to lead a demonstration at the Dharasana salt works. Even though Gandhi was arrested on May 5 and taken to the Yervada prison in the western Poona district, the march went forward as planned under the leadership of the renowned poet Sarojini Naidu. Although made all the more controversial by the decision to put a woman in charge, the demonstrations at Dharasana continued and participants again maintained nonviolent discipline. The 2,500 demonstrators followed Naidu’s orders to “not resist; … not even raise a hand to ward off a blow.” Here again, the instructions in nonviolence had been issued after the satyagrahis joined in prayer.85 The protestors complied. On May 21, as disciplined columns of satyhagrahis approached the salt works in an attempt to tear down the barbed wire fences cordoning off the salt pans, police acted on their orders to attack. Armed with steel reinforced bamboo rods known at lathis, the police beat wave after wave of protestors. Webb Miller, an American journalist on site to cover the protests, wrote a now famous account of the assault in which 700 demonstrators were wounded and more than 320 hospitalized. Miller emphasized that “[n]ot one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like tenpins.”86 Those behind the front line “groaned and sucked in their breath in sympathetic pain at every blow.”87 As each line of marchers fell to the ground, other volunteers came forward to carry them to a make-shift hospital set up to attend to the cracked skulls and broken bones of the nonviolent marchers. The 400 Surat police officers continued their attack on the marchers under the di­ rection of six British officers who did not interfere when the increasingly frustrated officers also kicked and stabbed male marchers in the testicles.88 The demon­ strations continued through June 6 when organizers called off the nonviolent raids after more than 1,300 volunteers had been injured and four died from the effects of the beatings.89 The Salt March’s eventual outcomes remained mixed. In the immediate aftermath of the March, the British occupiers did not make major concessions.90 Likewise, Hindu–Muslim unity did not emerge from the campaign.91 Yet, in

The Indian independence movement

23

keeping with the goals of the March organizers, people around the world – in­ cluding and especially in Britain – became aware of the subjugation Indian citizens experienced at the hands of the British government. The mass satyagraha campaign also emboldened the spirit and resolve of the Indian population to some day throw off British rule.92 Independence for India had begun to seem possible if not inevitable. These outcomes resonated with the religious hope that Gandhi evinced through much of his life. Arising from his foundational belief that God existed and a sense of dependence on God’s providence, hope for Gandhi allowed him to maintain sanity in the midst of the horrors of war and the struggles for in­ dependence. Back in 1925, he proclaimed, “[I]f I did not feel the presence of God within me, I see so much misery and disappointment every day that I would be a raving maniac and my destination would be the [River] Hooghli.”93 That hope in the divine also extended to the presence of the holy among humans. He remained convinced that people – up to and including his most aggressive adversaries – could change for the better when given the noncoercive option to choose truth and goodness.94 Like hope, a penchant for truth drove Gandhi’s actions. By 1931, as the effects of the Salt March continued to ripple throughout India and around the world, Gandhi had begun to speak more and more of Truth as the embodiment of God in the world. Rather than treat God as an anthropomorphized being, Gandhi began to focus on Truth – with a capital T – as the way in which the divine found expression among humanity.95 So great was Gandhi’s commitment to upholding and following Truth that he placed it above all other values, even swaraj – home rule for India. Freedom from British rule could not come at the expense of a total adherence to Truth. He recognized that all social institutions up to and including political organizations subverted the truth through the social pressure to conform.96 Truth came before all else.

The Dalit fasts These values of hope for change in individuals and society and an unwavering commitment to Truth bolstered Gandhi’s commitment to the series of fasts he took in support of the Harijan community. Between September 1932 and August 1933, Gandhi fasted four separate times as he sought to change the political and social conditions of untouchability in India. The first of those fasts, declared as a fast to the death beginning on September 20 and finishing six days later, centered on and ultimately was defined by the religious symbols and language that in­ fused it. Political circumstances initially triggered the fast. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the Dalit spokesperson, lawyer, scholar, and social reformer, had made public demands for the Dalit community to be able to elect their own representatives to India’s legislative bodies in the same manner as had been awarded members of the Islamic community. The British Prime Minister acceded to Ambedkar’s demands

24

The Indian independence movement

and released the so-called “Communal Award” in August of 1932 that made separate Dalit elections a reality.97 Gandhi, however, felt that the decision would result in perpetuating the system of untouchability – one he regarded as being on par with slavery – by institutionalizing the Dalit class through the voting process. And so Gandhi declared that he would “fast unto death” unless the separate election scheme was annulled.98 The practical realities of political apportionment became less central for Gandhi as he began to talk in religious terms about his impending fast. The struggle was about redeeming the soul of Hinduism itself, a religion that Gandhi practiced and fully embraced, but that he also named as fundamentally corrupted by its hier­ archical order. In his correspondence about the fast, Gandhi stayed focused on the Dalits. Even when his secretary, Mahadev Desai, pushed him to address the issues of representative seat distribution and Muslim voting rights, Gandhi remained steadfast. For him, the fast was about “a religious question and not a political question,” one that he would answer by wielding the “most powerful weapon” in his “spiritual armory,” the fast.99 Indians responded. Despite the misgivings of his secretary and the opposition of other Indian leaders like the Dalit leader Ambedkar who read coercion in the text of Gandhi’s actions, signs began to emerge that people still paid attention when the Mahatma fasted. News of Hindu temples opening their doors for the first time to the Dalit community reached Gandhi as he fasted in prison. A Bombay assembly of caste Hindus called for full access to schools, wells, and roads for all Hindus. They asserted, “No one shall be regarded as an ‘untouchable’ by reasons of birth.”100 High-caste women in Bombay passed a similar resolution. Brahmins supped with Dalits.101 Britain, too, paid attention. Officials withdrew the separate elections compo­ nent of the Communal Award legislation. Notice of the Cabinet vote reached Gandhi in prison via special delivery of a “red sealed envelope” bearing the news by the inspector general of prisons himself.102 The prisoner inside the gates had sent his message and the government replied. In response, Gandhi turned again to religious resources to mark the occasion. Gandhi broke his fast before a crowd 200 strong who had been allowed into the Yeravda prison yard, all visiting rules having been cast aside.103 After the prison yard had been sprinkled with water, the Nobel prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore sang a Bengali hymn that beseeched God to rain down a “shower of mercy” when the heart became “hard and parched up.”104 The on-lookers joined in singing more hymns, and Gandhi broke his fast by drinking a glass of orange juice. He later declared that, despite the suffering involved in the six-day period of depravation, “God was never nearer to me than during the fast.”105 Gandhi would go on to fast three more times in the following year in his efforts to reform Indian society in general and the Hindu community in particular of their prejudices toward Dalits. The first of those additional fasts lasted one day; the second, twenty-one days; the third, seven. More temples opened their doors to Dalits, many of them for the first time in thousands of years. High caste women

The Indian independence movement

25

accepted food from Dalit hands. Gandhi received thousands of assurances from those who had pledged themselves to disavow all anti-Dalit prejudice.106 Even so, access to jobs for the Dalit community and an end to social segregation remained elusive. Even as Gandhi’s efforts resulted in changes of long-held religious cus­ toms, rituals, and the social attitudes they re-enforced; even as upper-caste Hindus and Harijans wed; even as the public display of bigotry towards Dalits became a subject of censure – some religiously grounded beliefs in Dalit inferiority re­ mained.107 At a certain level, it was easier to get a hand-delivered letter from the highest level of British government acceding to political demands than it was to get his fellow Indians to fully shed their anti-Dalit convictions. The religious resources that aided and abetted Gandhi in breaking down British authority could not break free of their own restraints when it came to internal hierarchy. At the conclusion of his four-part string of fasting by the fall of 1933, Gandhi was sixty-four years old. He commanded national and international attention. Governments both praised and feared his actions. But a record of fasting and activism had begun to take a toll on his health and well-being. With an increasing awareness of his own frailty, he turned increasingly to his religious roots. Even as his body began to fail him, he attested that his faith in God had not. Sustenance came from spiritual sources as much as they did from comestible ones.108

Fasting through independence and partition Fasting continued to be Gandhi’s most powerful spiritual weapon. Having stepped down from official leadership of and membership in the Indian National Congress in 1934, he nonetheless exercised unofficial authority of an unprecedented degree as he advised politicians like Jawaharal Nehru. But Gandhi did not always get his way. As World War II began, Gandhi campaigned against Indian involvement with the British armed forces, urging his compatriots to refuse to participate. In the absence of a declared fast, this time more than two a half million Indians vo­ lunteered to fight with the allied forces.109 He experienced more success in his 1939 three-day fast (Figure 1.1) to end conflict in the city of Rajkot, Gujarat, and his twenty-one day fast four years later to end violence perpetrated by the Indian government in Delhi. His recurrent turn toward fasting as a means to bring about political ends is only fully understood in light of the Hindu idea of tapasya. Translated literally as “austerities,” the term references the belief that one’s life forces could be mar­ shaled through ascetic practices like fasting and employed for the positive good. Gandhi believed that, by exercising the kind of control necessary to engage in fasting, he could marshal enough life force to exercise real power over the world. For him, outbreaks of violence and political discord could be traced back to his lack of control. Because he had not completely controlled his basest desires, his life force faltered. Only be redoubling his efforts – often in the form of fasting – could he again exercise positive power over strife and conflict.110

26

The Indian independence movement

Mahatma Gandhi surrounded by supporters during the Rajkot fast in Gujrat, India, March 1939.

FIGURE 1.1

Source: Dinodia Photos/Alamy Stock Photo. Used by permission.

Gandhi would not fast again until India achieved independence. In 1946, after years of growing resistance and increasing international attention, the British government moved to grant independence to India. As negotiations proceeded, tensions between the Hindu and Muslim populations increased. Proposals for a centralized government over separate Muslim territory proved futile as did a more decentralized federal system that gave autonomy to distinct Muslim, Hindu, and Native territories. Calcutta saw intense violence as the negotiations broke down and the Hindu–Muslim conflict led to 12,000 deaths by February 1947.111 The pace quickened as British officials declared their intention to depart by June of 1948. Lord Louis Mountbatten accepted the position of Viceroy in March and set into motion troop withdrawal. British pressures notwithstanding, Hindu and Muslim leaders found little common ground. With the prospect of an all-out civil war in front of them, leaders in the India Congress acquiesced to a parti­ tioning of the country. Following the passage of the India Independence Bill on July 4 by the British Parliament, India became a sovereign nation on August 14, 1947, at midnight. Concurrently, Muslim leaders officially oversaw the creation of Pakistan.112 The mass migration and violence that followed resulted in more than one million deaths. The division of the country in general and the states of Punjab and Bengal in particular prompted Muslims to move to the North and Hindus to the South. Leaving jobs, material possessions, and homes, more than fifteen million

The Indian independence movement

27

refugees crossed the new border. It was the largest migration the world had ever witnessed.113 Some died due to conditions often rampant in mass migrations: lack of clean water leading to dysentery, cholera, and other communicable diseases; lack of food leading to starvation; lack of sleep leading to sheer exhaustion. Many more died at the hands of their former compatriots.114 While initial estimates ranged from a low of 200,000 to a high of two million, the final consensus arrived at a figure of one million lives lost with some evidence suggesting that Muslims died in greater numbers than Hindus.115 Even prior to partition Gandhi had been working for Hindu–Muslim unity. Triggered by the 1946 Direct Action Day in which Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah had called for public gatherings in support of a separate Muslim nation, 6,000 Hindus in Calcutta died at the hands of rioting Muslims. Tens of thousands of Muslims and Hindus had died in the violence that ensued across the country. Gandhi travelled widely in an attempt to bring peace.116 As violence continued to erupt in the aftermath of partitioning, Gandhi declared a fast until death on September 1, 1947. The night before a mob had attacked the compound where Gandhi slept, breaking windows but dispelling once police arrived. This fast lasted only four days before Gandhi agreed to eat again.117 He again fasted on January 12, 1948, once more declaring he would fast unto death. Although historians remain mixed in their assessment of whether Gandhi’s actions alone restored a measure of peace to Calcutta, Gandhi’s fast motivated politicians to personally intervene and appeal for an end to the violence.118 Fasting as a tactic had again served Gandhi’s purposes. He ended his fast after six days when he saw evidence of politicians taking to the streets. Gandhi’s ability to use fasting so effectively stemmed at least in part from his articulation and enactment of ahimsa. Throughout his life, Gandhi stressed the core doctrine of ahimsa, loosely translating it as noninjury in a general sense, nonkilling in specific application, and harmlessness in its broadest connotation. In the latter usage, he interpreted ahimsa as the complete rejection of the desire to kill or hurt living things and the removal of all hostile thoughts, words, and deeds.119 In other settings, Gandhi connected ahimsa with the central Hindu and Buddhist tenet of nonattachment to the world. Through this nonattachment, one could maintain a posture of detached sympathy to the enemy while also rejecting the very idea of enemy itself. Thus ahimsa, as employed by Gandhi, provided an ultimate goal for humankind – and indeed all life itself – of innocence and good intentions for the universe. Ahimsa, when fully realized, offered a state of perfection to those who sought it.120 Yet Gandhi did not find in ahimsa a rejection of the power to persuade or influence others. In fact, fasting as employed by Gandhi always embodied the nonviolent use of power to pressure others to do his bidding. He repeatedly at­ tempted to use moral force in this way. Although he categorically rejected any expression of power through violence or forcible compulsion, he did not hesitate to use power in its nonviolent form.121 Some even accused Gandhi of being little more than a manipulative political operator. Viceroy and Governor-General

28

The Indian independence movement

Archibald Wavell, a man not known for holding his tongue, opined that Gandhi was an “exceedingly shrewd, obstinate, domineering, double-tongued, singleminded politician.”122 The vaunted language of ahimsa did not always convince those on the receiving end of Gandhi’s nonviolence campaigns. Gandhi nonetheless set high standards for himself. In his autobiography, he noted that all humans end up as “helpless mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa.”123 As the polar opposite of ahimsa, himsa referenced the destruction of life. Gandhi asserted that no one could ever become completely free of outwardly manifested forms of himsa, even though individuals could grow and mature in their restraint and compassion.124 He nonetheless continued to promote the ne­ cessity of striving for ahimsa and ultimate Truth. Merchants should strive for ahimsa in all their dealings.125 All those involved in any kind of business should do so. Ahimsa should be applied in the field of politics.126 It should be applied, as­ serted Gandhi, even among family members, for in that field of quotidian practice lofty principles became real.127 Ahimsa demanded a path of self-purification that could lead to a pure heart, and through that to union with God.128

Political and religious unity through to the end Despite his detractors, Gandhi maintained enough public integrity in both his speaking and actions that his strategy of fasting remained effective throughout his life. Indians cared about whether Gandhi lived or died. Even though the drama recurred every time he declared a fast unto death, the drama did not get old. Based in the doctrine of ahimsa and Gandhi’s teachings about it, the practice of fasting as an expression of nonviolence had such wide resonance because of its religious underpinnings. Claims of Truth, an approach to God, self-sacrifice – these con­ cepts resonated with the vast majority of India’s Hindu population and with those attracted to the rhetoric and actions that Gandhi embodied through such public acts of self-denial. Whether or not those actions ended up manipulating people proved less important than that they inspired them, caught their attention, and, in so doing, had real-life political results. Gandhi’s fasting mattered because Gandhi, as a religious and political figure, mattered to so many people. But there were limits to his integrity, regardless of how saintly many regarded him. Toward the end of his life – in December of 1946 – Gandhi at times slept naked with his great niece Manu, ostensibly as a test of his vow of celibacy. These nightly “cuddles” led to the resignation of Gandhi’s stenographer and much consternation among his inner-circle.129 Never one to hide his actions, Gandhi spoke publicly about his practice at one of his regular prayer meetings, once again demonstrating that he saw little daylight between his public and private life, or between his political and personal practices.130 Even though he ultimately dis­ continued the practice, he appeared unable to recognize that such physical in­ timacy was inappropriate. Although Gandhi placed Truth at the center of his life and practices, what counted most was that it was his version and interpretation of that Truth at the center of all that he did.

The Indian independence movement

29

This commitment to his version of Truth ultimately contributed to his death. On the evening of January 30, 1948, Gandhi and his grandnieces were walking through the central lawn of a large mansion in New Delhi now known as Gandhi Smriti. A multi-faith gathering awaited to hear him talk at a prayer meeting. Ten days previously, a group of nationalist Hindus had attempted to assassinate Gandhi by throwing a grenade into the crowd assembled to hear him. Little had been done to add security measures after that attack. As he walked to the prayer meeting accompanied by Manuben and Abha, an armed Hindu nationalist emerged from the crowd and fired three times at Gandhi, hitting him each time in the abdomen. The shooter, Nathuram Godse, held Gandhi responsible for the partitioning of India and the violence associated with it, denounced Gandhi’s openness to Muslims, and “generally criticized his subjectivism and pretension to a monopoly of the truth.”131 Godse also argued that Gandhi’s teachings on nonviolence led to the violence and distress of partitioning. He argued that Gandhi, by only instructing Hindus in nonviolence, had created a situation in which Hindus would be vulnerable to violence perpetuated by Muslims. Godse maintained in court that Gandhi’s actions amounted to a betrayal of the Hindu community as a whole. In addition to teachings on ahimsa, Gandhi’s practice of reading from the Quran in Hindu temples left Godse incensed. Although he maintained that he revered Gandhi, Godse felt that the Mahatma’s lopsided instruction in nonviolence had to be terminated, and the only way to do so was to take Gandhi’s life in an act of “moral duty.”132 Such criticism found little support outside of those who heard Godse’s argu­ ment in person. The Indian government banned any publication of Godse’s de­ fense for three decades, fearing that it would incite religious violence. Amid a national outpouring of grief, with millions mourning Gandhi’s passing in public, the new Indian government used Gandhi’s assassination to cement their power while also squashing internal dissent through the arrests of nearly 200,000 dissidents.133 In death, as in life, the melding of the political and the religious remained consistent for Gandhi.

Religion as a coercive element of Gandhi’s fasts In the end, it is the unity of the ends and means in Gandhi’s thought and action that reveals the central irony in this narrative of the role of religion in India’s struggle for independence. In his work on Gandhi’s moral and political thought, Raghavan Iyer argues that – unlike the vast majority of other well-known activists and intellectuals – Gandhi cared far more about the means than the ends to which they were employed.134 How Gandhi sought India’s independence was as im­ portant – if not more so – than whether he achieved that goal. Independence would not be worth achieving in Gandhi’s view if he had to sacrifice ahimsa or satyagraha in the process. He returned to Truth and nonviolence time and again as moral absolutes, values that grounded all action, above any possibility of

30

The Indian independence movement

compromise. Ultimately, Gandhi believed that means corrupted by evil action could never result in the good ends sought.135 Yet, the most persistent and widely effective religiously based strategy that Gandhi employed throughout his lifetime relied on manipulation and coercion. Every time he fasted, Gandhi set the terms, made the demands, and drew the attention. Many times he stated that he fasted also as an act of penitence for his own part in contributing to the circumstances he sought to correct. Nonetheless, regardless of the religious terms in which he couched his action, the equation persisted: do as I demand or be seen as the one responsible for the death of a saint. The strategy of unilaterally announcing fasts to the death left no opportunity for dialogue, mutual discernment, or collaboration. One could only follow, support, adulate, or in a few rare instances oppose his actions. Whether such coercion counts as unethical or counter to satyagraha turns on Gandhi’s own assertions. For example, in 1946 Gandhi wrote in his newspaper Harijan, “the man who uses coercion is guilty of deliberate violence. Coercion is inhuman.”136 In Gandhi’s worldview, this form of inhumanity fits squarely in the definition of evil. To force someone to do something against their will is unjust, and, according to Gandhi, against the principle of nonviolence. To demand perfection of any historical figure or movement is to engage in the most pedestrian form of hagiography. Historical evaluation should never turn on an evaluation of saintliness. The point I am making here is not to skewer Gandhi for being inconsistent. Rather, I simply want to note that Gandhi’s use of the particular religious resource of fasting was made more coercive – not less – because it was grounded in and framed by religious language. Each fast began with a vow. Most were infused with prayer. Gandhi discussed them in religious terms when he spoke of penitence. Many times he and his supporters celebrated a fast’s com­ pletion with an interfaith religious ceremony. In a society where the practice of religion infused the culture to such a high, and relatively uniform, degree, the religious nature of the fasts amplified the demands, made them more intense, and raised the stakes involved. In the moments after Godse shot Gandhi, his grandniece Manu claimed that he mouthed the words “Hei Ra … ma! Hei Ra …!” Hindus considered this in­ vocation of the name of the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu in one’s death throes to be an act of profound devotion.137 The utterance, however, has been contested for lack of corroboration. But that is not what is important in this instance. What is arresting and pertinent to a discussion of religious resources employed in social change movements is that so many found the image of a dying Gandhi mouthing the name of God so believable. This was the act of a saint, a Mahatma. The image that Gandhi had cultivated, fostered, and to a degree accepted when thrust upon him by residents of a country eager for a saint to lead them – that image became the one that defined his passing. Recreated in the eponymous Hollywood movie that told his story, repeated in press accounts, offered by a devoted relative, this was how a saint was supposed to die. The presentation of

The Indian independence movement

31

Gandhi uttering the name of God as he expired followed the script of devotion, sacrifice, and complete commitment to nonviolence. It was the ultimate introduction of a religious resource into public space. Whether Gandhi actually said those words or not is less important than that the depiction of him uttering them had such wide resonance. The political results have already been noted. Nehru used all the circumstances of Gandhi’s death to his advantage, cementing the power of his party and the position of prime minister he held for more than a decade and a half.138 For all his political acumen and shrewd prescience, Gandhi could not have known that this final act of devotion – if indeed it took place at all – would have led to such an outcome. The fact of the matter is that he had crafted a religious frame through which nearly every action of his life came to be interpreted. He had become in life and in death the Mahatma, the great soul. Ultimately, it is not accurate to say that Gandhi introduced religious resources into the struggle for independence in India. Rather, he himself had become the principal religious resource of the struggle. His actions – revered, reported upon, and mythologized in the moment – embodied and concentrated what it meant to integrate religion into political pursuits. Sometimes it meant that he would prove coercive. At other times, that he would blend religious traditions together in ways that many found offensive. But at no point was the intensity of his commitment to his faith and its application in the public sphere made to appear inauthentic. And that is what this particular practice of religion in the special circumstance of India during a time of tremendous national and international upheaval made possible. The religious practices that Gandhi chose gave him a moral and political authority that proved dominant over time. What is most impressive is that the authority he bore for the length of time that he carried it allowed him to stir so many people to so much action over such a long period of time. While the practice of religion has many limits, in the instance of Gandhi and the India in­ dependence struggle, the ability to motivate people seemed inexhaustible.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 146. Ibid., 104–6. Ibid., 104. I will use the terms contemporary to the time when referencing period documents, but reference Dalits in more general usage. Joseph Lelyveld, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), XIII. Erik H. 1902–1994 (Erik Homburger) Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (New York: Norton & Company, 1993), 387. Bradley S. Clough, correspondence with author, April 2, 2020. Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Proudest Day: India’s Long Road to Independence (New York: Norton, 1998), 142–3. Patricia Cronin Marcello, Mohandas K. Gandhi: A Biography (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006), 2.

32

The Indian independence movement

10 B. R. Nanda, Mahatma Gandhi: A Biography, Complete and Unabridged (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), 64. 11 Brown, 14. 12 Makarand R. Paranjape, Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India (New Delhi: Anthem Press, 2009), 2. 13 Ibid., 150. 14 Marcello, 24–5. 15 Ibid., 45–6. 16 Bradley S. Clough, “Gandhi and Hindu-Christian Relations,” in Routledge Handbook of Hindu-Christian Relations, ed. Chad Bauman and Michelle Voss Roberts (2020 (forthcoming)), 6–9. 17 Nanda, 65–66; Lelyveld, 8–9; Clough, 2–3. 18 Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi: An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), 144. 19 Clough, 2–3, 5–6. 20 Fischer, 301–4. 21 Brown, 382. 22 Ibid., 288–9. 23 Ibid., 82. 24 Raghavan Iyer, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 19–20. 25 Ibid., 69. 26 Erikson, 89. 27 Iyer, 74. 28 Ibid., 100, 11. 29 Bal Ram Nanda, Gandhi: Pan-Islamism, Imperialism and Nationalism in India (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1989), 148. 30 Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Discovery of Satyagraha--on the Threshold (Bombay: Sevak Prakashan, 1980), 324–5. 31 Paranjape, 63. 32 Iyer, 45. 33 Paranjape, 63–4. 34 J. H. Stone, “M. K. Gandhi: Some Experiments with Truth,” Journal of Southern African Studies 16, no. 4 (1990): 722–3. 35 Iyer, 269. 36 Renuka R Desai, “The Relevance of Gandhi’s Political Theory of ‘Satyagrah’,” Community Development Journal 33, no. 2 (1998): 91; Stone, 729. 37 Marcello, 112–3. 38 Iyer, 290–1. 39 Lelyveld, 126–7. 40 Iyer, 341. 41 Brown, 147. 42 Desai, 92. 43 Iyer, 302. 44 Fischer, 155. 45 Desai, 93. 46 Natalia Choi, “Ahmedabad Textile Laborers Win Strike for Economic Justice, 1918,” Global Nonviolent Action Database, Swarthmore College. 47 Warshaw, 90–1. 48 Ibid. 49 Nanda, 187. 50 Desai, 94. 51 Warshaw, 90–1. 52 Ibid., 91.

The Indian independence movement

33

53 Nicole Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar: Reginald Dyer (New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2005), 262. 54 Strobe Talbott, Engage in India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 245. 55 Nanda, 269–70. 56 Brown, 164. 57 Singh Vipul, Longman History & Civics 10 (New Delhi, India: Pearson Longman, 2009), 91. 58 Lelyveld, 168. 59 Desai, 94. 60 Brown, 171. 61 Ibid., 187; Patrick McGinn, “Communalism and the North-West Frontier Province: The Kohat Riots, 9–10 September 1924,” South Asia Research 6, no. 2 (1986). 62 Marcello, 147. 63 Brown, 187. 64 Ibid. 65 Rajmohan Gandhi, Eight Lives: A Study of the Hindu-Muslim Encounter (Albany, NY: State University Of New York Press, 1986), 111. 66 Brown, 188. 67 Fischer, 223. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Brown, 188–9. 71 Erikson, 443–5. 72 Ibid., 445. 73 Desai, 95–96. 74 Fischer, 263. 75 Ibid., 268. 76 Mahatma Gandhi and Dennis Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi: Selected Political Writings (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996), 72. 77 Fischer, 272. 78 Brown, 200. 79 Lelyveld, 314. 80 Brown, 180. 81 Gandhi, 84. 82 Irfan Habib, “Civil Disobedience 1930-31,” Social Scientist 25, no. 9/10 (1997): 57. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., 56. 85 Fischer, 273. 86 Erikson, 447. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid.; Lelyveld, 204–5. 89 Thomas Weber, On the Salt March: The Historiography of Gandhi’s March to Dandi (Noida, UP: HarperCollins India, 1997), 453. 90 Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non-Violent Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 109. 91 Gandhi and Dalton, 119–20. 92 Fischer, 275. 93 Brown, 192. 94 Ibid., 317. 95 Iyer, 155. 96 Ibid., 176. 97 Lelyveld, 226–7. 98 Ibid., 227.

34

The Indian independence movement

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

Ibid., 228. Ibid., 230, 34. Ibid., 234. Ibid., 236. Brown, 267. Lelyveld, 235–6. Brown, 267. Catherine Clement, Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism (Abrams, 1996), 87. Fischer, 320. Brown, 290. Arthur Herman, Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age (New York: Random House, 2008), 498. Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967). Warshaw, 100. Ibid., 100–1. Ibid., 106. Read and Fisher, 499. Patrick French, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 349; Read and Fisher, 499. Desai, 97–8. Marcello, 155. Desai, 97–8. Iyer, 178. Ibid., 180. Ibid., 184. Dennis Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Power in Action (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 65. Gandhi, 336. Ibid., 337. Ibid., 133. Ibid., 479. Iyer, 187. Gandhi, 479. Lelyveld, 306. French, 19. Claude Markovits, The Ungandhian Gandhi: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma (London: Anthem Press, 2003), 57. Ved Mehta, Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), 175. Yasmin Khan, “Performing Peace: Gandhi’s Assassination as a Critical Moment in the Consolidation of the Nehruvian State,” Modern Asian Studies 45, no. 1 (2010). Iyer, 361. Ibid., 368. M. K. Gandhi, My Non-Violence, ed. Sailesh Kumar Bandopadhyaya (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, n.d.). Manuben Gandhi, Last Glimpses of Bapu (Dehli, India: Shiva Lai Agarwala & Co., 1962), 309. Khan, 57.

110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

2 INVOKING VIOLENCE: THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

For much of his activist career, Rev. Ralph Abernathy had stood just to the side of the spotlight. As Martin Luther King, Jr.’s right-hand man, people had heard his name, maybe they had even had listened to him speak, but seldom had the at­ tention of the nation turned to him alone. On June 20, 1969, in Charleston, South Carolina, that changed. A public prayer made the difference. Abernathy had traveled to Charleston to support a newly formed hospital workers union led and populated by Black women in their struggle to garner respect, increase sub-minimum wage pay rates, and call for the hiring of Black physicians. The hospitals’ all-White administration responded by firing twelve union leaders. Abernathy brought the resources of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to support the union and to seek a much needed win for an organization still unmoored by King’s assassination the previous year.1 The reporter who covered the June 20 nighttime march and later wrote about it for the United Press International made much of Abernathy’s posture at the point of his arrest. Quoting Juanita Abernathy, Rev. Abernathy’s wife, the re­ porter shared her outrage. She declared, “I am shocked and appalled that the police in the city should charge my husband with inciting to riot, after they in­ terrupted his prayer and arrested him while he was on his knees.”2 Others in the area also were incensed. Members of the local African-American community took to the streets; some threw bottles and rocks at the police.3 Within days, administrators at the two local hospitals facing the strikes agreed to the bulk of the union members’ demands. Along with the unions, Abernathy and SCLC claimed a victory. In so doing, they drew on a tactic that had served civil rights activists in the United States very well, one that had been deployed at least since 1948. They used performative prayer. Abernathy’s deliberate public kneeling and associated prayer exemplified the performative prayer strategy. Unlike prayers offered in sanctuaries or synagogues,

36

The civil rights movement

performative prayers took place in public venues, addressed a particular political moment, and were situated in the midst of organizing action. Civil rights activists also employed religious resources such as rosaries, yarmulkes, habits, and fasting – Abernathy, for example, also began a fast after he was arrested while praying in public – but they returned to performative prayer with far greater frequency than just about any other religious element. Only song proved as common.4 But music did not create crisis in the same way. This is the surprise. Far more often associated with appeals for divine solace, healing, or peaceful intervention, the prayers offered during Civil Rights Movement actions more typically elicited public crisis. Rather than a medium for personal salvation protected by the state, prayer in this chapter emerges as a conduit for political action. Activists at both leadership levels and the grassroots employed public prayer in highly dramatic, racially situated, protest settings as a way to attract attention, unsettle the status quo, increase the chance of physical violence, or – as in Abernathy’s case – invite arrest.5 Although members of the Jewish community also used forms of prayers as part of their protest, the story that follows centers on members of the Christian community because they protested with prayer more than other religious community during the civil rights era.

Central argument and frame The scholars who have written about public prayer in general and the racial dy­ namics of prayer in particular have not picked up on this unexpected correlation of crisis and prayer. Discussions of public prayer have turned toward the relationship of prayer and the state, especially as expressed in debates over prayer in public schools, rather than prayer in the streets and on the sidewalks. When scholars have turned their attention to public prayer’s racial dynamics they have noted the communal dynamic of the Black community’s prayers, the central role played by prayer among Black religious adherents, and the contrasting prayer practices of Black and White older adults.6 But all that scholarship has left unexamined prayer’s crisis inducing power. The narrative of Civil Rights Movement public prayers that follows focuses on crisis, pays attention to both body and word, and situates civil rights public prayers in the broader universe of public prayers being employed by both civil rights activists and those who sought to protect racial segregation. Focusing on the three decades from 1948 to 1978, a period marked by a prayer event in the nation’s capital on one end and a New Orleans mayor’s petition for prayer in King’s memory on the other, I will approach crisis as a historically unstable point in history that requires actors to set out on a new path – most often at the micro level in this chapter – but with no less important ramifications for political relations at the national level. Those who offered these civil rights era prayers did so by vocalizing sacred words and positioning their bodies in specific, recognizable forms.7 Thus both words and bodies will receive attention in the stories featured here. And, the prayers brought into public space by civil rights activists took place

The civil rights movement

37

in a context during which White segregationists also uttered divinely focused orations. To understand the former, we need to examine at least for a moment some of the prayers of the latter. Two more notes orient the stories that follow. First, performative prayers constitute only one of four public prayer types present during the Civil Rights Movement. Three others took place with far less frequency. Some activists em­ ployed mediated prayer by bringing rosaries or other religious objects to focus their invocations. At points, others engaged in conversant prayer in which they brought their personal concerns, thoughts, and praise to a deity they spoke to as a friend. A third form – also less common than performative prayer – showed up as scripted prayer in which a group sought to foster solidarity in the midst of hardship by reciting a prayer in unison such as the Lord’s Prayer.8 Finally, at those moments where public prayers did trigger crisis of some kind, protectors of the status quo had taken affront to the message sent by those doing the prayers. It was not so much that those who prayed specifically antagonized their adversaries – though that, too, did happen – but that the act of praying by respectably dressed, piously arranged, African-American protestors presented a powerful message of divine acclamation. That is, as the protestors claimed God’s blessing on their actions, they also declared that those who protected the status quo remained outside of divine support. When coupled with the appearance of vul­ nerability, public prayers often became an all too tempting target for arrest, verbal harassment, or physical assault.9

First forays into public prayer protest A march and public demonstration modeled a form of prayer protest that would be replicated hundreds of times in the following three decades. On Wednesday, January 7, 1948, between 131 and 400 Black ministers – the accounts vary greatly – marched from Mount Caramel Baptist church escorted by police on horseback and assembled on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Organized by the National Fraternal Council of Negro Churches in America, the ministers opened with a hymn – “Oh, God Our Help in Ages Past, our Hope for Years to Come” – and then joined spontaneous and collective prayer.10 A spokesperson from each of the states represented at the event then spoke a sentence prayer to which the assembled community responded in unison.11 Following the public prayer service, the marchers returned to Mount Caramel where they heard speeches on the need for federal legislation against lynching, poll taxes, and unfair labor practices.12 The reports did agree that in total the ministers represented seven million AfricanAmerican Christians from a total of eleven denominations.13 Although uneventful in terms of crisis or violence, the event nonetheless chartered a new path for civil rights activists. The ministers marked a national federal building as a place where it was appropriate to pray. They combined the actual saying of prayers with physical movement in the streets to the public space designated for those prayers. And they tied their divine-focused appeals to specific

38

The civil rights movement

legislation. In addition, they chose the date of their prayer march with delibera­ tion. On that Wednesday, President Truman gave his state of the union address. The Sunday before, the ministers had celebrated National Prayer day in their local congregations. The wedding of prayer and politics was done publicly, deliberately, and, in the words of Dr. Mordecai Johnson, the events’ keynote speaker and president of Howard University, necessary for Black ministers because they “must politicalize” in the same manner as they pray.14 The strategy employed by the ministers brought the prayer protest to Washington, but they did so building on events that had been tested regionally at the beginning of the decade. A. Philip Randolph had tested “prayer protests” as part of his March on Washington Movement from 1941 through 1946. In events organized in St. Louis, New York City, and other major cities, Randolph used the prayer protest model to galvanize Black preachers in support of his effort to de­ mand that African Americans be included in war-time industry jobs. He felt that prayer protests struck “a right balance between patriotism and protest” that al­ lowed him to both bring in more conservative members of the Black community and pursue a protest-agenda that directly challenged the status quo.15 Despite low turn out at these early events – some of those earlier prayer protests attracted only fifty attendees – Randolph would remember them and turn to them a decade later.16 African-American ministers were not the only ones to pray in public about racial matters. Six months later, a Ku Klux Klan rally more than 6,000 members strong assembled in Atlanta to pray and induct new members. At that late July gathering, Klan leaders burned multiple crosses while wearing hoods and robes, sang a hymn, and then recited the Lord’s Prayer in unison. Further asserting their identity as a “Christian organization,” newly inducted members knelt before the burning cross to pledge themselves to the group even as the group’s “grand dragon,” Dr. Samuel Green, restated that they were “a Christian group organized to promote Americanism.”17 He then proceeded to denounce the Truman ad­ ministration’s civil rights initiative and call for the perpetuation of “White supremacy.”18 The two events sought different ends but used common means. Both brought prayer into public. Each group joined religious commitments with a political project. They used ritual and ceremony to draw the interest of those gathered around them. The reporter who covered the Klan rally even claimed that the surrounding crowd kept some KKK members from participating because they could not make it through the throng in time for the ceremonies.19 To be certain, the KKK employed particularly dramatic ceremonies in the form of cross burnings and robed processions, but the underlying focus on religious ritual remained the same. And, both groups chose specific political events around which to organize their gatherings. The National Fraternal Council connected their action with that January’s state of the union address; the KKK scheduled their event to counter Henry A. Wallace’s left-wing presidential bid and the convening of the 1948

The civil rights movement

39

Progressive National Convention in Philadelphia. What they lacked in common agenda, they shared in common method. Organizers in the Black freedom struggle advanced and developed public prayer events much more aggressively than did the Klan in the course of the next ten years. The following January, another group of Black clergy, this time under the sponsorship of the National Negro Council, again gathered at a federal building to pray in public for civil rights. In 1949, however, they assembled on the steps of the White House and focused their attention on the segregation still found in Washington, D.C.20 Later that same year, national Black women’s leader Mary McLeod Bethune called all the members of her National Council of Negro Women to set aside Sunday, March 6, 1949, as a day of prayer for “Civil and Human Rights for All.”21 She maintained that civil rights could only be achieved in the United States with “Divine direction and assistance.”22 Men were not the only ones to pray at a federal building in Washington, D.C., in support of racial justice. In early October of 1951, more than 100 members of Sojourners for Truth and Justice gathered at the White House to pray for an end to “the injustice done to Negro people of this country.”23 The Black women who constituted STJ’s membership told the stories of Black women and men who had been lynched, summarily executed by the police, and imprisoned for opposing segregation. When FBI agents informed them that they could not sing hymns, two female clergy members offered prayers instead.24 For the STJ members, they saw no disjuncture between their political criticism and their public profession of religious commitment. The next two years saw activists regularly linking prayer and protest but pri­ marily through calls for days of prayer rather than actions during actual protests. The NAACP in Virginia called for April 4, 1954, to be a day of prayer as part of a series of mass meetings held in cities across the state while members of the or­ ganization awaited the outcome of the Brown Supreme Court case.25 Not quite two years later, the NAACP again used prayer to further organizing ends when they called for Sunday, February 26, 1956, to be a day of prayer in support of victims of racial violence in the South in general and those jailed as part of the Montgomery bus boycott in particular.26 Echoing that call, the highly charismatic preacher and New York state legislator Representative Adam Clayton Powell promoted a “National Deliverance Day of Prayer” movement in support of the bus boycott in Montgomery as well.27 Originally coupled with plans for a nationwide work stoppage and student school strike, Powell soon dropped those more controversial measures in favor of “prayer only” on March 28.28 Two years later a group of high-profile African-American church leaders including SCLC leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and NAACP activist and preacher Floyd Massey, Jr., issued a call for the nation to join in a “day of mourning, fasting, and prayer” on May 17, the anniversary of the Brown ruling. They issued their call as part of a larger response to the “Southern Manifesto” released in March by White southern senators and congressional representatives in opposition to the anti-segregation ruling.29 Given the generous and widespread press coverage that such days of

40

The civil rights movement

prayer generated, the civil rights leaders seemed to have arrived at a tactic that they could depend upon to draw attention to their cause.

Prayer pilgrimage for civil rights This positive experience with prayer-focused organizing prompted a group of key civil rights leaders to double down on the strategy by calling for a massive prayer pilgrimage for civil rights to the nation’s capitol. Long time labor organizer and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights founder, A. Philip Randolph joined King of SCLC and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP to call for the pilgrimage. Envisioned as the largest gathering of African-American activists ever to assemble in Washington, D.C., the event was organized by Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin with the assistance of Rev. Thomas Kilgore and aimed bring as many as 75,000 marchers to the Lincoln memorial.30 The event leaders aimed to “arouse the conscience of the nation” in support of full implementation of the Brown decision and passage of civil rights legislation.31 Advance plans indicated strong support from African-American communities across the country. In New York, celebrities like Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier all lent their support.32 Famed singer Mahalia Jackson agreed to perform along with a 700-member choir led by Howard University Music School Dean Warner Lawson.33 Scheduled to again take place on the Brown ruling anniversary, the event would coincide with sister services in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and smaller cities in the South.34 Not all communities thought the prayer pilgrimage a good idea. For example, a conservative group of White ministers in Little Rock, Arkansas, spoke out against the event. Rev. Rowland Smith, the leader of the ministers group Christian Fellowship, stated that members of the African-American community could “make more friends” by staying at home than by traveling to Washington.35 Moreover, he stated that the prayers offered at home would achieve a “better result” than those offered in the nation’s capital.36 Likewise, James Wells, a pre­ siding bishop of the Church of God In Christ, berated Rev. Milton Perry of Jersey City, New Jersey, for his plans walk to the capital in support of the pilgrimage.37 But such opposition was rare. Local communities announced their plans to send delegations with increasing frequency as the event neared. Groups from Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Norfolk, Virginia, all declared their support.38 California Governor Goodwin J. Knight called his state to a day of prayer in conjunction with the D.C.-based event.39 The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the National Council of Negro Women both offered their backing.40 Letters and editorials in historic Black newspapers like New York’s Amsterdam News and Baltimore’s Afro-American likewise promoted the event.41 A New York-based Baptist minister, self-published and distributed a “Prayer for Freedom” booklet in advance of the gathering in which he praised the pilgrimage planners for calling the Black community to assemble in Washington “with a

The civil rights movement

41

prayer in our heart” and called on God to “Give us, we pray, our civil rights” in spite of the “treachery,” “evil plots,” and “tricks and politics” of public officials.42 Momentum seemed to be building at a rate that would bring a full complement of the anticipated ranks. The day of the event told a different story. To be certain, thousands did gather to listen and participate in public prayers. Howard University President Mordecai Johnson, himself an accomplished preacher, prayed, “Oh Eternal God, in these dark days who has given us the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States… power to work together, … love for enemies, and … the strength never to give up until the victory is completely won.”43 Other clergy who asked for divine guidance, read scriptures, and beseeched God’s presence included “Senior AME Bishop S.L. Green of Little Rock, Arkansas; CME Bishop William Y. Bell; Rev. Ross A. Weston, pastor of the Unitarian Church of Arlington, Virginia; D.W.H. Jernigan of Washington; Bishop R.C. Lawson of New York City; and the Rev. T.M. Chambers of Los Angeles.44 Given the “religious nature of the event, leaders asked that the audience not applaud, but the call and response tradition of the African-American community was too robust to stifle frequent “shouts of ‘amen’ and the fluttering of White handkerchiefs,” a sign of approval in many Baptist and other Black congregations.45 Likewise, the three-hour event included a host of musical performances and celebrity appearances. As advertised, Mahalia Jackson performed solos including “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and “I’ve Been ‘Buked and I’ve Been Scorned.”46 In addition, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ruby Dee, Sidney Portier, and Harry Belafonte also spoke.47 But none of them were the true stars of the day. Organizers had reserved that position for the young minister from Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. In what would become one of his major speeches, King used the Prayer Pilgrimage platform not to pray but to call for access to the ballot. His twentyminute speech, “Give us the ballot,” not only called for access to voting for the Black community but did so in religiously infused terms.48 He discussed the theological concept of “agape” love, called for loving one’s enemies, and asserted that “Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the drums of Easter.”49 And he concluded by quoting from the book of Job in the Christian Old Testament, “the morning stars will sing together (Yes sir), and the sons of God will shout for joy.”50 But he did not pray. Not at all. He even only used the term “pray” once in his entire speech and that was only when citing the gospel dictate to “pray for them that despitefully use you.”51 His was a powerful speech, but it was not a prayer. And, he gave it in front of a crowd that fell far below the anticipated 50,000 to 75,000 size. At the low end, police reported 15,000.52 At the upper end, Bayard Rustin would later claim that 50,000 did attend.53 The majority of the reports settled on or about 25,000.54 By most objective standards, a half to a third of those originally anticipated actually attended. An editorial in the Black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier queried, “Where were all the ‘race piatriots [sic]?” The author of

42

The civil rights movement

the editorial bemoaned the low turnout as a sign of inadequate commitment to furthering civil rights. Yet, despite the lower than anticipated turnout, the event still set a record. It was, in the words of SCLC activist, “the then-largest civil rights demonstration in American history.”55 And Randolph, Rustin, Baker, King, and Wilkins had made the choice to organize it under the umbrella of public prayer. It also did much for King’s personal reputation. As the Amsterdam News later declared, King “emerged from the prayer pilgrimage to Washington as the number one leader of sixteen million Negroes in United States.”56 His reputation had risen along with the prayer protest model.

