The keynote address for the Southern Partners Fund 2010 Regional Grantee Gathering was presented by Hollis Watkins, co-founder and President of Southern Echo. He was the first Mississippi student to become involved in 1961 in the Mississippi Voting Rights Project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Highlander Research and Education Center, the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network, and the Southern Sustainable Agricultural Working Group. Mr. Watkins is a founder and member of the Civil Rights Veterans of Mississippi.
We need to be extremely careful about the words we say. If we remember what is written in Scripture, it says:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
So human beings dwell among human beings. And in our quest for knowledge and understanding, words were spoken to us and we spread it, with our words, to others. Now we wonder why young people are the way they are – because we have often used harmful words in raising them. We have put out words that become monsters that we then have to deal with.
The Ego
One of our monsters is the Ego. It starts small and then it grows bigger and bigger. We start to do things, not for good reasons, but to outshine someone else. We will do a little something and become satisfied, saying “look what I did.” But we should never be satisfied with what we have accomplished because there are always other things out there for us to do. There is always more to accomplish.
The Importance of Faith
The Farmer has a lot of faith. He goes out there to plant the seed and has the patience and the faith to wait for it to grow. He knows that he can’t make growth happen all by himself. But we have to have faith in ourselves before we can have faith in anyone else. We need to develop faith in ourselves before we can develop it in other people. We judge other people by ourselves. A thief will not trust you because they know that they can’t be trusted.
Looking Back
It’s important to look back from where you once came from. Once you have knowlege of your past, it better prepares you for wherever you need to go. Too often when we look back, we go back there and we stay there, never moving forward to do what needs to be done. When I look back over where I come from, I know I don’t want to go back there. So I’m not going to be satisfied with where I am today. When I look back at my work, we were not organizers, but we mobilized people. There was not the empowering process that takes place in organizing. We didn’t know any better. We just went on faith and guts to move forward.
The Movement is ‘Sick’
Most of us today don’t work for a cause, we do it to make a little money. If you think I’m jiving, just tell your staff that you won’t have any money for a few weeks to pay them. As as result of the money, we will do a little bit for the cause.
The state of the social justice movement is sick. It’s ill. It’s sick because people have gotten away from doing things for a cause. They’ve gotten away of being responsible to the community and are instead looking out for “what’s in it for me.” In the 50s and 60s people did the work for a cause. Those of us that have reached a certain age, we say, “this is good enough for me” and we don’t want young people to come in with their energy. Young people come in shining with their 200 watt light bulb that outshines our little 25 watt bulb. So we say, “Naw baby, you don’t come in here shining like that, you want to come in here you gotta do what I say, how I say or you can let the doorknob hit you…”
We need to look at and examine the word justice, which is a principle of fair dealings with one another. But because we don’t deal with each other fairly, people always looking for payback because they feel they have not received justice.
We have to come out of a state of denial and say we’re not where we want to be and not where we ought to be. We have to out our resources together for the betterment of the entire community. A lot of us, once we get to a certain level in our organizations feel that this is our personal thing – we run it. We get to a state where we feel we don’t have to answer to anybody. So we need to become the kind of men and women that we think we are.
It’s too often that we talk what’s the role of young people in the movement. They should have the same role as anybody else! All of us are important, yet we look at ourselves as being more important than others. I tell young people:
“If we older folks can’t figure out how to create a space for you, you have to get there anyway. I want you to respect me for who I am and what I have done. but this is your day, your time to shine to use your gift to do what you are here to do. Under no circumstances can you allow me to hold the movement back.”
Getting Over the Fear
We have to get over the fear.
We can’t allow the fear keep us from saying what needs to be said to whom it needs to be said. If you’re not working for a cause then you need to reexamine yourself. We need to reevaluate ourselves and be honest about our shortcomings. If we do that, then we will begin to make a lot more progress than we have. If we know that the words we use become flesh, I hope you will join me and put the word out there for it to become reality.
Freedom come and it won’t be long.
Full disclosure: Southern Partners Fund paid me to provide blogging services for this event to leverage the power of social media to share their stories with the wider philanthropic community. The views expressed here are solely my own, however, and I stand by my commitment to authentic coverage of these issues.