Breadth of 1957s prayer activity Activists focused on full implementation of the Brown ruling were not the only ones employing prayer in 1957. In Little Rock, Arkansas, site of the prolonged and highly contested integration of the city’s high school, supporters of both in­ tegration and segregation turned to public displays of prayer to further their goals. On the one hand, a coalition of twenty-four White Baptist preachers organized a solemn prayer event calling for the nine African-American high school students to leave Central High and return to the all-Black Horace Mann High School. The called for a short, fifteen-minute silent prayer service at which there would “be no public speaking” because the event was “for prayer only.”57 The organizers of the Friday evening October 11 event distinguished themselves from the integrationist event to be held the following day because, in the words of the Rev. M.L. Moser, Jr., “We have nothing in common with those ministers, many of whom are modernists and liberals while we are conservatives and fundamentalists.”58 The actual pro-segregationist prayer service went a bit longer than advertised and did include spoken prayers. Rev. Moser set the tone of those orations offered in the gathering. He first stated that “[m]en’s hearts and minds cannot be changed by bayonets, tanks, machine guns or any other type of weapon,” referencing in turn events in Russia and its satellites. He then prayed for the removal of federal troops lest the country succumb to a Russian-style “dictatorship.” He then con­ cluded, “We thank thee for our state leaders, and especially Governor Faubus.”59 For the self-declared segregationists, the evidence of divine support for what they saw as an anti-Communist position could not have been clearer. They saw no need to bring their prayers into public. With the noted exception of the KKK and a few particularly virulent supporters of Jim Crow, protectors of the status quo seldom did. The following morning a much broader coalition of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews gathered at dispersed sites across Little Rock to pray for the “preservation of law and order.”60 Although not expressly integrationist, those who organized the prayer events held in eighty-four houses of worship across the city actively worked to include both Black and White participants and featured presentations by the African-American students then integrating Central High School.61 The New York

The civil rights movement

43

Times reported on two White girls with segregationist sympathies who declared that, following the prayer services, they were going to “endeavor to convince their classmates of the errors of segregationist propaganda.”62 Amid the speaking and the prayers, those with silent sympathies for segregation all the way through more avid integrationists gathered and prayed for “peace and guidance.”63 Appeals offered from the pulpits included a statement asking that congregants “refrain from joining any group whose purpose is to defy the nation’s law,” again an indication of the organizers’ interest in and support for integration as called for by the Brown de­ cision.64 In total, nearly 5,000 Christians and Jews participated in the Saturday prayer services.65 The combining of public prayer with political purpose had again shown its broad appeal. Not all public prayers with civil rights content focused on a particular racial crisis. Also in 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr., by this point fully stepping into his emerging national role, agreed to offer a prayer at a Billy Graham evangelism rally. Although Graham had been more than cautious in his commentary about and actions toward the Civil Rights Movement, he had gone on record back in 1953 when he stepped in and took down the rope separating White and Black parti­ cipants in his crusade.66 At the same time, behind the scenes he counseled President Eisenhower to keep his distance from the emerging racial crises in the South.67 Thus, his invitation to have King give a prayer at his rally appears dis­ ingenuous, more a matter of public appearance than substantive engagement. At the rally, King used his prayer to compliment Graham while also calling for the courage and integrity to stand for justice, escape “dungeons of hate,” and work for a “brotherhood that transcends race or color.”68 He also asked for the “power of endurance and abiding faith” in the midst of chaos and “emotional tension.”69 Although with time, Graham and King would become more distant, particularly as King continued to employ nonviolent organizing tactics, for a brief moment in 1957 they shared a stage and at least a modicum of mutual support.

Emerging uses of prayer Two years later an event in Bessemer, Alabama, demonstrated that the marriage of prayer and politics in pursuit of civil rights could also prove controversial and incite violence. Asbury Howard, a fifty-two-year-old gas station owner, labor union vice-president, and Baptist deacon, had commissioned a poster-sized ren­ dition of a newspaper cartoon depicting a Black man in chains praying for equal rights for all.70 Howard had commissioned J. McAllister, a White male signpainter, to reproduce the cartoon along with the caption, “Vote Today for a Better Tomorrow.”71 In response, a Bessemer judge fined both men $105 and sentenced them each to six months in jail for violating a local ordinance that prohibited the distribution of any literature produced with the intention to “incite civil commotion.”72 On January 24, 1959, the day of his conviction, a group of forty White men attacked Howard as he walked down the stairs inside the Bessemer city hall. Police officers on the scene did nothing to intervene with the

44

The civil rights movement

severe beating other than to arrest Howard’s thirty-year-old son Asbury Howard, Jr., after he tried to protect his father.73 Denied bail, Howard, Sr., had to serve out his chain-gang forced labor jail sentence while waiting for his appeal.74 Although Howard himself had not prayed in public, the image of the prayer itself was en­ ough to prompt those who saw the cartoon to lash out both physically and legally. The strategy of public prayer events returned in force in the following year. In response to a southern filibuster against civil rights laws, students from Howard University knelt to pray on the mall building after police refused to allow them to pray on the Capitol building property itself.75 A 2,000-member gathering of African Americans at Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, only a month after King had left the church to co-pastor his father’s congregation in Atlanta, nearly turned violent when police and firefighters turned back the planned prayer march with the threat of fire hoses and arrests.76 In Nashville, Tennessee, student leader Diane Nash identified three tactics they employed in their integration campaign: demonstrations, sit-ins, and prayer vigils.77 For the rest of 1960 activists continued to employ prayer protest vigils. Groups in Atlanta, Birmingham, D.C., and Los Angeles held prayer marches, vigils, and sit-ins.78 As in the case of one of the events held in the Capitol dome, those who demonstrated used their devotion to call for the swift enactment of civil rights legislation. At this latter event, a demonstrator prayed, “God of George Washington, God of Lincoln, God of the Black man, [w]e call upon you to be with us in our hour of distress.” He concluded by entreating that “our brethren politicians … be com­ pelled to give justice.”79 Yet even as activists prayed in public for integration, fundamentalist leaders like segregationist preacher Bob Jones, Sr., prayed in public against it. In a rambling defense of his university’s segregationist policy, Jones used the occasion of a radio address to not only defend what he deemed to be the “established order” of racial separation between “the good colored people and the good White people” but also to defend slavery as necessary for the salvation of the Black community.80 He concluded his broadcast with a prayer in which he asked God to “Help these colored Christian not to get swept away by all the propaganda that is being put out now,” adding a request that all people would accept racial segregation because “God has fixed the boundaries of the nations so we would not have trouble and misunderstanding.”81 Jones’s prayer may have appealed to a White southern demographic seeking theological resources to support the practice of segregation but relatively few White southern clergy or lay people used prayer as publicly or wedded it to protest as regularly as did civil rights protestors. The prayers offered by segregationists took place more typically during state-sanctioned events such as inauguration ceremonies, building dedications, or public commemorations. Otherwise, segre­ gationists kept their prayers inside their sanctuaries. Jones’s radio prayer was an exception.

The civil rights movement

45

From Berkeley to Burgland – prayer protest rising Those working to bring an end to segregation, however, continued to infuse their demonstrations with plenty of prayer. The Freedom Riders who rode buses through the South in 1961 in a bid to enforce federal laws against segregation during intrastate transport not only faced overt violence, but they did so supported by prayer. A Berkeley, California, Episcopal minister blessed a group of Freedom Riders with a “prayer for social justice” that called for the courage to “contend against evil” and to “make no peace with oppression.”82 The young activists listened to the prayer while riding the train to Jackson, Mississippi, where the police then greeted them with arrests.83 In Baltimore, activists invited supporters to gather at City Hall Plaza, bring their children, and spend an hour praying for the Freedom Riders while church bells pealed across the city.84 Given how frequently activists turned to prayer in the course of their protests, it is not surprising that 1961 would include additional linkages between those public displays of devotion and various expressions of crisis. While riding a bus from the Mississippi state line to Jackson, Mississippi, SCLC leader and Freedom Rider C.T. Vivian repeatedly asked Lt. Col. Gillespie V. Montgomery of the National Guard to stop the bus so that he could use the bathroom. After repeated refusals, Vivian erupted saying, “What do you tell your chauffer when he makes a request? What do you tell your children, your wife? What do you say to God when you pray - if you pray?”85 Although Vivian did not say a prayer as such, he appealed to the idea of prayer in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to shame the national guardsman into responding to his request for relief. A student at the University of Georgia earlier that year had uttered a prayer aloud – and kissed a statue of the Madonna – when campus officials required her to leave the campus after the KKK organized a demonstration against her presence at the school.86 Although ulti­ mately reinstated by order of a federal judge, she turned first to prayer as the cameras turned on her. The unabated force of prayer’s potential for both crisis and violence reached its fullest expression up to that time in events that unfolded in McComb, Mississippi, on October 4 of that same year. A story of youthful agency and pious drama, it is worthwhile telling in some detail. Inspired by the Freedom Riders, a student from the Black high school in McComb, Burglund High, by the name of Brenda Travis who was only fifteen years old at the time of her participation in the protest joined two twenty-year olds – Lewis and Bobbie Talbert – in a demonstration at the town’s Greyhound bus station.87 As was usually the case in the South, the risks taken by local members of the community were often greater than those faced by people from outside the local area. In this case, Travis not only spent a month in jail but then received the news from her principal, Commodore Dewey “C.D.” Higgins, that he had expelled her for the rest of the school year.88 As the news of her expulsion spread among the Burglund high school students, they began to grow restless. Having been tutored by SNCC volunteers then working in the local community, they demanded that Principal Higgins, a Black

46

The civil rights movement

administrator known for his willingness to cooperate with the school system’s White leadership structure, explain why he had expelled Travis. In the face of Higgins’s refusal to provide any response, senior class president Jerome Byrd exclaimed, “Hey, y’all! Let’s walk out of here,” and commenced to lead 114 of his fellow students on an impromptu march. Following consultation with SNCC workers Bob Moses, Hollis Watkins, Chuck McDew, and others, the students set out to walk through White parts of town on their way to the McComb City Hall.89 Upon their arrival at City Hall, the violence ensued in direct connection to the public practice of prayer. Although, White segregation supporters had been taunting the youth and focusing much of their vitriol on White SNCC worker Bob Zellner who marched with the youth while carrying a bible, it was only after the students and their supporters started praying that the crisis reached new levels and violence broke out. As FBI agents and newspaper reporters looked on, a mob more than a hundred strong armed with chains and pipes gathered around the marchers. Watkins, then only eighteen years old himself at the time, knelt on the ground, raised his left hand to the sky thereby signaling a common prayer posture, and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. The police – and some eager members of the mob – then stepped in: the police to arrest the first wave of kneeling prayers; members of the mob to beat those they could reach. Once officers escorted one group of praying students to the city jail, another group fell to their knees to pray.90 While the arrests unfolded, the mob brutally attacked Zellner until the police finally intervened and took him into custody as well. In total, 116 of the marchers went to jail, seventy-six of them spent three days there, and a smaller number – only those eighteen or older – spent thirty-nine days in the nearby Magnolia County Jail.91 The effects of the protest would linger. Many of the students who participated in the march refused to sign a required pledge indicating that they would refrain from any future civil rights protests.92 Even while facing the felony charge of “contributing to the delinquency of minors,” SNCC workers nonetheless orga­ nized a “Nonviolent High” for the students who refused to sign the pledge.93 A few weeks later, the expelled students gained admission to J.P. Campbell Junior College over in Jackson.94 The first “mass student-led movement in the state of Mississippi” had used prayer as the centerpiece of their protest.95

The period of piety: 1962–66 The prayer-focused initiatives described thus far had really only been a warm up for the campaigns that would follow in the next five years, a stretch I refer to as the Civil Rights Movement’s period of piety. In comparison to the three previous decades and the same stretch that followed, the years between 1962 and 1966 saw dozens of prayer protests every year – with 1963 including a high of more than thirty such distinct events – in a flowering of religiously focused protest not equaled before and not witnessed after. Put simply, during these years prayer in public was ubiquitous.

The civil rights movement

47

SCLC’s campaign in Albany, Georgia, set the stage for the events to follow. Prior to Albany, the majority of the prayer events had been episodic at best and sporadic at worst. In the Albany campaign, activists infused prayer in public spaces throughout the vast majority of their protests. In one of the desegregation cam­ paign’s first actions – actually in December of 1961 – Martin Luther King led local activists through downtown Albany and, when confronted by Albany Police Chief Laurie Pritchett, stated that he did not know “anything about a permit” allowing them to march but that they had “come to pray.”96 The campaign leaders then unleashed a barrage of prayer events at City Hall. In July and August alone, at least eight separate prayer events took place in down­ town Albany.97 Almost all ended in arrests. Sister cities in the South held their own public prayer vigils in support of the Albany movement.98 One group of sympathizers even organized a prayer vigil at the White House in support of the Albany movement.99 Building on Albany’s example, organizers held prayer protests elsewhere as well. At the site of a burned out church in Sasser, Georgia, that had been used for voter registration, local organizers held a prayer service.100 North Carolinian ac­ tivists working with both the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) held prayer vigils in Durham, Raleigh, and Charlotte.101 Another CORE chapter prayed and picketed at the home of the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey, Thomas Gangemi, in protest of his support for segregation in federal housing projects.102 And, back in the South, a group of 200 African-American clergymen in full vestments marched down the main streets of Hopewell, Virginia, and entered a courtroom where one of their number, the Reverend Curtis Harris, faced contempt charges for refusing to respond to queries regarding his involve­ ment in integration efforts. After the presiding judge postponed the trial, Dr. Milton Reid, the president of Virginia’s SCLC, led a prayer in the courtroom. The judge and court officials became silent, bowed their heads, and remained so until the ministers marched back on the city streets to the local congregation where they had gathered.103 Not all prayer protests ended so peacefully that year. In an action at a segregated swimming pool in Cairo, Illinois, SNCC field secretary John Lewis who would later go on to serve as SNCC’s chairperson and then be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives knelt with other protestors on the sidewalk outside the pool. As a crowd of angry bystanders looked on, the group remained kneeling in prayer until a blue pickup began driving toward them. The pickup driver then struck a thirteen-year-old girl who refused to move from her posture of prayer.104 Before the driver hit the young girl, SNCC photographer Danny Lyon took a picture of the kneeling protestors. Printed as a poster above the caption, “Come Let Us Build a New World Together,” the photo sold 10,000 copies at a dollar a piece in support of SNCC’s efforts.105 The young girl survived the attack. Events like this and the widespread use of prayer in protest prompted additional scrutiny and criticism. In an action in keeping with other reactionary measures taken in response to the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in their state,

48

The civil rights movement

Alabama legislators passed a bill making it illegal for Black worshippers to pray in White congregations.106 In addition to White southern lawmakers, some Black clergy also took action to oppose the use of prayer in protest measures. Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention – the country’s largest Black denominational organization in 1962 – went on the offensive and attacked his long-time adversary, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by asserting that the orga­ nizers of the Albany campaign were deeply mistaken in their use of prayer as a protest measure. “I do not believe religion can be used as a protest method,” Dr. Jackson stated. “Prayer was never intended as a weapon to make our enemies treat us right. Jesus said we are not to pray on street corners to be seen of men, but when you pray enter into a closet.”107 Although Jackson’s comments must be considered in the context of his overall antagonism toward King, his statement about prayer as an act best kept between the devotee and God does represent a pious theological tradition highly suspicious of any attempt to employ religious resources for political purposes, especially if those purposes were deemed liberal or worldly.

Violence rising in 1963 What had begun to ramp up in 1962 took off with even greater speed in 1963. The number of prayer events increased. The geographic spread of their reach widened. And the response to the tactic became even more reactive. A. Philip Randolph’s original tactic of combining challenge to the status quo with a tried and true religious model of respectability began to show signs of no longer achieving the same results. Throughout the year, some prayer protests did unfold as had so many pre­ viously with a clear message of cooperative respect alongside an uncompromising objection to the racial order as arranged up to that point. In mid-March, Photographer Cecil J. Williams captured an arresting image of Black clergy and laity lining up on their knees in downtown Orangeburg, South Carolina, in protest of segregationist practices there.108 At the onset of the Birmingham, Alabama, desegregation campaign, SCLC leaders defied a court order on marching and led a prayer protest through town that prompted African Americans watching the marchers to drop “to their knees on the sidewalk” in prayer and then join the procession.109 A few months later in the midst of an equally conflict-ridden de­ segregation campaign in Cambridge, Maryland, an integrated group of protestors sat down in the street when approached by the National Guard and began to pray. In response, Brigadier General George M. Gelson, the Guard’s commander, re­ moved his hat until the prayer concluded and then asked the protestors to return to the church from which they had come. They complied.110 Likewise, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom included public prayers during which the thousands gathered on the mall at the Lincoln Memorial stood and bowed their heads.111 At dispersed sites in at least eleven additional locations ranging from Philadelphia to Stamford, Connecticut, and Martin County, North Carolina, to

The civil rights movement

49

Gadsden, Alabama, civil rights activists prayed while protesting.112 They did so without facing violence in those locations. Yet it is the frequency with which public prayer protest became associated with various kinds of violent response that stands out in the course of the year. During the Birmingham campaign, Bull Connor and his officers repeatedly arrested protestors in the midst of prayer.113 They used police dogs to do so.114 In the interim between demonstration and attack order, a young woman fell to her knees and prayed as Connor decided whether or not to give the order to release the attack dogs and turn on the fire hoses.115 Further south in Jackson, Mississippi, Ed King, a White Methodist minister and civil rights activist then serving as the Tougaloo College chaplain, prayed on the steps of the city’s post office on Memorial Day just before being carried away to jail. He said, “Lord, have mercy upon us” and remained kneeling until carried to the police wagon.116 Such incidents seem mild when compared with the events in Danville, Virginia, on June 10, 1963. As part of a campaign supported by both SNCC and SCLC, local leaders had been organizing to overthrow segregation for three years. Following a downtown march and takeover of the city manager’s office five days previously, Judge Archibald M. Aiken put in place a temporary injunction against civil rights protests.117 Defying that order, a group of between fifty and sixty-five AfricanAmerican demonstrators marched from the local church to the downtown jail where officials had incarcerated key movement leaders and circled around it while singing.118 As they began their second circuit around the jail, police stopped the demonstrators and ordered them to disperse. In response, the Reverend H.G. McGhee led the group in prayer during which he appealed for divine forgiveness of the police officers “who know not what they do.”119 Chief of Police E.G. McCain then ordered firefighters to turn hoses on the kneeling demonstrators, a group with many women and teenagers among the protestors, and released his officers and deputized sanitation workers to beat the activists with batons.120 Forty-eight of the demonstrators received treatment for lacerations, contusions, and broken bones at the segregated Winslow hospital.121 SNCC photographer Danny Lyon captured images of the injured protestors and produced a widely viewed brochure that emphasized the brutality of the police’s response to the praying demonstrators.122 Attacks on protestors in the midst of prayer continued throughout the summer. In early July, an avowed segregationist and restaurant manager in Cambridge, Maryland, smashed an egg on the head of a demonstrator as he and others knelt on the sidewalk.123 At the site of another restaurant that same month, this one being Leb’s Restaurant in Atlanta, Reverend Ashton Jones was holding a prayer vigil to protest the establishment’s segregation policy when a White bystander by the name of N.A. Jackson forcibly removed Jones’s sign from his hands and tore it up. The local police refused to intervene or issue a warrant for the attackers’ arrest.124 In New York the following month clergy knelt in prayer while bound together by chains to demonstrate their interracial unity as police used steel cutting shears to break the chains and arrest the demonstrators. They had been protesting to demand that the construction industry open positions at all levels to Black workers.125

50

The civil rights movement

Activist and status quo prayers in contrast The tactic of protest prayers had by 1964 been tested and employed hundreds of times. Leaders knew its potency. When enacted, the strategy could be depended upon to garner press attention, drive home a message of respectability, and, by making that point, take the moral high ground. Protest prayers could also, in the right circumstances, invite new crisis and some measure of violent response. As the possibility of substantive new civil rights legislation became ever more real, the activist community turned to the religious community for support. In addition to writing letters, lobbying, and calling on Congress to pass legislation, members of the religious community – White and Black, clergy and laity – also prayed. Many of those prayers took public forms. Some took place on the steps of churches themselves. Continuing in their efforts to draw attention to segregated White churches, integrated groups of ac­ tivists in Mississippi knelt, prayed, and worshipped at all-White churches. In so doing, they frequently risked arrest. At Galloway Methodist in Jackson, church officials called the police and had integrationists arrested on a weekly basis for several months. In one instance, a police officer even arrested a White church member who had brought a Black friend to worship on a Sunday.126 By April, Methodist bishops had joined the kneel-in movement and, like the integrated groups before them, faced recalcitrant and unrepentant ushers willing to refuse entry to even the highest seated members of their denomination.127 Even as activists found their efforts to pray in segregated churches thwarted, they achieved greater success in other public prayer venues. In Birmingham in mid March, three ministers representing the United Methodist Alliance took a sunrise “prayer walk” for racial integration through the downtown city streets with a patrol wagon and police officers trailing after them.128 In Germantown, Pennsylvania, a few weeks later a group of one hundred and sixty members of the Episcopalian church organized a twenty-four hour continuous prayer vigil in support of the civil rights legislation then being considered in the Senate.129 As the legislation continued to grind its way through floor debate in April, clergy or­ ganized prayer vigils in Cleveland, Ohio; New York City; Princeton, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C.130 In total, they represented more than three million Catholics, Jews, Orthodox, and Protestant believers.131 They vowed to gather to pray for “as long as necessary” through the Senate debates.132 The focus on prayer as protest intensified even further when A. Philip Randolph returned again to the tactic that he had relied on so often. In co­ operation with the NAACP and the Negro American Labor Council, Randolph announced plans during the week of May 9 to organize a national work stoppage and prayer vigil in the event that Congress did not pass the civil rights legislation it continued to debate.133 A month later he reiterated the plan during meetings held the week of June 8.134 The filibuster holding up the bill in the Senate was voted down two days later, legislation passed the Senate on June 19, and President Johnson signed the bill into law on July 2. Randolph’s call for a work stoppage and

The civil rights movement

51

prayer vigil received support from additional prayer events members held throughout D.C. in May and June involving more than 7,400 religious adherents.135 Although Christian groups dominated the public prayer events in 1964, members of the Jewish community also figured prominently during this time. While congressional representatives ironed out the final details of the civil rights legislation package, a group of rabbis travel to St. Augustine, Florida, at the behest of King. Fifteen members of the delegation prayed as part of an integrated group in front of the segregated Monson’s Restaurant on June 18. Police arrested them for their action.136 They not only prayed at the event but also included the words of a Jewish prayer in the statement they released about the event: “Baruch ata adonai matir asurim. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who freest the captives.”137 At the same location, the manager of the facility along with a deputy sheriff attacked one of the rabbis as he prayed at the protest.138 Even as prayer continued as a go-to resource for civil rights activists seeking to demonstrate both respectability and the moral failure of Jim Crow policies, seg­ regationists and those opposed to civil rights agitation also used prayer but not for the purposes of public protest. In mid-January of 1964, evangelist Billy Graham informed the Georgia legislature that the United States had the best track record in the world of minority treatment and that those “racial problems” that did exist would not find resolution “in the streets” but with “God’s help” because, he intoned, “[o]ur salvation lies in prayer.”139 Only days later, the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (APWR) began and ended their meeting at the Twin Lakes Country Club in Jackson, Mississippi, with prayer. They con­ tinued to ask for divine blessing for the efforts to undermine civil rights activism and maintain segregationist policies at every meeting throughout the year and into the next.140 In both Graham’s instance and in the case of the APWR, the prayers offered and suggested served the purpose of maintaining the racial order rather than undermining it. And, they kept their prayers away from public protest. As such, these prayers initiated no visible crisis but did serve to perpetuate the violence of a system that encouraged abuse and callous disregard for Black life. The contrast between these status quo prayers and the one offered by SCLC staffer C.T. Vivian on the steps of the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama, could not have been more striking. By February of 1965, SCLC had focused their efforts to gain voting rights for the African-American citizens of that town as part of a larger strategy to gain traction for impending voting rights legislation at the national level. Organizers hoped that Selma’s sheriff Jim Clark would respond with the same sort of violence as had Bull Connor in Birmingham two years previously and thereby draw the ire and attention of the North to the South’s refusal to remove barriers to the franchise for African Americans. One of the first signs that their strategy would prove successful came via an altercation with Clark following a prayer offered by Vivian. On February 5, Vivian helped lead a march to the courthouse of African Americans seeking entry to register to vote. Once they arrived, Clark blocked the courthouse entry. In

52

The civil rights movement

response, Vivian first accused Clark of violating a court order giving them access to the registration process. After Clark ignored the accusation and tried to discredit Vivian by noting that he did not live in the county, Vivian turned to the crowd behind him and said, “Shall we stand in prayer until the time that’s given for us to disperse by this sheriff breaking Judge Thomas’s order?” As he then began to pray, Clark interrupted to tell him that he was “under arrest for contempt of court.” Undaunted, Vivian prayed for an end to “tyranny,” for safety in jails where protestors were “misused” and beaten, and – in closing – that they would be kept safe “from the brutality of this official.”141 Clark then arrested those gathered to register. Prayer served to further exacerbate the conflict. Accounts of the encounter between Clark and Vivian and a photo of Clark pointing to his watch to indicate that Vivian’s prayer time had run out were published in papers across the country.142 When state troopers attacked throngs of marchers as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge at the start of a planned march to the state capital of Montgomery on Sunday, March 7, they did so only after the march’s leaders had invited the crowd to drop to their knees and pray.143 The troopers advanced on the activists with clubs, horses, and tear gas only after they had prayed, not before. When King arrived to lead a second march two days later on Tuesday, March 9, he again had the group drop to their knees to pray, but this time he then instructed them to turn back so as to avoid breaking a federal injunction against the march.144 And when the Selma to Montgomery march finally got underway in full on March 21, King said that the demonstration for “the rights of all human beings” would “proceed prayerfully.”145 A photographer captured an image of exactly what such a prayerful procession looked like as marchers knelt by the roadside during a break in the march.146 Despite the violence visited upon those who prayed while protesting in Selma, activists continued to draw on the tactic. Throughout 1965, more than a dozen high profile prayer marches and events focused attention on the ongoing drive for full implementation of civil rights.147 In the course of those events, police drug a young girl from her knees while praying, ushers turned away yet another group of integrated worshippers, and police blocked another group from moving toward the Bogalusa, Louisiana, City Hall.148 Others released the text of prayers in honor of slain civil rights workers, led prayers at large public civil rights meetings asking for divine sustenance in the civil rights struggle and a change of heart for their adversaries, and requested God’s blessings in their pursuit of “liberty and freedom.”149 Civil rights activists were not the only ones to employ prayer in their public responses to civil rights initiatives. Members of the KKK did so as well. During a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan in Brandon, Mississippi, in 1965, the state’s Grand Dragon, E.L. McDaniels, opened the meeting with a prayer that “every word that is said and done here tonight will be to glorify Thy name.”150 Later on in that same meeting, he used the following words to great applause, “If the niggers march, I’m going to march, and if the niggers go to the pools, we’re going to

The civil rights movement

53

throw them down. How about that?”151 The evening closed with another prayer, this one including an entreaty to “help us save this country before it’s too late.”152 Although the content of the prayers being offered could not have been more diametrically opposed, the use of prayer to further both segregationists’ and in­ tegrationists’ ends continued to be relevant throughout 1965.

1966: protest prayer ascendant Three things stand out about the public protest prayers of 1966. First, the prayer tactic had proven to be such a central and integral part of SCLC’s southern civil rights strategy that King and his lieutenants employed the tactic repeatedly when they shifted their efforts to Chicago. In early April, for example, King kicked off the campaign by releasing a prayer. The eloquent – and lengthy – supplication appeared in the SCLC’s newsletter and was then reprinted in the historic Black newspaper, The Amsterdam News. In it, King pointed to the racial and economic injustices in Chicago and called upon the city’s leaders to “substitute courage for caution and the socially relevant for the politically expedient.” He then offered prayers for “every White citizen of this great city” that they would “truly atone for the sins they have perpetrated upon their colored brothers.” He also prayed for every Negro citizen of Chicago” that they would be imbued with “faith,” “hope,” and “a creative and redeeming love” that would result in a nonviolent campaign. He concluded with a prayer for all people of Chicago that they could together build “a city of justice.”153 Throughout the summer the campaign continued when King started by placing prayer at the center of their efforts. SCLC leaders held prayer vigils at multiple real estate offices, led prayer marches through Chicago’s city streets, and organized prayer vigils in all-White communities.154 A prayer prepared by one of the acti­ vists pled with realtors to release their hold on “prejudice and dollars” in favor of grasping on to “love and justice.”155 As had been the case in the South, the prayerfocused events garnered significant press attention that included multiple dramatic photos of activists kneeling on the sidewalk and in the streets. SCLC’s campaign to desegregate housing, employment, and education in northern cities – that had begun with such promise in the Windy City – ultimately floundered against Mayor Richard Daley’s political machine and false promises. The prayer tactics employed by SCLC were not, in the end, sufficient to counter Daley’s sophisti­ cated and ultimately duplicitous maneuvering, but they had helped focus attention on the city’s racial inequities. The second theme of the 1966 prayer protests is that the tactic itself began to invite criticism. Chicago was not the only location in which activists continued to turn to prayer as a preferred protest method. After the murder of Samuel L. Younge, Jr., a college freshman civil rights activist in Tuskegee, Alabama, in early January, marchers together bowed in prayer as part of their protest.156 Prayer vigils, prayer marches, and prayers given at rallies continued to be offered in both the North and South, many of them having been given in the aftermath of other

54

The civil rights movement

activists’ murders.157 The continued widespread attention did result in additional scrutiny. For example, a Baptist prayer in Chicago echoed the criticisms raised earlier by King’s adversary in the National Baptist Convention, Rev. Joseph Jackson. Speaking from his pulpit at Ashburn Baptist Church, a White con­ gregation in a southwest suburb of Chicago, the Reverend Vernon Charles Lyons excoriated King for engaging in civil disobedience, provoking violence, and fostering communism. But he saved some of his most pointed rhetoric to castigate King for violating the “sacred communication between a man and his maker” when holding prayer vigils. Lyons asserted that “King and his crowd kneeling in the street” made a “mockery of true prayer” and violated the mandate to only pray in private.158 Hardly a lone voice, Lyons articulated a perspective common among Protestant adherents who felt that religion was best kept confined to the religious sanctuary and marshaled only in support of the status quo. A final theme to note about the use of public prayer in 1966 is that it would be the last year in which that tactic figured prominently in the mid-twentieth century civil rights struggle. Even though figures like Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee member and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer continued to point to prayer as central to the success of struggles like the 1964 Freedom Summer, other less religiously centered leaders had begun to turn away from such pious displays of protest.159 Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks began to popularize the “Black power” slogan, decidedly not referencing any religious themes in doing so.160 John Lewis, the former seminarian and SNCC chairperson, left the organization’s leadership after Carmichael won election to the chair role. Although earlier phases of the long civil rights struggle in the 1930s and 1940s had been dominated by activists from outside the religious community, the country had become used to seeing Black men with reverend in front of their names at the front of civil rights marches.161 As younger male and female activists like Carmichael but also including Gloria Richardson of the Cambridge, Maryland, movement, Elaine Brown of the Black Panthers, and Angela Davis of both Black Panther and Communist Party fame took on higher profile positions, the appearance and the substance of civil rights protests began to shift away from religiously inflected performances. Although a powerful and consistent theme across social change movements, this shift also makes evident that protest prayer has ebbed and flowed across time and within specific movements.

Prayer persistent, potent, and descending The last three years of the 1960s saw fewer and fewer instances of protest prayer but those that did appear tended to gain a lot of attention and no small amount of controversy. In the summer of 1967, President Johnson called for a national day of prayer “for reconciliation” to take place on July 30 in the face of renewed urban unrest over racial injustice in the cities.162 While calling for the national prayer day, he also announced that members of the National Guard would receive “special anti-riot training.”163 A month later, A. Philip Randolph led a group of

The civil rights movement

55

national religious and business leaders in prayer for the very urban rebellions that President Johnson had hoped to forestall through his appeal to both prayer and military force.164 In light of that ongoing unrest and, to a degree, fostering a source of it, a group of Black Power “Milwaukee Commandos” participated in a nineday civil rights prayer vigil at D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial at the end of September.165 Apparently not all members of the ascendant Black Power movement felt that religious forms had no place in their organizing efforts. Although a man did fall to his knees in the pouring rain outside the Bessemer, Alabama, jail where officials held King following yet another of his late-career arrests, far fewer images and reports of prayer protests received press attention.166 Only a handful of civil rights prayer events received any attention at all in the next two years. After King’s assassination in 1968, prayer vigils, memorials, and litanies in his memory took place amid the more than 100 rebellions that broke out in cities across the country.167 Many of those prayer events took the form of a lament, such as the one used in a memorial service on the campus of the evan­ gelical Wheaton College outside Chicago on April 7. Participants in that service joined in lamenting that people expressed their hatred of riots “while remaining indifferent to the conditions that promote them.”168 The following year, Theology Today, a liberal academic journal out of Princeton Theological Seminary, printed a satirical prayer by William R. Johnson, Jr., a seminarian at Princeton, which employed Black Power themes to mock White religious collusion with coloni­ alism, capitalism, war, and the selfishness of a community that did not “give a damn” about those who had to “root like hogs to live.”169 Long gone were the pious and sincere prayers that had been a staple of the Black freedom struggle for more than three decades. Of course, as the public protest prayer offered by Ralph Abernathy in 1969 made evident at the opening of this chapter, the tactic of praying in public while protesting racial injustice had not entirely disappeared. In addition to Rev. Abernathy, Mayor Russell Davis turned to public prayer in the aftermath of the May 24, 1970, shooting on the campus of Jackson State College in Mississippi.170 In 1976, the Rev. Jesse Jackson met with a group of Black Marines accused of assault and conspiracy for attacking members of the KKK at Camp Pendleton in California and then prayed with the Marines as photographers captured the mo­ ment.171 A group of clergy held an SCLC-sponsored prayer vigil at the White House in response to action taken to prompt a Supreme Court ruling in the Alan Bakke case that would go on to effectively end affirmative action in higher education.172 Yet, in each of these instances, clergy members initiated, carried out, and starred in the public prayer actions. Grassroots members had largely absented themselves from such civil rights action. Even as public civil rights actions had fallen off the national register despite many less publicized efforts that continued to address civil rights in local communities throughout the South, so too had the religious exercise of praying in public to support civil rights initiatives.173

56

The civil rights movement

Gender and violence in public protest prayer Gender, violence, respectability, and the power of performative prayer all come into focus through this examination of public prayer in the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement. The first point has been made evident in examples ranging from those led by A. Philip Randolph in the early 1940s to Ralph Abernathy’s interrupted prayer in 1969. Men dominated the prayers. In part a result of the high profile positions held by Baptist and Methodist clergy members in many movement organizations, the men who prayed in public often ended up in aggressive face-offs with the police and other law enforcement officials. Organizers such as Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer, Septima Clark, Daisy Bates, and Ella Baker did much of the work to make the movement run, yet they were less likely to pray in public. Those holding the offices of deacons and preachers more often filled those roles. To be certain, someone like Hamer did lead the singing of spirituals, which can be interpreted as its own form of prayer although not taken up in this chapter, but did not offer formal prayers as often as the men around her.174 That said, women attended the events at which public prayers were offered, risked arrest alongside male activists, and heightened the drama of the prayer events simply by being present. Back in 1962 during the Albany movement’s focus on summer prayer vigils, Marion King – a physical therapist and widely respected movement leader – found herself in jail after praying at city hall. As a result, conservative African Americans who had sat out the protests up to that point began to show up at mass meetings and support the desegregation effort.175 In the same location several months earlier, Anne Jones White participated in “one of the most moving experiences” of her life when she took part in a prayer march during which she and other students marched “in silence, heads high and shoulders back” on their way to city hall.176 So, too, when a large crowd knelt in a line in January 1966 facing the Forrest County, Mississippi, Courthouse (Figure 2.1) in protest of the murder of Vernon Dahmer, a well-known Black civil rights activist, women filled the ranks of the kneeling crowd.177 They gave evidence that the entirety of the Black community was present and accounted for. In such highly gendered encounters, the White southern audiences before whom Black and White activists offered their prayers most often experienced the divinely centered orations as a threat. Most centrally, the activists’ prayers sug­ gested that White segregationists did not have the same divine mandate as did the protestors. As the examples of the prayers offered by KKK members, Bob Jones, Sr., and other segregationists make evident, White southerners could and did use prayers to support their cause. Only on rare occasions, however, did they bring those prayers into any sort of protest space. The KKK did so upon occasion, but even there the Grand Dragons and KKK chaplains prayed in public to support the status quo rather than oppose it. In contrast, the civil rights activists who prayed in public threatened avowed protectors of segregation by sending the unequivocal message that God was not with those who stood in the way of integration. Given

The civil rights movement

FIGURE 2.1

57

Nighttime crowd prays on Forrest County courthouse steps in response to murder and funeral of civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, January 1966, Hattiesburg, MS.

Source: Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Used by permission.

the long-standing traditions of Christian practice and piety among White south­ erners, few threats offered as much religious and moral indictment as did the accusation that God had rejected one’s public propriety.178 Such threat could and did turn toward violence. In the vast majority of cases in which activists knelt while praying in protest, some kind of crisis followed – expressed most often as arrest or overt violence toward the demonstrators.179 To offer a few new examples, in 1961 freedom rider Jim Zwerg took a brutal pounding from members of the KKK after kneeling to pray in the Birmingham, Alabama, bus station.180 During the Selma campaign, C.T. Vivian found himself attacked by a young White man as he knelt in prayer.181 Also in Selma, Reverend James Dobynes faced the club of a state trooper as he knelt in prayer, while an entire group of 400 kneeling civil rights activists had rocks thrown at them by a large group of White counterprotestors in Bogalusa, Louisiana, also in 1965.182 In the limited number of instances where kneeling protestors did not experience a violent response or find themselves under arrest, agitation often increased in the following days as press accounts cast them in a negative light.183 In addition to violence triggered by the intensely pious image of kneeling protestors, the words offered in the midst of performative prayer invited vehe­ mence in return. Reverend Vivian’s 1965 prayerful declamation about Jim Clark’s “brutality” is only one such example.184 Three years previously, Reverend Abernathy poked at Sheriff Laurie Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, when he asserted

58

The civil rights movement

in his prayer that “there will be no peace in this community” unless city officials decided to support integration efforts.185 Abernathy again antagonized his ad­ versaries by offering a prayer during the 1966 March Against Fear in which he declared that those responsible for the murders of the young civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner “are wel-l-l-l within my voice.” Someone in the crowd cried back, “You god-damned right. And we ain’t through yet!”186 Despite some scholars’ assertions that prayer can serve to usher individuals and communities through crisis, the performative prayers offered during the Civil Rights Movement more often created crisis.187

Respectability and freedom through public prayer The linkage between public prayer and crisis was maintained and intensified in part through civil rights activists’ commitment to respectability. Multiple historians have documented the strategy long pursued by African Americans of deliberately promoting White-defined middle-class public behaviors, dress patterns, and moral commitments.188 The rationale behind the strategy, evident in the Easter finery worn by, for example, the protestors in Birmingham in 1963 who successfully faced down Sheriff Connor during a march to the town jail, asserted that White people would come to respect the Black community if members of the latter group fully committed themselves to hard work, higher education, and proper conduct. The doctrine of respectability then purported to allow Black people to claim equal status with the White community as co-supporters of middle-class propriety.189 The protestors who knelt to pray (Figure 2.2) while dressed in middle-class costume “drew down the mantle of respectability on their already pious action.”190 Yet the very act of praying in public – even if dressed in suits and ties and dresses – undermined the social norms that a commitment to respectability tried to uphold. Propriety rejected street marching. Public prayers were meant to offer dignity to public ceremony not lead to arrest. The very people who prayed while protesting even as they presented themselves as upstanding citizens offered a vo­ latile mix. They combined respectability and social protest while also blending secular space with sacred conduct. That audacious mixing infuriated those officials trying to maintain order and made White onlookers all the more irate. The latter groups kept their Sunday clothes and prayer inside of their segregated sanctuaries. They did not bring them into integrated streets.191 And so the performative prayers time and again undermined the status quo by creating liminal space. No one knew for sure where the outcome of a given public prayer would lead.192 Those offering prayers were simultaneously devotional beings and deliberate strategists. Neither outcomes nor prayers were fully scripted. In essence, both activists and onlookers took part in a kind of social theater. It was one in which some scripting had been thought about ahead of time but much of the drama remained improvisational. Yet everyone involved knew that they were participating in a dramatic moment that would somehow change society even if

The civil rights movement

FIGURE 2.2

59

A young woman kneels in prayer on the sidewalk outside the city traffic engineering building during civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, AL, on May 5, 1963.

Source: Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo. Used by permission.

they did not know exactly how.193 In that liminal space of uncertainty, numerous possibilities emerged.194 Reverend Vivian did not know what Sheriff Clark would do in response to his meddlesome prayer. Reverend Abernathy could not predict what the murderers in his audience would do in response to his accusation. Time and again those offering performative prayers could not foresee the results of their action, but they could open up new possibilities. In short, they destabilized the status quo even while helping to create a turning point.195 In the end, those who engaged in performative prayer embodied the very freedom that they sought. In the context of the South – and in many places in the North – during the mid-century civil rights struggle, the intentional presentation of Black bodies in sacred forms during demonstrations to challenge a system that

60

The civil rights movement

denied those same bodies efficacy, agency, and power, the activists achieved the ends for which they aimed. The act of engaging in divine communication in effect transformed protest space into religious space, the one communal location that had from the point of emancipation been able to avoid White control. In other words, Black activists symbolized future hope through present kneeling.196 The only way a segregationist could completely disrupt that Black-led and created religious space was through assault. And yet the attack itself revealed the segregationists’ des­ peration. Time and again they tried unsuccessfully to prevent Black people from manifesting freedom through the act of praying while protesting in public.197 Their repeated attempts to curtail the practice only served to underline the power of the same.

Notes 1 George W. Hopkins, “Charleston Hospital Workers’ Strike,” University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/ charleston-hospital-workers-strike/. 2 “Rev. Abernathy in Jail 27th Time, Begins Fast,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, June 28, 1969, B2. 3 Ibid., B1. 4 Robert Darden, Nothing but Love in God’s Water: Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, 2 vols., vol. 1 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014); Nothing but Love in God’s Water: Black Sacred Music from Sit-Ins to Resurrection City, 2 vols., vol. 2 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016). 5 Tobin Miller Shearer, “Invoking Crisis: Performative Christian Prayer and the Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 83, no. 2 (2015): 491. 6 Ibid., 493. 7 Ibid., 494–6. 8 Ibid., 495. 9 Ibid., 498. 10 “Clerics Make Civil Rights’ Appeal in D.C. Prayer March,” Chicago Defender, Saturday, January 17, 1948. 11 “200 Ministers Pray on Steps of Capitol in Washington, DC.,” Pittsburgh Courier, Saturday, January 17, 1948. 12 “Ministers Pray on Nation’s Capitol Steps,” The Plain Dealer, Friday, January 16, 1948. 13 “Prayer Day Held in Washington for Civil Liberty,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, January 17, 1948. 14 “Ministers Pray on Nation’s Capitol Steps” 15 Cynthia Taylor, A. Philip Randolph: The Religious Journey of an African American Labor Leader (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 150. 16 Ibid., 158. 17 “Ministers Pray on Nation’s Capitol Steps” 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 “Prayer for Civil Rights, Peace, Brotherhood on Capitol Steps,” Atlanta Daily World, Tuesday, January 11, 1949. 21 “National Council of Women in Prayer Day for Civil Rights,” The Plain Dealer, Friday, February 25, 1949. 22 Ibid.

The civil rights movement

61

23 “Women Invade Washington on Civil Rights Issue,” Atlanta Daily World, Wednesday, October 10, 1951. 24 Ibid. 25 “M-Day Observance in Virginia to Honor Marshall,” Arkansas State Press, Friday, April 2, 1954. 26 “Bus Protest Draws NAACP Resolution,” Atlanta Daily World, Saturday, February 25, 1956. 27 “Prayer Day Urged for Civil Rights,” Chicago Defender, Saturday, March 3 1956; “Amez Bishops Back 'Prayer Day' in Civil Rights Statement,” Afro-American, Saturday, March 24 1956; “Prayer Day Grant Refusal Is Called Buck Passing,” Atlanta Daily World, Tuesday, March 13 1956; “Ame Ministers Support Day of Prayer Movement,” Atlanta Daily World, Wednesday, March 7, 1956. 28 “Prayer Day Sponsors Do Not Want Any Work Stoppages: Rep. Powell Explains Aim of Move to Support Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Ala.,” Lowell Sun, Wednesday, February 29 1956; “Negro Leaders Plan Big Work Stoppage,” North Adams Transcript, February 25, 1956. 29 “Religious Leaders Draft Declaration to Fight for Full Citizenship Rights,” The Plain Dealer, Friday, April 13, 1956. 30 Bayard Rustin, “The Reminiscences of Bayard Rustin,” ed. Ed Edwin (New York City, 1987), Columbia University Center for Oral History, Reminiscences of Bayard Rustin: oral history, 1987, Oral History, 801 Butler (Noncirculating), NXCP87A1625; “Prayer Pilgrimage May Draw 75,000,” Pittsburgh Courier, Saturday, April 27 1957; “Secure Lincoln Memorial for Prayer Pilgrimage,” The Plain Dealer, Friday, May 3, 1957. 31 “From across the Nation 50,000 to Emerge on Washington Will Seek to “Arouse the Conscience,” Arkansas State Press, Friday, May 17, 1957. 32 “All Roads Lead to D. C. For Prayer Pilgrimage,” The Plain Dealer, Friday, May 10, 1957. 33 “Mahalia to Prayer Pilgrimage,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, May 11, 1957. 34 “From across the Nation 50,000 to Emerge on Washington Will Seek to “Arouse the Conscience” 35 “Local Ministers’ Body Condemns Prayer Pilgrimage in D. C. Local Ministers’ Group Condemns Nat'l Prayer,” Arkansas State Press, Friday, May 3, 1957, 4. 36 Ibid. 37 “Walking Minister Not Unfrocked New York “, The Milwaukee Defender, Saturday, July 27 1957. 38 “Pilgrimage Planners Busy,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, April 25 1957; “Set Final ‘Prayer’ Plans for Trek to Washington,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Saturday, May 2 1957; “Local NAACP Joins D. C. Prayer Trek,” Pittsburgh Courier, Saturday, May 11 1957; “Estimated 200 Atlantans in Prayer Pilgrimage Today,” Atlanta Daily World, Friday, May 17 1957; Thomas L. Dabney, “Prayer March May 17,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, May 11, 1957. 39 “Governor to Declare May 17 ‘Prayer’ Day,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, May 9, 1957. 40 “Women Endorse Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, May 11, 1957. 41 Eliyaha Yakira, “Where Do They Stand?,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, May 18 1957; “50,000 a Lot of Prayers,” Afro-American, Saturday, May 18, 1957. 42 James Melville Washington, ed. Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 203. 43 Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon, eds., Rhetoric, Religion, and the Civil Rights Movement (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 243. 44 “27,000 Prayer Pilgrims Hear Randolph, Wilkins and King in D. C. March. Prayer, Political Action,” Plain Dealer, Friday, May 24 1957; “27,000 Hear King and Others in

62

45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

The civil rights movement

Dc Political Action Urged to Help Solve Racial Violence,” Arkansas State Press, Friday, May 24, 1957. “We Have Prayed; Now Let’s Vote!,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, May 25, 1957. Darden, 2, 7. Ibid. “We Have Prayed; Now Let’s Vote!” Martin Luther King, Jr, ““Give Us the Ballot,” Address Delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Standord University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/ documents/give-us-ballot-address-delivered-prayer-pilgrimage-freedom. Ibid. Ibid. “Mystery of the Missing Pilgrims,” Pittsburgh Courier, Saturday, June 1, 1957. Rustin, 4–152. 1986, 1987 #140 Louis Lautier, “Pilgrims Hear Flow of Oratory,” Call and Post, Saturday, May 25, 1957. Andrew Young, An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 97. Harvard Sitkoff, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008), 61. “A Call to Prayer at the Central Baptist Church,” Arkansas Democrat, Friday Evening, October 4, 1957. “Prayer Meet on Crisis Set,” Arkansas Democrat, Tuesday evening, October 8, 1957. Ernest Q. Campbell and Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Men of God in Racial Crisis: Two Sociologists Report on the Attitudes and Behavior of the Clergymen of Little Rock in Last Fall’s Integration Conflict,” The Christian Century, June 4, 1958. Phyllis Dillaha, “Leaders of All Religious Faiths Unite in Effort to Solve Integration Crisis; Quiet Returns to Central High Front,” Arkansas Democrat, Friday Evening, October 4, 1957. “5,000 Pray over Crisis,” ibid., Sunday, October 13. James McBride Dabbs, “All Prayers for Little Rock Prayers,” The Christian Century, October 23, 1957. Ernest Q. Campbell and Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Men of God in Racial Crisis: Two Sociologists Report on the Attitudes and Behavior of the Clergymen of Little Rock in Last Fall’s Integration Conflict,” ibid., June 4, 1958. “5,000 Pray over Crisis” Ibid. Steven P. Miller, “Billy Graham, Civil Rights, and the Changing Postwar South,” in Politics and Religion in the White Self, ed. Glenn Feldman (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 161. Michael G. Long, Billy Graham and the Beloved Community, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 111. Jr. Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, Jr., Prays Invocation at Billy Graham Crusade in New York City (1957). Ibid. “Albama Negro Leader Beaten, Jailed in 1st Amendment Case,” Civil Liberties, March 1959; “Ike Asked to Free Howard from Dixie Chain Gang,” Arkansas State Press, Friday, March 6, 1959. “Union Enters Fight to Free Ala. Negro Denver,” Los Angeles Tribune, Friday, March 6, 1959. “Freedom Sought from Jail for ‘Prayer Poster’,” Atlanta Daily World, Friday, February 27, 1959; “Ask U.S. Attorney General to Enter Howard Case,” Jet, April 23, 1959, 8. “Albama Negro Leader Beaten, Jailed in 1st Amendment Case” “Six Months for Having Poster,” The Age, Thursday, April 16, 1959.

The civil rights movement

63

75 “Civil Rights Picture: Prayer Outside, Filibuster Inside,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, March 12, 1960. 76 “Answer Racist Jeers, Cop Threats with Song,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, March 8 1960; “When Students,” Afro-American, Saturday, March 19, 1960. 77 Alvin C. Adams, “‘And Then We’ll Win,’ Vows Sit-in Students,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, March 29, 1960. 78 “Atlanta Ministers to Lead Prayers to Solve Problems,” Atlanta Daily World, Sunday, March 27 1960; “Displays,” (Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 2014); “Leading Prayer Rally,” Los Angeles Tribune, Friday, April 1 1960; “King, Powell to Address Prayer Rally,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, June 30 1960; “Group Prays for Civil Rights inside Capitol,” Atlanta Daily World Tuesday, August 16, 1960. 79 “Group Prays for Civil Rights inside Capitol” 80 Bob Jones, Sr., “Is Segregation Scriptural?,” ed. Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University, 1960). 81 Ibid. 82 “Riders’ Prayer,” San Francisco Examiner, Wednesday, June 21, 1961. 83 John Bryan, “Bay Freedom Riders in Jail – Their Story: Pray on Trip to Jackson,” ibid. 84 “Freedom Prayer Slated for Nov. 10,” Afro-American, Saturday, November 11, 1961. 85 Samuel Hoskins, “28 to Keep-up Jim Crow Fight,” Chicago Defender, Saturday, May 27, 1961. 86 Cliff MacKay, “2 Students Defy Mob at Georgia U.,” Afro-American, Saturday, January 21, 1961. 87 “Berglund Senior High School,” Mississippi Civil Rights Project, http:// mscivilrightsproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=648:bur­ glund-senior-high-school&catid=681:place&Itemid=65. 88 David Ray, “Brave Times at Burglund High,” Jackson Free Press, http://www. jacksonfreepress.com/news/2014/feb/19/brave-times-burglund-high/. 89 Bruce Hartford, “The Mccomb, Project,” Civil Rights Movement Veterans, http:// www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961mccomb. 90 “Berglund Senior High School”. 91 Ibid. 92 “Burglund High School Walkout,” McComb Legacies, http://mccomblegacies.org/ burglundwalkout.html. 93 Hartford. 94 “Berglund Senior High School” 95 “Burglund High School Walkout” 96 David Miller, “Rev. King, 230 Jailed in Kneel-In,“ San Francisco Examiner, December 17, 1961. 97 “Negro March Defies Judge,” ibid., Sunday, July 22, 1962; “WSB-TV Newsfilm Clip of Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy Praying in Front of City Hall and Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Sanders Issuing a Public Press Statement from Albany, Georgia, 1962 July,” (Digital Library of Georgia and Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, 1962); “16 Integrationists Jailed in Georgia,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 1962; Clayborne Carson et al., eds., Reporting Civil Rights: Part Two: American Journalism 1941–1963 (New York: Library of America, 2003); Lee Blackwell, “Accuses Kennedy of Deserting Ga. Negroes,” Chicago Defender, Wednesday, August 1 1962; “Arrests Reach 1200 in Albany, Georgia,” ibid., Monday, August 6; “3 Arrested in Negro Kneel-In,“ San Francisco Chronicle, August 20, 1962; “Albany Jails Praying Clergymen,” San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, August 29, 1962. 98 “‘Prayer Vigil’ Held on Steps of City Hall,” Oakland Tribune, August 7, 1962; “100 Pray for Rights,” Afro-American, Saturday, August 11, 1962.

64

The civil rights movement

99 “Marching on White House,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, August 7, 1962. 100 “Year’s Highlights in Freedom Struggle,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, December 29, 1962. 101 “25 Arrests Fail to End 4-City N. C. Bias Drive,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, August 25, 1962. 102 “Picketing at Home of N. J. Mayor,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, August 25, 1962. 103 “Virginia Clergymen Pray in Courtroom,” Afro-American, Saturday, February 3, 1962. 104 Danny Lyon, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 6. 105 Leigh Raiford, Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill, NC: The University Of North Carolina Press, 2011), 68. 106 “The Week’s New Makers,” Afro-American, Saturday, July 21, 1962. 107 “‘Prayer, No Weapon’ Says J.H. Jackson,” Pittsburgh Courier, Saturday, September 15, 1962. 108 Cecil J. Williams, email, August 20, 2010 2010; Freedom and Justice: Four Decades of Civil Rights Struggle as Seen by a Black Photographer of the Deep South (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995). 109 “Cops Drive Back 1,000 Marching Negroes in Alabama; Rev. King Jailed,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1963. 110 “Peace Enforced by National Guardsmen Settles on Cambridge,” The Bee, Saturday, July 13, 1963. 111 “As 200,000 Marched in Washington,” US News & World Report, September 9, 1963. 112 Lou Potter, “NAACP, Trade Unions Join in 5 & 10 Picketing Saturday: Demonstrators Protest Bias in Dixie Outlets: Climax Day with Rights on Steps of Independence Hall,” Philadelphia Tribune, Tuesday, April 23, 1963; “Demonstrations over Nation Back Birmingham Fight,” Chicago Defender, Monday, May 13, 1963; Helen Hunt, “Fellowship Plans Prayer Pilgrimage,” Delaware County Daily Times, Tuesday, June 4, 1963; “First Demonstrations in Martin County, N. C.,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, July 6, 1963; “An Ala. Prayer and a Washington March,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, September 7, 1963; “Prayers, Petitions, Gifts Help Marchers on Way,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, August 31, 1963; “Prayer Vigil for March Set by Central Ywca,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, August 24, 1963; “For the Youth, a Prayer,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, October 8, 1963; Simon Anekwe, “Brooklyn Ministers Plan to Renew Civil Rights Campaign,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, November 23, 1963; “Demonstrations, Prayers ’. To Save Wocked [T - Sic] City’,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, August 24 1963; “11 Arrested in Rights Protests in Birmingham,” Atlanta Daily World, Tuesday, May 21, 1963. 113 “Arrest 32 More Negro Marchers,” Salina Journal, Sunday, April 7, 1963; “Alabama Jails 42 Hymn-Singers,“ Post-Herald and Register, Sunday, April 7, 1963; “32 Negro Marchers Seized in Birmingham at Start of Prayer for Police Commissioner,” The Washington Post, Sunday, April 7, 1963; “Negroes, Police Dogs Skirmish in Birmingham,” Stevens Point Daily Journal, Monday, April 8, 1963. 114 “State Police Mobilize to Halt Birmingham Protests,” Chicago Daily Defender, Tuesday, April 9, 1963; “Negroes' Trials Go to U.S. Court: Birmingham Demonstrators Cite Reconstruction Law,” New York Times, Tuesday, April 9, 1963. 115 “Birmingham: A Girl Prays,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, May 18, 1963. 116 “White Minister Held in Jackson: Carried from Racial Prayer Rally by Negro Trustees,” New York Times, Friday, May 31, 1963. 117 Emma C. Edmunds, “Danville Civil Rights Demonstrations of 1963,” Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Danville_ Civil_Rights_Demonstrations_of_1963.

The civil rights movement

65

118 Lyon, 63; “Delores J. Page and Margaret P. Dillard V. Chief Eugene Mccain, Et Al.,” ed. United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1963). 119 Dorothy Miller and Danny Lyon, “Danville, Virginia,” (Atlanta, GA: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 1963). 120 “Delores J. Page and Margaret P. Dillard V. Chief Eugene Mccain, Et Al.,” 3. 121 Ibid. 122 Miller and Lyon. 123 “Thirty Miles Divide: Cambridge, Md. Stumbles into Racial War,” Life, July 26, 1963, 22. 124 “Minister Is Attacked in Demonstration,” Atlanta Daily World, Friday, July 12, 1963. 125 “Ministers Wear Chains to Jail in N.Y. Protest,” Pittsburgh Courier, Saturday, August 3, 1963. 126 “Conflicts over Segregation Arise in Mississippi’s Churches,” New York Times, Saturday, January 4, 1964. 127 “Methodist Ministers, Laymen Attack Position of 'Advocate',” Laurel Leader-Call 1964; “Paper Says Seek Cure,” Laurel Leader-Call 1964. 128 “Southern Negroes Resume Campaigns,” Oakland Tribune, Sunday, March 22, 1964; “Wall of Prayer’ in Birmingham,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, March 28, 1964. 129 “Bishop Armstrong Opens Prayer Vigil,” Philadelphia Tribune, Saturday, April 11, 1964. 130 “Prayer Group Bucks Racists,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, April 25 1964; “Churchmen Plan Day for Rights,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, April 25, 1964; John Roberts, “Cleveland Tragedy: A Sober Warning,” Renewal, April-May, 1964; “Church Leaders Pray for Passage of Rights Bill,” New York Amsterdam News, Saturday, May 2, 1964. 131 “Church Leaders Pray for Passage of Rights Bill” 132 Ibid. 133 “We’ll Raise H–I without Being Violent,” Afro-American, Saturday, May 9, 1964; James Booker, “NAACP Maps One Day Work Stoppage,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, May 2, 1964. 134 “Work Halt, Prayer Next Big Civil Rights Move,” Chicago Daily Defender, Monday, June 8, 1964. 135 Malcolm Nash, “3 New York Parades Join in Freedom Sunday Observance,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, May 23, 1964; “Churchmen Make Rights March on Washington,” Atlanta Daily World, Tuesday, May 19 1964; “A Walk and a Prayer,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, May 19 1964; “The Vigil for Civil Rights,” Christianity Today, June 5, 1964; “Onward, Civil Rights Soldiers,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, June 16, 1964. 136 Rabbi Eugene Borowitz et al., “Why We Went: A Joint Letter from the Rabbis Arrested in St. Augustine,” (St. Augustine, FL1964), 2. 137 Ibid., 3. 138 “A Rabbi Makes His Witness,” Chicago Defender, Monday, June 22, 1964. 139 “Demonstrations Wrong; Graham,” Chicago Defender, Thursday, January 16, 1964. 140 “1964 Minutes,” (Jackson, MS: Americans for the Preservations of the White Race, Jackson Chapter, 1964); “1965 Minutes,” (Jackson, MS: Americans for the Preservations of the White Race, Jackson Chapter, 1965). 141 “Against the Wall of White Supremacy, 1965,” (Channel 4, 1965). 142 “Time, Prayers Okay but Not the Place,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, February 9, 1965; John Herbers, “Voting Is Crux of Civil Rights Hopes,” New York Times, Sunday, February 14, 1965; “King Leaves Selma Jail; 450 More Negroes Arrested,” Nevada State Journal, Saturday, February 6, 1965; “King Freed; Hundreds Arrested,” European Stars and Stripes, Saturday, February 6 1965; “King Seeks Talk with Lbj on Registrations,” Kingsport News, Saturday, February 6, 1965; “Prayer on the

66

143 144 145 146 147

148 149 150 151 152 153 154

155 156 157

The civil rights movement

Courthouse Steps,” Des Moines Register, Saturday, February 6, 1965; “His Prayer Halted,” Afro-American, Saturday, February 20, 1965. David Halberstam, The Children (New York: Fawcett Books, 1998), 512–3. Clayborne Carson et al., eds., The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954–1990 (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 220. “This March Is for Justice for All People,” Chicago Defender, Tuesday, March 23, 1965. Clayborne Carson et al., eds., Reporting Civil Rights: Part Two: American Journalism 1963–1973 (New York: Library of America, 2003). “Rights Prayer Halts Traffic,” Logansport Press, Friday, March 12, 1965; Fred Bonaparte, “4 Selma Protest Demonstrations Here in 4 Days,” Philadelphia Tribune, Tuesday, March 16, 1965; “A Prayer for Ten,” Chicago, Defender, Wednesday, March 31, 1965; “Permitted to Pray,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, July 29, 1965; “Integrated Group Blocked at Church in Americus, Ga.,” Chicago Defender, Saturday, July 31, 1965; “Two Churches Bar Civil Rights Groups in Americus Drive: Churches Rebuff Georgia Negroes,” New York Times, August 2, 1965; “Ala. Marchers Seek Tan Cops,” Afro-American, Saturday, August 21, 1965; “House Expected to Nix Cr Group’s Ouster Bid,” Kingsport Times, Friday, September 17, 1965; “Crawfordville Another Selma,” Call and Post, Saturday, October 9, 1965; “Kneel-In,“ Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, October 21, 1965; “Selma March in Memoriam,” Afro-American, Saturday, April 3, 1965; George Dugan, “Chicagoans in Staid Church Sway to Slum Litany,” Christian Beacon, July 29, 1965; “400 Stage Silent March,” The Washington Post, Friday, February 12, 1965; “Never Too Exhausted to Pray,” Chicago Defender, Wednesday, March 17, 1965. “Crawfordville Another Selma” ; “Two Churches Bar Civil Rights Groups in Americus Drive: Churches Rebuff Georgia Negroes” ; “Permitted to Pray” Joseph D. Schenick, “A Prayer for Rev. Reeb,” Newport Daily News, Saturday, March 27 1965; “Meeting - June 22, 1965 - Masonic Temple Hall – Jackson, Ms,” (1965); Ella Davis, “Core and Bogalusa Civic and Voters League,” (Bogalusa, LA1965). E.L. McDaniels, “A Meeting of the Ku Klux Klan (Kkk) in Brandon, Mississippi,” (Brandon, MS1965). Ibid. Ibid. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Prayer for Chicago,” Amsterdam News, Saturday, April 9, 1966. “Integrated Gage Park Marchers Hear Rev. Bevel,” Chicago Defender, Monday, August 1, 1966; “Police Officers Sift through the Ruins of the Nanih Waiya Mennonite Church,” Gospel Herald, March 22, 1966; Bob Black, “Marchers Say Prayer,” Chicago Defender, Thursday, August 11 1966; “New March in South Deering Set for Today: Police Get Twenty-Four-Hour Notice of Walk in Troubled Area,” ibid., Tuesday, August 23; “Rights Units’ Prayer Vigil to Be Held,” Chicago Defender, Saturday, July 30, 1966. “Rights Units’ Prayer Vigil to Be Held” “2,500 Angry Students March on City Hall,” Call and Post, Saturday, January 15, 1966. Winfred Moncrief, “Dahmer, Demonstrations, Jan 1966 [Nightime Kneeling Prayer Protest Image 5],” (1966); “Dahmer, Demonstrations, Jan 1966 [Nightime Kneeling Prayer Protest Image 3],” (1966); “Solemn Hundreds March to Bury Firebomb Victim,” Afro-American, Saturday, January 22, 1966; “Memorial March Prayer,” Chicago Defender, Monday, January 17, 1966; “Prayer Vigil Held after 5 Negroes Are Shot in B'ham,” Chicago Defender, Wednesday, February 23 1966; “Lenten Jericho March Begins in St. Louis,” Chicago Defender, Saturday, February 26 1966; “Mississippi Marchers Meet Many Obstacles,” Call and Post, Saturday, June 18, 1966.

The civil rights movement

67

158 Vernon Charles Lyons, “Why Martin Luther King’s Program Is Not Christian,” ed. Ashburn Baptist Church (Chicago, IL: Ashburn Baptist Church, 1966). 159 Fannie Lou Hamer, “Foreword,” in Stanger at the Gates: A Summer in Mississippi (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966). 160 Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2004), 64–6; Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound: A History of America’s Civil Rights Movement (New York: Norton, 1990), 200; Stokely Carmichael and Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) (New York: Scribner, 2003), 548. 161 Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919–1950 (New York: Norton, 2008); Martha Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 162 “Churches Pray to End Strife,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, August 3, 1967. 163 “Sunday Day of Prayer--Lbj,“ Chicago Defender, Saturday, July 29, 1967. 164 “Time for Prayer: Nat’l Leaders Seek Riot Cures,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, September 2, 1967. 165 “Start of Vigil,” Afro-American, Saturday, October 7, 1967. 166 “Vigil for Dr. King in Ala. Jail,” New Journal and Guide, Saturday, November 11, 1967; “Dr. King, Hit by Virus Attack, Changes Jails: Resettled in ‘Safer’ Downtown Quarters,” Chicago Defender, Thursday, November 2, 1967. 167 Dr. G. Archer Weniger, “The Faith of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” in Sword of the Lord Material (1968); “From Non-Violence to Violence - Why?,” Mennonite Weekly Review, March 28, 1968.“Praying in the Name of Martin L. King,” (1968); Edward B. Lewis, Rev., “The Senate Met at 10 O'clock…,” in Congressional Record (1968). 168 “Martin Luther King, Jr.: His Three-Pronged Attack on I. Christ and the Bible Ii. The United States of America Iii. Law and Order,” ed. Church League of America (Wheaton, IL: Church League of America, 1968). 169 William R. Johnson, “A Black Prayer and Litany,” Theology Today 26, no. 3 (1969): 262. 170 “Davis/Firebombing/National Guard,” (1970). 171 “Prayer Time,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Thursday, December 16, 1976. 172 “Ministers Hold Vigil to Seek Carter’s Support in Affirmative Action Case,” Daily World, Thursday, September 15, 1977; “Ministers Hold Vigil to Seek Carter’s Support in Affirmative Action Case,” Daily World, Thursday, September 15, 1977. 173 Emilye Crosby, “Introduction: The Politics of Writing and Teaching Movement History,” in Civil Rights History from the Ground Up, ed. Emilye Crosby (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 6–7. 174 Tobin Miller Shearer, 500–1. 175 Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 (New York: Simon & Shuster, 1988), 535. 176 Faith S. Holsaert et al., eds., Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 109. 177 Winfred Moncrief, “Dahmer, Demonstrations, Jan 1966 [Nightime Kneeling Prayer Protest Image 2],” (1966). 178 Shearer, 502. 179 Ibid., 496. 180 Halberstam, 311–2. 181 Ibid., 162–3. 182 Branch, 593; Hampton Hampton and Steve Fayer, eds., Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), 223; John Lewis, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1998), 327; Ogbar, 50. 183 Shearer, 497. 184 “Against the Wall of White Supremacy, 1965”

68

The civil rights movement

185 “WSB-TV Newsfilm Clip of Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy Praying in Front of City Hall and Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Sanders Issuing a Public Press Statement from Albany, Georgia, 1962 July”. 186 Young, 401. 187 Erika Fischer-Lichte, “Performance Art and Ritual: Bodies in Performance,” in Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, ed. Philip Auslander (New York: Routledge, 2003), 249. 188 Marisa Chappell, Jenny Hutchinson, and Brian Ward, “‘Dress Modestly, Neatly … As If You Were Going to Church’: Respectability, Class and Gender in the Early Civil Rights Movement,” in Gender in the Civil Rights Movement, ed. Peter J. Ling and Sharon Monteith, Crosscurrents in African American History (New York: Garland Pub., 1999); Pamela E. Klassen, “The Robes of Womanhood: Dress and Authenticity among African American Methodist Women in the Nineteenth Century,” Religion and American Culture 14, no. 1 (2004). 189 Chappell, Hutchinson, and Ward, 72. 190 Shearer, 497. 191 Ibid., 497–8. 192 Marvin Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 1996), 4, 195. 193 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 124–5; Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2002), 28. 194 Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, trans. Charles A. McBride (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993); Robert A. Segal, “Victor Turner’s Theory of Ritual,” Zygon 18 (1983). 195 Shearer, 502–3. 196 Catherine Bell, ““Performance” and Other Analogies,” in The Performance Studies Reader, ed. Henry Bial (New York: Routledge, 2004), 90. 197 Shearer, 498–9.

3 SACRED SURETY: DIVINE MANDATE AND VIOLENCE IN THE ANTIABORTION MOVEMENT

In the fall of 1983 in Appleton, Wisconsin, members of an Assembly of God congregation founded “Project: Save Our Babies.” Consistent with the shift from Catholic to evangelical leadership of the antiabortion movement, the Assembly of God members began to picket the local abortion clinic at the bidding of their pastor. But they did much more than just walk on the sidewalk with signs. They blocked the driveway, traced the license plates of those who managed to park, photographed the clinic’s patients as they entered, and then called them anonymously to play recordings of children pleading, “Mommy, don’t kill me.”1 At times, they escalated their efforts. Some protestors shoved fliers through car windows. Others yelled at the women who entered. A few thumped their fists on the clinic’s windows and doors during abortion procedures. At other times, they padlocked the entryway, spray painted the building, and drilled holes through the walls so that they could insert stink bombs. And, a little over a year after the founding of Project: Save Our Babies, the Assemblies of God pastor who had prompted his congregation to take their faith to the streets confronted a fifteenyear-old girl seeking an abortion at the clinic. Accompanied by her parents, the girl did not want to talk with the insistent minister. Nonetheless, he gave chase, caught up with the girl, and “threw an eighteen-week-old fetus in her face.”2 Aggressive? Absolutely. Assault? As defined by law, yes. Violent? By all appearances. But the Appleton minister’s actions did not yet reach the level of those taken by Michael Griffin a decade after the founding of Project: Save Our Babies. In 1993, Griffin – a factory worker and acolyte of another evangelical antiabortion activist by the name of John Burt – encountered David Gunn, a doctor who performed late-term abortions. Gunn was drinking his morning coffee and reading the newspaper in the Pensacola, Florida, Exxon station where Griffin had pulled in his car. After identifying the doctor, Griffin said to him, “David Gunn, the Lord told

70

Antiabortion movement

me to tell you that you have one more chance.”3 That same day, March 5, Griffin again approached Gunn, this time as he left The Ladies Center where he worked. After accusing him of murder, Griffin asked, “David Gunn, are you going to kill children next week?” According to Griffin, Gunn replied, “Yeah. Probably.” On the morning of March 10, five days later, Griffin shot the doctor three times in the back as he exited his car on the way into Pensacola Women’s Medical Services where he also performed abortions.4 Griffin’s actions typify those that had become almost commonplace by the 1990s. In the eight years between 1991 and 1998, activists tried to murder twentythree physicians and staff at clinics where abortions were offered. Many did so successfully. Some did not. Likewise, in the six years between 1990 and 1995, activists issued more than 195 death threats. Other forms of violence also escalated as antiabortion activists vandalized clinics, threw acid, and bombed buildings.5 The Army of God, an underground terrorist group, frequently claimed responsibility for the attacks. When apprehended, many of the perpetrators of this violence referenced a divine, often scripturally supported mandate.6 Griffin had quoted a verse from the Old Testament, Genesis 9:6: “Whosover sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed” when threatening Gunn.7 Project: Save Our Babies activists did not commit murder; Michael Griffin did. Their respective actions are distinct. Even those who agreed with Griffin’s ab­ horrence of abortion condemned his actions. Everyone associated with the anti­ abortion movement at the time seemed bent on keeping the gap between Griffin and themselves as wide as possible. In this chapter, however, I’m going to argue that Project: Save Our Babies and Griffin represent two expressions of a common religious impulse, one that powered the antiabortion movement, enthused many of its members but especially White men, and revealed a historical connection between an activist’s willingness to engage in violence and the fervency of their religious commitment. It is an impulse that I call sacred surety. This is not the pious declaration used in the Christian tradition to describe a divine guarantee of salvation. Instead, sacred surety is the religiously grounded conviction that one’s actions in pursuit of a just cause are backed without question by divine authority. Other chapters in this book examine specific, perhaps more visible forms of religious resources. Thus far, performative prayer and fasting have figured pro­ minently. In this chapter, a less tangible but no less powerful religious resource – the motivational conviction arising from a sense of sacred surety – drives the story. Evidenced in statements made by those working to end the practice of abortion as well as in those who encountered them in the midst of their protests, that sense of divine mandate links the actions of those who engaged in violence in its many forms. Rather than a key individual or group, it is the expression of sacred surety itself that ties this chapter together. The connection between Project: Save Our Babies and Griffin hinges on the definition of violence. Two primary elements distinguish violent actions from those deemed merely aggressive. First, violent actions find expression through

Antiabortion movement

71

either physical force or power. They may be actual or merely threatened, but their second distinguishing characteristic is that they lead to – or are likely to lead to – harm whether in the form of bodily injury, psychological trauma, deprivation, or what the World Health Organization calls “maldevelopment.”8 The sacred surety impulse, at least as evident in the antiabortion movement of the 1980s and 1990s, coalesced around the deployment of that very kind of violence-inducing power.9

Early twentieth-century abortion context The story of just how integral sacred surety became for the antiabortion move­ ment begins as the twentieth century opened not with a bang but barely a whisper. From 1900 through the 1950s, Protestant American religious groups had little to say on the topic.10 Seen as a medical issue far more than a religious one, abortion received attention only from those Catholic priests and the occasional funda­ mentalist Protestant preacher who railed against the larger topic of human sexu­ ality gone awry. Abortion appeared on their standard lists of “crimes” contrary to divine will. More generally, religious leaders spoke only occasionally on the topic of abortion because it had been criminalized across the country.11 There was little reason to decry something that the government had already determined was illegal. The issue did begin to surface to a limited extent outside of Catholic circles in the 1950s. Leaders of a 1955 abortion conference, for example, proposed sub­ stantive liberalization of abortion laws. In response, the editorial staff of several law journals lent their weight to reform initiatives as did a small group of doctors.12 Although a periodical like America magazine came out against any changes in abortion law in 1958, deeming liberalization efforts a “regression to barbarism,” some religious groups nonetheless supported more liberal legislation.13 In the following decade, religious groups then began to advocate for more reform. Less than a decade later in 1967, the United Synagogue of America along with the Association of Reform Rabbis publicly criticized the Catholic Church for using terms like “murder” to refer to abortion and called them “harsh and unbending” for standing in the way of reform efforts.14 At the same time, the American Baptist Convention called for legalizing exceptions to existing abortion prohibitions if incest, rape, mental incompetence, or maternal health were at issue. In the course of the following two years, the ABC was joined by Southern Baptists, Southern Presbyterians, and United Presbyterians in advocating similar liberalization.15 Moving beyond positional statements, in 1967 a group of twentyone ministers and rabbis interested in connecting women with physicians who would perform abortions in spite of legal prohibitions formed the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion.16 Roman Catholic clergy and officials did not move in such a liberal direction. Already in 1965, Catholicism’s political prowess had begun to wane. Although bishops commanded the attention of the faithful, their presence in the halls of power could not guarantee the same audiences or sway that they had once held.17

72

Antiabortion movement

To further complicate matters, Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae linked abortion with birth control, condemning them both. By treating the two issues as having equal moral weight, the Pope’s words alienated many Catholics who did not agree with the church’s position on birth control and thereby un­ dermined the very opposition to abortion that his words had hoped to en­ courage.18 An already controversial issue had become even more so within the religious community with the strongest antiabortion position. Some Catholic women, however, went all in, taking extreme and violent actions already in the 1960s and early 1970s. They felt that legalizing abortion would undermine their most important identity – being a mother – by making motherhood optional. Moreover, many also believed that abortion allowed men to exploit women by allow them to coerce women into having abortions so as to avoid marriage or child support.19 Frustrated by what they saw as silence and inaction on the part of church leadership, the women began to take matters into their own hands. Some chained themselves to the doors of abortion clinics, others attached themselves to medical equipment, and a few performed protest theater, all methods they had learned while engaged in civil rights and anti-war protests.20 The methods used by women like antiabortion and anti-nuclear activist Julie Loesch modeled the same sort of disruptive and often violent tactics that evan­ gelical men would employ when they took over the movement in the 1980s and 1990s.21 The Catholic women’s protests felt necessary because of the changes that had unfolded in American reproductive jurisprudence. By 1970, Protestant groups had begun to promote their doctrinal positions by actively supporting abortion rights. The American Medical Association went public with their recommendations for revoking the restrictions on abortion then in place. Hawaii was the first state to repeal those restrictions in March of that year. Despite efforts by Catholic clergy to oppose the new legislation, New York, Alaska, and Washington followed in quick succession.22 Even a bishop denouncing Mary Ann Krupsak, the New York bill’s sponsor, as a “murderer” did not prevent the New York bill from attaining pas­ sage. Women could again receive abortions in the United States.23 Travel to these states – and the financial resources to do so – proved the only barriers.

Roe and its aftermath Or so it seemed. A new kind of barrier to abortion access emerged in February of 1970 when a conservative Catholic student by the name of Michael Schwartz, who was then studying at the University of Dallas, organized a sit-in. Although abortions in Texas still fell outside the law in 1970, Schwartz convinced a small group of his fellow students to occupy the Dallas Planned Parenthood office to protest their practice of flying women to states where they could obtain abortions. This sit-in – the first of its kind in the country – lasted six hours and ended without arrests after the Planned Parenthood staff received a court order, the

Antiabortion movement

73

police asked the protestors to leave, and Schwartz and the other students did so without further disruption.24 The antiabortion movement then faced its own barrier, one that many did not initially expect. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Warren Burger issued a 7-2 ruling in Jane Roe, et al. v. Henry Wade. In an attempt to balance a woman’s right to privacy with the state’s concern for protecting the health of the mother and the potential for human life, the ruling invalidated all prior state prohibitions on abortion save restrictions on late-term abortions in the third trimester. The case had been argued on behalf of Texas resident Norma McCovey, referred to in the case by the pseudonym Jane Roe, to defend her constitutional right “to choose whether to have children.”25 Although secondtrimester restrictions were allowed if they protected pregnant women’s health, Roe removed all limits on first-trimester abortions.26 With the simultaneous passage of Doe v. Bolton that also removed requirements for medical approval and in-state residency, the pro-choice movement had achieved their biggest victory to date.27 The decision had wide-ranging effects for both the pro-choice and antiabortion movements, many of them unrecognized at the time. Fresh from their victory, pro-choice advocates began to choose strategies that built on the court’s decisions. Women of color and White feminist activists picked up on the idea of re­ productive choice employed by the Court in the Roe ruling and used it to amplify demands for legal protections against unauthorized sterilizations. They also sought to obtain government support of childcare, women and children’s healthcare, and family planning resources. The pro-choice movement as a whole likewise used Roe to draw attention to the ongoing efforts to achieve women’s reproductive autonomy.28 The ruling also influenced the strategies of the antiabortion movement. Because the justices had rejected the assertion of fetal personhood, antiabortion leaders began to organize an effort to pass a constitutional amendment guaran­ teeing right to life of the fetus. That initiative fostered a more expansive move­ ment that not only increased in size and diversity but also became more structured in the process. Antiabortion advocates likewise threw their support behind those candidates who agreed with their constitutional intentions. Even more essentially, antiabortion leaders sought to broaden the coalition by building bridges across denominational and political lines in hopes of encouraging new alternatives to abortion.29 More immediately, Roe prompted leaders of the antiabortion movement to intensify their efforts. Those who had been thinking about developing new goals and campaigns now had one priority – overturn Roe.30 Groups that had been splintered and regional in focus came together to form a national movement. Mere days after the Roe decision, Catholic and Protestant leaders pled with their con­ gressional representatives to recriminalize abortion. With a united voice they mixed together a powerful political brew as they called abortion “murder of unborn babies,” falsely claimed that their religious communities had always op­ posed abortion, said the procedure put mothers’ lives in danger, and claimed that

74

Antiabortion movement

abortion itself was un-American, ungodly, and fit only for Communist nations.31 Five months later, activists gathered in Detroit for a convention that led to the formation of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), itself a repackaging of the personnel and infrastructure of the National Council of Bishops’ Family Life Bureau that deliberately cut all organizational times with the Catholic church hierarchy.32 Within a year and a half, every state had an NRLC chapter. Despite evidence of internal debate within the broader antiabortion movement, those committed to more violent forms of opposition increased their actions in Roe’s aftermath. As activists built organizational infrastructure, rallied their base, and honed their arguments, more militant abortion proponents prepared for action as well. In the same year that Congress passed the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding for abortion purposes, the country saw the first incidence of ex­ plicit antiabortion violence in March of 1976. Joseph C. Stockett, an emotionally unstable militant, committed arson against a clinic in Oregon. Stockett received a two-year prison sentence for his actions. Like many other such perpetrators of violence, he proclaimed his faith even after being imprisoned.33 More attacks followed. In 1977, four arsonists set abortion clinics on fire. Three more arsonists and four bombers took action against clinics the following year, and 1979 saw an immediate attack – again by arson – on the first abortion clinic to begin business after Roe. This time the perpetrator, Peter Burkin, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.34 These male-dominated acts of violence took place alongside a femaledominated surge in expressly religious but increasingly militant activism emerging from the Catholic church. For example, Julie Loesch, a long-time activist with roots in the Pax Christi peace movement, the United Farm Workers movement, and anti-war demonstrations, co-founded Pro-lifers for Survival in 1979 as a platform to protest abortion and nuclear weapons.35 Frustrated with the slow pace of change advocated by clergy and moderate antiabortion groups, Loesch and her colleagues drew on their immersion in other social justice movements to frame their activism but became more strident and focused in their efforts over time. Rather than wait for priests and their Protestant counterparts to take direct action, the women began to use their bodies to obstruct other women’s access to abortion clinics. These female activists were not convinced that longer-term political and legal strategies would ultimately bear fruit and so took action without waiting for approval from the church hierarchy.36 Even as Loesch and her co-founders brought Pro-Lifers for Survival into being, Protestant evangelicals began to lay the groundwork for their eventual ascendancy in the antiabortion movement. Again, the year 1979 proved significant. Following the relatively successful campaigns of several evangelical Protestant politicians in the 1978 mid-term elections, four additional events furthered evangelical move­ ment toward the pro-life camp. First, Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell and his associates founded the Moral Majority and thereby offered a political base to those interested in bringing their religious convictions to bear on the electoral process. Providing an alternative to the National Organization of Women, evangelical

Antiabortion movement

75

leader Beverly LaHaye also founded Concerned Women for America that same year as an organization for and by women interested in bringing Christian ideals to American politics. In addition, evangelical thought leader Francis Schaeffer and former surgeon general C. Everett Koop published the antiabortion text Whatever Happened to the Human Race and released a film series by the same name to widespread evangelical acclaim. Finally, the election of Adrian Rogers to the presidency of the Southern Baptist convention ushered in a more fundamentalist theology and receptivity to the antiabortion position.37 Across the board, the leaders of these new organizations evinced sacred surety in their proclamations of divine support for their actions.

Operation Rescue emergent Two years later the antiabortion community embraced a victory that they thought would bolster their efforts. The reality proved to offer one part encouragement and one part frustration. Sailing into the White House in 1980 on evangelical winds stirred up by Falwell, televangelist Pat Robertson, and other conservative Christian leaders, Ronald Reagan had made his antiabortion stance clear. The leaders who had expended their political capital on Reagan’s behalf viewed his election as a mandate to ramp up their efforts to overturn Roe. They anticipated that the Reagan administration would take the lead in making abortion illegal once again. More militant antiabortion activists increased their activity as well. The level of violence against clinics increased significantly in Reagan’s first term in office and continued apace in his second.38 The reasons for the uptick in violence are at least threefold. First, Reagan did not condemn the violence against abortion providers until his second term even though he had been asked to do so already in 1982.39 In the absence of con­ demnation, activists were further emboldened by Reagan’s rhetoric in support of the antiabortion movement. In particular his statement that “something must be done” received widespread attention.40 When coupled with the frustration felt by picketers that the pace of change should be quicker with a self-proclaimed pro-life president in D.C., Reagan’s statements provided justification for even more violent actions.41 Finally, the full gamut of nonviolent options had already been tried. Activists had sued in the courts, lobbied in congress, marched in the streets, pled with both popes and presidents, and prayed on the streets and in sanctuaries. Other more militant – and often more violent – options began to seem viable. The political coalition that they thought might bring a change to the legal order proved unable and perhaps unwilling to enact Christian principles into law.42 Operation Rescue then emerged in the midst of this growing militancy and violence. The story of the founding of that movement begins with Joseph Scheidler, a former newspaper reporter, public relations expert, and committed Catholic. An outspoken, flamboyant organizer and provocateur, Scheidler began to form his “pro-life mafia” in 1980 as he founded the Pro-Life Action Network, an organization designed to foster new action groups in both the Catholic and

76

Antiabortion movement

Protestant communities.43 With his trademark bullhorn, this “godfather” of the antiabortion movement walked the sidewalks outside Chicago’s abortion clinics, harassing patients and generating publicity.44 As he moved outside the Windy City, he and his associates showed up to protest alongside local grassroots activists. Although he rarely risked arrest himself and confessed an intense aversion to the prospect of jail time, he confronted patients, trained activists, and helped organize clinic blockades and other protests that led to others’ arrest and incarceration.45 The publication of his how-to manual, Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion, in 1985 further supported local activists and ramped up the movement’s militancy. Acts of arson and bombings topped out at new levels, but abortion rates remained steady.46 The activists influenced by Scheidler and his associates ramped up their de­ votional rhetoric. Interlaced throughout their public comments was a message of sacred surety. Pastor Norman Stone of Appleton, Wisconsin, explained the rising and increasingly violent activism by declaring, “Itʼs like God sent a telegram across the United States.” Lorijo Nerad, the national president of Women Exploited by Abortion, said simply, “The Lord said, ‘Fight abortion.’” Penny Lea, a gospel singer turned antiabortion activist evoked the image of Old Testament warrior Joshua and stated, “I see an army being formed and it’s militant in the name of Jesus Christ.”47 Building on this success, Scheidler looked for additional means to advance his agenda. In November of 1986, he brought together an activist new to his circle by the name of Randall Terry along with another colleague, Joseph Foreman, for a meeting in Pensacola, Florida. The three men together founded Operation Rescue, arguably the largest social protest movement to emerge since the 1960s era civil rights and antiwar movements.48 Terry had joined the antiabortion movement three years previously during an evangelical prayer meeting in October of 1983. Supported by his congregation, he and his wife Cindy immersed themselves in the antiabortion community.49 The same year that Scheidler con­ vened the Pensacola meeting, Terry organized his first “rescue” at an abortion clinic in Binghamton, New York, where he was arrested, tried, and jailed after refusing to pay the levied fine.50 Terry swiftly moved into the role of Scheidler’s heir apparent. Terry’s high-profile actions with Operation Rescue gained national attention in part due to the activities of earlier activists – many of them women – who had tested, refined, and honed the methods Terry then popularized. Joan Andrews, a Catholic woman who had been actively “terrorizing” abortion clinics for thirteen years, organized a takeover at a clinic in Pensacola the same year that Scheidler, Foreman, and Terry met in that city. Belying the image of passive protestors committed to nonviolently protecting the unborn, Andrews and her co-protestors pushed two of the clinic’s employees to the ground. As a result, one of them suffered permanent damage to the ear, neck, and shoulder.51 Although he drew on her methods and those tested by St. Louis-based Catholic protestor John O’Keefe,

Antiabortion movement

77

he ignored these front-line activists. Soon Terry’s reputation overshadowed even the memory of figures like Andrews.52 Operation Rescue’s ascendancy sprang from evangelical outreach, historical resonance, and rhetorical sophistication. Terry recruited participants first and foremost by cultivating evangelical pastors, and through them their congregations, to his “rescue” platform.53 Gone was the “sit-in” framework that had bolstered the Black freedom struggle in the early 1960s. The rhetoric of a “rescue” offered Terry’s evangelical audience a proactive, personal, and theologically resonant narrative. The fundamental story of the evangelical project was one of having been “saved,” on an individual level, by a compassionate but also wrathful god. The appeal to join Operation Rescue was thus one evangelicals understood. They personally had experienced divine rescue. It was a small step to understand the importance of rescuing others who, from their perspective, were clearly walking the path of perdition. That Terry also asserted that those who participated in civil disobedience actions at abortion clinics were modern day civil rights heroes only added to the attraction.54

Violence and Operation Rescue A publicly stated commitment to nonviolence remained a hallmark of the orga­ nization through its heyday. From 1988 through 1992, Operation Rescue dominated the antiabortion movement and prompted new levels of contention and discord across the country as they organized massive clinic blockades.55 Those who participated in demonstrations had to sign a pledge card indicating their agreement to reject any form of violence.56 For a short while, long-time civil rights and antiabortion protestor Julie Loesch served as the group’s communica­ tions director and attempted to systemize that nonviolent commitment. She ex­ plained to the press that Operation Rescue participants would not talk to or harass the police, counter demonstrators, clinic staff, or the women who came seeking abortions. Moreover, she stated, “Operation Rescue people don’t carry picket signs, … they are instructed not to shout or chant; the rules call for singing, praying, or maintaining a dignified silence.”57 On paper, the commitment to a religiously grounded nonviolence seemed complete. But as is often the case with those who seek conversions of any kind, religious fervor can quickly become coercive and sometimes violent. Operation Rescue’s primary tactic – that of blocking the entryway into clinics – rarely stayed non­ violent. Women seeking entry had to force their way through crowds. Many were left frightened by both the actions and demeanor of the Operation Rescue per­ sonnel. Others were embarrassed. This kind of harm, to both body and mind of women seeking abortions, was central to the goals of the organization.58 Through large-scale operations like the 1988 “Siege of Atlanta” and the 1991 “Summer of Mercy” in Wichita, Kansas, Operation Rescue prompted more than 33,000 arrests directed at shutting down abortion clinics.59 Unlike those participating in civil

78

Antiabortion movement

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry kneels in prayer outside the Woman’s Health Care Services abortion clinic in Wichita, KS, with over 1,000 other protesters, on August 6, 1991. Source: AP Photo/Steve Rasmussen. Used by permission.

FIGURE 3.1

rights sit-ins during the early 1960s, Operation Rescue activists invariably put the bodies of women seeking abortions on the line more than they did their own. Again, sacred surety guided their actions. During the “Siege of Atlanta,” an­ tiabortion activist Jim Pouillon, of Owosso, Michigan, said simply, “God told me to come to Atlanta.”60 Paul Donnelly, a ten-year-old activist arrested during the Wichita campaign declared to a reporter, “My only orders were from God.”61 Even onlookers noted the divinely inspired nature of the activists’ protests. Lt. Carl Pyrdum, an officer in the Atlanta Police Department who regularly interacted with Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry (Figure 3.1) during their 1988 campaign, said, “There’s no easy way to describe Randy. Religious fanatic zealot does not quite cover it.”62

Antiabortion movement

79

As is the case with any large-scale social protest movement, the legacies left behind are often outside the control of the organizers’ intentions. So, too, in the case of Operation Rescue. In keeping with Scheidler’s and Terry’s intentions, the evangelical community as a whole became over time more opposed to abortion. Due to campaigns like those organized by Operation Rescue and the attendant shift to overt political engagement, evangelicals moved into ever more public leadership roles of the antiabortion movement often overtaking Catholic leaders in the process. They came to oppose abortions even when a woman had been im­ pregnated for “traumatic reasons,” that is by reasons of rape.63 While that shift to the right might also be due in part to some conservatives leaving mainline de­ nominations to join evangelical churches where their social views on issues like abortion were affirmed, the larger shift cannot be separated from actions like those organized by Operation Rescue. At the same time, violence toward abortion clinics and those who worked at them also increased. Despite their claims of nonviolence, Operation Rescue nonetheless ratcheted up nearly every protest element. In both Catholic and Protestant communities, one’s position on abortion came to define one’s right­ eousness. As the movement became increasingly dominated by men, women who sought out or had abortions became ever more wretched in the men’s eyes. Concurrent with more virulent rhetoric came more violent actions.64 Already in 1982, the first attack on an individual abortion provider – not just a clinic itself – took place in Granite City, Illinois, when Don Benny Anderson, Matthew Moore, and Wayne Moore kidnapped abortion provider Dr. Hector Zevallos and his wife Rosalie Jean. Although the kidnappers released their captives after a week, an escalation toward even more directly bodily harm had taken place. Following arson attacks on two abortion centers in the spring of 1982, Army of God activists made their divine mandate plain. “[Acting] under the direction and protection of God’s angels [our members] engulfed two baby extermination centers in flames.… God is helping. He has sent us, the Army of God, to make his epistle and will known to the people.”65 Two years later, Scheidler rejoiced at the spike in arson and bombings, calling them the fruit of 1984’s “Year of Fear and Pain.”66 That same year, activists in Appleton, Wisconsin, targeted a group of priests and ministers who had visited the city’s abortion clinic by showing up at their con­ gregations with leaflets depicting a mutilated twenty-seven-week old fetus and directly accusing each clergymen of “publicly endorsing the pro-abortion death ethic and representing your Church in this war to continue this insanity.”67 Indicating the ongoing presence of sacred surety in action, organizers of the Appleton campaign declared that they had received their, “marching orders from God.”68

Violence of the 1990s By the 1990s antiabortion protests had become even more intense. The decade saw the most violent antiabortion incidents in the twentieth century. The harsh

80

Antiabortion movement

rhetoric and militant mobilization stemming from Operation Rescue had again stoked expectations that reform was in the works. President George H. W. Bush’s inability to institute significant abortion policy changes crushed those expectations and led to greater frustration. Rather than just plan more demonstrations, anti­ abortion supporters lent their aid to those who had taken more drastic action. Griffin’s murder of Dr. Gunn not only represented the first 1990s attack, but Griffin was the first to assassinate an abortion provider.69 In response, a group of thirty-four activists signed a “defensive action statement” written by Reverend Paul Hill, a former Presbyterian minister. The document stated that those who murdered abortion providers engaged in “justifiable homicide,” permissible in their protection of those not yet born. Again echoing rhetoric infused with sacred surety, Hill explained that he had been “called by God” to support those engaged in violence against abortion providers.70 Scheidler likewise supported Griffin by calling together leaders of the antiabortion movement for a Chicago summit fo­ cused on violence, out of which emerged the militant American Coalition of Life Activists.71 The organizing led to more opposition to abortion but in an increasingly violent way. Countering the trend of men committing acts of violence in the nineties, Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon attacked multiple clinics with both arson and acid and then wounded Wichita physician Dr. George Tiller after her attempt to kill him failed in August 1993. Eleven months later, Paul Hill succeeded where Shannon had failed when he assassinated Dr. John Britton along with Britton’s bodyguard James Barrett in Pensacola. That same year, David Trosch, a former Catholic priest, penned a letter to Congress in which he threatened the “massive” killing of not only abortion providers but also feminists, Supreme Court justices, the attorney general, the president, and those who manufactured the morning after pill and other contraceptive devices. Also in 1994, Matthew Trewhalla, leader of the Missionaries to the Pre-born, began organizing trainings in firearms. By December, John Salvi had killed two and wounded five at two clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts. These extremists referenced the theological and divine mandates at the root of their actions. Shelley is representative of the sentiment. She wrote, “… I deny that it was wrong. It was the most holy, the most righteous thing I’ve ever done. I have no regrets.”72

Christian Identity’s influence The conviction of their sacred surety to take human life is fully apparent in antiabortion actions emerging from the Christian Identity Movement, Christian Reconstructionism, and other White supremacy organizations. By the middle of the 1990s, skinheads and members of the KKK had become visible at abortion clinic protests. They and other White supremacists promoted the theory that the US government conspired with abortion providers to undermine men’s authority and the genetic robustness of the White race. Others repeated anti-Semitic pro­ paganda depicting members of the Jewish community as profiting from abortions

Antiabortion movement

81

as well as homophobic tales of aborted babies’ fetal tissue being used by members of the LGBT+ community to spread AIDS and take over the United States.73 Conspiracy theories aside, theological arguments promoted through the Christian Identity Movement and the work of the Reverend Michael Bray offered a powerful rationale for those looking to kill in God’s name. Christian Identity, while not a formal denomination, had been highly influential throughout the White supremacy movement due to its foundational claims. Three of those as­ sertions defined the movement: 1) adherents held that White people are the socalled lost tribes of Israel and therefore only the true descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; 2) they asserted that a racialist war pits Jews – who they call “children of Satan” – and nonwhites – deemed “mud peoples” – against White people known as “forces of the light”; 3) and, finally, they contended that, by divine mandate, races should live physically separated from one another.74 From the perspective of Christian Identity adherents, one front of their racialist war took them to abortion clinics, where the killing of White babies undermined the White race. Given that men in the hate group celebrated women for the ability to produce the next generation of White warriors and that they perceived com­ munities of color to be “out producing the white community,” they felt a par­ ticular urgency to end the practice of abortion.75 Bray articulated the theological position to support violent action against abortion clinics and providers. From his base in Bowie, Maryland, at the Reformed Lutheran Church, he wrote A Time To Kill in 1994. In the book, he denounced the pacifism espoused by mainline Christianity, defended using force in pursuit of antiabortion activism, and offered ethical, physical, and historical justifications for violence against abortion providers.76 Bray described his moti­ vation simply when he declared, “There is murder going on which we have to stop.”77 The rationale he offered was supercharged by the placement of the struggle against abortion in a cosmic battle between darkness and light akin to the biblical accounts of the Archangel Michael’s wholesale destruction of those de­ clared the “offspring of evil.”78 Coupled with the doctrine of dominion theology that asserts Christians must focus on reasserting God’s authority over society and secular politics – a position embraced by the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson among others – Christian Identity practitioners and those in their immediate sphere found all the justification they needed to engage in violence.79 But Bray took the argument even further. He idolized the actions of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor executed by the Nazis for his role in resisting National Socialism during the Nazi regime. Although some historians have claimed that Bonhoeffer participated in an attempt to assassinate Hitler, recent scholarship suggests that Bonhoeffer had no role in the assassination attempt and was killed because he helped deceive the Nazi government as he and many others opposed their rise to power.80 Bray, and some moral theorists, used Bonhoeffer as an example of the necessity of heeding God’s commands even if it required breaking the law or engaging in violence. Moreover, Bray used Bonhoeffer to make the argument that the United States in the 1990 was akin to Nazi Germany

82

Antiabortion movement

and, in direct contradiction to Bonhoeffer’s belief in the separation of church and state, that the only solution to the injustice evident in the legalization of abortion was to institute “biblically based religious politics.”81 Bray’s writing bore the violent fruit he hoped to harvest. The list of violent antiabortion protestors influenced by Christian Identity is stunning. The three men responsible for the 1995 bombing of the offices of the Spokesman-Review and Planned Parenthood in Spokane, Washington – Vernon Jay Merrell, Charles Barbee, and Robert Berry – all claimed to be Christian Identity disciples. In Texas in 1996 and 1997, the Rev. W. N. Otwell took part in an armed impasse with federal agents. Tim Dreste led multiple raids on abortion centers and, in the aftermath of Dr. David Gunn’s murder, marched with signs declaring, “Dr … Are you feeling under the Gunn?” Willie Ray Lamply not only planned to bomb abortion clinics but was incarcerated for his plot to blow up gay bars, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Anti-Defamation League. And Paul Hill, the murderer of Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard, also came under the influence of Christian Identity thought.82 At least one militant took Christian Identity thought even further. Scott Roeder, the man who would go on to murder Dr. George Tiller in Wichita in 2009, embraced the tenet that born again – and White – Christians were the true Israelites. As a result he ate a Kosher diet, celebrated the Sabbath from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, and began using the Hebrew names for God – Yahweh – and Jesus – Yeshua.83 Roeder was particularly rigorous in his ob­ servation of the Shabbat, the Sabbath; so much so that his ex-wife began to keep a record of his behaviors and would not let their son meet with him alone.84 These religious behaviors helped cement Roeder’s identity, his adherence to Christian Identity thought, and his eventual murder of Tiller. The result of this religiously motivated, politically fostered, and culturally di­ visive attacks on abortion providers continued to intensify throughout the 1990s. In 1997, the bombings and arsons rose thirty-eight percent over the previous year. Those who engaged in the violence also became more sophisticated in their methods, in the process drawing on the resources of paramilitary organizations. Along with an increase in bombings and arson, the two most common forms of clinic attacks, 1997 saw the highest ever levels of hate mail, threatening phone calls, and picketing at women’s health centers. Clinics spread across forty-three states documented daily or weekly picketing, amounting to 7,651 incidents in that year alone. The National Abortion Federation (NAF) concluded that the in­ cidence of violence and the picketing were closely related, though they did not indicate the specific manner in which they interrelated.85 To put the level of violence and agitation in a fuller context, the NAF provided a full set of statistics for the twenty-two years following 1977 when the first in­ cidents of arson began to appear. During that time, they documented, “8 murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 175 arsons, 97 attempted bombings and arsons, 391 cases of invasion, 1,429 cases of vandalism, 2,057 cases of trespassing, 100 butyric acid attacks, 661 anthrax attacks, 184 cases of assault and battery,

Antiabortion movement

83

416 death threats, 4 kidnappings, 157 cases of burglary, 526 stalking cases, 14,293 cases of hate mail and harassing calls, 345 cases of e-mail or internet-based har­ assment, 160 hoax devices or suspicious packages sent to providers, and 643 bomb threats.”86 That averages out to more than one thousand incidents of violence or harassment every year for more than two decades. The figures are notable not only for the breadth of time they covered but also for the severity of the vast majority of the actions. Domestic attacks on mosques, synagogues, Black churches, and gay bars and night clubs were also recurrent in the same time period, but the breadth and boldness of attacks on women’s health centers makes them stand out as par­ ticularly egregious.

Sacred surety redux A check in. Thus far I have argued that a fundamental sense of divine mandate – which I have labeled sacred surety – has been behind much of the violence di­ rected at abortion centers and providers from the middle of the 1960s through to the beginning of the twenty-first century. I have shown how that sacred surety became emboldened by the legalization of abortion with the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe decision, frustration with the pace of change under both the Reagan and Bush administrations, the increasing male dominance of the antiabortion move­ ment with the advent of Operation Rescue and the Army of God, the articulation of theological justification by Christian Identity proponents, and the creation of a strong social network among those committed to opposing abortion for religious reasons. At root I am suggesting that this complex of religious motivations and related faith-based developments was behind the rise and maintenance of anti­ abortion violence. Whether the level of violence would have continued in as sustained and intense a level without that religious mooring is impossible to say. What is clear is that a sense of sacred surety propelled a certain set of activists to act violently for an extended period of time, often at great personal cost to themselves as well as the objects of their harmful actions. Most centrally, the more they moved into public, bringing along religious resources – sacred surety principal among them – the more the violence increased. The role of sacred surety in this instance raises the question of the longer-term outcomes of the violent actions documented here. In short, demand for abortions did not change but availability of abortion services did. An examination of 1992 data found that the full breadth of actions taken against those seeking abortions and those providing them including picketing clinics, physically accosting those seeking abortions, vandalizing abortion centers, threatening to bomb those facil­ ities, and stalking providers did nothing to reduce the rate, number, or frequency of abortions. The efforts to organize against, intimidate, and block access to abortion providers simply did not change how women seeking abortions felt about their desire to have them.87 That said, the same study found that the activism in the early 1990s – again at the height of the most violent attacks against abortion centers and providers – did impact the availability of abortions to such an extent

84

Antiabortion movement

that the aggregate number of abortions conducted fell in 1992.88 Antiabortion providers had succeeded in dropping the rate and raw numbers of abortions by simply making it harder to offer and obtain them. They succeeded on this front by wearing down providers through low-level sustained harassment, reducing the number of abortion centers, and making it more likely that those seeking abortions would have to travel further or wait longer to have abortions as they sought out locations where they would not have to deal with harassment in the process of acquiring abortion services.89 So, one important dynamic of the sacred surety motive can be inferred from these findings. When convinced that God has directed one’s actions, the actual outcomes have often been of secondary importance or entirely inconsequential. That sense of certainty emerging from the conviction that God called for, initiated, and sustained one’s opposition to a perceived evil – whether the death penalty, the provision or abortion, or the general secularization of society – did not require that direct change result from one’s actions. In the absence of any real evidence that violent and/or nonviolent measures made any actual difference in those desiring abortions, for example, activists offered theological explanations akin to traditional responses to theodicy. Just as various religious traditions resolve the apparent contradictions between belief in an all-powerful and beneficent God with the presence of evil in the world by stating that humans cannot understand the plans or deep wisdom of the divine, abortion opponents unable to overturn Roe appealed to God’s mystery, timing, or judgment.90 What they could not achieve on their own, God would achieve either at a later time or not at all for purposes outside human understanding.

Sidewalk confrontations One way to expand on the idea of sacred surety is to examine it in light of a specific event. A series of antiabortion actions taken in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the mid-1990s offers a testing ground for my central thesis. The series of demonstrations in Milwaukee, beginning in 1992, that make this assessment possible were marked by a high degree of theatricality. During the early 1990s, so-called “sidewalk counselors” attempted to dissuade women from going through with their abortions. During the week, they were often the only ones present in protest against the clinic. On Saturday, however, others joined them. Most typically soapbox evangelists, street theater actors, and prayer groups parti­ cipated in the demonstrations. They came equipped with a wide variety of protest tools including technical equipment like podiums and amplifiers but also musical instruments, an oversized rosary, a seven-foot crucifix to aid in impromptu worship, and dramatic props such as baby clothes, pink and blue balloons, and bloodied baby dolls. In addition, weekend protestors would bring their children along to increase the poignancy of their actions.91 The events often stewed a cacophonous brew. As actors performed their guerilla theater, street evangelists sermonized, and the devout offered prayers and

Antiabortion movement

85

intercessions, women entered and exited the reproductive health centers. Overtime this kind of chaotic spectacle, repeated almost weekly, became ex­ pected. Rather than an exception or anomaly, the sonic, visual, and tactile mix of singing, praying, preaching, confrontation, and reading both biblical and anti­ abortion texts became normal.92 Issues of cacophony and chaos aside, it is still possible to examine in detail the rhetorical content of what protestors said and how they said it. Since 1992, a group of Catholics had gathered at one of the Milwaukee clinics to pray the rosary as a means of expressing their opposition to abortion and appealing for divine inter­ vention. A memorized formal litany known and recited by every member of the Catholic community, the rosary is offered not only as a means of intercession but also as a display of conviction and repentance. Born of years of practice, those saying the rosary in unison did not hesitate to intersperse their own collective recitation with exclamations directed at women on their way into the clinic. As they prayed, they would also shout at the women. Those in the rosary group yelled, “Mom!” “Grandma!” or “[Make] a good choice!”93 Although a sizable parking lot separated the protestors from the women and ambient traffic noise often masked their cries, they nonetheless kept directing their interjections at the women. Eventually the group shifted locations from the suburban clinic where they originally gathered to the downtown Milwaukee location of the Affiliated Medical Services where they shouted at the women as they walked directly by them on the sidewalk. Those who prayed the rosary while yelling at the women received additional – often aggressive – support from sidewalk counselors. For example, during the recitation of a “pro-life” adaptation of the traditional rosary litany known as the Rosary for Life, a sidewalk counselor known at Charlie shifted without hesitation from reciting the rosary to verbally accosting women on their way into the clinic. Known for pushing volunteer escorts and chasing after patients, Charlie did not hesitate to yell, “Let us help you” and “Is that your baby you’re taking in there? Let us help you save your baby” before switching back to leading the rosary. At other points group members and sidewalk counselors yelled out, “Thou shalt not kill!” and “Escorts to the executioner!” even as they crowded, pushed, and as­ saulted the patients and their escorts.94 The aggressive, morally charged rhetoric of the sidewalk counselors and rosary prayers sounds almost timid in comparison to the sermons given by a set of preachers who frequented the clinic. Travelling to the reproductive health center from the nearby suburbs, the pastors brought with them ten to twenty congregants and supporters who served as ready audiences for their oratory. The two men, known as Pastors Dave and Dale, stood behind large, portable podiums and spoke into microphones as they excoriated society’s “culture of death” with televangelist flair and passion.95 Weaving together graphic abortion descriptions, accusations of murder directed at clinic doctors and their patients, and overt forms of verbal harassment up to and including calling the women “harlots” and their male partners “cowards,” the pastors also used props in the midst of their tirades. At one

86

Antiabortion movement

point “Pastor Dave” brought four child-sized coffins that he said contained aborted fetuses, which he pointed out to patients as they walked by.96 The rhetoric used by the pastors – as well as the phrases and interjections of the rosary devout – invariably urged on other protestors to accost the patients. When one of the pastors raised his hand to point out a patient, other protestors crowded around her. Accusing the women of loose morals only made them easier targets. The moral dichotomy created by treating sidewalk counselors as heroes and those involved with abortion practices as perpetrators of a “holocaust” further en­ couraged an escalation of the verbal and physical violence.97

Theories of religion and violence A complete assessment of the connections between the sacred surety principle and religious violence demands a brief foray into the theories behind religious vio­ lence. The work of René Girard has been particularly influential in theorizing the linkages between religion and violence. In an attempt to arrive at what can only be called a universal theory of the roots of violence in religion, Girard proposes that all religions start with human sacrifice and that rituals emerge to ameliorate the harm done to the group through this practice. Governments then arise to advance community goals at the point where religions lose their efficacy to do so. Driving these dynamics is the essential human emotion of “mimetic desire,” an innate longing akin to the idea of covetousness in which an individual feels the urge to obtain what others have simply in order to have them.98 Through the interrelated process of sacrifice and scapegoating, religion channels this desire in a somewhat less destructive process. For Girard, mimetic desire is at the root of all religious violence.99 David C. Rapoport advances an alternative theory. This religious studies and political science scholar begins by acknowledging that the world’s major religious groups have, in the course of history, advocated both violence and nonviolence. The linkages between violence and religion that he points out include religion’s inspiration of “ultimate commitment,” religion’s provisions of channels through which to communicate violence, the deep roots of violence in the very origins of religious communities, and the concurrence of religious revivals with outbreaks of violence.100 Like Girard, Rapoport makes much of the origins of the practice of religion, an anthropological undertaking that depends as much on speculation and extrapolation as on direct reading of the evidence. Offering a theory of religion and violence somewhat less dependent on eva­ luation of the forces at work upon religion’s dawning, sociologists of religion Kyoko Tokuno and James Wellman observe a direct correlation between religion and violence. They contend that the ways in which religious practitioners imbue symbols with meaning, draw lines between those inside and outside their com­ munity, and create both individual and group identities in the process foster conflicts between and even within given religious groups. Rather than a spurious dynamic, they argue that conflict and violence are regularly produced by religion.

Antiabortion movement

87

While “religious violence … may not be inevitable,” they aver, “it should surprise no one.”101 At least one theorist maintains that the correlations between expressions of religion and violence are not so evident. Hans Kippenberg finds in his study of monotheistic religious groups that whether or not a given religious adherent acts on their belief in a violent manner depends entirely on how that believer or the community to which he or she belongs defines their situation.102 A given in­ dividual may respond to a given historical circumstance in a violent or nonviolent manner depending on how that person interprets the situation. Differing members of the same religious group will likely respond in varying ways just as groups as a whole respond to the same situation in a variety of ways. There is no greater likelihood that they will or will not respond in a violent manner simply because they are doing so based on religious beliefs as opposed to political ideologies or cultural convictions. It is the definition of the circumstance, contends Kippenberg, that makes the difference. The Milwaukee protests provide an opportunity to further test out the theories of Girard, Rapoport, Wellman, Tokuno, and Kippenberg. At the risk of over­ simplifying, the first four theorists argue in one way or another that violence is itself intrinsically connected to the practice of religion. Kippenberg complicates that approach by drawing attention to the situational nature of those instances when religion does foster violence. If we posit for the moment that the actions of the antiabortion protestors in Milwaukee constituted violence against the clinic patients through both verbal and physical harassment, and if we accept that those protestors were motivated primarily by their religious commitments, associations, and relationships, then it would seem logical to declare that, at least in the context of these specific protests at that particular time in history, religion did foster, support, and encourage violence. And, on this point, I would offer little in the way of objection. At the same time, the instance of the antiabortion protests also reminds us that, as Kippenberg argues, the situation of the protests is as important as the religious nature of the protestors’ identities and beliefs. Religion also prompted volunteers to run in­ terference for the patients, offer solace in the aftermath of the abortion experience, and contribute to the pro-choice movement both financially and in organizing. As noted earlier, some of the first advocates for ensuring that all women had legal and fair access to abortion services were members of the clergy. The stereotypical depiction of the antiabortion community as exclusively religiously motivated and the pro-choice community as exclusively secular simply does not hold true in light of the historical evidence. In the same way, the flat-footed assertion that religion automatically produces violence likewise fails in light of the full breadth of evi­ dence in the abortion debates. The sense of sacred surety has prompted militants to engage in acts of violence, but that is not all that religion has done in situations of protest and conflict.

88

Antiabortion movement

Sacred surety at work To be certain, the argument I am advancing that the sacred surety religious re­ source employed in the antiabortion movement prompted, amplified, and sus­ tained violence in the movement does not preclude the long tradition of religiously motivated peacemaking and nonviolence. One does not rule out the other. In the case of figures like Trappist monk Thomas Merton, Catholic worker founder Dorothy Day, or Jewish sage Abraham Joshua Heschel, their passion for social change – whether or not a commitment to antiabortion was part of their worldview – emerged from a deep commitment to nonviolence that was formed, nurtured, and developed by their religious commitments.103 The authenticity of their nonviolence is in no way compromised by the virulence of Michael Bray, Rachelle Shannon, or Michael Griffin. And, conversely, the religious roots of the latter group’s acts of violence are not called into question by the religious roots of nonviolence in the lives of Merton, Day, Heschel and many others. The forces that shape historical and contemporary events are complex, multivaried, and sometimes counter to the stated intentions of those involved in molding them; those responsible for antiabortion violence demonstrate every bit of that intricacy. To review the dynamics at play in the antiabortion movement in general and the impulse toward sacred surety in particular, it is first essential to recognize just how fundamentally religious and anti-secular the antiabortion movement has been from its inception. In comparison to other social movements with strong religious connections like the environmental, peace, and anti-nuclear campaigns, the antiabortion movement grew out of and has been sustained by religious groups often antagonistic to other religious communities. The leadership of Roman Catholic antiabortion groups have been critical of their left-wing colleagues in Latin America. Fundamentalist Christians, Orthodox Jews, the Nation of Islam, and the Church of Latter Day Saints have not only been vo­ ciferous in their antiabortion advocacy but have been overly hostile toward liberal members of their own or others’ religious communities.104 Even as antiabortion activists employed religious language, evinced religious motivations, and organized their protests using prayer, song, and religious rituals, they did so with a con­ sistently iconoclastic form of religious commitment.105 That particularly rigid religious expression was marked by a dualistic view of the world. Fundamentalism – whether found in Jewish, Christian, Muslim or other traditions – promotes a rigid division of the world into separate, distinct, and diametrically opposed categories. One is either evil or good. There is only right or wrong. Things are of the body or of the soul.106 Such sharp divisions attract adherents looking for certainty, clarity, and definitive moral truths. In the later half of the twentieth century, antiabortion activists – and particularly those who used violence to pursue their ends – relied on this same fundamentalist dualism.107 They stated with absolute certainty the rightness of their path and the error of their opponents’ ways – the foundational marker of sacred surety at work.

Antiabortion movement

89

For example, the Army of God displayed just such a fundamentalist dualism in their use of Christian scriptures. Although violent antiabortion activists also in­ corporated manifestoes, fiction, and Internet sources to justify their actions, per­ petrators of antiabortion violence in the US-referenced biblical sources more than any other. In particular, Old Testament passages proved attractive. Numbers tells the story of Phineas who murdered an Israelite married to a Midianite woman and thus in violation of a divine decree. The book of Judges relates how Gideon killed those who worshipped Baal by offering infant sacrifices.108 The same Genesis 9:6 verse quoted by Michael Griffin in his explanation of the murder of David Gunn also appeared in an AOG manual used by activists in Operation Rescue’s 1991 “Summer of Mercy” in Wichita, Kansas. The authors of the manual declared, “We, the remnant of God-fearing men and women of United States of Amerika [sic], do officially declare war on the entire child-killing industry … and our most Dread Sovereign Lord God requires that whosoever shed man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”109 These passages and other texts valorizing biblical figures who killed in God’s name provided exemplars for those who claimed a mandate to do the same. They arrived at a truth that could not be disputed. Duality provided the foundation from which sacred surety arose. In addition to fundamentalism, dualism, and divine mandates, patriarchy also fed militant antiabortion activists’ sense of sacred surety. In general, the more extreme the organization was in its antiabortion strategies, the more likely it was that males would dominate that group.110 To reiterate, despite the movement’s roots in female-led activism, men took over more leadership posts as the move­ ment’s profile increased. Those men then helped mobilize cultural and political forces to bring a new set of national leaders to power in the latter 1970s and 1980s. Those newly elected right-wing and conservative forces pursued a political pro­ gram that interpreted reproductive, sexual, and family issues in such a way as to assert masculinity, male headship, and patriarchy in the home, church, and workplace.111 As we have seen, those social, political, and cultural forces undergirded a new militancy that surfaced in the late 1970s and early 1980s and would go on to find full fruition in the 1990s. One leader in particular exemplified the religious rhetoric and tactical resources bundled in the idea of sacred surety. In the seven years prior to 1984, activists had burnt or bombed women’s reproductive centers twenty-one times. In 1984, that number jumped to twenty-four in one year.112 In the aftermath of that violence, the ex-seminarian and Roman Catholic Joseph Scheidler – who we have already seen played such a central role in laying the foundations of the antiabortion movement’s violence – ramped up the response even further with his 1985 “Year of Pain and Fear,” a series of disruptive events – many of them violent in nature – that Scheidler organized across the country through his organization, The Pro-Life Action League.113 Although Scheidler himself seldom risked arrest, his presence and rhetoric prodded others to not only risk arrest but increased the level of their militancy and violence. Central to Scheidler’s rhetorical approach was the deliberate and sustained dehumanizing of

90

Antiabortion movement

abortion providers. Rather than doctors, the activists spoke of “demons,” “baby butchers,” and leaders of “abortuaries” where volunteer escorts became “death­ scorts.”114 An AOG manual amplified the rhetoric, referring to “pagan, heathen, infidel” murderers with “blackened, jaded hearts” who were engaged in a modern day Holocaust.115 In response, activists not only prayed “imprecatory prayers” that clinic directors might die but performed ever more daring acts of violence against the centers.116 In Missoula, Montana, for example, an arsonist set fire to and burned down the Blue Mountain Clinic in 1993.117 This was sacred surety in action. These kinds of incidents of deadly violence that had become all too frequent in the 1990s ultimately eroded the widespread antiabortion activism that had swept so many religious activists into its wake. The federal government stepped in and increased the severity of penalties for acts of violence and disruption at abortion clinics. Protestors then began spending time in jail, paying large fines, and facing extended prison sentences.118 Not matter how divinely inspired individual activists may have felt, most were not willing to throw away their personal freedom or financial well-being. Large-scale protest movements shrank. We now know that the nation’s abortion rate declined in the 1990s. Most scholars concur, however, that the reduced rate had more to do with the greater availability of contraception and the greater acceptance of male and female ster­ ilization than with individual abortion seekers feeling intimidated by those at­ tempting to block their access.119 Whereas religion resources had – and still continue – to add force and fire to the abortion debate, in this instance, as the twentieth century came to an end, the religious community that had invested so much in attempting to eradicate the practice of abortion in its entirety had been defeated by the very government that many felt had been divinely put in place for the singular purpose of putting an end to the practice of abortion itself.

Notes 1 Brenda D. Hofman, “Political Theology: The Role of Organized Religion in the Anti-Abortion Movement,” Journal of Church and State 28, no. 2 (1986): 246. 2 Ibid., 246–7. 3 James Risen and Judy L. Thomas, Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War (New York: BasicBooks, 1998), 340. 4 Ibid. 5 Ziad W. Munson, The Making of Pro-Life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 88. 6 Aaron Winter, “Anti-Abortion Violence” in Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Jeffrey Ian Ross (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2011), 45. 7 Risen and Thomas, 340. 8 The taxonomy of violence I here describe draws on the work of the World Health Organization’s Global Campaign for Violence Prevention, an approach I value for its emphasis on the expression of power and its impact on both the physical and psy­ chological dynamics of injury. Historically, violence has consistently encompassed those elements. To explore further the work of the GCVP, see: “Definition and

Antiabortion movement

9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

91

Typology of Violence,” World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/ violenceprevention/approach/definition/en/. Part of my own power as the author of this chapter is that I get to choose which terms I will use to frame a given historical movement. In this instance, I will join those historians and social scientists who have employed the labels “anti-abortion” and “prochoice.” See for example, Dallas A. Blanchard and Terry J. Prewitt, Religious Violence and Abortion: The Gideon Project (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993); Michael S. Waltman, “Christian Identity and Anti-Abortion Violence,” in Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Jeffrey Ian Ross (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2011); Stephen Singular, The Wichita Divide: The Murder of Dr. George Tiller and the Battle over Abortion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011). Although in a few cases I reference “pro-life” or other normative labels when quoting historical sources, I generally follow the principle that the “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice” labels are accurate and historically specific. The terms describe the goals of the respective groups. Daniel K Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe V. Wade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 28. Jeff Wilson, Mourning the Unborn Dead: A Buddhist Ritual Comes to America (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), 14. Robert N. Karrer, “The National Right to Life Committee; Its Founding, Its History, and the Emergence of the Pro-Life Movement Prior to Roe V. Wade,” The Catholic Historical Review 97, no. 3 (2011): 529. Ibid. Connie Paige, The Right to Lifers: Who They Are, How They Operate, Where They Get Their Money (New York: Summit Books, 1983), 43. Ibid., 43–4. Rickie Solinger, Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 28; Jennifer Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 12. Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe V. Wade (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 58. Karrer, 535. Karissa Haugeberg, Women against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 3–4. Ibid., 6, 56. Ibid., 75. Jennifer L. Jefferis, Armed for Life: The Army of God and Anti-Abortion Terror in the United States (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 9; Risen and Thomas, 15. Stacie Taranto, Kitchen Table Politics: Conservative Women and Family Values in New York (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 67–8. Risen and Thomas, 21. Solinger, 28. Ibid., 28–9. Dallas A. Blanchard, The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Rise of the Religious Right: From Polite to Fiery Protest (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994), 22. Mary Ziegler, After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), xiv–xv. Ibid., xv. Williams, 205. Wilson, 14. Munson, 85. Joseph C. Stockett, “Prisoner Promotes Children of God Group,” Statesman Journal, Saturday, July 17 1976, 35. Winter, “Antiabortion Extremism and Violence in the United States,” 233–4.

92

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

Antiabortion movement

Haugeberg, 5–6. Ibid., 56–7. Karrer, 557. Blanchard and Prewitt, 179; Daniel E. Price, Sacred Terror: How Faith Becomes Lethal (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), 173. Price, 174–5. Blanchard and Prewitt, 181. Ibid. Paige, 221. Anne E. Shaw and Alane C. Spinney, “Rhetoric, Repetition, and Violence: A Case Study of Clinic Conflict in Milwaukee,” Counterpoints 121 (1999): 50. Risen and Thomas, 73–4; Shaw and Spinney, 50. Risen and Thomas, 117; Shaw and Spinney, 50. Shaw, 50; Blanchard, 86. Rochelle Sharpe, “Evangelicals Taking up Lead Role in Protest Movement,” The Times Herald, Sunday, December 1, 1985, 8. Mark Allen Steiner, The Rhetoric of Operation Rescue: Projecting the Christian Pro-Life Message (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 5. Risen and Thomas, 247. Ibid. Haugeberg, 75. Steiner, 7; Risen and Thomas, 213. Steiner, 5–6. Ibid., 7, 146. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 8. Haugeberg, 67–9. Ibid., 69. Munson, 88–9. David Treadwell, “250 Arrested in Anti-Abortion ‘Siege of Atlanta’,” Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, October 5, 1988, 54. Amy Wilson, “Filling Tough Role at a Tender Age,” Akron Beacon Journal, Friday, August 23, 1991, 2. Judy Lundstrom Thomas, “Operation Rescue’s Lifeguard.” Arizona Republic, Sunday, September 1, 1991, 4. John P. Hoffmann and Sherrie Mills Johnson, “Attitudes toward Abortion among Religious Traditions in the United States: Change or Continuity?” Sociology of Religion 66, no. 2 (2005): 178. Wilson, 16. Charles Bosworth, Jr., and Michael D. Sorkin, “Anti-Abortion Violence Linked to National Organization,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Thursday, August 26, 1982, 18. Winter, “Antiabortion Extremism and Violence in the United States,” 233–4. Hofman, 246–7. Lani Jordan, “Abortion Clinic Protest Divides Community,” The Daily Dispatch, Wednesday, April 18, 1984, 34. Winter, “Antiabortion Extremism and Violence in the United States,” 234–5. James Risen, “Suspect Backed Clinic Violence,” Los Angeles Times, Saturday, July 30, 1994, 142. “Anti-Abortion Violence,” 44–5. “Woman Shows No Remorse for Shooting Abortion Doctor,” Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sunday, October 3, 1993, 26. Price, 172–3.

Antiabortion movement

93

74 Douglas E. Cowan, “Theologizing Race: The Construction of ‘Christian Identity’,” in Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction, ed. Craig R. Prentiss (New York: New York University, 2003), 112. 75 Waltman, 146. 76 Winter, “Antiabortion Extremism and Violence in the United States,” 227–8. 77 Mark Juergensmeyer, “Christian Violence in America,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 558 (1998): 98. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid., 93. 80 Walter Brueggemann, “Review of Bonhoeffer the Assassin? Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking by Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist, andDaniel P. Umbel,” Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology 69, no. 1 (2015). 81 Juergensmeyer, 93. 82 Waltman, 146–7. 83 Singular, 78. 84 Ibid., 78, 199. 85 Shaw and Spinney, 47–8. 86 Winter, “Anti-Abortion Violence,” 44. 87 Marshall H. Medoff, “The Impact of Anti-Abortion Activities on State Abortion Rates,” The Journal of Socio-Economics 32 (2003): 279. 88 Ibid. 89 Jennefer A. Russo, Kristin L. Schumacher, and Mitchell D. Creinin, “Antiabortion Violence in the United States,” Contraception 86 (2012): 565. 90 James C. Livingston, Anatomy of the Sacred: An Introduction to Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 247–69. 91 Shaw and Spinney, 60. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., 60–2. 95 Ibid., 64. 96 Ibid., 66. 97 Ibid. 98 René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory, 1st Johns Hopkins pa­ perback ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979). 99 Jeffrey Ian Ross, “Introduction,” in Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Jeffrey Ian Ross (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2011), xvi. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid. 102 Hans G. Kippenberg, “Searching for the Link between Religion and Violence by Means of the Thomas-Theorem,” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 22, no. 2 (2010): 101–4. 103 Albert J. Raboteau, American Prophets: Seven Religious Radicals and Their Struggle for Social and Political Justice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016). 104 Petchesky, 213. 105 Ibid. 106 Blanchard and Prewitt, 216. 107 Ibid., 274–5. 108 Winter, “Anti-Abortion Violence,” 47. 109 Singular, 71. 110 Blanchard, 60. 111 Petchesky, 207. 112 B. Radford and G. Shaw, “Antiabortion Violence: Causes and Effects,” Women’s Health Issues: Official Publication of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health 3 (1993): 144. 113 Ibid., 146.

94

Antiabortion movement

114 115 116 117 118 119

Ibid. Singular, 73. Radford and Shaw, 146. Ibid., 150. Risen and Thomas, 373. Ibid., 377.

4 THE POPE AND THE BLACK MADONNA: RITUAL, WORD, AND MOVEMENT IN THE POLISH SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

When Communist officials arrested a sacred Polish painting in the 1950s, they renewed a struggle over the public use of religious resources in that country. The so-called “Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa” is a 138 × 92 centimeter painting of the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ nestled in her left arm. Expert examination of the canvas and painting techniques places its origins in the thirteenth century or later.1 Since that time the icon has become a powerful symbol of Polish in­ dependence to which believers have attributed a host of miracles. One historian described the painting as “the mother of a crucified nation.”2 The decision of the Catholic episcopate to prepare for the millennial celebration of Christianity in Poland in 1966 by organizing a “great Novena” starting in 1957 was nothing short of brilliant. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyn´ski, the head – or Primate – of the Polish Catholic Church from 1948 to 1981, announced that a copy of the Black Madonna would visit every parish in the country in the course of the following nine years.3 In the midst of the painting’s peregrinations, Communist officials arrested the painting and took it into custody. Nonetheless, the pilgrimage con­ tinued with an empty frame visiting many parishes.4 This attempt by Communist officials to interrupt Polish veneration of the Black Madonna is but one event in the story of how the Polish people used religious resources in their long-term freedom struggle. Although the broad outlines of that story gained international attention by the 1980s with the emergence of the Solidarity movement, the declaration of martial law, and the eventual overthrow of the Communist party, the details remain less well known. From 1945 through 1989, the Polish people employed religious resources to support their resistance efforts by bringing their most sacred objects, practices, and people into the public realm. In so doing, they created a space that Communist officials could not en­ tirely control. Church leaders from the Pope to local priests and labor leaders from Lech Walesa to dockside union members arranged and participated in public

96

Polish Solidarity movement

ceremonies, focused on religious objects like the Black Madonna, and moved their bodies and the objects they venerated from one place to another. Through those pilgrimages, rituals, and words, they fostered hope, modeled autonomy, and created moments of freedom from oppressive control. In so doing, the Polish people came out from under Communist occupation. In the end, the crafting of public religious ceremony – both in motion and in place – powered efforts to overthrow a repressive regime. A central concept guides the exploration of religious ritual, word, and pil­ grimage in the Polish Solidarity movement. It is simply this: religious rituals can promote substantive change by promoting alternative values to those held by the state, an idea represented by the term ceremonial revolution. In this particular con­ text, the concept of ceremonial revolution refers to attempts by the Catholic church to shape public space through an invocation of traditions, values, and symbols independent of those promoted by the government. In the ceremonies sponsored by the state, government officials emphasized the values of patriotism, socialism, and internationalism. The church, however, sought to usurp the gov­ ernment’s assumed authority and control of those central concepts by promoting alternative values such as the dignity of the human person and human work.5 In essence, the church aimed to overthrow the state’s presumed jurisdiction over democracy, socialism, and other core values. Through ceremony, they led a revolt. This chapter describes the process and content of that ceremonial revolution.

Introducing the Black Madonna Chief among the corporate religious practices replete throughout Poland sits the Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa. One of hundreds of such icons around the world that feature a depiction of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus nestled in her arms, the painting housed in the Jasna Góra Monastery in the southcentral town of Cze˛stochowa has survived numerous attacks and become wreathed in legend.6 One source relates the tale of an attack by Bohemian Hussites who, in 1430, slashed the face of the Virgin with an arrow and darkened her face in the course of attempting to burn down the building.7 The resulting image appears more “dark olive” or brown than black, but the label “black” speaks as much to the actual hue as it does to the association within Polish folk culture of black with sorrow and death.8 This connection with sorrow resonates throughout the legends associated with the image. During the 1430 attack, the soldiers who captured the painting dis­ covered that it grew heavier with each step taken away from Jasna Góra until they could not carry it any further. Although returned to the monastery, the so-called “wounds” inflicted by the soldiers’ arrow kept appearing after having been painted over. In 1655, the Madonna provided strength, sustenance, and protection to a small band of 250 Polish soldiers and monks cornered in the Jasna Góra monastery, allowing them to withstand a forty-day siege by Charles X of Sweden and his army of 3,000.9 A 1920 attack by the Russian army was likewise repelled after the

Polish Solidarity movement

97

attackers witnessed an image of the sorrowful Madonna in Warsaw’s skies. And while in the midst of retreat from their occupation of Poland, Nazi soldiers at­ tempted to demolish Jasna Góra by dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire, but they were again unsuccessful.10 While never viewed as a triumphant victor, the Black Madonna of Czestochow nonetheless provided protection and solace even in the midst of troubled times. These fantastic events and the commemoration of them became institutionalized in formal state documents. Following the 1655 siege, Jan Kazimierz, then Poland’s king, declared that the Black Madonna icon was henceforth the “Queen and Protector of Poland.” Likewise, the Constitution of 1764 designated the icon as Poland’s national symbol. In the subsequent trials and occupations faced by the Polish nation, the Black Madonna took on the role of the “mother of a crucified nation.”11 In the aftermath of the horrors of World War II and the Nazi occupation, the Polish people turned toward their “mother.” By 1946, Poland as a nation was more religiously homogenous than it had ever been, with non-Catholics ac­ counting for only three percent of the population, a demographic shift that re­ sulted from the murder of six million Polish residents, half of them Jewish.12 In the context of that devastation, a million devout Poles descended on Jasna Góra to seek comfort and solace from the Madonna on September 8, 1946. They came as pilgrims, walking on foot and carrying offerings of barbed wire from Auschwitz, Dachau, and other Polish concentration camps, of a Rosary made from bread dough by the women held at the Ravensbruck camp, and vessels filled with earth from the battlefields where Polish soldiers fought and died. Although for the next ten years of Stalinist rule, Communist officials banned such large-scale gatherings, individuals nonetheless continued to travel to Jasna Góra and by August 26, 1956, took vows to prepare them for entering into the decade-long preparation for the “Great Novena of the Millennium.”13 Amid this devotion, Communist Party officials intensified their persecution of the Catholic Church. A September 1948 roundup imprisoned 400 priests despite protests from the church leadership.14 That same year the state stopped all church broadcasts and either censored or banned church publications. One magazine’s editor-in-chief died in prison after having been tried and found guilty of attempting to overthrow the Polish government. By early 1950, Catholic Youth organizations had been forced to close, state appointees staffed the church’s charitable organizations, the government had commandeered church-run hospitals, and the majority of church land had been expropriated by the state.15 In the midst of this persecution, church leadership signed an accord with the state on April 16, 1950, that set up a degree of reciprocity between the two entities. The church agreed to speak out against “anti-state activity” and hold antiCommunist priests in check. In particular, church leaders indicated that they would enjoin clergy to support the development of rural cooperatives. In return the church press would no longer be singled out for persecution, children would

98

Polish Solidarity movement

receive religious instruction in schools, and worship services would not be in­ terrupted by the state. The church even went so far as to support the Stalinist constitution instituted that same year.16 The promise of the accord proved distant from the reality. One year later, a fresh round of imprisonments led to the incarceration of 900 priests and monks. Following Stalin’s death, the persecution actually increased with those accused by the state of insurrectionary activity undergoing sustained and brutal inter­ rogations and church leader Bishop Kaczmarek of Kielce and his associates receiving twelve-year prison sentences for their alleged “sabotage of Polish soil in the interests of American imperialism.”17 The constitution of 1952 then forbade religious instruction in schools, nationalized nearly all church property, and no longer recognized church conducted marriages. The following year, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, the Polish primate, was imprisoned and then placed under house arrest from 1952 to 1956 for the alleged crime of governmental noncooperation.18 Pilgrimage again played a role in the political events that unfolded. On August 26, 1956, a half million Catholics participated in the annual pilgrimage to visit the Black Madonna in Jasna Góra. Although Cardinal Wyszynski remained under house arrest, the faithful encountered an empty throne where he would have normally sat on which a bouquet of flowers rested in his stead. A message from Wyszynski had been smuggled out from his residence and brought to Jasna Góra where those gathered heard his words. Following these events and in the midst of growing national discontent, senior Communist officials visited Wyszynski two months later and instructed him to resume his duties in Warsaw, ending his period of house arrest. He re-entered his public role to great acclaim across the country.19 By October, concrete evidence of a dramatic shift in church-state relations had become evident. Religious instruction came back into the schools. Priests still lingering in prison saw an end to their incarceration. Chaplains again served in hospitals and prisons. A Catholic national weekly newspaper received authoriza­ tion to publish. Catholic broadcasts resumed. And western art and literature be­ came available. This shift allowed Cardinal Wyszyn´ski to cooperate with the Communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka and forestall a Soviet invasion, an eventuality that both men viewed as undesirable.20 During this period of relative détente between church and state officials, plans for the church’s celebration of the Polish millennium came to fruition. The Black Madonna played a principal role. Following Cardinal Wyszyn´ski’s release from house arrest, church officials commissioned painter Leonard Torwirt to prepare an exact copy of the Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa. Upon completion of the re­ plica, Wyszyn´ski traveled by train with the painting to Rome in a carriage compartment re-decorated as a chapel. Upon arrival at the Vatican, Pope Pious XII blessed the image in preparation for its return to Poland and visitation of all parish churches in the country.21

Polish Solidarity movement

99

The ritual of the Black Madonna pilgrimage The Black Madonna’s pilgrimage began with a highly formalized, materially fo­ cused ritual that set the stage for the local proceedings to follow. At the Jasna Góra monastery on August 26, 1957, the Pauline fathers in residence transferred the image from its resting place on the central altar to the nearby presbytery where the Pope-blessed replica awaited. Cardinal Wyszyn´ski then picked up the replica and brought it close to the original until the two touched. Once the original was returned to its place of honor over the altar, the Primate gave the replica to the diocesan deans assembled for the ceremony who in turn processed with the image around the ramparts of the monastery.22 Echoing this kind of formal, materially focused ritual, local parishes received the image using the same ceremony each time. First, the host congregation par­ ticipated in a retreat dedicated to preparing the congregation for the image’s ar­ rival. Then, another ceremony held at the town border offered an official welcome for the twenty-four hour visit. Having travelled from its previous host town by its own “car-chapel,” the image then left the vehicle in the hands of the local parishioners who processed with it to their local parish. Upon arrival at the church, the congregation held another service followed by an all-night vigil during which the faithful offered up their prayers in front of the icon.23 Each community received the painting in the same way. The logic of the ceremony turned on material contact. The replica travelled to Rome where the Pope blessed it with his hands. Bearing this touch, the icon-copy touched the original. The Cardinal carried it in his hands to the deans. They transferred it to the caretakers for the journey who in turn handed it to the local faithful. The parishioners carried the replica in their hands into their church. Through this succession of material contact, a symbolic web of connection ex­ tending from Rome and back to antiquity brought the believers together. In this collective act of sacred imagination, those who touched the icon came into contact with Papal presence as well the emissary of an image said to have been originally painted on cedar boards from the table on which Christ’s last supper had been served. The power of the image’s presence made sense because of the material and physical contact that tied them together. Moreover, the longer the image travelled throughout Poland, the stronger and more meaningful that chain of connection became. As more and more hands touched the image, the sacred origins of the papal touch and contact with the miraculous original painting strengthened rather than diminished despite the ad­ ditional contact. For the believers, those additional hands lent their own authority to the premise of sacred meaning imbued within the painting. Because others believed that the touch mattered, their touch mattered more as well. As the painting continued its pilgrimage across the country, church state re­ lations again deteriorated. Once the threat of Russian occupation dissipated, the cooperative relationship eroded as well. Stating in 1959 that “Polish atheism had to fight with the Catholic hierarchy for control over souls of the whole nation,”

100

Polish Solidarity movement

Communist leaders leapt back into the fray by once again banishing religious instruction from school and denying building licenses for new churches.24 As the country continued to move toward the 1966 anniversary of a millennium of Polish history, a rhetorical battle broke out over how to celebrate those thousand years. In an overt push for ceremonial revolution, the church declared a millennium of Christianity while the Communist Party lifted up a millennium of statehood. The Black Madonna was at the center of the fight. As the replica wended its way through the countryside, the reputation and standing of the original painting only grew stronger. A children’s book published in 1962 further cemented the centrality of the Black Madonna to the Polish people. The book’s author wrote, “Our lady of Cze˛stochowa looks out on the world with her gentle smile. Poland has suffered, pagans have seemed to conquer. But in the end the Mother and Child will rule. And the Poles who love Them know it.”25 Although cloaked in the simple cadence and imagery suitable to a children’s story, these were nonetheless fighting words. Indicative of the church’s overall orientation to the Black Madonna and attitude about Communist rule, the children’s book only served to highlight the stakes at play as the painting encountered more and more faithful.

Arresting the Black Madonna and the aftermath And so came the Black Madonna’s arrests. During the year of the millennial celebration itself – 1966 – the replica continued on its pilgrimage throughout Poland borne by its official car-chapel. On June 6 of that year, communist au­ thorities apprehended the vehicle, covered it with a tarp, and took it back to Jasna Góra with orders for it to stay. Nonetheless, the Pauline Fathers conspired with church officials to send the image to Frombork, the next town on the planned route. Under orders of the Communist authorities, militiamen again apprehended the icon’s vehicle on June 20 as it was travelling from Frombrok to Warsaw. They took the image back to Warsaw and placed it in St. John’s Cathedral where it remained under a strict directive not to proceed on the planned peregrination route. Choosing to circumvent the state’s wishes once again, church officials arranged for the image to be secreted to the next planned site in Silesia. Militiamen, however, discovered the plot and forced the car to travel to Jasna Góra instead. They informed the Paulist priests that it was illegal for the replica to travel beyond the monastery’s gates. The image stayed there for the next five years until June 18, 1972.26 The pilgrimage did not, however, stop despite the painting’s arrest. Along the planned route, local congregations carried out the rituals of welcoming, pro­ cession, and vigil with an empty frame joined on the altar by a candle and a lectionary book. Although the Black Madonna’s replica did not appear in re­ sidence, parishioners and their priests carried out their devotions as if it was physically present.27 A different kind of contact typified this phase of the icon’s planned pilgrimage. Denied the opportunity to come into contact with the icon copy itself, the

Polish Solidarity movement

101

religious practitioners held and prayed before the symbol of the same. For those who touched, processed, and knelt in front of the empty frame, the knowledge that the Black Madonna yet existed, that the replica still remained, and that the route planned beforehand would be completed was sufficient. Contact with a focal point where the idea if not the substance of the Black Madonna resided gave comfort, offered solace, and provided an object of the devotional gaze. This symbolic contact allowed the faithful to carry forward both their devotion and their defiance of state intrusion. The defiance evident in the pilgrimage of the Black Madonna’s empty frame erupted again in 1970 when striking workers faced the Polish army. Following sharp increases in food prices only twelve days before Christmas due to the state’s attempt to adjust the market for basic commodities, irate workers called a strike at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk. By December 15, the strikes spread along the Baltic coast to worksites in Gdynia and Szczecin.28 Back at the Lenin shipyards early in the morning of December 16, a crowd 5,000 strong gathered to insist on a response to their list of demands. Dissatisfied with the pace of protest, a group of younger workers moved toward the shipyard’s Gate no. 2 where the army had assembled. The soldiers opened fire, shooting fifteen of the workers and killing four.29 In response, the workers employed the same sort of rituals that had been practiced and promoted through the Black Madonna’s pilgrimage. As they picked up the wounded and the dead, they sang “Poland Lives While We Live,” the national anthem. After they closed the gates, the crowd recited together the chant, “murderers, murderers” as the national flag flew bedecked in black crepe at halfmast. Strikers hung more black crepe on the gates along with their helmets. The several thousand gathered in mourning then stood silent for a minute before again singing the national anthem, making a point of reciting the banned lines, “What alien force has taken, we at sword point will restore.”30 The acts of singing, as­ sembling en masse, standing in silence, and draping symbol upon symbol resonated with the similar rituals honed and practiced in the course of religious veneration. Some of the responses drew even more directly on religious resources. By the time the violence ended on December 17, the military had killed forty-five and wounded 1,165 more. Carried out with the force of tanks, helicopters, and armaments, citizens witnessed their government use deadly force against their own. But they also witnessed workers face down the military and respond using religiously rooted resources. The church in particular entered the conflict by making their sympathies known. From pulpits across the country, priests read a letter penned by the General Counsel of Polish Bishops that offered solace and comfort “to all our compatriots.”31 Where the government had assassinated, imprisoned, persecuted, or abducted workers, priests kept records of the crimes and collected money for the workers who survived and the families of those who had disappeared or been murdered. Clergy also documented burials carried out in the middle of the night by security forces. And they did all these actions as representatives of the church.

102

Polish Solidarity movement

By 1976, the battle over the millennial celebration and the Black Madonna’s peregrination had been left behind but an annual pilgrimage to Jasna Góra had not. The church used the occasion of that pilgrimage to push back against ongoing repression. Prior to the pilgrimage, 40,000 protestors had assembled in Warsaw, which in turn had led to multiple arrests. In response, on August 26 Cardinal Wyszyñski preached to those on pilgrimage to visit the Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa. In his address, he called upon the state to offer clemency to the arrested workers and excoriated state-sponsored torture. He went on to condemn state violence more generally, noting that the exercise of such violence only served to undermine the very authority they sought to retain and further destabilized social peace.32 On September 10, the conference of bishops amplified the Primate’s words with a letter of their own in which they called for citizens’ rights, open dialogue, an end to worker repression, and amnesty for those imprisoned.33

A Pope’s visit Such church-based defiance bore little fruit until the unexpected election of a native son to the papacy. On October 16, 1978, Karol Wojtyla – formerly of Krakow, Poland – took the name of John Paul II after the College of Cardinals emerged from their conclave having chosen him as the Pope. Less than a year later, the Pope planned a pilgrimage to his native country. From June 2 through 10, 1979, John Paul II traveled throughout Poland. The story of the preparations for, rhetorical content of, choice of visitation, and reception by the Polish people puts the church and its challenge to the political order in full view. Although state officials did their best to disrupt and limit the impact of the Pope’s visit to Poland, in the end the Pope and his representatives managed the state far more than the state managed the Pope. The state’s first efforts to undermine the Pope’s visit read like a spy novel. Code-named LATA ’79 – Summer ’79 – the “damage limitation” initiative began by mobilizing clergy and lay informants. The most elite of those in­ formants even sat on the church committee tasked with organizing the details of the Pope’s pilgrimage. State handlers instructed the informants to not only pass on pertinent intelligence but to also negatively influence the planning process itself. In total, 480 agents of the state monitored meetings and disrupted plans as best they could.34 The church nonetheless managed both the symbolic and logistical demands of the Pope’s visit, a process that began at Cze˛stochowa in front of the Black Madonna. When the Pope had originally announced his intention to travel to Poland, the Communist government had responded by denying him entry. In response, a host of Catholics – thousands in number – descended upon Cze˛stochowa to assemble before the Black Madonna and say the Rosary around the clock for seven days; they beseeched the Virgin Mary to make the Pope’s visit possible. The government conceded on the final day of the vigil.35

Polish Solidarity movement

103

The Church then marshaled their full organizational resources to prepare. Fearing huge, unruly crowds, lay members formed “papal guards” tasked with crowd control.36 Despite being denied access to the media, Church officials got the word out through congregational channels. Once it became clear that the Pope was going to draw not just thousands but millions to his events, Church leaders urged those who were unwell, elderly, or very young to stay at home.37 Organizers even arranged for Polish and Vatican flags to bedeck Warsaw’s streets and for candles to burn in windows around the clock in preparation for the Pope’s arrival.38 Perhaps most importantly, the church conceded very little in their negotiations with the government. At no time did the Pope or his emissaries ask for permission. Even when faced with outright refusal by government officials for the Pope to meet with a given dignitary or travel to a particular locale, the Vatican officials reframed the discussions to focus on matters other than the granting of permission. As an “autonomous agent,” the Pope did not need permission of any kind.39 To say that Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit had a wide reach is a significant understatement. In total, he appeared before twelve million of his native cousins, nearly a third of the population of Poland.40 His first public mass of the trip saw 300,000 faithful gather at once.41 A half million gathered to hear him speak in Warsaw’s center.42 At Cze˛stochowa, the crowd numbered a million.43 The an­ ticipated crowds showed up at every stop but the unruliness did not. One ob­ server, himself a secular dissident, noted, “[T]hose very people who are ordinarily frustrated and aggressive in shop lines were metamorphosed into a cheerful and happy collectivity, people filled with dignity.”44 From the beginning of the pilgrimage, the Pope and his team focused on a central theme. The original impetus for the visit was to celebrate the 900-year anniversary of St. Stanislaw’s martyrdom. An immoral and corrupt king had killed this patron saint of Poland after St. Stanislaw opposed him.45 Subsequent nego­ tiations in the Joint Government-Episcopate Commission de-emphasized the direct connection with St. Stanislaw, but the theme of morality’s relationship with authority in general and the church’s call to resist unjust secular authority in particular nonetheless came through the entire sojourn. The resonance of the Pope’s spoken words stemmed from both the theme itself and the manner in which he spoke about it. As state officials looked on, Pope John Paul III took the celebration of the mass out of the cathedral into the vastly public space of Warsaw’s Victory Square and called on the Holy Spirit to “renew the face of the earth – of this land!”46 While skirting direct political criticism, the Pope nonetheless chose biblical passages and crafted rhetorical flourishes that criticized the political authority of the moment.47 And, he did so in a remarkably personal way that left audience members feeling as if the Pope had addressed them in­ dividually. During one of his sermons, a Silesian coal miner in the audience lashed out at a friend who had been talking while the Pope preached and said, “Pieronie [Damn it, Thunderation], don’t talk when the Pope’s speaking to me!”48 Even more important than the deftly crafted political commentary and the personal

104

Polish Solidarity movement

delivery was that the Pope acted as if the Communist regime “was a transient phenomenon of little importance.”49 Throughout the visit, Our Lady of Cze˛stochowa figured prominently. Not only did those who marched at Jasna Góra take credit for having opened the way for the Pope’s visit in the first place, but the Pope gave some of his most pointedly nationalistic remarks while visiting the shrine of the Black Madonna.50 On June 5, about half way through his visit, John Paul addressed a huge crowd gathered at the national shrine and lifted up the example of St. Stanislaus, that resister of state oppression, as “the basis of Polish culture.”51 In direct opposition to the wishes of the state, he enjoined the masses to treat Polish nationalism and Catholicism as inseparable. “Make it the foundation of your formation,” he continued, “Be nobly proud of it. Keep this heritage and multiply it; hand it on to future generations.”52 That he offered these words at a site where the Polish people had repelled invaders with the help of the most powerful religious icon of a country chock-a-block with such images escaped no one’s attention. At Jasna Góra, the Pope declared, where “the heart of the nation beats within the heart of the Mother … Here we were always free.”53 The 1979 papal visit (Figure 4.1) bolstered the spirit of the Polish people and opened the way for the Solidarity movement that would soon follow. Having eschewed vindictive or resentful rhetoric, the Pope instead focused on a message of hope, one that not only rendered irrelevant the sway of the Communist party but also pointed the populace to a future free of state oppression.54 He had entered a space of highest Communist ritual – Warsaw’s

FIGURE 4.1

Pope John Paul II presides at a mass in Gdansk, Poland, 1987.

Source: Krzysztof Wojcik/FORUM/Alamy Stock Photo. Used by permission.

Polish Solidarity movement

105

Victory Square itself – and transformed it into a sacred open-air cathedral for all those who gathered there.55 In the midst of this introduction and reclamation of religious resources in public space, the Church fostered new connections with the labor movement. Dissidents on the Left connected with church leaders. The organizers of the Committee for Social Self-Defense, formerly the Workers’ Defense Committee, echoed John Paul’s vision of an “alternative society” that would rise to live “in the truth.”56 More than the renewed connections with labor leaders and intellectual dis­ sidents, the widespread renewal of hope – almost always mediated through pub­ licly performed religious rituals – changed the outlook of the Polish people. One commentator described the impact of the Pope’s visit as a “psychological earth­ quake” that caused tremors of courage rather than fear.57 The pope’s closing prayer at Victory Square – “Let Your Spirit descend and renew the face of the earth, the face of this earth. Amen.” – continued to reverberate across the country.58 Even General Jaruzelski, the last communist leader of Poland, ac­ knowledged that “the role of the Pope was enormous in the transformations that occurred in Poland and, following in Poland’s footsteps, in the whole [communist] block [sic].”59 On June 10, nine days after his arrival, the Pope returned to the Vatican having enjoined his compatriots and co-believers “to accept this entire spiritual heritage that is called Poland with faith, hope, and love.”60

Solidarity surges The Solidarity movement grew quickly in the aftermath of the Pope’s visit. Just over a year later, union workers declared strikes across the country in response to the government’s decision to raise commodity prices by as much as 100 percent. Following a series of strikes and other worker actions through August of 1980, workers at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk shut down the plant with popular union leader Lech Walesa on site. As the strikes spread up and down the Baltic Coast, negotiations led to significant gains including full rights for all trade unions, Saturday holidays, and radio broadcasts of Sunday mass.61 As suggested by the inclusion of a demand for public airing of Catholic mass, religious symbols figured prominently in the early Solidarity movement. Protestors donned icons of the cross, pictures of the Pope, and symbols of the Black Madonna.62 On August 17 in the midst of the strike itself, Lech Walesa bore a wooden cross on his shoulders – echoing the example of Simon of Cyrene who bore the cross for Jesus in his march toward his crucifixion – and carried it out of the Lenin shipyard gates to the site where a monument to the martyrs of the 1970 labor action would be erected.63 And, after the 1980 strike ended, Walesa took his own pilgrimage across the 276 miles from Gdansk to the Madonna’s shrine at Cze˛stochowa where he made an oath in public, stating, “I stake my all on Mary! Madonna, I place not only myself but all Poland into your care … Into your special maternal care, I entrust the independent self-governing trade union Solidarity.”64

106

Polish Solidarity movement

This close connection between the Solidarity movement and publicly displayed religious resources did not make immediate sense to every Polish citizen. Although bringing religion into public spaces through public statements, pil­ grimages, rituals, iconography, and vestments, pins, and jewelry seemed to re­ sonate with the theological traditions and past practices of the faithful, some innovations did not at first connect. Having been present for a religious service held out doors at a local factory, one Pole declared that he could not yet “fit it into his head” that Mass could be celebrated on a street.65 The association of the Eucharist with cathedral space and its suggested formality, historical connection, and aesthetic flourish remained deep-seated. Yet, as Polish families began to listen to Sunday mass being broadcast over the radio for the first time since World War II on September 21, 1980, the movement of church services out of the cathedral into any space with a radio became that much more familiar. By contrast, those engaged in a struggle with the government over how to memorialize the victims of state-sponsored violence in 1956, 1968, and – most egregiously – 1970 had no such hesitancy about enshrining historical events through religious means. On December 16, 1980, Solidarity leaders received permission to create a monument in honor of their fallen co-workers. They then erected three huge steel crosses, each 140 feet in height, bearing black anchors, a Polish symbol of struggle and resistance to foreign occupation. In addition to centering the monument on the most ancient of Christian symbols, the workers inscribed two lines of a poem by celebrated Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, “The Lord giveth his people strength; The Lord giveth his people the blessing of peace.” Rather than a secular celebration of the sacrifice made by the 1970 martyrs and all those who died in the midst of struggle “for the nation,” the monument pulsed with the current of the workers’ faith.66 Moreover, they made sure to build a massive, fortified structure that the secret police could not destroy. Concurrent with ever-bolder religious association, the Solidarity movement itself grew in scope and size. Less than a year and a half after its founding, Solidarity counted ten million members, nearly a third of the country’s population. Participants hailed from nearly every class and occupation as students, intellectuals, farmers, peasants, and long-time dockworkers united.67 Despite an all out pro­ paganda attack on Solidarity by the government and war games conducted by the Soviet navy just off the Baltic coast, Polish laborers continued to flex their muscles as they called for new strikes across the country.68 At the height of Solidarity’s strength, the movement’s leader turned his face once again to his faith. Together with his wife Danuta and his family, Lech Walesa traveled to the Vatican to meet with the Pope in January 1981. While there, again in multiple public settings, Walesa and John Paul cemented the connection be­ tween the Solidarity movement and the Catholic church. In a public address, the Pope emphasized the right of the Polish people to strike and protest for the common good. He also articulated the central tenets about labor and work, many of them echoing Solidarity’s core values, which would later appear in his en­ cyclical Laborem Exercens (On Human Labor).69 Walesa in turn addressed the Pope

Polish Solidarity movement

107

in an extemporized public speech extolling Solidarity’s values and papal support.70 A subsequent photo of the Pope about to lift up a kneeling Walesa appeared in newspapers around the world.71 The link between Solidarity and the papacy of John Paul II could not have been more evident. The events of May 3, 1981, further demonstrate the close connection between Solidarity and the Catholic church. Each year on that date, Catholic faithful in Poland celebrate the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of Poland. Thousands of pilgrims flock to Jasna Góra to hear mass and celebrate the Black Madonna. In the spring of 1981, the presiding officiate, Archbishop Henryk Gulbinowicz from Wroclaw, spoke at Cze˛stochowa about current events by referencing a prior Russian inva­ sion and stating his hope that “this time nothing will happen.”72 On that day, ten thousand students as well as Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, listened to Gulbinowicz’s words. Elsewhere, Catholic officiates consecrated the new Solidarity flag, celebrated Mass prior to a march, and incorporated poetry by those in support of Solidarity. In Szczecin, the priests even introduced a ritual during which representatives of the various professions championed by the Solidarity movement brought forth symbolic offerings such as bread, wine, water, a Passover flame, vegetables, flowers, and an anchor.73

Religious resources under martial law That link remained in place even as the government imposed martial law on December 13, 1981. Prior to the declaration of more than twenty martial law dictates, the Polish army had sealed off multiple towns, cut phone services, and jailed Walesa and thousands of activists, including nearly all of Solidarity’s lea­ dership. The government then sent in elite military units to evict the workers who had gone on strike. By December 18, the Polish government had effectively occupied its own country and crushed all organized resistance.74 Upon hearing the news of the declaration of martial law, the Pope mentioned solidarity six separate times throughout his Sunday sermon. He verbalized what could at that point no longer be said in Poland. Having been apprised of details of the takeover by Wednesday of that week, he began his custom of referencing the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Cze˛stochowa, at the conclusion of his weekly general audience. After government troops killed seven workers at the Wujek mine in Silesia, the Pope wrote to General Jaruzelski, enjoining him to bring an “end to the shedding of Polish blood” by appealing to his “conscience.”75 As 1982 unfolded with an end to martial law nowhere in sight, the church’s response remained, at best, mixed. In July of the previous year, Archbishop Józef Glemp succeeded Primate Wyszynski, and the new leader offered only the most cautious of support for Solidarity. On the one hand, Primate Glemp warned government officials against extending their reach. On the other, he cautioned Solidarity officials against escalating their demands or overstepping their au­ thority.76 Operating from the assumption that his clergy needed to focus on spiritual care rather than political action, the episcopate in particular hesitated to

108

Polish Solidarity movement

intervene in state affairs. In so doing, he – and the institutional church writ large – in a real sense failed to serve the Polish people.77 The Primate’s separatist approach appears summarily ironic in a country where church and state remained so closely intertwined. Even during a service at Jasna Góra, the site of the church’s greatest power and prominence in shaping national identity, Primate Glemp appealed for the release of Solidarity activists while simultaneously enjoining the Polish populace to remain calm and avoid “fratricidal conflict” at all costs.78 Parish priests, however, took a more engaged stance. Even as the Episcopate held themselves aloof, parish priests and vicars became involved in the Solidarity underground. In Warsaw, Fathers Jerry Popieluszko and Teofil Bogucki offered monthly masses dedicated to “the Fatherland” starting on January 13, 1982, ex­ actly one month after the imposition of martial law. They and other priests used such ritual gatherings to condemn martial law and honor victims of military authority. Although most such services did not lead directly to protests, in at least one instance – at the Jesuit congregation in Kalisz – participants left the church to engage in a short demonstration marked by the laying down of flowers in the outline of a cross.79 Priests also offered and encouraged more direct resistance. Although many rural priests and parishes remained wary of supporting underground Solidarity efforts, their caution was not universal. The Polish secret police estimated in 1982 that between five and ten percent of Catholic priests actively supported the Solidarity movement. Security forces arrested and sentenced a small number of those – about ten to twelve – during this time period.80 More typically, those with sympathies for the opposition focused their Fatherland masses on expres­ sions of patriotism. Whether or not the sermons they offered had a direct po­ litical message, the mass gatherings evinced a “type of martial law religiosity” in which, according to historian Father Zygmunt Zielinski, prayer itself became “one of the forms of protest.”81 Regardless of whether a given congregant took to the streets at the conclusion of the service, the act of worshipping had itself become a form of protest. Pilgrimages to Jasna Góra – often coinciding with anniversaries of the August 1980 Solidarity movement – as well as sites of strikes and protests likewise took on both religious and political significance.82 Once again, corporal movement and ceremonial revolution figured prominently in resistance efforts. Some religiously based expressions of resistance had little if anything to do with the church proper. A popular religious hymn, for example, offered a means of challenging Communist rule without the sign-off or authority of any church official. Boze Cos Polske – God Save Poland – had originally been intended as a eulogy to the Russian czar Alexander I, who claimed the title “king of Poland.”83 As adapted to speak to the contemporary political realities, the lines that had once praised the usurper king now declared, “Before your altars/we bring our prayers/ Restore our free Motherland, oh Lord!”84 The lyrics offered both prayer and protest regardless of where sung.

Polish Solidarity movement

109

The Pope returns Yet the political and religious terrain had shifted by the time the Pope made his second visit to Poland in 1983. Since his previous visit, the Pope had survived an assassination attempt in the spring of 1981, an act that increased Polish devotion to the Pontiff. State officials had refused Walesa permission to be present for the baptism of daughter Maria, a move that generated new sympathy for Walesa and his cause. Even so, in July of 1982, General Jaruzelski released all female political internees and restored international phone service while at the same time refusing to allow the Pope to visit the country. By 1982, Jaruzelski had also suspended martial law but only after having made many of its measures part of civil code.85 Given the shifting sands of the political moment and the government’s on­ going control of the apparatus of the state and the military, that Jaruzelski agreed in November of 1982 to a visit by the Pope the following year seems counter intuitive. Many have made the argument that the Solidarity movement owed its origins in part due to the Pope’s prior visit. That the country’s leaders would risk re-igniting that flame appears naïve at best and gravely ill-advised at worst. They had spent the better part of two years trying to dampen any hope that Solidarity would again emerge. And yet they allowed the movement’s spark back into the country. An explanation of the anomaly begins with the decision made by Primate Glemp to invest his political capital in negotiating for a visit by the Pope. In an address given at Jasna Góra in late August of 1982, the Primate first showed his hand. Up to that point, the church had been actively advocating for the Solidarity movement to be allowed to reclaim all its former legal rights to organize. At the shrine to the Black Madonna, however, Primate Glemp advocated for Walesa’s release, full amnesty of all political prisoners, and that a date for the Pope’s visit be determined. By setting aside the demand for legalizing Solidarity, he opened a way for the state to consider what might be gained – and lost – by getting out of the way of John Paul II’s return. The primate had made a calculated decision, figuring that, with or without his intervention, internment and restrictions on Solidarity would eventually be rescinded but that the Pope would never gain re-entry unless he acted.86 Through a combination of concessions – such as fostering an end to the artists’ boycott then in force – and persistent pressure, Glemp achieved his goal. General Jaruzelski announced that the Pope would visit in June of 1983.87 Compromise and pursuit of mutual interests then defined the negotiations that followed. The church got to frame the visit as a “pilgrimage of hope” in an only slightly delayed celebration of the 600th anniversary of the Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa.88 The government got to reap the benefits of appearing reasonable, considerate, and open to the world by allowing the Pope to appear before crowds as large as two million in number.89 The church took the opportunity to lift up some of Solidarity’s cherished themes such as the autonomy and dignity of the worker.90 The government kept the agreed upon meeting between the Pope and Lech Walesa out of the public eye and obscured by heavy security.91 Both sides

110

Polish Solidarity movement

assessed, evaluated, and carefully considered the gains and losses of every move. The second visit of John Paul II would not have happened had not both parties recognized how much they could gain – and weighed the risks of what they could lose – in making the papal pilgrimage a reality.92 The state in particular feared the marshaling of the masses for public religious services. They knew just how powerful that combination could prove. General Czesław Kiszczak, at that point serving as the Minister of Internal Affairs, took the threat seriously. In addition to making plans to deploy 97,000 troops in the case of civil unrest, he also prepared to disperse seven thousand plain clothes operatives throughout the crowds, position anti-terrorist groups near anticipated hotspots, and provide bodyguards tasked with blocking anyone with Solidarity connections from having access to the Pope. Kiszczak and his fellow military leaders even prepared to reinstitute formal martial law, in a plan code-named “Dawn” for the hope that the Pope’s visit might ignite in the population, should the unrest prove too formidable.93 The actual experience proved to be both worse and better than state officials feared. To be certain, the masses turned out in droves. The state estimated more than seven million participated in the open-air masses during the Pope’s visit. The church put the figure closer to nine million. And when the populace showed up, they flashed the Solidarity “V” sign with their fingers and roared every time the pope mentioned the word “solidarity.”94 When he met with the more than one million youth who flocked to Jasna Góra to hear him, he reflected on the necessity of calling out evil and fostering “fundamental human solidarity.”95 The state found his words so incendiary that they lodged a formal protest and accused the pope of “inciting a rebellion against the government,” one that could lead to “religious war in Poland.”96 This was ceremonial revolution in action. Deliberately crafted, carefully articulated, and consciously presented, the Pope’s words did indeed stir the people. But only to a degree. The worse fears of the government were nowhere realized. At no point did the Pope hint at or suggest open rebellion. Instead, his most stirring passages focused on the “spiritual exhaustion” present among the faithful.97 Even before the Pope’s arrival, the regime had effectively used the anticipation of the Pope’s visit to undermine at least one strike call and dampen dissent more generally.98 One analyst compared the message of the Pope’s visit to a father comforting his children at bedtime by assuring them that they had behaved well in his absence despite the nasty treatment by the authorities, and now it was time to turn to the church for the comfort needed in this time of trial.99 From this perspective, the Pope’s visit was inherently apolitical.100 To be certain, the Pope did not publicly excoriate the state for its prosecution of Solidarity activists.101 And perhaps most significantly, he did not release any photos of his private meeting with Lech Walesa, photos that many Poles had been hoping to frame and display on their living room walls.102 Yet, what this analysis misses is that the Pope’s pilgrimage had opened up public space for celebration, expression, and the experience of resistance. Even if

Polish Solidarity movement

111

symbolic – the flashing of the V sign, the cheering at the mention of “solidarity,” the wearing of buttons bearing the Pope’s image – these kinds of actions renewed a hope that had begun to wane. Revolutions take place not in the absence of hope but in its presence – when hope is robust not when it is anemic. The Pope instilled that kind of hope by weaving into his remarks references to the long traditions of resistance to oppression in Poland’s history, by insisting that he meet with Solidarity’s most concrete symbol of hope – Lech Walesa himself – and by making it clear to any one who was listening that he supported Solidarity both in its formal and informal expressions. In short, as another commentator has noted, the Pope “reminded his people that tools of resistance can be forged from holiness and courage.”103 The fact that he did all this outside, overtly, before audiences that would set a rock star to salivating only serves to emphasize that the introduction of religious resources into public space was in Poland in the early 1980s as powerful as it had been in India in the early stages of the independence struggle. The tradition of call and response was as evident at the papal masses as it was in Baptist churches. The Pope spoke and the people responded. Although never the Solidarity pep rally that some western news sources made the masses out to be, they nonetheless spoke directly to the historical moment.104 When the Pope evoked Christ’s words “I was in prison and you came to me,” and added “I myself cannot visit all the sick and all those in prison,” the crowd gasped.105 They caught his reference to the state’s imprisonment of Solidarity activists. They recognized the implied criticism. That the Pope offered that criticism, as veiled as it may have been, using religious words, during a sacred ceremony, in a public setting, before an audience of the faithful, amplified and stressed their import. Enfused with such religious sig­ nificance, the words or their political meaning could not be ignored.

The Black Madonna out from under martial law And changes then followed the Pope’s remarks. These shifts in the prevailing order further enhanced the standing of the church and the Solidarity leaders who em­ braced her. A month after the pilgrimage ended, the Polish authorities terminated the last vestiges of martial law. Whether as a bid to normalize relations with the West or an attempt to undermine the Solidarity underground, the timing could not be ignored.106 On October 5, 1983, the Nobel Peace Prize committee be­ stowed their highest honor on Lech Walesa. Following a formal protest by the Polish government, Walesa announced that he would not be attending the fes­ tivities in Norway because he felt it improper “to enjoy such a glittering occasion while political prisoners are still behind bars.”107 In addition, he knew that if he traveled to Oslo, he might not gain re-entry to his home country. In his stead, his wife Danuta attended and read his acceptance speech.108 The prestige of the Solidarity movement in general and Walesa in particular continued to grow. The post-martial law landscape in Poland had essentially two players. With Solidarity still reduced to illegal opposition, the church and the Polish regime

112

Polish Solidarity movement

faced off. A 1983 struggle over crosses displayed in public schools emphasized the tension between church and state. Priests spoke openly at masses held in cele­ bration of Solidarity. In the aftermath of the Pope’s visit, church leaders renewed their call for the restoration of civil rights and the Solidarity movement even while organizing support for the families of political prisoners as well as those interned. The church also partnered with western relief agencies in distributing clothing, food, and medical supplies while simultaneously providing less visible support to the underground Solidarity movement.109 But it was the symbol of the Black Madonna that captured the imagination of the Polish populace. More than masses, stirring homilies, logistical support, or papal visits, Our Lady of Cze˛stochowa symbolized resistance to the Communist regime. From its inception, the image of the Black Madonna had been symbo­ lically linked to the Solidarity movement. During the strikes at the Gdan´sk shipyard back in August 1980, images of the Black Madonna bedecked the shipyard gates next to portraits of Pope John Paul II. One depiction came to be known as “Our Lady of Strike.” The small badge worn by Lech Walesa – known as Walesa’s “Our Lady” – became popular. Fearing persecution, Solidarity sup­ porters wore them beneath their overcoats, but wear them they did.110 Once again, the Madonna moved with and among the Polish people. A belief in the miraculous power of the Black Madonna to symbolize the nation’s sorrow also found deep purchase. Some contended that the wounds on the face of the Madonna grew longer under Communist rule, symbolizing the suffering of the people. Others reported that a third scar had appeared on images of the Virgin Mary. Still others claimed that blood had begun to flow from the now open wounds. The rumors persisted despite a statement by Jasna Góra’s Pauline monks averring that there had in fact been no changes to the icon.111 Regardless of the actual physical representation, the idea of the scars morphing in response to the country’s tribulations spread far and wide. One artist penned a drawing for an underground pamphlet in which the Madonna’s wounds had taken on the form of a “13” to commemorate the date of the declaration of martial law.112 The two years that followed the Pope’s visit had enough sorrow to keep alive the rumors of the Madonna’s elongating scars. The popular priest, Father Jerzy Popieluszko, who spoke out against the regime during masses held at his St. Stanislaw parish, gained release from prison in August of 1984 under a general amnesty. Two months later, however, security service agents abducted him on the night of October 19 and then beat him repeatedly before binding, weighing down, and drowning him. When the news broke of his murder during an evening mass at St. Stanislaw, British journalist Neil Ascherson described the reaction: “Nobody who heard it will ever forget the awful howl of agony that rose from the thousands [in attendance] … when a priest announced that Father Popieluszko’s body had been found.” He continued by describing the cry that “went on for many minutes until it was joined by the tolling of the bells.”113 “Father Jerzy’s” funeral married religion and politics in what once again be­ came a public event. While the country waited for news prior to the discovery of

Polish Solidarity movement

113

his body, thousands had gathered every hour to hear mass for the missing priest. The crowds proved so restive that Walesa issued an appeal begging for peaceful resistance rather than bloodshed.114 When the news that Father Jerzy’s body had been pulled out of the Vistula, the largest river in Poland, Father Antonin Lewek asked the thousands gathered before him to recall the image of Christ as he wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Together the crowd then recited three times the forgiveness passage of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”115 Rather than spill out into the streets in pursuit of revenge, the mass expression of a commitment to forgiveness set the stage for a more long-lasting revolution to come. The relative peace continued through the funeral mass held in Popieluszko’s memory on November 3. Even though those responsible for Popieluszko’s murder had been arrested and would go on to be tried and convicted, the murder of the Solidarity priest had created a martyr. Three hundred and fifty thousand gathered in Warsaw at the sanctuary where Popieluszko had served, St. Stanislaus Kostka, to attend the funeral mass. Solidarity banners accompanied those who marched to the church as delegations from every Polish industrial site paid their respects. During the farewell addresses after mass ended, Lech Walesa declared, “The entire life of this good and courageous man, this extraordinary worker priest, pastor and leader of the national cause, bears witness to the unity of church and nation.” He continued, “We say goodbye to you with dignity and in the hope of peace and social justice for our country. Solidarnosc lives on, Father Jerzy, because you gave your life for us.”116 A worker in the crowd called out, “Jurek, our friend, you are still with us … Can you hear the bells tolling for freedom? Can you hear the hearts praying?”117 The union of political resistance and religious conviction continued to grow. What then unfolded countered any hopes Father Jerzy’s murderers may have had of quelling dissent. His burial plot on the church property became, in the words of activist Janusz Onyszkiewicz, a “Solidarity sanctuary, a little piece of free Poland.”118 If government officials had thought that they would quell religious opposition by silencing Popieluszko, they had those aspirations dashed. Rather than dampen religiously based dissent, Father Jerzy’s murder stoked the fires of resistance and gave new energy to a people who had begun to feel dispirited.119 In addition to the service in Warsaw, citizens from across the country or­ ganized candlelight protest marches that began in churches and moved into the streets. To remind the protestors of Father Jerzy’s sacrifice and what might be required of them, others brought crosses out of the sanctuaries and erected them at street intersections. Fostered, implemented, and realized in sanctuary confines, the resistance spilled into public space.120 The peace may have held, but the opposition – ever more religious and ever more public – only grew. Through the course of the next two years the Polish people continued to express their resistance and find hope and sustenance in the resources offered by the church. In response to the protests following Father Jerzy’s murder, the government released thousands of political prisoners only to arrest more the fol­ lowing year. At the same time, the assumption of power in Russia by Mikhail

114

Polish Solidarity movement

Gorbachev in March of 1985 and the reforms that he then initiated had ripple effects in Poland as well. Fears of Russian intervention dissipated, and the possi­ bility of Polish leaders initiating their own economic and political reforms grew.

The Pope and Poland a third time over Into this increasingly open space the Pope again entered as he took his third and most extensive pilgrimage to Poland from June 8 through 14, 1987, a visit defined by the Pope’s unflappable independence. In many ways, this third visit (Figure 4.2) reprised previous sojourns. As before, millions flocked to see and hear him. As in the previous two trips, journalists from around the world accompanied his en­ tourage. To be exact, 574 press, radio, and television reporters covered his every move.121 And, as had been the case in the past, Communist officials did their best to influence the content of his messages. This time they suggested themes such as domestic and international peace, citizens’ rights in the broadest possible terms, and commitment to laboring on behalf of the Polish nation. Unruffled, the Pope’s advisors explained that they had no desire to undercut the authority of the existing government.122 The Pope went forward with his planned itinerary despite officials who hovered on the periphery while fretting over rumors of revolution. Such an independent stance included both rhetorical and geophysical nods toward Solidarity. Despite the regime’s provision of daily reports on Solidarity activists and stern warnings to eliminate any “anti-state slogans and banners,” the Pope emphasized the importance of human rights, the necessity of freedom of association, and the essential role played by independent, free, self-governing

In 1979, women near Kielce, Poland, accompany a copy of the Black Madonna of Cze˛stochowa during its pilgrimage throughout the country.

FIGURE 4.2

Source: Muzeum Jana Pawła II i Prymasa Wyszyn´skiego. Used by permission.

Polish Solidarity movement

115

unions.123 His most direct references came when he visited Solidarity’s birthplace in Gdansk, a stopover that would have been inconceivable in either of his first two visits. Simply being physically present in “the cradle of Solidarity” spoke volumes.124 As more and more Solidarity banners waved and pro-union slogans roused the crowds, the Pope again declared the importance of free trade unions, adding “as was emphasised in this very place.”125 Revolution did not, however, break out. Throughout the seven-day pil­ grimage, the crowds remained peaceful. A marked discipline and collective calm suffused the mass gatherings. Although observers did note a certain emotional tension at play as the burden of the regime’s control butted up against the prospect of freedom contained in the Pope’s rhetoric, that tension did not erupt.126 The Pope once again re-energized the Polish population, but they invested those energies in longer-term change. Whether revolution at that moment would have been possible is doubtful. Communist officials still controlled the military. Nonetheless, those who gathered to hear the Pope flexed their organizing strength in doing so. The world watched. The Solidarity activists watched them watching. Within two years Solidarity won a landslide election that brought an end to Communist rule in Poland. Notably, the 1989 round table talks included three – not just two – parties: the Solidarity movement, the Communist government, and the Catholic church. The Episcopate was present as a full negotiating partner rather than just a mediator. In Poland, a country where religion and politics not only mixed but were inextricably connected, the inclusion of the church at the table did not appear unusual. It would have been nearly inconceivable for the church to have not been present. The Pope would visit Poland again. He did so nine times in total. After the 1987 visit, he travelled there again twice in 1991, once in 1995, another time in 1997, a thirteen day tour in 1999, and a final three-day visit in 2002. As with his prior visits during Communist rule, he continued to bolster the population. Yet the intensity and deliberate political machinations of the years of Stalinism dis­ sipated. The introduction of religious resources into public space had lost some of its political meaning and significance. The church had regained many of the privileges that had been in place prior to Communism’s advent, again enjoying an uncommon level of access to and official recognition by the newly elected Parliament.127 What the Pope’s visits lacked in political power, the episcopate held on a daily basis.

Limits and legacies of ceremonial revolution The role of the church during the rise, repression, and return of the Solidarity movement in Poland was in the end as expansive as it was limited. Historian Lawrence Goodwyn contends that even though the Catholic church provided psychological support to the Polish people that allowed them to maintain an emotional distance and separation from the state, it could not and did not provide “explicit strategic or tactical ideas that might move Poland toward a freer social

116

Polish Solidarity movement

life.”128 Although “reactively relevant,” Goodwyn argues, the church was not, however, “causational.”129 To be certain, theological arguments, logistical support, and aspirational oration did not transform into strategic initiatives. The priests who crafted sermons and the members of the episcopy who did not concede their authority to the state gave tremendous hope to the Polish people who felt oppressed by the totalitarian government. These religious resources, although profoundly meaningful and significant to those in need, did not initiate the means through which overt, ruling authority would ultimately be achieved. It took practiced, experienced labor or­ ganizers who envisioned and implemented a long-term strategy to eventually overturn the communist regime. The church and the Solidarity movement, while highly interpenetrated, remained distinct. As Lech Walesa noted, “Sometimes we walk together, sometimes we walk apart. Occasionally one must go against what the Church advises.”130 But to assert that the church was in no way causational misses what took place through the Pope’s pilgrimages and the multifaceted adoration of the Black Madonna – to name only two examples of religious resources brought into public space. In each of his sojourns to Poland during Communist rule, Pope John Paul II and his staff and advisors shifted the power balance. By setting the agenda for the visits, crafting the oratorical themes, and connecting with huge crowds, the Pope and his entourage forced the regime’s leadership into a reactive position. When the Pope spoke and the people listened, the state simply did not matter in the same way. Likewise, as Our Lady of Cze˛stochowa made her way from parish to parish, whether visiting in actuality or in absentia, the church initiated connections be­ tween and among the faithful independent of the state’s authority. By celebrating mass in city squares and processing with the Black Madonna on country roads and small town streets, the exercise of freedom made claim to public space as well. Religious leaders and the lay members who supported them brought about real change. In effect, their movement into the public arena crafted a new hybrid religio-political space in which the state did not have complete dominance – and therefore the church had a better chance of winning.131 They were as causational as any labor organizer, if not at key points more so. As another commentator noted, “Above all, the Catholic Church survived persecution, perhaps thrived on it, and remained a powerful force independent of the state. … [T]he Church served as a repository of national ideals and as a sanctuary in times of trouble.”132 Lech Walesa provides a fitting example of how powerful those religious re­ sources could be. In the early days of the Solidarity Movement, Walesa partici­ pated with the rest of the strikers in praying, taking communion, and singing hymns – all done publicly, corporately, and without apology or apparent awk­ wardness. In the context of early 1980s Poland, none of those comes as a surprise. When he signed the agreement bringing an end to the strike, a rosary hung around his neck, and he used a fountain pen depicting the Pope. The cross that had bedecked the hall where strikers debated their actions came to hold a place of prominence in the conference room of a prominent Rowing Club associated with

Polish Solidarity movement

117

the Solidarity Movement.133 But even more important than these tangible symbols was their manifestation in Walesa’s personal life because, as he later stated, “If I am here and speak to you it is because during the twelve years when I have fought for the union and had many hard days, I sustained myself by my faith, and I am here now.”134 The symbols mattered, as did the display of so many public forms of religious resources. But what mattered just as much was that they gave the people of Poland the strength to continue and persevere. Ceremonial revolutions, in the end, are defined as much by an actual shift of public power as they are by the very function of their display. Every time that the Pope or a priest celebrated mass and evoked the “Fatherland,” their words and the ceremony associated with them undermined the prevailing political order. Every time a believer wore a Black Madonna pin in public or travelled to Jasna Góra on pilgrimage, they used that ceremonial practice to counter the prospect of totali­ tarian control. The public ceremonies of the Solidarity movement in the course of moving through the country and carving out space where the government gave up its power and authority if only for a few hours created the way for more per­ manent freedom in the future. Because the Polish people moved with their religious symbols out of church confines, throughout the country, and to listen to the Pope, they also moved the political order and in so doing invited in­ dependence. The realization of that freedom, in the end, depended upon the public expression of religion – through ritual, word, and movement.

Notes 1 Zofia Rozanow and Ewa Smulikowska, The Cultural Heritage of Jasna Góra (Warsaw, Poland: Interpress Publishers, 1974), 26. 2 Daniel H. Olsen, “Social Politics on the Move: The Ocean to Ocean Pilgrimage of Our Lady of Cze˛stochowa,” Le Vie Della Misericordia/a Cura Di Maria Stella Calò Mariani E Anna Trono (2017): 411. 3 Anna Niedźwiedź, The Image and the Figure: Our Lady of Cze ˛ stochowa in Polish Culture and Popular Religion (Kraków: Jagiellonian University Press, 2010), 162. 4 Mary L. Gautier, “Church Elites and the Restoration of Civil Society in the Communist Societies of Central Europe,” Journal of Church and State 40, no. 2 (1998): 304. 5 Jan Kubik, “Polish May Day Celebrations in the 1970s and in 1981: An Essay on the Symbolic Dimension of a Struggle for Political Legitimacy,” The Polish Review 34, no. 2 (1989): 112–14. 6 Marie-France Boyer, The Cult of the Virgin: Offerings, Ornaments, and Festivals (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000), 34. 7 Olsen, 409. 8 Niedźwiedź, 84–5. 9 Olsen, 411. 10 Roy Abraham Varghese, God-Sent: A History of the Accredited Apparitions of Mary (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 74–75; Wanda Tomczykowska, Paul E. Zinner, and Joan Zinner, The History and Legend of the Black Madonna (1990), 13. 11 Olsen, 411. 12 Gautier, 302; Joshua Paulson, “Poland’s Self-Liberation: 1980–1989,” in Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential, ed. Gene Sharp (Boston: Extending Horizons Books, 2005), 224.

118

Polish Solidarity movement

13 Tomczykowska, Zinner, and Zinner, 13–4. 14 A. Kemp-Welch, Poland under Communism: A Cold War History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 46. 15 Ibid., 47. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 47–8. 18 Gautier, 303. 19 Kemp-Welch, 118; Lawrence Goodwyn, Breaking the Barrier: The Rise of Solidarity in Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 84. 20 Joseph Gouverneur, “The End of All Things: The Christian Churches of 1989 in Eastern Europe,” Transformation 26, no. 3 (2009): 202. 21 Niedźwiedź, 162. 22 Ibid., 163. 23 Ibid., 164. 24 Roman Laba, The Roots of Solidarity: A Political Sociology of Poland’s Working-Class Democratization (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 84. 25 Caroline Peters, The Black Madonna: Our Lady of Cze ˛ stochowa (Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1962), 29. 26 Niedźwiedź, 174. 27 Ibid. 28 Weschler, 216. 29 Laba, 44. 30 Ibid. 31 Lech Walesa, A Way of Hope (New York: Henry Hold and Co., 1987), 75. 32 Kemp-Welch, 211. 33 Ibid. 34 George Weigel, The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul Ii: The Struggle for Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 110. 35 Olsen, 411. 36 Weigel, 112. 37 John J. Kulczycki, “The Beginnings of the Solidarity Movement in Poznañ, 1980–1981,” The Polish Review 27, no. 3/4 (1982): 158. 38 Gracjan Kraszewski, “Catalyst for Revolution Pope John Paul Ii’s 1979 Pilgrimage to Poland and Its Effects on Solidarity and the Fall of Communism,” ibid. 57, no. 4 (2012): 29. 39 Cezar M. Ornatowski, “‘Let Thy Spirit Renew This Earth’: The Rhetoric of Pope John Paul Ii and the Political Transformation in Poland, 1979–1989,” Journal for the Study of Religion 14, no. 1 (2001): 71. 40 Olsen, 411. 41 Ornatowski, 79. 42 Gautier, 304–5. 43 Weigel, 112. 44 Ibid. 45 Ornatowski, 75. 46 Weigel, 111. 47 Ornatowski, 74. 48 Weigel, 112. 49 Gautier, 304–05. 50 Olsen, 411. 51 Kraszewski, 32–3. 52 Ibid. 53 Tomczykowska, Zinner, and Zinner, 14. 54 Kraszewski, 46.

Polish Solidarity movement

119

55 Magdalena Kubow, “The Solidarity Movement in Poland: Its History and Meaning in Collective Memory,” ibid. 58, no. 2 (2013): 10. 56 Weigel, 113. 57 Kubow, 10. 58 John J. Kulczycki, “The Beginnings of the Solidarity Movement in Poznañ, 1980–1981,” ibid. 27, no. 3/4 (1982): 158; Weschler, 15. 59 Ornatowski, 67–8. 60 Ibid., 79. 61 Weschler, 218–21. 62 Kubow, 10. 63 Boleslaw Fac, “Lake Walesa – the Man Who Spoke Up,” in The Book of Lech Wałe ˛ sa, ed. Neal Ascherson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 58. 64 Laba, 133. 65 Kulczycki, 156. 66 Magdalena Kubow, “The Solidarity Movement in Poland: Its History and Meaning in Collective Memory,” ibid. 58, no. 2 (2013): 13. 67 Weigel, 119. 68 Weschler, 221–24. 69 Walesa, 164–5. 70 Ibid., 166. 71 Andrzej Drzycimski, “Growing,” in The Book of Lech Wałe ˛ sa, ed. Neal Ascherson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 93–94. 72 Kubik, 109. 73 Ibid. 74 Weschler, 225. 75 Weigel, 137. 76 Paczkowski, 69. 77 Ibid., 224. 78 Ibid., 70. 79 Ibid., 182. 80 Ibid., 234. 81 Ibid., 233–4. 82 Ibid. 83 Marek Payerhin, “Singing out of Pain: Protest Songs and Social Mobilization,” The Polish Review 57, no. 1 (2012): 11. 84 Ibid. 85 Weschler, 225–28. 86 Paczkowski, 228–29. 87 Ibid., 229. 88 Ornatowski, 80. 89 Weschler, 191. 90 Ibid., 188. 91 Paczkowski, 231. 92 Ibid., 229–30. 93 Ibid., 230. 94 Ibid., 230–31. 95 Weschler, 188–9. 96 Paczkowski, 231. 97 Weschler, 188–9. 98 Ibid., 191, 94. 99 Ibid., 192. 100 Ibid., 193. 101 Ibid., 191–92. 102 Ibid., 190.

120

103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131

Polish Solidarity movement

Weigel, 161–62. Weschler, 189–90. Ibid., 188. Weigel, 162. Weschler, 229. Ibid. Gautier, 306–7. Niedźwiedź, 66–7. Ibid., 67–8. Ibid., 73. Goodwyn, 315–16. Weigel, 165. Ibid., 165–66. Goodwyn, 316. Ibid. Weigel, 166. Ibid. Gautier, 307. Kemp-Welch, 341. Ibid. Ibid., 342. Paczkowski, 289. Kemp-Welch, 342. Paczkowski, 289. Gouverneur, 207. Goodwyn, 319–20. Ibid., 319. Drzycimski, 103–4. I am indebted to the insight of Maryjane Osa for this claim. See: Maryjane Osa, “Pastoral Mobilization and Contention: The Religious Foundations of the Solidarity Movement in Poland,” in Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social-Movement Activism, ed. Christian Smith (New York: Routledge, 1996), 73. 132 Kemp-Welch, 44. 133 Drzycimski, 103–4. 134 Ibid., 105.

5 IMAGINING THE IMPOSSIBLE: THE ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT OF THE 1980S AND 1990S

In 1984, Allan Boesak, at that time the president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, spoke at the South African Council of Churches (SACC) national conference. In the midst of a speech that addressed the state of apartheid in South Africa, Boesak made a remarkable request. He enjoined the assembly to “pray” the apartheid government “out of existence.”1 Boesak offered a robust defense of his intercessional mandate. Over a year later, he penned a carefully worded but unapologetic statement about his call for prayer. He began by noting that, the apartheid-supporting Afrikaans Reformed churches aside, SACC members had uniformly proclaimed that the current government stood “in contradiction to the Christian gospel.” Boesak then acknowledged a long history of praying that government leaders would “govern wisely and justly.” In the midst of national crisis, however, he explained that solidarity with those suffering under apartheid policies demanded a different kind of prayer. Rather than praying for changes within the existing government, Boesak asserted that the time had come to pray “that God in his grace may remove from his people the tyrannical structures of oppression and the present rulers in our country who persistently refuse to heed the cry for justice.” He closed by envisioning a future in which “God’s rule” would be “established in this land” even as he acknowledged a “constant and solemn awareness of the responsibility” taken on by praying for the demise of the apartheid government.2 Yet what stands out in the controversy that erupted over Boesak’s call was the central role that the religious imagination played in defining the issues at stake. Joining Boesak in his defense of the call to prayer, South African theologian Charles Villa-Vicencio wrote, “If politics be the art of the possible, then prayer is the quest for what is not immediately possible but may be possible tomorrow.”3 In his articulation of the central drive motivating the call to prayer, Villa-Vicencio identified what prayer in the Christian tradition and as particularly expressed in the

122

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

South African context did especially well. Those who prayed knew how to conceive of an impossible future. Boesak’s prayer and the response it generated hinged on the religious imagi­ nation of thousands of South Africans. During the last decades of the antiapartheid struggle as religious leaders and practitioners took ever more public leadership roles, South African church members brought to bear their imagination, the faculty of the mind – to use a somewhat dated but still apropos phrase – to conceive of and envision that which is unseen, unknown, or not experienced. As practicing members of faith communities, their religious imagination – that parti­ cular faculty for conceiving and envisioning the divine and its relationship to the material world – imbued key actors and organizations within the anti-apartheid movement with an agency, urgency, persistence, and belief in the purportedly impossible that ultimately overturned the apartheid order. In so doing, they employed a creativity and inventiveness nurtured by years of religious instruction and formation. The imagery birthed of that religious imagination, in short, fos­ tered the South African protest movement. To be certain, the long, attenuated process of overturning apartheid offers multiple opportunities for examining when, how, and under what circumstances religiously motivated actors engaged with anti-apartheid movements and, to a lesser degree, how members of religious communities strove to sustain the apartheid order. Fruitful side trails could be followed to investigate protest music, clerical vestments, or anti-apartheid statements for their religious connections. This chapter will focus, however, on areas where religion had become the primary conduit of oppositional expression: the Black consciousness movement, acts of public prayer, funerals, and the women of the manyanos missionary groups. Within that exploration, the particular expression of the religious imagination found in the threshold effect where politics and religion interweave will also prove essential to this analysis of the South African anti-apartheid struggle. Taken as a whole, those examples reveal the power and pitfalls of the religious imagination at work and embodied.

Contextualizing Boesak’s prayer Boesak made his appeal in the context of a South Africa that had seen apartheid solidify and the religious community flounder. By 1984 when Boesak gave his speech, nearly a quarter century had passed since police had killed sixtynine protestors and seriously wounded 180 others at the 1960 Sharpeville march against the notorious pass laws that restricted Black movement outside the gov­ ernment created townships. In the course of those twenty-five years, apartheid-era officials had stripped Blacks of their rights as citizens, killed hundreds of school children and young adults in the 1976 Soweto uprising in protest of the gov­ ernment’s educational system, and banned Black consciousness groups in the aftermath of Steve Biko’s murder at the hands of prison security forces. In response to these and other events, religious leaders had passed numerous statements

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 123

condemning apartheid, declared that South Africa’s armed forces were waging an unjust war, and warned that only a miracle could forestall widespread violent uprisings. But by the time Boesak spoke, church leaders and the communities they served had only rarely taken to the streets. To be certain, some religious groups had moved from declaration to demon­ stration. The Roman Catholic leadership had integrated their seminaries in 1979, more than two decades after declaring apartheid a “blasphemy.”4 In 1980, church leaders also participated in a march deemed illegal by Johannesburg officials and spent a night in jail.5 But such religiously motivated or church-based actions took place only rarely on a public scale. So, Boesak then turned to one of the most foundational of religious resources. As an ordained minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, he had led many a prayer. The form, idioms, and posture of prayer were, to him, familiar. For him to assert a belief in the “power of prayer” was not unusual. It was, in fact, expected.6 What was unexpected and not at all in keeping with the gracefocused theological tradition of the Dutch Reformed Church was to pray for the utter erasure of his enemies.7 He did not just pray that they would change their ways, reform their practices, or come to a new understanding about the evil of apartheid. He encouraged his audience to pray for them to be eradicated. Which is to say, he was asking his co-believers to pray for the complete de­ struction of the apartheid government of 1984. His words indicate that he was calling for the leaders themselves to be destroyed. In this prayer, Boesak echoed the tradition of the psalmist of the JudeoChristian Old Testament. The 23rd verse of Psalm 94, for example, declares that “The LORD our God will destroy” the psalmist’s enemies. Earlier in Psalm 37:38, the psalmist proclaims that “transgressors will be altogether destroyed.” Other examples of these imprecatory prayers abound, often with details of the hoped for punishments: Oh God, break the teeth in their mouths (Psalm 58:6); Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them! (Psalm 35:6); Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous (Psalm 69:28). Yet clergy rarely incorporated such Old Testament imprecations when praying in public forums, especially those dominated by Christians ostensibly committed to the doctrines of grace and reconciliation. In essence, Boesak urged his cobelievers to revive a tradition of calling for the specific and complete destruction of his enemies. This was no moment of turning the other cheek with nonviolent pacifism. He was calling for their total downfall. He had imagined a future without them. He asked for it to be made real – fully enfleshed. And Boesak’s words did not go unheeded. The following year, SACC pro­ moted a “Call to Prayer for the End to Unjust Rule in South Africa” in which they enjoined Christians to do exactly what the title of the program suggested.8 On June 16, nine years to the day after the Soweto uprising of 1976, religious communities gathered alone and in ecumenical services to offer prayers for “an end to injustice.”9 Later that year, a group of liberation theologians released the

124

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

Kairos Document in which they amplified the tone of Boesak’s imprecatory prayer by claiming that “God sides with the Oppressed” against the “evil forces” in power in South Africa.10 The theologians, whose names were not initially re­ leased to protect them from reprisals, demanded that the church’s life, rituals, and actions become focused on overthrowing those “evil forces.” Throughout South Africa and the international Christian community, the Kairos Document garnered attention. The mutually penetrable quality of the religious/political interface in the service of imagining a seemingly impossible future as expressed in the Kairos Document can best be described as a threshold effect. This particular dynamic of the religious imagination describes that point of overlap and intersection of religious and political forces. At the junction of religious belief and political conviction, where the same actors who profess belief in the divine also demonstrate com­ mitment to the exercise of power, the very joining of the two forces focuses attention, galvanizes the collective will, and opens up the vision of new possi­ bilities for future action as few other social forces do. When made manifest in a cultural context where community members viewed spiritual power as “real” as the power exercised in government or through economics, the combining of divine and mortal power proved significant.11 This South African threshold, that place and time where religion and politics met, overlapped, and for a moment joined but did not lose their distinct properties, opened a way – as all thresholds do – to new action and ultimately a new identity that had not yet been realized.

The Black Consciousness Movement Both the Kairos Document and Boesak’s prayer sprang from the same field of re­ ligious imagination, one enriched by the Black Consciousness Movement. Offering a theological framework that celebrated Black identity and envisioned a reality in which blackness gifted its bearers with strength and wholeness, leaders in the Black Consciousness Movement modeled how to oppose the current social order while envisioning a new one. Indeed the resistance to apartheid in which they engaged could not be separated from their imagining of an alternative future. The Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa emerged during a period of relative quiescence in the anti-apartheid struggle. The 1950s had seen a foray into organized, widespread resistance with the pragmatically nonviolent Defiance Campaign in 1952. For the first time in South Africa’s tumultuous history, the Defiance Campaign forged a united effort led by the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), and the Coloured People’s Congress. Volunteers risked arrest by integrating segregated facilities, burning passbooks, and boycotting buses. Although the organizers did not achieve their goal of overturning apartheid, they did draw the attention of the United Nations and other international partners. That international interest in the anti-apartheid struggle peaked again in the aftermath of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre. Building on this attention, in 1962,

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 125

international leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., joined Albert Lutuli, then pre­ sident of the African National Congress and the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize winner, in releasing the American Committee on Africa’s Appeal for Action Against Apartheid. Six years later the Theological Commission of the South African Council of Churches issued another statement, this one declaiming apartheid as a “pseudogospel” but not yet defining it as heresy.12 But such actions were overwhelmed by a series of high-profile bannings and imprisonments that removed key leaders like Nelson Mandela and Lutuli from public life. Concurrently the ANC organized its armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), in 1961 to counter the government’s violence. Yet even these measures did not bring about widespread, massive resistance to the apartheid government’s repressive tactics. In this context, a new cultural initiative known as the Black Consciousness Movement coalesced under the leadership of Steve Biko and others. In 1968, an exclusively Black group of students separated from the National Union of South African Students – a multiracial group – to form the South African Student Organization (SASO). Emerging from the interracial University Christian Movement (UCM), a radical Christian group influenced by the educational principles of Paulo Freire and the theological insights of James Cone’s Black theology, SASO became increasingly more focused on promoting Black con­ sciousness ideas and demonstrating Black self-reliance. The student-led organi­ zation went on to form a parallel organization designed to encourage adult participation, the Black People’s Convention, in 1972. Through school-based educational projects in the mid-1970s, SASO fostered a generation of young people prepared to take a much more confrontational stance against the apartheid government. The movement toward a more assertive public stance grew from the work of US-based theologians then focusing on Black Theology. The imaginings of these theologians gave South Africans a new vocabulary. James Cone’s Black Theology, Black Power came out in 1969 and offered theological concepts and language for asserting, according to Cone, Black humanity in the face of an overwhelming system of White racism.13 In his book, Cone invited his readers – in the United States and in South Africa – to imagine a world that treasured rather than de­ spised blackness. At an earlier UCM conference, students including Biko and other SASO leaders listened to a taped address by Cone, for whom the apartheid government had refused to issue a visa.14 Biko himself contributed an essay to a collection published on Black Theology by UCM and, in 1970, used a Black Theology framework to critique the legacy of European missionaries by noting, “It seems that people involved in imparting Christianity to the Black people steadfastly refused to get rid of the rotten foundation which many of the mis­ sionaries created when they came.”15 Cone’s writing, along with other Black Power writers like Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Charles Hamilton, and Malcolm X, thus formed the thought – and imaginations – of Black Consciousness leaders as they interpreted their own experiences and imagined an unrealized future.16

126

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

Yet, the vision pursued by South African activists soon expanded beyond the scope of Black Theology. As members of a numerical minority in the United States, Black Theology advocates sought to gain the right to separate or operate independently within the confines of the United States. Their theological tools remained limited by that minority status. By contrast, Black Consciousness leaders like Biko aimed to “encompass the totality of South Africa” with their liberation initiative.17 Rather than simply offering a theological option that critiqued the government in power, leaders in the Black Consciousness Movement wanted to take the insights gained from that theological option and instill them as the basis of a new, as yet unrealized national government. They aimed for countrywide ascendancy rather than internal partition. Despite limitations of scope, the still-fecund field of Black Theological ima­ gination provided a mandate for rejecting acquiescence. In the same passage where he criticized White-dominated Christianity, Biko called for resistance to apartheid through, rather than in spite of, the church. He wrote, “The Bible must not be seen to preach that all authority is divinely instituted. It must rather preach that it is a sin to allow oneself to be oppressed.… This is the message implicit in black theology.”18 No longer would it be acceptable to cooperate with the apartheid government. Black homeland leaders had regularly done so in a bid to hold on to some degree of autonomy. Biko rejected that option. Just as denouncing a White dominated world opened the door to a future devoid of that domination, he asserted that critiquing those who cooperated in their own oppression invited them to imagine a way to be free. But perhaps most importantly, Black Theology offered Black Consciousness a moral center. Protest movements have historically been as susceptible to the allure of power, the warping of lockstep ideology, or the vagaries of human frailty as have those in power. In light of those temptations, the Black Power tradition warned that violence could not ultimately overcome human misery and woe.19 Black Theology proponents spoke of the need to overthrow the apartheid gov­ ernment along with the system of capitalism itself but to do so in order to achieve authentic racial reconciliation.20 Following that thought, Archbishop Desmond Tutu then confronted the practice of “necklacing” in which ardent enforcers aligned with the African National Congress tortured and executed those accused of collaborating with the apartheid government by placing a rubber tire filled with gasoline around a victim’s upper torso and lighting it afire.21 In the same vein, the moral center that prompted Black Consciousness leaders like Biko to respond with such measured poise and focused conviction to those who banned, jailed, and beat them owed much to the tradition of Black Theology. The force and fecundity of religious imagination made it possible for some anti-apartheid activists to reject retaliatory violence while under both physical and political assault. Here again, the religious imagination shaped corporeal action. Through the 1970s and beyond, the Black Consciousness Movement in­ fluenced many who would go on to play central roles in the eventual overthrow of the apartheid government. In addition to the school-based workshops,

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 127

Black Consciousness activists led seminars, engaged in public debate, published articles, and, by the mid-1980s, even published a journal.22 And the list of leaders emerging from and immersed in the Black Consciousness Movement is long – too long to detail in its entirety here – but includes not only high profile leaders like Steve Biko, Alan Boesak, and Desmond Tutu, but also Barney Pityana, Abraham Tiro, Malusi Mpumlwana, Manas Buthelezi, Bonganjalo Goba, and Sabelo Ntwassa.23 The legacy of the movement lived on in the lives and activities of these individuals.

Gender and Black Consciousness Yet men dominated that legacy. Consistent with the male hegemony prominent throughout much of the African context, women’s contributions often remained hidden or dismissed.24 This kind of sexism inundated the Black Consciousness tradition as well. Those women who fought for dignity within the movement, served in community development organizations, participated in seminar debates, and voiced proto-feminist demands remained publicly unacknowledged at the time.25 Although by the 1970s a woman did serve in an official leadership capacity in the Black Consciousness-inspired Black People’s Convention, such public positions for women were rare.26 And, as a result, many of their contributions to articulating an alternate future remained hidden. No less than any other aspect of the human condition, the religious imagination also is shaped by gender. Feminist scholars have begun to articulate some of the differences that emerge from gendered patterns of socialization within religious communities. One finding suggests that women aim for both personal and social healing as the ultimate focus of their religious activity.27 Such a goal could have led to an even more robust rendering of the anti-apartheid struggle. The actions taken by Leah Tutu hint at the contributions a healing-focused imagination could have made had patriarchy been less of a barrier to women’s full inclusion in the Black Consciousness Movement. Although often eclipsed by the words, position, and actions of her archbishop husband, Leah also initiated action against the apartheid regime but did so in a manner distinct from her partner. While on a 1979 trip to the United States, Leah spoke of the struggles of female domestic workers in compelling, personal terms.28 During the 1989 Defiance Campaign, she and 170 other women appealed to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on a personal level, addressing her as a “wife and mother.”29 Without drawing back from the nationwide realities of the apartheid system, Leah Tutu made the reality of systemic oppression accessible and immediate by talking about individuals’ experiences and appealing to politicians as individuals. We will never know what impact these kinds of actions might have had if the religious imagi­ nation of women in South Africa had held sway in the Black Consciousness Movement. By 1977, the public, organized phase of the movement had waned. In the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising, new organizations and initiatives swung

128

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

attention away from Black Consciousness even as they carried many of the movement’s core values forward. In the fall of 1977, the South African govern­ ment banned Black Consciousness groups like the Black People’s Convention, the Black Community Programmes, and the Azanian People’s Organization, a poli­ tical party formed in 1978 from SASO. By 1983, Allan Boesak, who had also been influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement, proposed the formation of what would become the United Democratic Front (UDF), a coalition of church groups, civic organizations, student associations, labor unions, and other organi­ zations. Unlike the BCM groups, however, the UDF embraced members from all racial groups, a point of departure and tension with BCM leaders. Leadership of the anti-apartheid struggle had shifted both organizationally and in the broader public’s view away from Black Consciousness to the UDF and the increasingly violent ANC.

Religious leaders rising That shift in leadership to the UDF and the ANC eventually led to religious leaders taking a more public role in opposing the apartheid regime. By 1985, clergy had begun to move from making statements to taking direct action. In particular, the arrest, detention, and prosecution of leaders from the UDF and sister political groups had left a leadership vacuum. Clergy members then stepped in to lead their congregations and the public.30 For example, Beyers Naudé, the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), urged member churches to resist the government through visible nonviolent actions up to and including civil disobedience.31 Naudé’s call for action along with the 1985 Kairos Document’s appeal for new levels of mobilization among the churches led to governmental backlash. By April 1987, the Commissioner of Police had outlawed prayer services focused on the release of political detainees, an action met with an outcry from clergy members incensed at the government’s attempt to regulate religion. Although the gov­ ernment subsequently mediated the language in the ban in order to allow for “bona fide church services,” the action prompted Archbishop Tutu and many other clergy members to intensify their rhetoric in opposition to the government’s apartheid policies.32 The government’s attempt to plow over one of the most flourishing fields of the religious imagination – corporate, collective, and focused prayer – only served to reap more harvest. By contrast, many church leaders in the African Independent Churches (AIC) chose a far less confrontational path. In the main, AIC members took an apo­ litical approach, choosing to separate themselves from any concerted effort to overturn apartheid.33 The disengagement of nearly a third of all South Africa’s Christians was no small matter. Their refusal to take political action provided a measure of cover for apartheid officials. In fact, President P.W. Botha presented Bishop Isaac Mokoena with a “Declaration for Meritorious Services” in 1987 in recognition of his work to undermine economic sanctions and oppose legislation

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 129

that made interracial marriage legal. A few AIC congregations formed the African Independent Churches Association and joined the SACC, but they were an exception to a larger rule of disengagement and quiescence.34 The religious imagination in this case quelled as much protest as it prompted. Notwithstanding the refusal of such a large group of South African Christians to join in the struggle to oppose apartheid, church leaders had begun to make their presence known in increasingly public forums using unapologetically religious resources. The clerics march of 1988 provides one such example. Five days prior to the February 29, 1988, march, Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order in the Botha administration, issued a ban outlawing a total of seventeen antiapartheid organizations, including both the UDF and the Azanian People’s Organization, the primary remaining voice of Black Consciousness. The order also banned eighteen individuals, among them the president and vice-president of the United Democratic Front.35 Given the removal of nearly every possible measure of nonviolent, legal protest, only the church remained.36 And so the clerics arose. Their march brought a host of religious resources to bear. First, the clerics gathered in sanctuary space, assembling in St. George’s Cathedral, the Anglican seat of Cape Town. In that space, several hundred lay church members, more than a hundred clergy, and twenty-five church leaders joined in worship. They then read a statement against the bans, provided nonviolent instruction, and cautioned those gathered about the consequences they might face by marching out of the sanctuary. Having thus readied themselves inside a religious building, the protestors moved outside into the Cathedral’s courtyard with the intention of marching to the Cape Town parliament offices. Even before they left the confines of the courtyard, however, the police intervened, ordering them to disperse. In re­ sponse with arms linked and facing the police, the protestors all knelt to the ground, taking the long-recognized pose of a pious petitioner bowed in prayer. This was the religious imagination in action, fully embodied, ideas en-fleshed and in motion. Employing a tactic they would utilize in numerous other instances, the police first removed the leadership from the front lines, arrested them, and locked them in nearby vehicles. Those still kneeling in the courtyard drew on yet another religious resource and began to sing. Having removed the highest profile leaders like Archbishop Tutu, the police ramped up their response and turned truckmounted water cannons on the kneeling protestors.37 Their prayer posture ap­ peared to offer them little protection from the violence of the state. Once again, public prayer had evoked a violent response. In the sodden aftermath, the police moved in and arrested all of the remaining protestors, who were released several hours later. From worshipping to singing and from kneeling to wearing clerical vestments, the leaders had crafted their demonstration with religious tools. Although these sacred resources did not mitigate the state-sponsored violence encountered by the

130

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

demonstrators, the press and international community paid attention because of the event’s religious markings. The subsequent coverage highlighted that this had been a “clerics march,” one marked by a full array of religious symbols. The most intimate of rituals – such as foot washing or confession or the last rites – were not drawn upon, but the church leaders made clear that they were acting as members of the religious community, not just another group of activists who happened to be free from governmental restrictions. Rev. Frank Chicane, then the general secretary of SACC, made the connection clear. At a press conference following the action, Chicane stressed that, in fulfillment of the church’s responsibility to give voice to the organizations banned by the government, they would “continue doing it … irrespective of the consequences.”38 The clergy involved in this action brought such an array of religious resources to bear on one event because in this instance they were performing their role as representatives of religious institutions. By wearing religious vestments, taking religious poses, and singing religious songs, they acted out the role they had taken on, one born from the dreaming of faith into action. The role for most of the clergy had been one they had inhabited for years, but the enactment nonetheless made the decision to protest by kneeling, wearing stoles, and singing songs easy, deliberate, and unified. The clergy made use of religious resources because they were the practices they understood, used most readily, and were proficient in leading. Just as medical professionals turn to the tools of scalpel, stitch, and plaster when faced with grievous injury, these religious professionals turned to vestment, prayer, and song. They used the tools with which they were familiar, that they could most fully embody. The depth of social injury they perceived was no dif­ ferent than a broken bone or lacerated shin. Church leaders continued to step into new leadership roles and bring religious resources into public as the apartheid government attempted to silence other protest efforts. Later that year on September 4, 1988, government officials issued a ban on a rally for “Free and Fair Elections” that had been planned by a United Democratic Front affiliate, the Cape Democrats. In response, members of the Central Methodist Mission announced plans for a worship service in protest of the banning order. They invited the public to join the service at the Buitenkant Street Methodist Church, a historic “coloured” church that had maintained an active worshiping community despite the 1966 order declaring their neighbor­ hood – District 6 – a “White Group Area” and resulting in the forced displace­ ment of most church members. Beyers Naudé, the immediate past president of the South African Council of Churches and noted Afrikaner dissident theologian, had been scheduled to speak at Buitenkant. The police retaliated without hesitation. In addition to affixing the banning order to the church door, they encircled the church building with heavily ar­ mored, paramilitary transport vehicles known as Casspirs, and repelled prospective worshippers with tear gas and sjamboks, heavy whips used by the South African police forces. Suspecting that church leaders may have moved the service from Buitenkant Street to St. George’s Cathedral seven blocks away, the police then

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 131

entered St. George’s bearing arms and interrupted a concert by a visiting university choir. The police eventually withdrew, but the Cathedral dean, Colin Jones, closed the church in protest, proclaiming that it would not open again until it had been re-consecrated.39 To seek relief, the Methodist church leaders turned to the courts. Although the Commissioner of Police argued that church service such as these were thinly veiled political gatherings, a Supreme Court judge ruled in the Methodists’ favor saying, “I am not prepared to ban a church service, if indeed it is a church service.” Once the police withdrew and drove off in their Casspirs, worshippers gathered for a late night service that concluded with the singing of the religiously infused anthem, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”.40 Early the next morning, Archbishop Tutu re-consecrated St. George’s Cathedral to restore the space violated by the entry of the police.41

Singing in the future Those who organized the worship service in protest of the banning of yet an­ other anti-apartheid group actively imagined a future different than the present before them. In this instance, they drew on both national and religious resources to do so. The form of the worship service, the physical space in which the worshippers gathered, the music they created, and the words they spoke in unison did what the religious imagination had done so often in the antiapartheid struggle. The liturgy, architecture, and auditory environment of the religious service aroused emotion, strengthened communal bonds, and provided solace. This powerful social and emotional mix had been further amplified by the confrontation with the police. But, the gathering offered more than an emo­ tional charge to those assembled at Buitenkant Street Methodist Church. By claiming not only their religious identity but also their national identity as they sang “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”, they also imagined a future defined by divine blessing rather than conflict and oppression. The lyrics of the anthem make plain the close connection between the ima­ gined religious and national identities. The anthem, originally penned by Enoch Sontonga, a Xhosa Methodist teacher, is unabashedly religious in its sensibility and register. More specifically, by beginning with the phrase, “Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika [Lord, bless Africa],” this direct appeal to the divine frames the notion of blessing and that of a unified Africa as specifically religious. The third and fourth lines continue with the supplication, “Yiva imithandazo yethu Nkosi Sikelela Nkosi Sikelela [Hear thou our prayers/Lord bless us, Lord bless us].” To sing these words – at that time not yet officially recognized as the country’s national anthem – in protest during a worship service in a church after prevailing in a conflict with the police that had gone all the way to the South African Supreme Court was to claim a future in which a language other than Afrikans would be recognized as holding resonance and meaning for the entire nation. It was to conceive of a country not ruled by White supremacists. It was to mix belief in divine intervention with belief

132

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

in national unity, the audacious ideal that God and country could bind together a people divided by the doctrine of apartheid. And so in the midst of midnight singing at Buitenkant Street Methodist Church two imaginations merged. The religious imagination that psychiatrist Carl Jung describes as innate to the human condition joined with the imagi­ nation of nation that historian Benedict Anderson argues is not innate but rather a conceit emerging from distinct historical processes.42 Regardless of their provenance, these two creative impulses meshed seamlessly in this historical moment. The religious imagination provided confidence in future victory born of the conviction of divine sustenance. The national imagination offered a vision of a unified people within the country’s borders. Thus provisioned, the worshippers left the worship service equipped to struggle again.

Funereal protest In addition to worship services, funerals also became a site of significant protest action. Here again the religious imagination figured prominently in fostering the crises that emerged as people gathered to mourn the dead. Even before the Defiance Campaign of the late 1980s, religious funerals took on political sig­ nificance. In 1977, for example, Bishop Desmond Tutu gave a speech at the funeral for Black Consciousness activist Steve Biko. Before an audience of 15,000, Tutu asserted that Biko’s proclamation of Black humanity had been divinely in­ spired. Without irony or hesitation, Tutu declared that God had empowered Biko “to awaken in the black person a sense of his intrinsic value and worth as a child of God, not needing to apologize for his existential condition as a black person, calling on blacks to … praise God that he had created the black.”43 Tutu’s assertion of a divine impulse at the heart of the Black Consciousness Movement during the forum of a funeral in 1977 pointed the way for even greater use of the funeral as a political and religious platform in the 1980s. As the apartheid government continued to enforce bans against anti-apartheid groups like the African National Congress, funerals offered an opportunity to defy official sanc­ tions in the midst of expressing grief for those killed by government forces. The specific measures taken by state security officials to dampen such funeral-based protests reveal the power of the religious imagination at its core. Huge crowds assembled for the religious services of mourning and remembrance at which violence became ever more commonplace. In July of 1985, 30,000 gath­ ered in the southwestern town of Cradock to mourn the murder of Black teacher and activist Matthew Goniwe. Four months previously, 50,000 had gathered for the funeral of twenty Black activists killed at the hands of the police near the southern city of Port Elizabeth.44 And as the funerals became ever more powerful sites of protest, violent reprisals by the police became every more common. In early May of 1986 in the Kwazakele neighborhood of Johannesburg, police “barraged a small church with tear-gas canisters” as mourners assembled to bury nine victims of prior confrontations with security forces. Those same forces then killed another man in

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 133

the violence that erupted.45 Such examples represent a host of such sizeable events and equally sizable reprisals. The police attempted to curtail the oratory, size, racial integration, and public movement of those gathered to mourn. By 1986, funerals such as one for seven young people shot and killed by the police as they lay wounded on the ground in Guguletu Township, Cape Town, included coffins covered by ANC flags car­ ried through the streets.46 That same year, a funeral in New Brighton Township, Port Elizabeth, ended with the police dispersing the crowds with tear gas.47 In response, the bans on funeral activity became ever more specific: no loudspea­ kers, no political speeches, no crowds larger than 400. In the Black townships where police instituted the restrictions, no “non-Blacks” could attend. And, perhaps most significantly, police declared that the funerals could not be taken outside church buildings – nothing exocathedral. No more foot marches and thus no more slogans, political banners, or symbols of banned anti-apartheid groups like the ANC.48 The restrictions attempted to rein in the funereal practices with the most power to stir emotions and invite action. Funeral speeches like those given by Archbishop Tutu would no longer connect religious practice with political protest. Large crowds would no longer arouse mass action through the outpouring of grief. And the practice of religion would be confined to the church building or cathedral itself.49 Whether through careful analysis or pragmatic reaction, the security forces had picked out and attempted to excise those religious practices that prompted dreams of an alternative future. A religious scholar could not have pinpointed those elements more precisely. Yet, despite the bans, funeral attenders still made political speeches, draped coffins with ANC flags, and marched in the streets before crowds far surpassing the four hundred cap.50

The Manyano movement The public employment of religious resources proved more complex among members of the women’s prayer groups known by the Xhosa term manyano. Active since before World War I, the manyano movement swelled to 45,000 Black women by 1940 in the Methodist community alone, a number ten times as large as the White women’s auxiliary groups in the same denomination. With late nineteenth century origins in the sewing classes organized by White missionaries hoping to provide western dress to female converts, the manyanos evolved to feature evangelically fervent prayer sessions and service to the communities in which they lived. That camaraderie also manifested mutual aid practices among the women.51 The women did not just pray in private or limit themselves to acts of personal charity. Their view of ministry and witness encompassed a much wider vision that ultimately helped sustain the religious imagination so prevalent in the antiapartheid movement. Already in the early twentieth century, manyano members supported women’s demonstrations against pass laws in Bloemfontein in 1913,

134

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

organized a boycott of stores charging exorbitant prices for supplies and com­ modities in Herschel in 1922, struck back against the 1928 Liquor Act that limited the ability of women in the Natal to brew and sell beer, and supported women from Potchefstroom who objected to the requirement of residential permits in 1929.52 These early examples of faith-based resistance continued through the later phases of the anti-apartheid movement. In response to the government initiated seizure of properties owned by Africans in 1954, manyanos organized protests. The nation-wide network of manyanos successfully staged demonstrations against pass laws in 1956 in Pretoria.53 And, the 1988 Defiance Campaign began with designated days of prayer after which manyanos began attending public gatherings where they sat together, wearing their matching uniforms, singing somber hymns to accompany Campaign speeches (Figure 5.1).54 The complexity of the manyanos’ response stems first from the perception that groups ostensibly focused on mutual aid and ecstatic expressions of personal piety would have little if anything to offer in the midst of political foment. Yet these South African women’s prayer groups are not the only ones to have been mis­ judged as being politically irrelevant for valuing fervent prayer, emotionally ex­ pressive worship forms, or charismatic praise and proclamation. Members of The House of the Lord, an independent African-American Pentecostal congregation in Brooklyn, New York, exhibited many of the same emotionally expressive and charismatic practices as favored by the manyanos but also engaged in political action to change the economic and social conditions of their neighborhood. Rather than cathartic exercise, prayer and praise rituals opened up the possibility of new action and a new future. For the Brooklyn worshippers, their particular

Members of the Temba Women’s Manyano Society gather to celebrate Mandela Day on July 18, 2017.

FIGURE 5.1

Source: Moretele Times. Used by permission.

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 135

practices of ritual possession fostered Afrocentric norms that challenged the idea of White superiority and domination.55 For the manyanos, prayer and hymn singing provided a platform for both individual and collective proclamation. Even those manyanos who could not read or write spoke in public with a confidence born of their membership in the prayer groups and the practice of speaking and preaching before their peers.56 But it is the vestments worn by the women that prove particularly illuminating. In the midst of formal worship, the manyanos don distinctive blouses, skirts, collars, and hats with colors varying by denomination and region. One group of Methodist manyanos, for example, wear blue skirts and red blouses with white collars and hats while those from another region favor blue skirts, white blouses, red collars, and white hats. Other combinations abound. The wearing of clothing that identifies practitioners as belonging to a particular religious group is common across time and space. What makes the manyano in­ stance so interesting is the collective nature of the vestment practice. Although a wide variety of clergy wore their vestments when participating in the clerics march of 1988, they came as individual leaders from separate congregations and de­ nominations. In the case of the manyanos, they appeared in public as a group, identified as such by their matching uniforms. They wore their religious imagi­ nation on their bodies. This collective religious costuming unequivocally introduced religious practice into public space. But rather than a crossing of the sacred into the secular, the manyanos who sang hymns in support of the Defiance Campaign once again made evident that, at least in the South African context in the late 1980s, sacred space did not substantively differ from secular locale. The clothes that the women wore marked their bodies and the space that they inhabited as religiously derived. They wore the manyano uniform because they had committed themselves to a particular religious practice, in this case affiliation with and membership in an evangelical, Christian community. Appearing as they did en masse at a distinctly political rally, however, the women brought the religious resource of their clothing to bear on the political project at hand. To be sure, the manyano uniform marked gender as well as religious identity. And, in this instance, the presence of the women as women from a religious community also defined the role they would play in the political proceedings. Note that in the Defiance Campaign rally, the women sang hymns as a collective. They did not raise individual voices to rally crowds through political speeches despite the fact that many manyanos regularly preached and exhorted their compatriots and community members both in and out of formal religious gatherings. As the woman sang, garbed as they were in matching, colorful uniforms, they lent respectability, encouraged unity, and set an emotional tone for the protest gathering, which like all political projects was fundamentally an exercise in channeling power. The organizers of the rally and the Defiance Campaign as a whole gained mass appeal in part because the women represented grassroots communities. The uniformity of their dress resonated with the unity of purpose

136

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

that the rally aimed to foster. In singing religious hymns rather than, for example, more ecstatic resistance songs, the women leveled and measured the crowds’ emotions. More than such utilitarian ends, the women who put on their matching blouses, travelled to the gathering, sat as a group, and sang songs together de­ monstrated once again that the religious imagination proved so powerful in South Africa in the late 1980s because few tensions emerged when politics and religion mixed. Although, as in the case of the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, many religious communities had been slow to join in the activist cause, once religious actors showed up, their resources found an easy welcome and ready integration. In this case, the manyanos and the clergy who had stepped into the vacuum left by the round up, detention, and murder of less religiously affiliated anti-apartheid activists dovetailed so well and ultimately proved so effective in galvanizing thousands more to their cause because the populace of South Africa – and many other African communities – had been long conditioned to finding the sacred everywhere, not just in those spaces given official religious sanction. In short, the manyanos fostered the religious imagination wherever it was found. Again the threshold effect obtains. The actions of the manyanos and those who joined them brought the discrete worlds of political and religious expression into close and easy contact. At that threshold, new possibilities emerged. The women brought with them a certain respectability. They strengthened grassroots con­ nections. But most importantly, at the junction of both religious and political imaginations, they not only conceived of a future not yet fully realized, but in the clothing of their bodies and the raising of their voices they made that future present in the here and now. The threshold effect then led to a rise in religious activism. Following re­ ligiously mediated performances such as those presented by the manyanos, more Christians joined in public demonstrations. They began to appear at protests against beach and bus segregation, hospitals’ apartheid codes, and municipal practices. In Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and other cities, church members took to the streets despite years of distancing themselves from any association with the violence of revolution.57

Religion in protest ascendant Leaders like Archbishop Tutu intensified their efforts. On Saturday, August 19, 1989, protestors attempted to integrate the beach at Bloubergstrand only fifteen kilometers north of Cape Town. At the point that Tutu arrived, the police were attacking and beating the protestors while White onlookers taunted and attempted to further provoke those being chased off the beaches. Tutu did three things. He first told the police chief that he would get the protestors back on the buses if they stopped their aggressive action. He then assured the protestors that they had made their point that “these beaches belong to God and they are therefore for all of us.” And he led them in once again singing “Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika [God bless Africa],”

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 137

the religiously replete national anthem. The protestors boarded the buses that had brought them to the beach. Press accounts credited Tutu for defusing a highly volatile conflict.58 Tutu’s response stemmed from his training and formation in the Christian tradition. He sought out his chief adversary – the officer in charge – and spoke to him without rancor while yet asserting mutual respect. This kind of nonviolent exchange allowed him to then appeal to his own community with the theological assertion that God had sovereignty over the beaches and therefore extended their use to all, regardless of what earthly authorities might claim. His decision to bring closure to the protest by leading the group in “Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika” placed the Christian idea of God’s presence and sustenance in the minds of both protesters and those White beachgoers and police force members who listened, many of whom would have themselves been practicing Christians. This kind of considered, nonviolent, and definitively religious response did not stop the police forces from retaliating. The night after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the churches and allowed the prayer service at Buitenkant Street Methodist Church to continue, security forces killed nearly thirty people in Cape Town’s Black and “coloured” townships.59 This mass murder, while not unusual in South Africa’s long record of apartheid enforcement, stood out for its blatant brutality and retaliatory nature. But the violence of early September 1989 proved to be apartheid’s last gasp. Despite the state of emergency outlawing political protests, in the face of the possibility of violent retaliation from security forces, and in defiance of the apartheid laws designed to make the very idea of an integrated peace march un­ imaginable, on September 13, 30,000 Cape Town residents and their leaders – including Mayor Gordon Oliver and religious leaders like Tutu, Reverend Frank Chicane, and Alan Boesak – marched from St. George’s Cathedral to Cape Town’s main public square, the Grand Parade. Unlike previous marches, the police did not turn water cannons on marchers, did not attack, did not intervene. They allowed the march to proceed. Religious leaders again carried the day. Archbishop Tutu gave a speech de­ scribing South Africa as a “rainbow country,” and as the flag of the African National Congress fluttered beneath him on the balcony of Cape Town’s city hall, Tutu addressed the newly elected President F. W. de Clerk by inviting him to “join us in this struggle for a new South Africa.” Adding, “We are unstoppable.”60 Tutu was correct both in his declaration of inexorability and in his re­ presentation of the religious community’s central role in the last years of the antiapartheid movement. On February 11, 1990, newly released political prisoner and future South African president Nelson Mandela acknowledged the same. He stated, “I pay tribute to the many religious communities who carried the campaign for justice forward when the organizations of our people were silenced.”61 Although South Africa would go on to face many new challenges as the ANC took the reigns of government – some of which continued to involve re­ ligious leaders, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission being foremost among

138

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

them – the moment of Mandela’s tribute to religious communities again made plain the essential contributions offered by religious communities to the move­ ment to overturn apartheid.

Religious imagination fully realized Six years previously Allan Boesak had enjoined his co-religionists to “pray” the apartheid government “out of existence.” Although the historical record shows the correlation of the uttered prayers and the ultimate demise of the apartheid government, the question of causation is historically far too complex and muddled to render a definitive answer. Indeed, attempting to determine whether the prayers of the faithful led to the end of apartheid is not only unproductive but misses the point. Boesak’s declaration emerged from a national context in which religious resources had been repeatedly brought to bear on political movements. He spoke words to a country where the language, metaphors, and sensibilities of religion inundated rhetorical cadences, political pronouncements, and the national anthem itself. Whether or not the prayers resulted in the demise of the apartheid government is less important to discern than are the multiple ways in which re­ ligious groups participated by lending their physical presence, emotional support, logistical resources, and moral standing. Central to all of these contributions was the imagination of an alternate future. Songs sung, speeches made, liturgies led, vestments worn, and bodies bent while kneeling on the ground contributed to this process of imagining. Every time the national anthem called for God’s blessing on South Africa, those engaged in the singing evoked a future in which that blessing was made fully manifest. As clergy gave speeches lifting up a rainbow country and calling for the prayerful demise of the government, they envisioned a point where the people to whom they ministered would not be burdened by violence, segregation, and oppression. Liturgical declarations likewise bolstered the imaginations of the faithful, struc­ turing images of a world that did not appear to the physical eye but stood bright and beckoning to the religious vision. The fostering of a vision of the seemingly impossible was what religion did well. In South Africa during the apartheid era in particular, the words, ways, and movements of religious practitioners constantly imagined, as tech developer Regina Dugan has noted, “impossible things.”62 To imagine a South Africa free of apartheid proved no more demanding than imagining an afterlife free of human woe. Whereas many have argued that religious conceptions of the afterlife result in less attention to earthly conditions, the South African story suggests that the exercise of religious imagination itself helps bring about changes to the social order. The practice of imagining a specifically religious future, especially one so dramatically different from lived conditions, made imagining a specifically political future familiar and uncomplicated. As that religious imagination became ever more embodied in the actions of mourners, mayanos, and other activists, the envisioned future became a present reality.

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 139

Alan Boesak’s 1984 call to pray the apartheid government “out of existence” tapped in to an existing, well-practiced, and widespread religious imagination. As Black Consciousness advocates spoke, clergy took their prayers out of the sanctuary into the streets, mourners made funerals into sites of political protest, and devout women showed up at protest rallies, they drew on deep emotions, the vision of an alternate reality, and a practice of crossing the threshold between the sacred and the secular. Formed through devotional practice, worship en­ gagement, and theological study, the religious imagination of these activists furthered, in particular, the envisaging of a future not yet realized and the prompting to make it real. People knew how to pray for something they did not yet have, for a future they did not yet see, for a world they did not yet inhabit. They did so fervently. And, in the process, through the embodied actions prompted, enlivened, and sustained by those prayers, that imagined future, one that had been beckoned through prayer, came to fruition. The adoption of “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” as the national anthem in 1997 honored that religious imagination by formalizing it as a sign of the integrated nation that the exercise of religious imagination had helped bring to fruition. Such a story does not, however, mean that religious resources always lead to an envisioned future. As the next chapter will show, religious resources can also lead to unexpected results and outcomes, ones that change the religious practitioners as much as they do those targeted for change.

Notes 1 Curtiss Paul DeYoung, “Christianity: Contemporary Expressions,” in The WileyBlackwell Companion to Religion and Social Justice, ed. Michael D. Palmer and Stanley M. Burgess (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 70. 2 Allan A. Boesak, “A Theological Rationale and a Call to Prayer for the End to Unjust Rule,” in When Prayer Makes News, ed. Charles Villa-Vicencio and Allan A. Boesak (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 29. 3 Charles Villa-Vicencio, “Some Refused to Pray: The Moral Impasse of the EnglishSpeaking Churches,” ibid., 45. 4 Peter Walshe, “Christianity and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle: The Prophetic Voice within Divided Churches,” in Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, ed. Richard Elphick and T. R. H. Davenport (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 385–6. 5 Desmond Tutu and John Allen, The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 41. 6 Ineke van Kessel, Beyond Our Wildest Dreams: The United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 9. 7 George M. Marsden, “Introduction: Reformed and American,” in Dutch Reformed Theology, ed. David F. Wells (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989), 11. 8 Ben Khumalo-Seegelken, “Praying for the End of Unjust Rule: Essay in Honour of Allan Boesak on His 70th Birthday,” http://www.benkhumalo-seegelken.de/ suedafrika-aktuell/1060-allan-boesak/. 9 DeYoung, 70. 10 Kessel, 7.

140

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s

11 Gerrie ter Haar, “Mixed Blessing: Religion in Contemporary Politics,” in Faith in Civil Society: Religious Actors as Drivers of Change, ed. Heidi Moksnes and Mia Melin, Ter (Uppsala: Centre for Sustainable Development, 2013), 38–42. 12 Charles Villa-Vicencio, Civil Disobedience and Beyond: Law, Resistance, and Religion in South Africa (Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip, 1990), 52–3. 13 James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1969), 16. 14 Robert Massie, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years (New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 1997), 258. 15 As quoted in ibid. 16 Robert Fatton, Jr., Black Consciousness in South Africa: The Dialectics of Ideological Resistance to White Supremacy (Albany, NY: State University Of New York Press, 1986), 75–6. 17 Ibid. 18 Massie, 258. 19 Fatton, 118. 20 Ibid., 115. 21 Iris Tillman Hill and Alex Harris, Beyond the Barricades: Popular Resistance in South Africa, vol. Aperture (New York, 1989), 81. 22 Daniel R. Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968–1977 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), 107. 23 Walshe, 387. 24 Magaziner, 7. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Katharina von Kellenbach, “Review of the Religious Imagination of American Women,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70, no. 4 (2002): 891. 28 David Hostetter, Movement Matters: American Antiapartheid Activism and the Rise of Multicultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 2006), 58. 29 Tutu and Allen, 179. 30 Tristan Anne Borer, “Church Leadership, State Repression, and the “Spiral of Involvement” in the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1983 – 1990,” in Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social-Movement Activism, ed. Christian Smith (New York: Routledge, 1996), 133, 36, 37. 31 Ibid., 131. 32 Ibid., 135. 33 Walshe, 389. 34 Ibid. 35 Tutu and Allen. 36 Borer, 136. 37 Tutu and Allen, 139; Borer. 38 Borer, 136. 39 Tutu and Allen. 40 Villa-Vicencio, XI. 41 Tutu and Allen, 185. 42 R. Laurence Moore, Touchdown Jesus: The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History (Louisville, Kntcky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 163; Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), 4. 43 Tutu and Allen, 16, 19. 44 Andrew Torchia, “Thousands Attend Funerals for 8 Killed in S. Africa,” Boston Globe, Sunday, July 21, 1985, 16. 45 “South African Dies in Funeral Violence,” Boston Globe, Sunday, May 4, 1986, 27. 46 Hill and Harris, Aperture, 90. 47 Ibid.

Anti-apartheid movement of 1980s and 1990s 141

48 49 50 51

52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

Kessel, 210–1. Ibid., 289. Ibid., 210–11. Deborah Gaitskell, “Power in Prayer and Service: Women's Christian Organizations,” in Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, ed. Richard Elphick and T. R. H. Davenport (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 253–58; William Beinart and Colin Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2017), 238. Beinart, 235–39; Richard Carr and Bradley W. Hart, The Global 1920s: Politicas Economics and Society (New York: Routledge, 2016), 133; Gaitskell, 254. B. Suguna, Women’s Movements (New Delhi, India: Discovery Publishing House, 2009), 85. Walshe, 386. Bobby Chris Alexander, “Correcting Misinterpretations of Turner's Theory: An African-American Pentecostal Illustration,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30 (1991): 38. Gaitskell, 264. Villa-Vicencio, VII–IX. Tutu and Allen, 169–73. Villa-Vicencio, XI–XII. Ibid. Nelson Mandela, “Speech on Release from Prison,” in Davis, R. Hunt, Jr., ed. Sheridan Johns (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 226. Regina Dugan, “From Mach-20 Glider to Hummingbird Drone,” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, https://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_ to_humming_bird_drone?language=en.

6 PRAYERS PERMEATED: WATER PROTECTORS AND THE #NODAPL MOVEMENT

The Water Protectors who gathered on August 31, 2016, represented a fivemonth-old protest movement focused on opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The construction of the new oil delivery system had faced opposition from its inception. One White community objected to a proposed route that would have taken the pipeline close to their homes and green spaces. They forced a diversion into Indian Country. Native activists and their allies had then set up a camp in April to demand an end to construction of the pipeline that not only crossed through unceded land but also passed under the Missouri River. The five months that followed had been filled with prayers and protests. On August 31, however, an elder in residence at one of the camps spoke to a crowd and was videotaped making a prediction. Bearing the mantle of experience and tradition, he somberly declared, “[T]hey are afraid of us. They are afraid of the prayer. We’re going to win. No matter how much they’re going to appeal it. We’re going to win.”1 His comment is notable not so much for a prophecy that, at least in the short term, did not bear itself out but rather for his comment on prayer. He linked the practice of prayer that had been and would continue to be central to the Water Protectors’ actions with fear on the part of Energy Transfer Partners – the pipe­ line’s largest shareholder – and the law enforcement officials who enforced their will. From the perspective of this unnamed elder, prayer was the reason for the fear that he observed behind his adversaries’ actions. The elder’s observation arose from a movement for social change in which prayer had been ubiquitous. More so than in the case of any other movement examined in this study, #NoDAPL/Water Protectors movement leaders in­ tegrated prayer seamlessly into the protest actions and daily communal life at the camps that arose to support those actions. Not only did the Water Protectors pray while they were in the act of protesting, they prayed at numerous points

#NoDAPL movement

143

throughout the day in a communal practice that in no way resembled the Christocentric forms of oration used in antiabortion protests, civil rights marches, or anti-apartheid gatherings. Rather, the prayers represented a long-established tradition of Native American spirituality independent of Christianity. Those who prayed while protesting DAPL construction may not have been initially successful in stopping the pipeline. Their prayers may not have provided the kind of protection from violence that an act of piety might otherwise offer a religious practitioner – though the example of the Civil Rights Movement has made evident that public prayers could also incite violence. And the Water Protectors may not have always been unified as to whether prayer should have played such a central role. But, nonetheless, a religious worldview that Europeans had attacked and defined as inferior showed itself to be vibrant, relevant, and potent. Through the prayer practices Water Protectors maintained in a highly public forum, repeatedly and over an extended period of time, their traditions grew ever more relevant. The act of protest itself strengthened the practice of prayer even though the aims of the movement in which they were offered did not at first come to fruition. The relevancy of prayer as a vibrant component of protest practices emerges in part from the tensions inherent between the rational and irrational as understood by religious studies scholars. Religious studies theorist Gregory C. Stanczak discusses these tensions in his treatment of “engaged spirituality.” In a manner similar to the approach taken in this book, Stanczak pays attention to the use of religious prac­ tices like prayer “as part of a broader critique of social structural processes and social change.”2 He conceives of spirituality as taking place wherever the practitioner is engaged – whether that be public, private, or the liminal spaces encompassing both. Such a broad, all-encompassing conception of spirituality then requires that the rational and the irrational as defined in western terms both be taken seriously.3 Stanczak claims that the tensions arising from so-called nonrational spiritual prac­ tices often promote change far more effectively than do entirely rational debates.4 People respond and pay attention to spiritual appeals in ways that they do not always to logical ones. This chapter explores the means through which the practice of prayer in the Water Protectors’ movement did indeed both spur creative responses and reveal the ongoing relevancy of Indigenous religious practices.

History of indigenous protest A prayer-focused telling of the #NoDAPL movement begins first by recognizing how earlier Native-led protest movements shaped what followed. In the 1960s and early 1970s, American Indians began to articulate the idea of “Red Power” to represent their goal of achieving fair treatment, political equity, and just implementation of treaty rights.5 Although at first an anemic imitation of other race-based activist groups, in Red Power Native activists eventually found their voice and spoke with new vigor and boldness to place demands before an often recalcitrant and tendentious government.

144

#NoDAPL movement

As would be the case in many subsequent events, such Red Power activism welcomed participants from other counter cultural and social protest groups. During the December 1963 and early 1964 protests to protect and reclaim Indian fishing rights in Olympia, Washington, and throughout the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans joined forces with Black Panthers, hippies, and White en­ vironmentalists. Even well-known actors showed up. The African-American comedian Dick Gregory and the White movie start Marlon Brando participated in protests and lent their fame and legitimacy to the organizing efforts.6 The ethos of Red Power gained perhaps its fullest organizational expression in the founding of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1969. Initiated by young Indian activists in Minneapolis, AIM leaders quickly joined forces with rural Native communities in South Dakota, Oklahoma, and in those states where rural concerns about treaty rights and cultural maintenance resonated with urban resistance to police abuse.7 In this nexus of concerns, the AIM organizers ad­ vocated for Indian self-determination in all levels of tribal life.8 AIM quickly gained national attention. Riding a wave of frustration built up in response to Eisenhower-era policies of relocation and encroaching federal over­ sight, college-educated Native urban leaders made more stringent demands for restitution from the federal government than had many of the elders up to that point. Press outlets eager for new and ever more sensational headlines amplified the demands made by the new generation of activists, launching many of those AIM leaders onto the national stage. That national press and the change in tenor and tactics resulted in some measure of tension between the younger activists and the traditional elders.9 A service-based spirituality guided AIM’s actions. Despite public perception of the AIM activists as outspoken troublemakers, the organization at the grassroots focused much of their energy on “the spiritual uplift of revitalizing pride among Indian Americans.”10 Paralleling the community-service model developed by the Black Panthers in many African-American urban neighborhoods, AIM members documented police behaviors, protected the most vulnerable members of their communities, ran Indian-only elementary and high schools, opened elder-care programs, and offered assistance to the unemployed and new arrivals in the form of both meals and shelter.11 Again, as was the case in the Black Panthers, political actions that would later emerge arose in the context of robust community service with, in the case of AIM, a central spiritual purpose. The centrality of that spiritual purpose was present right from the beginning in one of the first and most widely covered AIM-involved political actions, the 1969 Alcatraz takeover. On the morning of November 20 that year, seventy-nine Indian activists took over Alcatraz Island. AIM members soon joined the occupation. The community that then sprang up on the island received donations of supplies, clothing, and food from sympathetic supporters. Most significantly, leaders laid plans for starting, among other institutions, a spiritual center. On June 11 the following year, however, federal authorities re-took the island while the majority of the occupiers were away in San Francisco and forced the remnant of fifteen occupiers to leave.12

#NoDAPL movement

145

AIM continued to pursue its goals in the years that followed but then grabbed the headlines once again during a seventy-one day standoff with federal authorities at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Responding to a call from Oglala Sioux members in Pine Ridge for protection from the so-called Guardians of the Oglala nations, AIM members traveled to South Dakota from across the country. The Guardians had been assaulting and abusing tribal com­ munity members including activist Russell Means at the behest of embattled tribal chairperson Richard Wilson. Following a visit to the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre of Lakota leader Bigfoot and his band, AIM members seized control of the small town of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973. After seventyone days of occupation, US Marshalls, FBI agents, and CIA personnel arrived, negotiations progressed, and the government forces re-took the town on May 8. Setting a precedent that would echo through the Water Protectors movement, officials took Wallace Black Elk’s sacred pipe and medicine pouch in the course of his arrest.13 The record of this kind of aggressive activism by AIM members established a tradition of armed, violent engagement with the US Government. Two years after Wounded Knee, Eagle Warrior Society members took over an industrial park in Wagner, South Dakota, armed with shotguns and rifles. Following a three-day occupation, officials of the industrial park agreed to increase wages and instill safer working conditions.14 Although the results of such actions had been decidedly mixed, enough successes had resulted to make the option of armed take overs attractive to a certain set of activists in the Native community. In the midst of this kind of activism, urban Indians renewed their call for federal support. Rejecting the image and identity of rural-based, well-established Indian advocacy groups, a new generation of activists took on a more confrontational edge in keeping with the occupations of Alcatraz Island and Wounded Knee. Rather than an ethos of appeasement and rapprochement, activists in cities like Portland and elsewhere demanded a new level of self-determination. Instead of accepting values and worldviews of the dominant culture, they fostered a new kind of authenticity. The emerging leaders emphasized spiritual practices while also ramping up criticism of both federal officials and the older generation of activists who the new generation of activists viewed as complicit in the control and subjugation of the Native community.15 The colonialist policies aimed at controlling Native communities then helped set up the confrontation over the Dakota Access Pipeline. In this context, and throughout Indian Country, the history and present practice of colonial inter­ vention found expression in two forms – one external and the other more internal. As theorists Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang argue, external colonialism takes the form of western forces attempting to control and possess land, water, and sky. In the same way, internal colonialism shows up in the forceful replacement of Native-led legal systems and ways of knowing with western values, beliefs, and worldviews.16 As Water Protectors fulfilled their responsibilities to Indian lands and waterways, they addressed both forms of colonialism, a two-pronged

146

#NoDAPL movement

approached especially evident in the spiritually focused actions undertaken in many locations.

The Mni Sose The narrative of the #NoDAPl movement begins long before Water Protectors set up camp and lit sacred fires for their community. On two previous occasions, federal authorities took over Sioux Nation lands with no concern for tribal rights and interests. In 1851, the Sioux Peoples entered into a treaty relationship with the United States. They did so again fifteen years later in 1868. In both instances, government officials violated the treaties almost immediately.17 More specifically, the Missouri River has itself been a repeated conflict site between the Native community and federal authorities. In the nineteenth century, the Lewis and Clark expedition brought western forces to bear on Indian Country in part through negotiation of the Missouri River. In the twentieth century, tensions again emerged as the government sought new levels of control and management of the Missouri River and its waterway through the Pick-Sloan Missouri River Basin Project.18 Such interactions left little in the way of Native sovereignty over a cherished relative. That relationship with the river extends across a wide range of tribal com­ munities. The Mni Sose/Missouri River travels more than 2,340 miles from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi. More than twenty-four tribes draw suste­ nance from the Mni Sose on its way. In response to the sustenance provided by the river, those tribal communities have developed rich oral history traditions in which the Mni Sose figures prominently. As elders tell those stories and pass them along from generation to generation, essential information about the tribe’s cul­ tural traditions, mores, and practices are passed on as well.19 Even as the Mni Sose has sustained tribes by provided them with water, the river has also sustained them by providing history, meaning, and purpose. The worldview that conceived of the Missouri River not only as a relative but also as a cultural and alimentary lifeline came into conflict with the White, western conception of the river in the struggle over the Pick-Sloan project. Named in honor of the director of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Missouri River office and the director of the regional office of the Bureau of Reclamation, the project aimed to construct a series of dams in order to bring the “unruly Missouri River” under control.20 Rather than approach the river as a valued relative and life sustainer, the project managers set up the entire initiative as a military contest in which humanity vied with nature for dominance.21 By contrast, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal member and activist Chas Jewett summarized the Native community’s orientation to the river, “We pray to the water and pray with it and pray for it. It’s for real a relative. It’s a relative that nourishes us.”22 Rather than inanimate foe, the river was a nourishing member of the family. The history of conflicting worldviews set up by initiatives like the Pick-Sloan Project meshed all too well with a prophecy about the waterway. Within the

#NoDAPL movement

147

Standing Rock community, elders spoke of the foretelling of a “black snake” that would threaten the community. As plans for the pipeline became public, more and more elders and activists spoke of the pipeline as the black snake prophecy fulfilled. The form of the pipeline, the possibility if not the likelihood of a leak, and the intention to run the pipeline through historic Sioux land and under the Missouri River only served to confirm the specter of the prophecy and its ominous pro­ jection of disaster.23 The framing of the Water Protectors movement thus begins in both human and spiritual conflict, a conflict site at the intersection of the rationale and the nonrationale. Moreover the pipeline corridor extended into sites sacred to the Native community. In the case of the former, the immediate area in and around the drainage of the Cannon Ball River held historical significance as a tribal gathering place. In that location, even warring tribes would not spill blood or enter into conflict. All knew that those who visited the site to pray did not have to fear attack or violence. Moreover, the pipeline route would likewise pass through a site marked by a stone feature and associated grave where members of the Native community came to pray and take spiritual journeys.24 It was not simply a matter of differing approaches to one’s relationship with the river. It was also that the pipeline itself would destroy areas held sacred by long-established religious practices, spiritual principles, and historical tradition.

The pipeline struggle Few contest the basic facts of the pipeline struggle. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the company installing the pipeline, planned to construct an oil delivery system spanning 1,172 miles and consisting of underground pipe that would bring crude oil drawn from the North Dakota Bakken oil wells all the way to Illinois. At the cost of $3.8 billion, the pipeline would traverse tribal lands left unceded in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. And, most concerning, the pipeline would burrow under the Mni Sose at a point just upstream from the Standing Rock reservation, thereby threatening that community’s water supply.25 From April of 2016 through February 2017, Water Protectors from across the country had gathered at a site that came to be known as the Oceti Sakowin Camp. They gathered to protest and put themselves in the way of that construction. Likewise, the outcome of the story of that struggle has already been well publicized. Following their initial request to build the pipeline in 2014, Energy Transfer Partners received the green light from the federal government to proceed with the project two years later. The business emphasized in their publicity ma­ terials that the pipeline would not only allow for increased domestic production of crude oil, but it would also pump millions of dollars into the economy as it employed between eight and twelve thousand new workers. As construction began, thousands of activists gathered at Oceti Sakowin and a series of other camps clustered in the area. Despite numerous protests, national and international press coverage, and legal proceedings, the pipeline became operative on May 27, 2017.

148

#NoDAPL movement

As oil began flowing through the pipeline, multiple leaks sprang up, immediately impacting the environment.26 The full narrative of that struggle, however, reveals much about the ways in which religious resources continue to be central to indigenous struggle in particular and social justice movements in general. One of the most essential elements of the pipeline’s backstory is that it had originally been slated to pass near Bismarck, North Dakota. When residents of this largely White city heard of the plans, they objected to the environmental threat that such a pipeline would pose to their water supply, community, and way of life. In this case, leaders at Energy Transfer Partners responded and shifted the pipeline route away from Bismarck.27 The new route took it through Sioux land. As in the case of Bismarck, the Native community immediately protested the new route because of the environmental threat that the pipeline would pose to their water supply, community, and way of life. This time, however, leaders at ETP did not map a new pipeline trajectory. Following a February 2015 en­ vironmental assessment by the Army Corps of Engineers claiming that the pipeline would not negatively impact the local tribes, other federal bodies raised concerns including the Environmental Protection Agency, the American Council on Historical Preservation, and the US Department of the Interior. The Tribal Historic Preservation officers of both the Osage Nation and Iowa tribe further amplified those criticisms when they reported that they had not been consulted about the potential impact of the pipeline on their culture, tradition, and landscape.28 The resistance began with the founding of the Sacred Stone Camp on April 1, 2016. On that date, a group of approximately thirty Water Protectors gathered together on land belonging to LaDonna Bravebull Allar, a Standing Rock tribal member.29 As activists began to organize public demonstrations, others pursued additional protest strategies. Some sued the Army Corps of Engineers in an attempt to stop construction. A group of youth put together a relay run to carry a petition all the way from North Dakota to Washington, DC. Water Protectors also went to public hearings to raise their objections, put their bodies in front of construction equipment, and appealed directly to the construction workers themselves.30 The sheer diversity of approaches attracted more activists to the camps. As of December 2016, more than 5,000 Water Protectors, including both members of indigenous communities and their allies, had gathered in Standing Rock.31 Before the numbers ballooned at the protest camps, Standing Rock elders and elected officials actively pursued both legal and educational initiatives. Standing Rock chairman David Archambault called out ETP and the Army Corps of Engineers for not even mentioning the tribe in the first draft of their plan to route the pipeline through the tribe’s ancestral lands.32 In total, the pipeline’s path cut through 380 archaeological sites including burial grounds, all of which fell under the National Historic Preservation Act’s protected status of “ancestral territory.”33 Given the political and commercial forces arrayed in support of the pipeline’s construction, Chairman Archambault and other tribal leaders knew that the

#NoDAPL movement

149

struggle would be as much about public perception as about legal action. And so, soon after their first meeting with DAPL officials in 2014 and the 2015 formation of Standing Stone camp, Standing Rock leaders began a grassroots educational campaign about Mni Wiconi – the Lakota term for “water is life” – in general and #NoDAPL in particular.34 At the same time, they pursued additional legal measures in attempt to protect both the river and sites of cultural significance to the tribe. Energy Transfer Partners countered with their own legal and political man­ euvers. Even though the Army Corps of Engineers had ruled in DAPL’s favor on July 26, 2016, and construction proceeded despite a federal complaint filed against the Corps by the tribe, when ETP officials realized that activists were gearing up for more assertive protest measures as the pipeline neared Mni Sose, they sued to have an injunction put in place against Standing Rock Chairman David Archambault and others to stop them from obstructing construction. In concert with ETP, South Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple put in place a state of emer­ gency four days later on August 19. He requested support from the federal government as well as private security forces employed by DAPL to stop the protestors as well.35 Governor Dalrymple used the authority given to him under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) to coordinate and deploy enforcement personnel and equipment from federal, municipal, and state departments.36 Whether from prayer or planned protest, the powers aligned in favor of the pipeline seemed rattled. Government officials and DAPL representatives also were responding to the sheer volume of social media content generated by the Water Protectors. From early in 2016, #NoDAPL – the twitter hashtag and related media campaign – had found traction, having been employed more than five million times before the year came to a close.37 Coupled with the phrase “water is life,” the #NoDAPL hashtag drew more and more attention to the efforts of the Water Protectors. Activists at Sacred Stone and the satellite protest camps – Rosebud, Red Warrior, Oceti Sakowin – posted commentary, still images, and videos hundreds of thousands of times on as many social media platforms as possible.38 A worldwide audience began to pay attention to the events unfolding in and around Standing Rock. The record of those posts and videos reveals just how central women and their spiritual practices were to the Water Protectors movement as a whole. The women’s testimonies and messages evinced an “ethos of responsibility” that emphasized the interconnection of creation and Native women’s particular re­ sponsibility to protect the environment in the face of colonial and patriarchal destruction.39 Drawing on communal traditions that extend thousands of years into the past, women on the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota lands drew attention to their people’s dependence on the land and water threatened by DAPL and ar­ ticulated the spirituality that fostered that dependency.40 Men in the movement recognized and supported the central role played by women. As activist Joe Amik Syrette explained, “For myself to be here, it’s a representation of all of

150

#NoDAPL movement

the women in my life. Starting with my ancestors, to my grandmother, my mother, my wife, my sister, my daughters.”41

#NoDAPL prayer and protest An exploration of the prayer and protest events that permeated the #NoDAPL movement first begins with a description of life in the Water Protector Camps. It was in those communal settings where the spiritual base of the subsequent protest actions were nurtured, fostered, and developed. The largest of those camps, Standing Rock, drew thousands of visitors. Its population topped 10,000 people and, according to some estimates, may have housed 15,000. Even at the more conservative number, for a short while Standing Rock became North Dakota’s tenth-largest city.42 Observers described a festival of housing arranged in a Missouri River basin populated by tipis, yurts, school buses, geodesic domes, and sweat lodges. Elm wood and sage fires illuminated carefully arrayed alleys and streets warming the activists’ spirits and bodies.43 The religiously infused fires, many of them burning continuously, symbolized the camps’ grounding in tradition, the same historic roots that guided the camp’s leadership council consisting of representatives from the seven regional tribes. Yet that tradition came into conflict with younger activists frustrated with the deep poverty on reservations like Pine Ridge. Those activists, many of whom gathered in a Native-only section of the camp known as Red Warrior Camp, exuded a militancy at points out of sync with the prayer-focused sensibility of the Water Protector’s movement. Following accusations that Red Warrior Camp members participated in theft and rumors that they used drugs, the elder council instructed the Red Warrior Camp members to leave. In response, the younger activists “flipped off” the elders.44 That kind of tension surfaced again at a prayer ceremony held at the foot of Turtle Island on Thanksgiving Day. Turtle Island holds spiritual significance for the Standing Rock community, and security forces stood ready to stop protestors from climbing on to the island and further interfering with the pipeline con­ struction process. Rather than risk arrest and face the water cannons prepped for the protestors’ advance, camp elders instructed the Water Protectors to stand down, disburse, and return to the camp. As had been the case in other times and places – perhaps most strikingly in the events of Turn Around Tuesday in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 when Martin Luther King, Jr., ordered crowds prepped for arrest to turn around and return to the town rather than face violent reprisal from the law enforcement officials arrayed in front of them – those who had prepared themselves to face their adversaries grew frustrated at the order to withdraw. One long-time veteran and trainer in direct action techniques complained about the stand-down directive by exclaiming, “I don’t get why the hell we aren’t making them arrest us. We should press our numbers, swamp the courts.”45 In response to the growing dissent, a second council body emerged that governed in concert with the existing elder council. Known as the “Seven Headsmen,” the

#NoDAPL movement

151

younger group served concurrently with the elder council through the camp’s dissolution.46 That kind of cross-generational, shared leadership structure did not ultimately undermine the movement’s spiritual grounding. The camp leaders first of all restricted media engagement with religious events. No recordings of ceremonies or prayers were permitted.47 The movement that had started on April 1 with a 30-mile horseback prayer ride continued with daily corporate prayer practices. Camp members participated in morning, evening, and mealtime prayers. Residents burned cedar, tobacco, and sage to offer additional prayers. And vigils featured more songs and prayers.48 In response to DAPL security members’ characterization of these prayer actions as “attacks” on the one hand and calls for more traditional protest actions from younger activists on the other, tribal councilman Robert Taken Alive asserted simply, “[W]e are here to fight this battle with prayer.”49 That “battle” proceeded with prayer infused throughout. A timeline of the protest proceedings makes the centrality of prayer all the more evident. In late summer and early fall of 2016, the nonviolent marches emerging from Oceti Sakowin camp commenced with pipe ceremonies. Already in August representatives from ninety indigenous communities had gathered at the camp. That number increased to 400 by November, but religious ceremony provided a common focal point for the diverse communities gathered at Oceti Sakowin. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, recognized keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, conducted the pipe ceremonies and led the initial marches.50 Those initial marches gave way to more direct action as legal pursuits proved ineffective. Already in August 2016, protestors blocked entrances to construction sites. Once again demonstrating their central leadership role, a group of Native women stopped work at a construction site on August 15 after surrounding ma­ chinery there. Despite a federal restraining order against those who interrupted construction sites, another group of protestors locked themselves to machinery on August 31 and forced a halt to construction for more than six hours.51 Those August actions again featured prayers. A statement released on August 23 before a march to the Bismarck, North Dakota, Memorial Bridge emphasized the activists’ peaceful protest and declared, “Today we united our prayers with songs.”52 Three days later, tribal Chairman Dave Archambault participated in a prayer protest that also involved rushing a police line in the course of a fortyeight–hour construction blockade.53 Even the more militant Red Warrior Camp members employed prayer-focused rhetoric in their correspondence with the press. In late August following a public demonstration, they released a statement in which they averred, “We are peaceful and this action is our prayer.”54 Although some Red Warrior members grew impatient with the less aggressive nature of the elder-sanctioned actions, they still found it useful to tie their protests to the image if not necessarily the practice of prayer. Prayers continued to be central to the acts of resistance through September. The month began with a markedly violent instance of reprisal from DAPL

152

#NoDAPL movement

employees. On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, September 3, a group of Water Protectors gathered on Highway 1806 to participate in the Canupa, the pipe prayer ceremony that signaled the start of most actions at that point in the resistance. They then marched to the construction site where bulldozers had begun to unearth sacred burial sites containing ancestral remains.55 As the marchers formed a human blockade, a DAPL employee sprayed a group of children and women with tear gas while attack dogs rushed the line of protestors.56 In the end, the dogs bit six Water Protectors and DAPL forces pepper sprayed thirty, injuring a pregnant woman and a small child.57 With the brutality of the attack still fresh, #NoDAPL activists went on to foster prayer practices amid both legal setbacks and encouraging rulings. Six days after the attack, the tribe received news of a federal judge’s denial of their request to stop pipeline construction. That same day, they also got the news that the Army Corps of Engineers, the Interior Department, and the Justice Department had issued a joint ruling halting construction while they reviewed their original de­ cision to allow construction under the Missouri River.58 Despite the ruling, construction continued on other portions of the route where activists persisted in their prayer-focused endeavors. On September 13, two staff bearers from Sacred Stone Camp – Phil Littlethunder and Shannon Rivers – prayed and gave speeches at a construction site north of Cannon Ball, in the process closing the site’s gates.59 Other Water Protectors performed religious ceremonies and prayed in the midst of setting up blockades, locking down construction equipment, and planting trees in the path of the pipeline.60 The statement of an activist drone pilot emphasized prayer’s central role in the actions taken by the Water Protectors. Using drones, Shiyé Bidzííl documented many of the actions taken by the protestors and released hundreds of still images and videos to the public. On September 18, he stated that the marchers offered “prayers to our desecrated sacred burial sites,” “prayers to the land so that our ancestors will remain with mother earth,” and prayers “to keep our … spirits lifted high… keep us strong and to empower all of us with the knowledge of the earth.”61 He also emphasized the daily importance of that prayer by noting, “Every day we continue to do this with prayer and tobacco.”62

Violence intensified The persistent praying and organizing of direct action came to a violent head on October 27. Although accounts by the protestors and the police differ, the basic story line is the same. Representatives of the three main protest camps – Oceti Sakowin, Rosebud, and Sacred Stone – had established a fourth camp, known as Treaty Camp. Named in honor of the 1851 Treaty, which tribal members maintain did not cede the land through which the pipeline was being con­ structed, Treaty Camp sat on easement land that the federal government had not yet released for construction.63 One activist reported, “[W]e continued to pray each time we did direct action and we were continually met with violence.”64

#NoDAPL movement

153

On the 27th, activists reported that they had gathered to pray and were in the midst of holding a prayer ceremony when the police and security force members told them they had to move. In response, the activists remained where they were and continued to pray.65 The accounts then diverge. Police contend that some activists began taking unspecified violent actions.66 Activist leaders counter that, although they could have taken a more violent path, they chose instead to “stay committed to the belief of civil disobedience and peace gathering and prayer above all.”67 Activist Dayton Martindale insisted, “We were just praying.”68 Police then moved in, shot rubber bullets into the crowd, and began arresting demonstrators. Altogether, North Dakota law enforcement officials arrested more than 140 protestors that day.69 According to activists, police also took a sacred pipe from an activist and broke it.70 The linkage of prayer and violence again became evident. In the face of this aggression, the camps continued to offer solace, strength, and the ongoing practice of prayer. One visitor commented on the burning sage he encountered upon first arriving in Standing Rock.71 Another participant reported on the tobacco sprinkled on the constantly maintained central fire.72 Chas Jewett, a community organizer and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe member at the Standing Rock Camp, noted the ubiquitous use of “ceremonies as a key form of activism” emerging from the Water Protector camps. She added that, as a gathering “based on ceremonies,” it was “a camp of prayer in the Indian sense, of utilizing the indigenous cultural resources of the people to resist, to act and to assert an alternative perspective of care regarding the great Missouri River.”73 Where the Water Protectors gathered, they engaged in prayer not only to better help them in their resistance but as an act of resistance itself.

Youth, internal tension, and conflict In those camp settings, young people also reconnected and employed spiritual resources. Already in April of 2016, members of the One Mind Youth Movement set up a small prayer camp in the path of the pipeline. They forbade all alcohol and drugs, subsisted on “bologna sandwiches, potato chips, and water,” and grounded their community in the practice of prayer.74 In the Oceti Sakowin camp, the central fire provided a focal point for intergenerational morning prayers. Children’s reporting and books written from children’s perspective highlighted the significance of those prayer gatherings for the youth as well as the adults who assembled with them.75 One observer noted the transformative power of the youth’s involvement in ceremonies by commenting, “Some of the kids you see down at the front lines were raised in the system, in and out of jail. But down there, they’re focused. They thrive. They’re leading the prayers and actions, re­ leasing productive anger.”76 Greg Johnson, a religious studies professor from the University of Colorado, Boulder, described the highly generative process through which youth engaged with “a new set of chants” and prayers and, in the course of their activism, fostered and refreshed the religious practices themselves.77

154

#NoDAPL movement

These examples represent just a few of the ways in which young Indian practitioners have turned again to traditional ways. Especially in the context of resistance to the ongoing forces of colonialism, those young people have listened carefully to traditionalists in their communities and taken up ceremonial practices that in the past White missionaries deemed “devil worship.”78 The prevalence of prayer practices in and around the #NoDAPL movement reflect this return to traditional forms of prayer and an openness to integrating them into acts of re­ sistance as an ongoing instance of what one scholar calls a “reprise” of these practices, rejecting the idea of “revitalization” in favor of evoking the metaphor of a melody that resurfaces after a period of quiet, never really having gone away.79 The presence of prayer in the Water Protectors’ movement brings forward all the power, flexibility, and nuance of long-held religious practices that continue to bear much in the way of meaning for those who inhabit them. The youth were not the only ones to attest to the positive effects of parti­ cipating in prayer in the midst of protest. Melanie Thompson, a member of the Standing Rock Lakota tribe in South Dakota, had been at Standing Rock for four weeks when she said simply, “You can feel the strength of the prayers here.”80 After returning home to New York City from time spent at Oceti Sakowin, Claudia Velandia-Onofre commented, “I can’t get this healing song out of my head … - it strengthens and fills my spirit.”81 Tribal chairperson David Archambault linked the prayers that “echo across the prairie” with a community resilience that allowed them to survive “unspeakable hardships in the past” and to stand “up for our rights” in the present.82 A flier advertising a sunrise prayer event put it this way, “We are the living prayer of our Ancestors. Our endurance is passed down to us from Creation.”83 In the words of Water Protector Jack Jenkins, the practices of prayer and the ceremonies in which they were embedded served as the “core mobilizing and stabilizing force for the movement.”84 Yet the practice of prayer so apparently ubiquitous throughout the Water Protectors movement was not universally celebrated. On the one hand, activist Nick Tilsen compared the #NoDAPL movement with the 1970s Red Power movement and noted that the former built on the latter. The generation that followed the Red Power activists had been immersed in cultural practices and identity in a way that the Red Power leaders had not. And so, according to Tilsen, “Prayer combined with direct action is our power.”85 Even nonindigenous par­ ticipants noted the prevalence of prayer. Actress and activist Shailene Woodley commented that she was attracted to the Standing Rock movement because “it was so prayerful and so grounded in ceremony.”86 But at the same time, a member of the Red Warrior Camp from Pine Ridge named Bluebird distanced himself from the religiosity he encountered. He noted, “I’m not with this whole prayer mentality. We can sit around and do nothing back home.”87 Internal tensions over the appropriate role of religion paled in comparison to the clashes between praying activists and security forces throughout the month of November 2016. Early that month, on November 2, activists prayed and sang

#NoDAPL movement

155

while trying to gain access to and thereby protect the ancestral burial grounds on Turtle Island. They needed to cross a creek to do so. Having been given the go ahead by the Army Corps of Engineers to arrest and remove those who set foot on Turtle Island, the police and National Guard members assembled on the far side of the creek turned their weapons on the activists. Even while drummers gathered in a prayer circle in support of those crossing the creek, the law enforcement members shot rubber bullets into the crowd, sprayed protesters with tear gas, and used pepper spray on those who approached Turtle Island’s shore.88 In the re­ sulting chaos, journalist and congressional candidate Erin Schrode was shot in the arm. With ongoing prayer songs in the background, Water Protectors continued to approach the shoreline and encountered renewed violence there.89 To be certain, not all prayer protests ended in violence. Most centrally, on November 3, the day after the Turtle Island action, a group of interfaith clergy numbering over 500 marched to Backwater Bridge, a critical link to the con­ struction sites and the protest camps located on Highway 1806. Although they came from multiple religious traditions, the majority of the clergy represented Christian communities and wore the distinctive vestments of their religious office. During the march, they sang hymns and led prayers but did not experience the same kind of violence that would shortly ensue.90 In this instance, their status as clergy and the presence of White protestors offered a measure of protection from police violence. Those clashes continued throughout the month, activists traveled fifty miles to Mandan just west of Bismark where they entered a construction site on November 11, started praying, and stopped the work there. Law enforcement members ar­ rested protestors that day, and, on the following day as the protests continued, observers filmed a DAPL employee as he yelled at a protestor, hit the Water Protectors with a pistol, and fired several shots in the air.91 Nine days later as temperatures dipped below freezing, protestors faced off against police on Backwater Bridge. During the standoff that continued into the night, police sprayed the Water Protectors with water and an explosion – either from a law enforcement grenade or a propane canister brought in by a protestor – severely injured a woman’s arm.92 When activists began praying in a circle at a Bismarck shopping mall on Black Friday, November 25, not only did police tackle, punch, and kick members of the group while they continued to pray, but bystanders threw Water Protectors into the police line, forcibly detained them, and yelled, “Go back to the reservation! Prairie niggers!”93 The intensity of the protests shifted at the beginning of the following month (Figure 6.1) largely due to the announcement by the Army Corps of Engineers on December 4 that DAPL had been denied an easement to proceed with construction across the Missouri River. The Corps indicated that they required a more rigorous assessment of the environmental impact of the construction on the waterway.94 They also set a deadline of December 5 for the evacuation of Oceti Sakown camp. Taken together, the two directives prompted Standing Rock Chairman Archambault to request protestors to return to their homes. As temperatures continued to drop below

156

#NoDAPL movement

In this Thursday, December 1, 2016 photo, Virginia Redstar of Colville, Wash., and a member of the Colville Native American tribe, allows smoke from burning sage wash over her during a ritual after reaching shore by canoe at the Oceti Sakowin camp on December 1, 2016. Redstar traveled from Montana with fellow tribal members on canoe for ten days down the Missouri river to reach the camp.

FIGURE 6.1

Source: AP Photo/David Goldman. Used by permission.

freezing, many honored Achambault’s request and vacated the camp. But hundreds more remained at the campsite unconvinced that the pipeline construction was truly halted.95

Camps closing Those who remained continued to place prayer at the center of their protests. On December 13, Olive Bias from the Eastern Band of Cherokee noted that her forebears had “laid down” prayers on the land “for eons” and the remaining protestors’ “focus” indicated that they were “in prayer” and that they were going to “be at the right place at the right time” and “know how to act.”96 That focus took a variety of forms. One group of activists hiked to an oil drill pad on December 28 to, in the words of their lead organizer Tawasi, “say some prayers for the pigs.” By way of explanation, he added that they were not going to engage in violence toward the police but rather “just pray for them. Hope they can find a better way. Figure out a better way instead of trying to kill us all with this black snake.”97 In a subsequent video commenting on their actions, the activist refer­ enced the practice of smudging and burning in prayer ceremonies. He said, “We have our sage up and our tobacco down. We are staying as peaceful as we can.”98

#NoDAPL movement

157

After the action, Tawasi added, “We stood for the water. We sang for the water. We prayed for the DAPL workers, for the sheriffs, and the military.”99 Concerns that the pipeline had not been truly halted were realized when newly inaugurated President Donald Trump expedited the review process that gave the green light for DAPL to restart construction. On January 24, 2017, President Trump gave his official approval for both the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline to continue.100 On February 8, that intention was realized when the Army Corps of Engineers officially granted the long-contested easement for constructing the pipeline under the Missouri River.101 Energy Transfer Partners then proceeded to drill under the Missouri River and lay the pipe that would carry oil for processing and refinement. During this process, the Water Protectors’ energy shifted from active protest against the pipeline to maintaining the camps themselves in the face of mounting pressure to evacuate. Chairman Archambault had asked protesters to vacate the camps and go home already in December. Elders from Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council ramped up the pressure on the remaining Water Protectors when they voted on January 20 for all three camps to close. They explained their order by noting that actions obstructing Highway 1806 cut off access to the reservation for key business enterprises and services, that colder weather and flooding had been forecast, and that the clashes with the police had become increasingly violent. They also raised concerns about a “lack of spiritual direction” by some protestors based at the camps.102 A core group of protestors remained and continued to focus on prayer. In a January 26 appeal for help, they enjoined supporters to prepare to be selfcontained, to refrain from walking “around with your crystals or totems or wands,” and to “pray in our people’s way,” adding “we respect your right to pray in your own way but respect that this is our space.”103 LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the Standing Rock Sioux member who had put out the original call for action, criticized Chairman Archambault’s directive to close the camps and, on February 10, the sixty-one-year old woman stated, “We will stand and pray.” She added, “[W]e will resist, we have no choice.”104 The acts of resistance, by the second month of 2017, had largely dwindled to the occupation of the camps themselves, but even that occupation, as Allard emphasized, was defined by the act and presence of prayer. The centrality of those religious ceremonies continued through to the final camp dissolution. On February 15, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum put in place an evacuation order. He notified the protestors that they had until February 22 to vacate the camps, citing the need for the Army Corps of Engineers to clean up the waste at the campsites prior to spring flooding.105 Acting on the Governor’s orders, a task force consisting of the amassed forces of the Army Corps, North Dakota Highway Patrol, and deputies from Morton County evicted the final camp residents at Oceti Sakowin on February 22. As they did so, they carried automatic rifles, drove armored personnel carriers, and brought dozens of other military vehicles on to the camp property. They also physically removed a group of

158

#NoDAPL movement

Water Protectors from a prayer ceremony in the midst of the evacuation.106 Police confiscated a sacred prayer pipe from the hands of another protestor at Oceti Sakowin during the eviction process there.107 On the same day, Bureau of Indian Affairs officers entered reservation land to evict campers at Sacred Stone.108 In the course of the eviction process, law enforcement officials arrested fifty-seven individuals.109 The forced evictions did not quite mark the end of the formal, organized resistance. On March 10, 5,000 supporters of the Standing Rock movement gathered in Washington, DC, for the Native Nations Rise March. Although the march appeared small in comparison to the much larger Women’s March held two months previously, those who gathered in the nation’s capital registered their support for the resistance movement even as they expressed their collective dis­ illusionment with both the prior Obama administration and the Trump admin­ istration that ultimately allowed for the completion of the pipeline.110 In the end, the prayer-focused movement witnessed hundreds of arrests. Law enforcement officers had, in total, arrested 832 Water Protectors and their allies. Some of them faced significant jail time. Activist Redfawn Fallies received a sentence of fifty-seven months, Michael “Little Feather” Giron faced thirty-six months, and Michael “Rattler” Markus and Dion Ortiz received sentences of several years. All the men were sent to federal prisons to serve out their terms.111 Other protestors paid fines and served shorter terms. The investment of human agency, time, and energy in the processing of these arrests alone cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Of success and failure The question of winning and losing hovers over this narrative. Back in August 31, 2016, an elder had proclaimed with full confidence, “We’re going to win. No matter how much they’re going to appeal it. We’re going to win.” On June 1, 2017, Energy Transfer Partners informed the public that the pipeline had come online and was transporting crude oil from the North Dakota oil fields to Illinois for processing.112 The hard fact of the pipeline’s operational status would seem to suggest that the elder’s proclamation had not come true, that the prayers, songs, smudging, and ceremony had all been for naught, that the Water Protectors had failed. It is a reasonable conclusion. But a closer examination of the prayers themselves suggests otherwise. Throughout the events described in this chapter, the prayers provided solace, assurance of efficacy, and renewed purpose in the midst of challenging circum­ stances. The activists who offered their prayers while demonstrating created conflict, a measure of discomfort, and general uncertainty among those tasked with keeping the Water Protectors from interrupting the construction. It became a difficult task to attempt to control the activists when engaged in the practice of prayer if for no other reason than the optics and publicity around disrupting those engaged in prayer were much more volatile than when religion was not in the

#NoDAPL movement

159

picture. Indeed, as the elder had asserted, the DAPL employees were afraid of those who prayed because of the act of their praying. And it was not just that they prayed; it was a matter of how they did so. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement era activists who engaged in prayer forms deemed respectable by the White Christian establishment, the prayers offered by Water Protectors grounded in Native religious traditions did not look or act like the prayers found in most predominantly White congregations and parishes across the country. The unfamiliar nature of the songs, dances, smoke offerings, and cere­ monies conducted by the protestors most probably caused a degree of uncertainty among law enforcement officers who did not share in those same religious tra­ ditions. The resulting conflicts, standoffs, and outright acts of violence in response to the Water Protectors gained at least a measure of their intensity due to the prayers’ unfamiliarity in the eyes of the police. In the midst of this kind of conflict, one way to measure the relative success – or at least merit and efficacy – of a given protest tactic is to analyze how frequently activists employ it. In the case of the #NoDAPL movement, the sheer ubiquity of the prayers and prayer-related activity through the entirety of the resistance effort suggests a means and method of protest that had deep and sustained roots within the community. Activists prayed while protesting not because they had been forced or cajoled to do so. They entered into ceremonial practices not due to a central dictate requiring uniform consistency. Rather, they prayed in the midst of trying to stop the pipeline because the practice had meaning. Unlike a previous generation of activists during the Red Power era, those who gathered in the Dakotas had received instruction from their elders about the traditions and practices of prayer. They had access to the language, cultural forms, material symbols, and specific vocabulary to engage in prayer without having to be taught how to do so. Hence, the Water Protectors movement linked resistance to prayer ceremonies, symbols, and actions from start to finish. That ubiquity extends in part as well from the specific focus of the #NoDAPL struggle. The activists gathered to protect the water. Such a materially tangible and spiritually freighted element invited connections with religious actions in ways that organizing around the less immediately tangible cause of tribal sovereignty, for example, may not have. By the very name they chose, Water Protectors linked themselves to a natural resource that coursed with religious meaning. The tradition of women’s care for the water also pointed to a particular kind of prayer practice. One of the first ceremonies brought into the protest movement – a water walk – positioned women at the center of the practice. Men had a supportive role to play, but women were responsible for carrying it out. The images of the prayers and ceremonies carried out during the months of the most active protest regularly featured women at the heart of the action. The centrality of the prayer invited women into leadership rather than pushed them to the sidelines. While not feminized per se, the high-profile nature of the religious practices did open up space for some to enter and participate in substantive ways.

160

#NoDAPL movement

Those who study prayer in all its many aspects posit that this particular ex­ pression of religious devotion gains its staying power and broad appeal due its highly personal nature. Even when offered in a corporate setting, the individual’s engagement with the divine is paramount. At least that is the case in the study of most western forms of religion. Some eastern forms reject the notion of focused discourse with an embodied deity in favor of the frames of meditation and trance. Yet even these forms remain bound by individual practices and experience. The #NoDAPL narrative by contrast shifted attention away almost in its en­ tirety from the individual practice of prayer to the group’s engagement with the same. Sacred drumming was done by a group. Prayer songs were song by a col­ lective. Groups assembled around a scared fire to sprinkle tobacco. Medicine pipes were shared by the community. Prayer seldom if at all appeared as an individual phenomenon. Groups prayed. Groups gathered. Groups persisted in their protest. The record of impassioned oratory in the midst of prayer that would frequently capture the attention of reporters and journalists during the Civil Rights Movement – attention that in turn gave rise to the notion of a super-religious charismatic leader – simply was not replicated in the midst of the Water Protectors’ prayer practices. The community prayed; the community resisted. By the time that the final remaining Water Protector had been removed from the last of the resistance camps, the linkage between communal prayer and communal practice has been so firmly established that the idea of a lone resistor continuing without a community around them found no purchase. To resist was to be in community. Anything else was not an option.

Religion at the story’s center The story of the space opened up by the Water Protectors and the prayers they offered on an almost daily basis for months on end in the face of a federal and corporate juggernaut that they would come to call a “black snake” demands consideration once again of the relationship between prayer and violence in social change movements. The Water Protectors’ example provides plenty of correlation between the act of prayer and the response of violence. Complicated by the historic relationship of the Native community to the federal and state government and corporate America, there nonetheless again seems to be a clear pattern. Across time and geography, the exercise of prayer in the course of challenging the status quo has time and again prompted those who have maintained the status quo to repeatedly attack those who prayed while protesting. The irony, of course, is that the religious practice most popularly associated with serenity, composure, and personal equanimity can, when combined with protest practice, result in the very opposite of those qualities. Whether as observers or participants, those who sought to shut down and those who worked to construct DAPL could not ignore the palpable presence of religion. As a force for change, an expression of culture and tradition, and a highly effective means of sustaining resistance, prayer once again proved relevant.

#NoDAPL movement

161

The Water Protectors Movement cannot be understood without a full apprecia­ tion of the religious practices, traditions, and worldviews infused throughout it. Most centrally, however, in this particular context religiously permeated protest amplified and deepened spiritual practices throughout the community. Although many other chapters in this book have emphasized how religious resources influenced movement outcomes, here I conclude by focusing on how protest prayer influenced the religious resources themselves as well as those who employed them. The sacred fires did not burn just once a week; they burned every day. It was not unusual to play drums or burn sage during a protest; it was unusual not to do so. The leader who spoke of prayer to the press was not an outlier; the one who failed to do so came across as an anomaly. Long after they had returned home, activists spoke of the power of those practices yet resonating in their daily lives. Although the Water Protectors may not have kept Energy Transfer Partners from completing the Dakota Access Pipeline, in the process of trying to do so many of those who protested did, in the fullest sense of the word, complete their spiritual practices.

Notes 1 “Native American Resistance Camp Fights Oil Pipeline,” Al Jazeera, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Lpow8SFe98Q. 2 Gregory C. Stanczak, “Conclusion,” in Engaged Spirituality: Social Change and American Religion (Rutgers University Press, 2006), 167. 3 Ibid., 184. 4 Ibid., 175. 5 Donald L. Fixico, “Red Power Activism, the American Indian Movement, and Wounded Knee: The Rise of Modern Indian Leadership,” in Indian Resilience and Rebuilding: Indigenous Nations in the Modern American West (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2013), 124–25. 6 Ibid., 125. 7 Zoltán Grossman, “Resource Wars and Sharing Sacred Lands: Montana and South Dakota,” in Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2017), 152. 8 Fixico, 126. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 136–37. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 138–40. 13 Ibid., 144–6. 14 Ibid., 147. 15 Nicolas G. Rosenthal, “Repositioning Indianness: Native American Organizations in Portland, Oregon, 1959–1975,” Pacific Historical Review 71, no. 3 (2002): 428–29, 37–38. 16 Sarah Hernandez, “Mnisose / the Missouri River: A Comparative Literary Analysis of River Stories from the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the #Nodapl Movement,” Studies in American Indian Literatures 30, no. 3–4 (2018): 72–73. 17 David Archambault, II, “Taking a Stand at Standing Rock,” New York Times, August 24, 2016. 18 Hernandez, 72. 19 Ibid., 74.

162

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

#NoDAPL movement

Ibid., 83–4. Ibid., 84. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 87–8. Bailey, [para 11–12]. Meredith Privott, “An Ethos of Responsibility and Indigenous Women Water Protectors in the #Nodapl Movement,” American Indian Quarterly 43, no. 1 (2019): 74; Estes, 1–2. Hernandez, 88–9. “Earth First!,” Earth First!, Winter 2016, [1]. “#Standingrocksyllabus,” NYC Stands with Standing Rock, https://nycstandswith standingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/. Privott, 74–5. “Earth First!,” [1]. Privott, 75. Archambault. Estes, 43. Ibid., 52. Ibid., 47–48. Ibid., 2. Hernandez, 89. Privott, 75–76. Ibid., 76–7. Ibid., 82, 87. Jack Healy, “From 280 Tribes, a Protest on the Plains,” New York Times, https:// www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/12/us/12tribes.html. Estes, 3. Alexander Zaitchik, “On Native Grounds: Standing Rock’s New Spirit of Protest,” The Baffler, no. 34 (2017): 105. Ibid., 108–09. Ibid., 112–13. Ibid., 113. Estes, 58. Bailey, [para 17]. Estes, 251; Council Brandon, “Protest Is Not in Our Native Tradition…,” https:// www.wnpr.org/post/photos-visit-standing-rock-pipeline-protest-camp-north-dakota. Estes, 57. “Earth First!,” [1–2]. Shiyé Bidzííl and Dean Dedman, Jr., Through Indigenous Eyes: The Story of the Standing Rock Movement as Told by a Local Drone Pilot and Visionary (True North House Publishing Worldwide, 2017), 191–92. Estes, 48. “News from the Red Warrior Camp: ‘We Are Peaceful. This Action Is Our Prayer,’” Thom Hartmann Program, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3VNnfQaN44. No Spiritual Surrender, “Defend the Sacred,” https://www.facebook.com/ryanvizzions/ photos/a.1131354410264248/1143381532394869/?type=3&theater. Estes, 49. “Earth First!,” [2]. http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/10/09). Amber Bracken, “Sacred Stone Camp Staff Bearers Phil Littlethunder, Left, and Shannon Rivers, …,” BuzzFeed, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katebubacz/ photos-show-the-inside-of-the-dakota-pipeline-camp#.qde6lykro7. “Earth First!,” [2].

#NoDAPL movement

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

163

Bidzííl and Dedman, 191–2. Ibid. Surrender. Dayton Martindale, “Still Defiant at Standing Rock,” In These Times 40, no. 12 (2016): 33. Ibid. http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09). Cempoalli Twenny, “Cempoalli Twenny Dapl 10/27/16,” Facebook, https://archive. org/details/CempoalliTwennyDAPL102716. Martindale, 33. http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09). Martindale, 33. Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and Justin Spizman, We Rise: The Earth Guardians Guide to Building a Movement That Restores the Planet (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2017), 162–3. Richard Tsong-Tsaarii, “The Main Camp Fire Has Been Continuously Lit ….” http://www.startribune.com/we-belong-to-the-river/394687181/#23. Jewett and Garavan, 52. Martinez and Spizman, 165. Clara MacCarald, The Standing Rock Sioux Challenge the Dakota Access Pipeline (Lake Elmo, MN: Focus Readers, 2019), 23; Aslan Tudor, Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock (San Bernardino, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018), [8]; David Theo Goldberg, “Lessons from Standing Rock — of Water, Racism, and Solidarity,” The New England Journal of Medicine 376, no. 15 (2017): 1404. Zaitchik, 109. Bailey, [para 16]. George E. Tinker, “American Indian Religious Traditions, Colinalism, Resistance, and Liberation,” in Native Voices: American Indian Identity and Resistance, ed. Richard A. Grounds, George E. Tinker, and David E. Wilkins (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 227. Dees, [para 16]. Healy. Claudia Velandia-Onofre, “By the Sacred Fire - Oceti Sakowin Camp,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/claudia.velandiaonofre/posts/10210941496830817. Archambault. Red Warrior Camp, “Sunrise Prayer,” https://www.facebook.com/RedWarriorCamp/ photos/a.1736641606587792/1759204957664790/?type=3&theater. Bailey, [para 15]. Zaitchik, 109. Martinez and Spizman, 180. Zaitchik, 113. “Earth First!,” [3]; Josh Fox, “Pepper Spray & Rubber Bullets at Dapl Protests,” NowThis, https://www.facebook.com/shares/view?id=10211831385122120. Fox. Bailey, [para 18]. “Earth First!,” [4]. http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09). Estes, 5. Ibid., 63. http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09).

164

#NoDAPL movement

96 Jenny Monet, “The Crucial Roles Women Are Playing at Standing Rock — in Photos,” https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/12/132669/standing-rock-protest-womensphotos#slide-2. 97 Tawasi, “12/27/16 Prayer Walk to the Other Side of River, Walking by Heyoka Camp - Well before Arrests - Tawasi 1:49,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/ shares/view?id=10211831385122120. 98 “12/29/16 Going up Along the River to Make Prayers, Still - Tawasi 5:15,” Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/tawasi/videos/vb.1294807241/10211850275274362/. 99 “12/29/16 Going Back after Prayers - Tawasi 3:26,” Facebook, https://www. facebook.com/tawasi/videos/vb.1294807241/10211850557321413/. 100 Dees, [para 2]. 101 http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09). 102 Dees, [para 2]. 103 Eryn Wise, “Read This,” #NoDAPL Archive, https://www.nodaplarchive.com/ nodapl-call-to-action.html. 104 Gabrielle Gurley, “Dakota Access Pipeline Fight May Open New Chapter of IndianFederal Conflict,” The American Prospect, https://prospect.org/environment/ dakota-access-pipeline-fight-may-open-new-chapter-indian-federal-conflict/. 105 http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09). 106 Jihan Hafiz, “A Closing Prayer for Standing Rock’s Oceti Sakowin,” The Intercept, https://www.facebook.com/theinterceptflm/videos/1252250524823998/?v= 1252250524823998. 107 Cempoalli Twenny, “A Relative with a Sacred Pipe …,” Facebook, https://www. facebook.com/cempoalli.twenny/posts/10212043047062092. 108 Estes, 64. 109 http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/09). 110 Estes, 64. 111 Ibid., 64–5. 112 http://insideenergy.org/2017/01/23/timeline-the-long-road-to-nodapl/ (accessed 2019/ 10/10).

CONCLUSION: A MODEL FOR ANALYZING RELIGIOUS RESOURCES IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

I began this book with a photo. It concludes with one as well. In this photo, taken at a protest held on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the immediate aftermath of the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, a group of activists bend their knees and bow their heads in what the caption describes as an act of “remembrance” for Floyd (Figure 7.1).1 A White Minneapolis police officer had murdered Floyd, a Black man, after kneeling on his neck for nearly eight minutes. A video of the officer’s violence captured the attention of the nation and the world while also prompting sustained and widespread protests broadly organized under the “blacklivesmatter” social media hashtag. Of the hundreds of thousands of photos taken during the protests, acts of prayer crop up repeatedly. The Philadelphia Museum of Art photo is just one of many. As I reviewed these photos, I was struck by how many of them echoed the images of public prayer featured throughout this book but particularly replicating the postures and poses of those captured during the mid-twentieth century US Civil Rights Movement. Even though the masks necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the clothing and hairstyles mark the photo as coming from a different era, the underlying messages remains the same: we claim the right of piety to oppose an act of oppression; and we will use our religious resources in the midst of a protest movement. The staying power of the act of bringing religious resources into public space is simply remarkable. Despite a record that consistently correlates the use of those resources with crisis and violence – or perhaps due to that very correlation – activists have brought them forward into public venues for more than a century. Only time will tell if that pattern continues.

166

Religious resources in social movements

Protesters engage in a prayer on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in remembrance of George Floyd in May 2020.

FIGURE 7.1

Source: Chase Sutton/Daily Pennsylvanian. Used by permission.

Stories’ import More than anything else, I set out to tell six stories. I hoped to introduce readers to how Gandhi employed fasting and what happened when civil rights activists prayed in the streets. There was so much to be gained from exploring the sacred surety of antiabortion activists and the movement throughout Poland of the Pope and the Black Madonna. The religious imagination evident in the antiapartheid movement and the prayers that permeated nearly every action taken by Water Protectors together related rich and complex narratives that I thought deserved re-telling. Having now told those stories, I am more convinced than ever that the nar­ ratives themselves are indeed worthy of our attention. I have done my best to get the stories right. Like other scholars of social movements and religious studies, however, I have also sought to analyze what took place in those narratives. In the process, I have suggested that the broad array of religious resources examined here – prayer, fasting, song, vestments, icons, pilgrimage, and liturgy – have served to sustain activists, render their cause respectable, shape political outcomes, motivate sacri­ fice, destabilize the status quo, prompt both violence and selfless service, realize in the present a desired future, envision that future, and express a community’s culture and tradition.

Religious resources in social movements

167

There is no one purpose that those religious resources have served. Dependent upon time and space, they have born themselves out following amazingly diverse paths. But in the process of attending to those diverse pathways, the fields of social movement theory, history, and religious studies begin to look a bit different. At the start of this book, I noted that social movement theorists have missed the predominance of and volatile dynamics associated with the introduction of re­ ligious resources into public protest space. Because they have done so, the theories put forth to explain the mechanisms of social change – whether focusing on resource mobilization, process, framing, collective identity, global context, emotions, politics, or rational conduct – have consistently underplayed the role of religious conviction and practice and thereby offered static utilitarian interpreta­ tions of religion that miss the highly dynamic exchanges documented here.2 And, as a result, the emergent social movement theory itself presents as far too flat. It is static when it needs to be active, arithmetic when it needs to be differential. The complex and fluid – and at points fully chaotic – nature of religious resources employed in social protest needs the same kind of sophisticated and nuanced treatment as chaos theory brings to the study of weather patterns. The terms and methods I model here and in what follows provide the building blocks for just such a subtle and nuanced assessment. I have also suggested that public prayer as used in social protests emerged in the particular context of the long twentieth century examined here – from 1918 through 2017. Not only have historians likewise underexamined and largely ignored the force and power of religious resources in social protest movements during this time period, but by doing so they have missed a critical change over time. A comparison with the Anabaptists of the sixteenth and seventeenth century makes the point. These proponents of the Radical Reformation – in their own way bent on both social and religious reform as they challenged the authority of European states to define their religious practice, engaged in eco­ nomically destabilizing practices of mutual aid, and refused to participate in military endeavors – also prayed in public. Frequently they did so as they were being executed. Their prayers, too, had performative qualities. At times, their prayers provoked or intensified the manner and means of their torture and ex­ ecution. But, unlike the public prayers that would emerge as part of social change movements in the long twentieth century, they did not appeal to shared values of the state but rather remained focused on the promotion of distinctly religious concerns. The content of their prayers was most often distinctly dif­ ferent from those offered in the twentieth century, focusing on evangelism rather than political project. As a result, the possibilities emerging from the threshold effect – that powerful pairing of the religious and the political – remained un­ realized. Only with the development of the modern western nation state with its attendant claims of egalitarian commitments like democracy and equality could the threshold effect come to fruition.

168

Religious resources in social movements

Finally, I argued that scholars in the field of religious studies have not re­ cognized how central public prayer has been to the practice of religion in public space. Rather than a tangential expression, it has been a core practice. We can only understand how religion does its work in society if we comprehend the nature and prevalence of public prayer. The concepts of sacred surety, corporeal conduct, ceremonial revolution, and the religious imagination not only provide a more nuanced vocabulary for describing and analyzing the processes of religious practice in public space, but they also expand our understanding of the nature of religion in one additional way. In the latter half of the 1990s, religious studies scholar Ninian Smart identified seven “dimensions of the sacred.” He rigorously explored the religious elements of ritual/practice, doctrine/philosophy, myth/narrative, experiential/emotional, ethical/legal, organizational/social, and the material/artistic.3 For all of its elegance and interpretive power, Smart’s framework falters in the face of the full complexity of public prayer. Put simply, it does not take the body or time into full and fair consideration. If prayer is anything at all – and postmodern scholars would have us splinter it into a subjectively determined practice situated in culturally constructed fields of influence – it is an appeal to the divine. Performative? To be certain? Situated in historical contexts? Absolutely. But in the course of channeling that appeal to the divine through the lens of protest, religion becomes not only highly volatile, as we have long known that it is, but it also becomes fully and fundamentally embodied in time. To fully comprehend religion writ large, we have to address an additional dimension to those originally articulated by Smart. This is the corpuschrono, the body in time. More holistic than the emotions or experiences of the practitioner alone, more foundational than myth and narrative, encompassing but not limited by ethical and legal considerations, the corpuschrono is that dimension of the sacred in which practitioners embody their religious commitments in order to alter what is and to create what is not yet. The corpuschrono is active whenever a religious adherent brings religious resources to bear in order to change the future. It calls for attention to the dimension of the sacred located in time-focused, so­ matically centered practice. Throughout this book, I have told stories in chronological arrangement. The narratives themselves have thus represented the corpuschrono in action – religious community members drawing on the divine to change present reality and craft a new future. They have used their bodies to do so. They imagined an as yet un­ realized future. They spooled out ceremony after ritual after pious act to change the world. With a certainty born of divine mandate, they persevered. Those who prayed in public as they protested, the ones who knelt, bowed their heads, and appealed to the divine to intervene on their behalf in the here and now, like so many other religious practitioners did not just utter disembodied words, they brought their bodies to bear on the social struggles with which they engaged. Their actions are not notable because they are particularly unique in that regard.

Religious resources in social movements

169

Many religious practices channel bodies into the streets to make religious pro­ clamations and cement collective beliefs. Rather the actions of these particular devout demonstrators are notable because they represent so essentially this central theme within religious practice – the body and time. The practitioners made demands through and by their prayers that could only be realized if time allowed and they were made manifest in the flesh. Although those who pray for bodily healing for themselves or loved ones present a similar embodied immediacy to their divine appeal, only in the act of protest does the appeal to the divine itself hold the danger of an immediate reprisal should one’s opponents lash out at the praying practitioner as, for example, many civil rights and Dakota Access Pipeline protestors experienced. The immediacy of the moment and the embodied nature of the appeal thus point to this eighth dimension of the sacred – this corpuschrono. In short, I am arguing that scholars of religion need to pay attention to how practitioners em­ body their religious practices as they seek change and through that track time with great care. In this book, I have sought to model how to do so with complete attention to both the unfolding of time and the embodiment of religious practice.

Social movements and religious studies methodology In order to fully assess this eighth dimension of the sacred, I offer the following method for better examining how religious resources unfold in the midst of social movements. The scholarship of teaching and learning has shown that we can learn how to do complex processes by breaking the constituent components into smaller, ac­ cessible steps.4 So, here is a seven-step process for analyzing the role of religious resources in social change movements that takes the chronocorpus seriously. Step 1 – evaluate the historical context in which activists use religious resources. Allan Boesak’s 1984 imprecatory prayer against the apartheid government proved so impactful because of the specific historical moment in which it was offered. The previous year had seen bombing after bombing after bombing directed at the very government Boesak’s prayer targeted. His prayer appeared much more threatening as a result. The sense of sacred surety deepened among antiabortion protestors following the election of Ronald Reagan, a pro-life candidate. Although Reagan never followed through on his position by introducing abortion legislation, his stated commitment ramped up the protestors’ sense of divine direction to attack women’s health care providers. The historical discipline offers multiple tools for engaging in this kind of contextual and time-specific analysis. Questions of economics, politics, and social forces are perhaps the most obvious. But more recent scholarship has shown how cultural forces ranging from aesthetics to advertising and sports to fashion also have a role to play in the complex unfolding of history. The study of religious resources in social change movements calls for particular attention to the conditions that sparked and fanned the movement into existence. There would be no study of

170

Religious resources in social movements

how those religious resources shaped the movement if the movement did not emerge in the first place. Cold War tensions, urban concentrations resulting from the Great Migrations of African Americans to urban centers and the North, a generally receptive federal administration, legislative branch, and judiciary, as well as the relative stability of the Black middle class all combined to open a space for the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 60s. Each of those factors in turn influenced 1) the kind of religious resources employed – most emphasized respectability; 2) the focus of their attention – invariably on those who specifically promoted segregation and stood in the way of voter registration; and 3) the location of their interjection – most often in or near public edifices or central urban spaces. Step 2 – evaluate the geography. In addition to time, place matters. The context of the nation state provides perhaps overarching influence, but as borderlands studies have also shown, those national outlines at points prove liminal and contingent.5 The Solidarity struggle unfolded in Poland even while drawing on a vast international web of support mediated through the Catholic church. In addition to the national con­ text, the specific geography of the movement’s location plays a huge role in de­ termining how activists use religious resources. The urban grid of Cape Town, South Africa, made it possible for activists to quickly coordinate their protest assembly at Buitenkant Street Methodist Church and for law enforcement officials to just as quickly drive their Casspirs to Buitenkant and then over to St. George’s Cathedral seven blocks away. The remote, rural placement of the Water Protectors’ protest camps allowed for daily religious rituals to go forward without police interference even while making some of those practices more challenging to maintain in a season of severe and frigid weather common in the Dakota high plains. Step 3 – assess the type of performance that the religious resources help shape. In my treatment of the Civil Rights Movement, I identify four types of public prayer: mediated, conversant, liturgical, and performative. Each type of prayer shaped the actions that followed. A crowd who repeated the Lord’s Prayer in unison evinced less volatility than did a crowd listening to a leader like C.T. Vivian needle Sheriff Jim Clark while praying on the steps of the Dallas County courthouse. Likewise, when sidewalk preachers used their version of a jeremiad to accost patients seeking health care at a women’s clinic, those who listened joined in the harassment with far more intensity than if those preachers had sang a psalm of praise. The South African manyanos missionary groups leant a gravitas and respectability to antiapartheid gatherings that would have been absent had they drawn on tribal cus­ toms, garb, or music. Attention to the type of performance requires particular examination of tone and register. The affective tone of a given religious resource – whether ecstatic, somber, joyful, accusatory, hopeful, or reconciliatory – can influence how a protest unfolds. Likewise, so does the register – the degree of formality – of a given resource. When Gandhi broke a fast with formal ceremony, officials paid attention in part due to the ceremonial nature of the event itself. The stridency of Boesak’s imprecatory prayer proved more disruptive than appeasing. The Pope’s liturgies

Religious resources in social movements

171

sustained the Polish population even in the midst of an oppressive military regime. Shifts in time invariably reveal changes in tone and register as well. Step 4 – pay attention to the crisis phase of the movement in which activists employ religious resources. All of the social change movements featured in this book ex­ perienced distinct crises as they unfolded. The correlation between bringing religious resources into public spaces and the subsequent emergence of crisis is the most consistent pattern I have found. Full attention to the corpuschrono reveals three types of crisis: building, bursting, and breaking.6 In the building phase of crisis, usually observable before or during the initial period of organizational formation, the crises that emerge in the course of de­ monstrations and other movement activities are more episodic, unpredictable, and shorter-lived. The marches during the early months of the Water Protectors Movement are a prime example. While some violence and harassment did occur, most took place without crisis markers such as violent reprisal, forced standoffs, or paramilitary intervention. Bursting crises often, but not always, emerge after the core movement issues have been named and publicly addressed, the respective positions of the engaged parties have solidified, and protectors of the status quo have begun to feel threatened. Here the crises are marked by the speed, intensity, and unpredictability of violent reprisals. The attacks on anti-apartheid demonstrators in Black town­ ships, during worship services, and after funerals typify crises at the bursting stage. Physical harm and loss of life usually increase during this stage, again as the South African instance makes evident. The final phase, breaking crises, manifests either by a crescendo of violence or an abrupt and precipitous decline in violent reprisal and intervention. In the Polish Solidarity movement, the latter occurred. Communist authorities paid attention to the social and political shift before them. In the end, they got out of the way. What is critical to note is that this tripartite classification is in no way predictive. It is impossible to tell in the midst of a movement whether the conflict being experienced is the last gasp, a show of strength, or merely an opening foray. Rather, classifying the crisis stage as building, bursting, or breaking makes it possible to better analyze the use of religious resources after the fact. Public prayers offered in the building phase would, for example, typically be associated with some measure or discomfort but rarely violent reprisal from law enforcement and military forces. To find an instance in which performative protest prayer during this phase was immediate, prolonged, and pronounced would be worthy of closer inspection. Likewise, an instance of sacred song destabilizing rather than sustaining activists during the bursting stage should invite scholarly attention. Step 5 – analyze the degree to which protestors and their opponents share religious idioms in common. The Water Protectors and Civil Rights Movement examples are pertinent here. In the case of the latter, those who prayed in the streets and those who arrested and beat them for having done so shared a common language, belief patterns, and form of prayer. As a result, the claims made on divine support by the protestors frequently provoked their attackers into acts of violence because,

172

Religious resources in social movements

whether intentionally or not, the activists sent the message that God was on their side – not that of the protectors of the status quo. Like siblings who quarrel be­ cause they are more alike than different, the protestors and law enforcement of­ ficials they encountered shared the outlines of their faith in common and that helped shape the outlines of their conflict. By contrast, the indigenous Water Protectors who engaged in protest prayers rarely encountered law enforcement officials who shared their religious orientation. The prayers offered by this in­ digenous group of activists did not conform to the prayer practices that law en­ forcement officials knew and understood. To be certain, they appeared to recognize when indigenous protestors were engaged in a sacred act, but the cultural and religious import remained foreign. Violence still frequently erupted in response to protests infused with prayer, but the correlation was not as immediate or direct. At the same time, given the unfamiliar nature of the indigenous prayer practices – or perhaps because they were so different and therefore threatening – law enforcement officials more frequently violated personal sacred objects. The historical record reveals few if any instances of segregationists defiling rosaries, for example, where law enforcement officials confiscated or broke sacred tobacco pipes on multiple occasions. By paying attention to the overlap or disjuncture of religious idioms, religious studies scholars and historians of religion have the opportunity to mine the ten­ sions that emerge as religious practitioners bring religious practices into public spaces. The meaning and reception of that shift from sheltered sacred space into the open air of public demonstration often turns on whether those involved understand all that is being said in the process of that transition. To reference another example, when Pope John Paul II used outdoor masses to speak to mil­ lions of Catholic faithful, the Communist officials who looked on with concern may not have shared the system of belief held by those gathered to hear the Pope, but, having come from the same cultural milieu, they knew the codes and con­ duct. They recognized the hope that the Pope brought to the people. There was a reason that they cracked down on the church so often during decades of Communist rule. The church wielded a power that the Party members could not access. In this case, the church threatened them exactly because the Communist officials knew and understood the religious idioms employed by the Pope and other church officials. Step 6 – examine how activists use their bodies when employing religious resources. In the introduction, I articulated the idea of corporeal conduct. It was simply a way to draw attention to the bodies that knelt in the street while protesting, went without food for days on end, assembled in mass to listen to a worldwide religious leader, and sat chained to massive earthmoving equipment – all of which figured prominently in the narratives featured here. Postures, proximity, clothing, sacred vestments, what goes in the body, and what comes out all hold potential significance for the work of analyzing religious resources in social change movements.

Religious resources in social movements

173

Step 7 – tell the protest story as an unfolding of time in which religious resources mattered. Rather than treat religion as an accessory to the chronology or a curiosity born of a quaint but no longer relevant practice, the kinds of religious resources identified in this book are essential to an understanding of the events as they unfold. When presented in the full context that this seven-step process makes possible, the con­ tributions and limits of those religious resources will become fully apparent.

Classroom connections In many ways, the idea for this book emerged from a class I have taught on and off for more than decade. I call it, “Prayer and Civil Rights.” Students who take the course write primary source-based research papers on the ways in which religious resources showed up in the midst of the civil rights struggle. Over the years, topics have included Malcolm X’s Islamic identity and how that changed after his pilgrimage to Mecca, the role of women in the kneel-in movement in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s, how religiously rooted songs transformed the Civil Rights Movement in 1962, and the significance of the Deacons of Defense promoting the right to armed self-defense while using a religious title in their name. The students’ papers time and again prompted new questions and pushed me to look beyond the Civil Rights Movement itself to examine where else activists were using religious resources. As a result of their queries, I wrote this book. I mention this class and my students’ papers as I conclude because one of the most convincing and rigorously researched student essays that I have yet en­ countered took a different path. Rather than focus on the use of religious re­ sources in the Civil Rights Movement, one student examined freethinkers – those atheists, agnostics, and humanists who stood outside the Black Church, who did not attend a Nation of Islam mosque, who rarely set foot in store front churches or grand cathedrals. This student argued that Black freethinkers in the Civil Rights Movement – people like union organizer and strategist A. Philip Randolph, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader Stokely Carmichael, and Black Panther founder Huey Newton – helped move the civil rights agenda forward through the key organizing roles that they played even while also contributing to internal tensions that hampered the pursuit of those same goals. Like I said, the student wrote a strong paper. As is so often the case, I learned a great deal from what my student found in her research. I mention the paper at this point because it offers a crucial caution. Even though I have argued for the im­ portance of paying attention to the ways in which religiously motivated activists have brought religious resources to bear in social change movements as they have changed over time, it is essential to acknowledge that those are not the only factors at play. The seven-step corpuschrono-centered analysis and research process I have just described attempts to integrate additional factors like change over time and

174

Religious resources in social movements

crisis phase in order to better analyze the use of religious resources themselves, but that process does not acknowledge that some activists found those religious re­ sources to be quite distracting and, in some cases, even counter productive to the movement’s organizing goals. Recall, for example, Bluebird, the Water Protector quoted in Chapter Six, who said, “I’m not with this whole prayer mentality. We can sit around and do nothing back home.” And that is probably a very good place to stop. All research has its limits. As much as many of us who write works of history and religious studies scholarship would like our arguments to transform the field in which we write – if not beyond – most of us have to be satisfied with contributing one small piece to the patchwork quilt of research that forms our collective knowledge base. I have here made the case for a more somatically focused, historically informed, and nuanced exploration of religion’s role in social change movements. That is the quilt block I have to offer. But it is just one such piece. I look forward to encountering the other sections yet to be contributed to our knowledge quilt that will go on to examine freethinkers, religious communities not examined here, and those simply ambivalent about their or others’ relationship over time with the divine.

Notes 1 https://www.thedp.com/article/2020/06/george-floyd-murder-penn-statement-amygutmann-police-brutality (accessed August 11, 2020), Daily Pennsylvanian, photo by Chase Sutton, article by Tori Sousa, “After City Protests and Violence, Gutmann ad­ dresses George Floyd murder in statement,” May 31, 2020. 2 Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, “Editors’ Introduction,” in The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts, ed. Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 6–7. 3 Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 4 A robust literature discusses the idea of micro-step learning and instruction. Here is one example, Harry Fletcher-Wood, “Step by Step: Breaking Learning Down Using Behavioural Psychology,” Improving Teaching, https://improvingteaching.co.uk/2018/ 04/22/step-by-step-using-behavioural-psychology-to-break-tasks-down/. 5 The literature on borderlands scholarship is vibrant and extensive. For an example of how one author has successfully integrated insight from the borderlands field into their work, see, Kerry Pimblott, Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo, Illinois (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2017). 6 I offer this phased-crisis typography based on my research into this phenomenon that I have explored more extensively elsewhere. See, especially, Tobin Miller Shearer, “Striking at the Sacred: The Violence of Prayer, 1960–1969,” Open Theology 1 (2015): 126–33.

INDEX

Abernathy, Ralph 35–36, 55–56, 58, 60, 63, 67 abortion 69–86, 90–93 activist Russell Means 145 African-American Pentecostal congregation 134 African Americans, urban centers 170 African Independent Churches 128 African National Congress 124 Afrikans 131 Afro-American 40, 61, 63–66 Ahmedabad labor strike 15 AIC; see African Independent Churches AIDS 81 AIM; see American Indian Movement akrasia 13 Albany 2–3, 7, 33, 47–48, 56, 63, 67, 140 Alcatraz Island 144–145 alcohol 11, 153 Ali, Muhammad 19, 27 American Council on Historical Preservation 148 American Indian Movement 144 American Indians 143 American Medical Association 72 The Amsterdam News 40, 42, 53, 64–65 Anabaptists 167 ANC; see African National Congress Anderson, Benny 79 anti-abortion rhetoric 5 Anti-Defamation League 82 Army Corps of Engineers 146, 148–149, 155, 157 Army of God 70, 79, 83, 89, 91 Ashburn Baptist Church 54, 66 Association of Reform Rabbis 71 Atlanta 38, 40, 44, 49, 60–65, 78, 92

Auschwitz 97 Azanian People’s Organization 128–129 Baltimore 40, 45, 67, 93 Baptist clergy members 56 Belafonte, Harry 40–41 Bhagavad-Gita 13 Bigfoot, Wounded Knee massacre 145 Birmingham 3, 41, 44, 48–50, 57–59, 63–65 Black consciousness, gender 127–128 Black Consciousness Movement 122, 124–128 Black Elk, Wallace 145 Black Madonna 4–5, 95–102, 104, 107, 109, 112, 116–118, 166; arresting 100–102; martial law 111–114; pilgrimage 99–100 Black ministers 37–38 Black Panthers 144 Black People’s Convention 125, 127–128 Black power “Milwaukee Commandos,” 55 Black power movement 55 Blue Mountain Clinic 90 Bluebird 174 Boesak’s prayer, contextualizing 122–124 Brahmans - priests 11 Brando, Marlin 144 British Parliament 26 Brown ruling 40 Buddhism 12 Buitenkant Street Methodist Church 131, 137 Bureau of Reclamation 146 Burger, Warren, Justice 73 Bush, George H.W. 80, 83

176

Index

Cairo 47, 174 Calcutta 26–27 Cambridge 48–49, 67–68, 118 camps closing 156–158 Cape Town 129, 133, 136–137, 140 Catholic Church 71, 74, 95, 97, 106–107, 115, 170 Catholic Worker 88 Catholics 4–5, 42, 50, 69, 71–76, 79, 85, 88–89, 91, 95–98, 102, 105–108, 115, 123, 170, 172 ceremonial revolution 115–117 Chairman Mao 5 Chambers, T.M. 41 Charleston 35, 60 Chicago 9, 34, 40, 53–55, 60–61, 63–67, 76, 80, 90–91 Chicane, Frank 130 Chief Arvol Looking Horse 151 Christian Fellowship 40 Christian Identity Movement 80–81; influence 80–83; proponents 83 Christianity 12, 65, 81, 95, 100, 125–126, 139, 141, 143 Church of Latter Day Saints 88 Civil rights activists 4, 35–37, 49, 51–52, 57–58, 166 Civil Rights Movement 6, 9, 36–38, 40–50, 52, 54–68, 143, 159, 165, 170, 173 Claims of Truth 28 classroom connection 173–174 Cleveland 50, 65 Cold War 118, 170 Coloured People’s Congress 124 Concerned Women for America 75 conflict, internal tension, youth 153–156 Crusades 6 Dachau 97 Dakota Access Pipeline 4, 142, 145, 157, 161, 163, 169 Daley, Richard 53 Dalit caste 11, 24–25, 31 Dalit fasts 23–25 DAPL; see Dakota Access Pipeline Detroit 40, 74 Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery 44 Direct Action Day 27 Dobynes, James 57 Dutch Reformed Church 123 Eagle Warrior Society 145 early twentieth-century 71–72

Eisenhower-era policies of relocation 144 EMAC; see Emergency Management Assistance Compact Emergency Management Assistance Compact 149 emerging uses of prayer 43–44 Energy Transfer Partners 142, 147–149, 157–158 Environmental Protection Agency 148 Esoteric Christian Union 12 ETP; see Energy Transfer Partners fasting 25–28 Floyd, George 165–166, 174 freedom, through public prayer 58–60 Freedom Riders 45, 63 Fundamentalist Christians 88 funeral protest 132–133 Galloway Methodist in Jackson 50 Gandhi 4, 10–33, 166; public fasts 10; religious formation 11–13; in South Africa 14; 1924 Hindu-Muslim fast 18–20 gender; violence, public protest prayer 56–58; black consciousness 127–128 General Counsel of Polish Bishops 101 Godse, killer of Gandi 29–30 Green, Samuel 38 Gregory, George 93, 143–144, 161 Hindu idea of tapasya 25 Hinduism 10–12, 24 Hindus 4, 11–12, 16, 18, 24–25, 27, 29–30 Horace Mann High School 42 Howard University 38, 40–41 Humanae Vitae 72 Hyde Amendment 74 imagination, religious 138–139 Imperial Legislative Council 16 India, religious context 10–11 Indian Country 142, 145–146 Indian independence struggle 10, 22 Indian National Congress 16–19, 25 indigenous protest, history of 143–146 influence, Christian identity 80–83 internal tension, conflict, youth 153–156 Islam 12, 88, 173 Jainism 12 Jaruzelski, General 105, 107, 109 Jasna Góra Monastery 96 Jewish and Buddhist traditions 4 Jewish community 4, 36, 51, 80 Jewish population 42–43, 50, 81, 88

Index

Jim Crow 42, 51 Johannesburg 123, 136 Judaism 12 Jung, Karl 132 Kairos Document 124, 128 King, Martin Luther 35, 41, 47–48, 62, 66, 125, 150 The Kingdom of God is Within You 12 KKK 38, 42, 45, 52, 55, 57, 80; at Camp Pendleton 55; rally 38 kneeling 5–6, 35 Koop, Everett 75 Kshatriya - warriors 11 Ku Klux Klan; see KKK Lakota leader Bigfoot, Wounded Knee massacre 145 Lakota term for “water is life,” 149 Lakotan Ghost Dance movement 5 Lamply, Ray 82 leaders, religious 128–131 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 40 Leb’s Restaurant in Atlanta 49 Lewis and Clark expedition 146, 161 LGBT 81 Lincoln Memorial 48, 55, 61 Liquor Act 134 “Little Feather,” Michael 158 Littlethunder 152, 162 Loesch, Julie 74, 77 Looking Horse, Chief Arvol 151 Lord Rama 21 Lord’s Prayer 5, 38, 46, 113 Los Angeles 40, 44, 61–63, 66–67, 92 Lyon, Vernon Charles 47, 49, 64–65 Malcolm X 173 Mandela, Nelson 125, 134, 137–138 Manyano movement 133–136 Mao, Chairman 5 March Against Fear 58 March on Washington Movement 38 martial law, religious resources 107–108 Means, Russell 145 Merton, Thomas 88 Methodist clergy members 56 methodology, religious studies, social movements 169–173 Miller, Webb 22 Mni Sose 146–147 Mni Sose/Missouri River travels 146 Mni Wiconi- 149 Monson’s Restaurant 51 Montgomery 39, 44–45, 52, 61

177

Moral Majority 74, 81 Mount Caramel 37 Mount Caramel Baptist church 37 Mountbatten, Louis 26 Mpumlwana 127 Muhammad Ali 27 Muslims 4, 16, 18, 27, 29 NAACP 39–40, 47, 50, 61, 64–65 Nashville 44 Nation of Islam 88, 173 National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs 40 National Baptist Convention 48, 54 National Council of Negro Women 40 National Fraternal Council of Negro Churches in America 37 National Organization of Women 74 National Prayer Day 38 National Right to Life Committee 74 Native activists 142–143 Native American spirituality 143 Negro American Labor Council 50 Nehru 19–20, 25, 31 New Brighton Township 133 New Orleans 36 New York 8–9, 31, 33–34, 38–41, 49–50, 60–68, 72, 76, 90–93, 118–120, 134, 139–141, 154, 161 New York City 9, 38, 41, 50, 61–62, 67, 154 nonviolence, political campaigns 15–18 Norfolk 40 North Dakota Bakken oil wells 147 NRLC; see National Right to Life Committee Oceti Sakowin 147, 149, 151, 153, 157 Oglala Sioux members in Pine Ridge 145 Old Testament 12, 41, 70, 76, 89, 123 Olympia 144 Operation Rescue 75–80, 83, 89; emergent 75–77; violence 77–79 Orthodox Jews 50, 88 Our Lady of Czestochowa 100, 107, 118 Pakistan 18 Parsi faith 12 Pauline Fathers 99–100 Pax Christi peace movement 74 Philadelphia 39–40, 64–66, 91, 139, 165–166 Philadelphia Museum of Art 165–166 piety, period of 46–48 Pine Ridge 145, 150

178

Index

pipeline struggle 147–150 Pittsburgh 40–41, 60–62, 64–65 Pittsburgh Courier 41, 60–62, 64–65 Planned Parenthood 72, 82 Poitier, Sidney 40 Poland 4, 95–105, 107–109, 111, 113–120, 166, 170 Pope 114–115 Polish concentration camps 97 Polish secret police 108 Polish Solidarity 5, 95–98, 100, 102–118, 120 Pope; visits 102–105; return of 109–111 Poland 114–115 Pope John Paul II 103, 112, 116, 118, 172 Pope Paul VI 72 Pope Pious XII 98 Popieluszko, Jerzy 108, 112–113 Portier, Sidney 41 prayer 1, 6–8, 37–40, 43–46, 54–55, 158 pilgrimage 40–42; 1957 activity 42–43 Pretoria 14, 136 Princeton Theological Seminary 55 Pro-Life Action Network 75 Pro-lifers for Survival 74 Project: Save Our Babies 69–70 Protestant American religious groups 71 Protestant evangelicals 4, 74 public kneeling and associated prayer 6, 35 public prayer protest 37–40 Quakers 12 Quran 20, 29 Raleigh 47 Ramji, Ambedkar 23, 24 Reagan, Ronald 75, 83 Religion 160–161; Gandhi’s fasts 29–31; in protest ascendant 136–138 religion and violence, theories 86–87 religious, political, unity 28–29 religious imagination 138–139 religious leaders 128–131 religious resources, martial law 107–108 religious studies methodology, social movements 169–173 respectability and freedom, through public prayer 58–60 Roe case, aftermath 72–75 Roman Catholic clergy 71 Rosebud 149, 152 The Rowlatt Acts 16

Sabbath 82 SACC; see South African Council of Churches Sacred Stone 148–149, 152 sacred surety 83–84, 88–90 Salt March 20–23 San Francisco 63–64, 144 SASO; see South African Student Organization satyagraha philosophy, Gandhi 15 SCLC 35, 39–40, 42, 45, 47–49, 51, 53 Selma 51–52, 57, 65–66, 150 Shraddhanand 19 Shudra - artisans 11 sidewalk confrontations 84–86 Sikhism 12 Simon of Cyrene 105 singing 131–132 Sioux Nation lands 146 SNCC; see Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Sojourners for Truth and Justice 39 solidarity 105–107 Solidarity fame 5 Sontonga, Enoch 131 South Africa; Gandhi 14; religious, political roots 14–15 South Africa General Mission 12 South African Council of Churches 121, 128 South African Student Organization 125 South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement 4 South Dakota 144–145, 149, 154, 161 Southern Poverty Law Center 82 Soweto uprising 122–123 Spokesman-Review 82 Stalinist rule 97–98 Standing Rock community 147, 150 Standing Rock reservation 147 status quo prayers, activist prayers, contrasted 50–53 stories; theory and 3–6; import of 166–169 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 54, 65, 173 Tagore, Rabindranath 24 Talbert, Lewis, and Bobbie 45 Theosophy 12 Tolstoy, Leo 12 Treaty Camp 152 Tribal Historic Preservation 148 Truman, Harry 38

Index

Truth and Reconciliation Commission 137 Turtle Island 150, 155 Tuskegee 53 Tutu, Desmond 126–129, 132–133, 136–137, 139 Twin Lakes Country Club in Jackson 51 UCM; see University Christian Movement UDF; see United Democratic Front Unitarian Church of Arlington 41 United Democratic Front 128 United Farm Workers movement 74 United Methodist Alliance 50 University Christian Movement 125 urban centers, African Americans to 170 Vaishnava hymn 20 Vaishnava temple 11 Vaishya 11 Velandia-Onofre 154 Villa-Vicencio 121, 139–140

179

violence; political campaigns 15–18; in 1963, 48–49; gender, public protest prayer 56–58; Operation Rescue 77–79; of 1990s, 79–80; theories 86–87; intensification of 152–153 Vishnu 11, 21, 30 Walesa 5, 95, 105–107, 109, 111–113, 116–119 White Christian establishment 159 White supremacy organizations 80 woman, in prayer 7–8 World War I 15–16, 133 World War II 25, 106 Wounded Knee massacre, Lakota leader Bigfoot 145 Yervada prison 22 Younge, L. 53 youth, internal tension, conflict 153–156 Zoroastrianism 12