Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my guest, my friend, civil rights leader and activist Dr. Bernard Lafayette. This podcast
is a project of BeatitudesCenter.org, where you can find many other podcasts and Zoom programs
on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence and working for a more just,
more nonviolent world. I'd like to begin with a little prayer, so I just invite everyone to
take a deep breath and relax and enter into the presence of the God of peace who loves you
infinitely. And let's welcome the nonviolent Jesus with us and ask for the grace to follow
the nonviolent Jesus ever more faithfully and do God's will. God of peace, thank you for all the
blessings of life and love and peace that you give us. Be with us now as we reflect on the life
of teaching and teachings of the nonviolent Jesus that we might follow him more faithfully. And as
we reflect on Dr. King for his 100th birthday, so that we might do our part to help end racism
and war, poverty and violence, executions, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction,
and welcome your reign of universal love, universal compassion, and universal peace.
In Jesus' name, amen. I'm delighted to welcome today my friend and our civil rights leader,
Dr. Bernard Lafayette, who's one of the heroes of the civil rights movement, and was also Dr. King's
assistant. Bernard's an activist and organizer who played a leading role in the Selma voting rights
movement, but goes back to the Nashville student movement with our friends, Reverend Jim Lawson,
and one of his best friends, Congressman John Lewis, who's one of the freedom writers and worked
closely with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. An ordained Baptist minister, Bernard Lafayette, later founded the Center for Peace and
Nonviolent Studies at the University of Rhode Island, which offers a wonderful summer institute
each year on Kingian nonviolence, which I highly recommend. He's held thousands of workshops and
given thousands of talks on Dr. King and Kingian nonviolence around the world, especially in Africa.
Bernard Lafayette, welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You're very welcome here.
Thank you.
Hey, it's Dr. King's 100th birthday. Tell us your thoughts on this occasion, and I'd love to ask you,
what was it like when you first met him way back when?
Well, I met Martin Luther King for the first time in Nashville. We had our Nashville movement,
and we called it a central committee, and it was made up of student representatives from the
different colleges and universities there in Nashville, and we invited Martin Luther King
to come and speak at Fisk University. So that was the first time I actually met him, and it was really great.
And Marion Barry was there, and like John Lewis, Diane Nash, and many others who were from different
colleges and universities, both black and white, there in Nashville. So I had been keeping up with him,
of course, because of his leadership ability, and he was such a dynamic person. And in addition to speaking,
he led marches and demonstrations and that kind of thing. And such an emphasis on nonviolence,
and I felt very comfortable with that, because that's what our goal was, to have a more peaceful
and nonviolent communities, and that meant we have a more peaceful country, and that's
where we want to live in. And so I was very excited about him, and we embraced what he taught there for us.
And you work with him so closely over the years in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
and then in SNCC, and then in Selma. What memories of Dr. King do you have in those years?
I know that you've been asked that a million times, and that's almost silly to say, but
it's so helpful to hear your stories, Bernard. What was he like during all those days?
Well, Dr. King was really unusual. He was not an ordinary person, and I was very much impressed
with him, and felt that he was the ideal person as a leader, and people were following him.
It was absolutely incredible.
What was so unusual about him? Why was he not ordinary?
Well, it's hard for people to believe this, but Martin Luther King was head of SLC, of course,
and he did not chair his own staff meetings. All these people who were on his staff,
he didn't sit at the head of the table or whatever. He sat on a side seat and listened to what people
had to say, and he simply asked questions. I learned that from him, rather than making
statements in your staff meeting and telling people what to do. He simply asked questions,
because he relied upon the people who were on his staff, and that kind of thing.
I was a little surprised, because I was working in Chicago, and Martin Luther King had sent for me
to come and to be on his staff there in Atlanta. I didn't know what in the world to do. I studied
under Jim Lawson, and he was excellent. I really admired Jim Lawson and the way he taught
and the way he shared with others. So Martin Luther King invited me to be on his staff,
and I said, well, I need to know what he expected me to do. So I was working with the Quakers,
the American Friends Service Committee in Chicago, and we were doing an open housing movement,
and in the slums movement, stuff like that. In fact, I recruited Jesse Jackson
on the staff, and he worked with us there. So I did not hear anything from Martin Luther King,
and so he called me directly and said, when are you coming to Atlanta?
That's great.
So I said, well, I was waiting to get the invitation and the job description,
because he just simply wanted me to come to Atlanta and be on the staff. So
he said, Andy, I heard him in the background, he was on the telephone in Atlanta, and I was in
Chicago. He said, did you send that letter to Lafayette? Martin Luther King, that's why he
called me Lafayette, my last name, because he had Bernard Lee as his staff person. So he called him
Bernard, okay, and called me Lafayette. So you never heard him say, you know, never call me Bernard.
So he said, did you write that job description for Lafayette? And Andrew Young says,
I think I wrote the letter, but I haven't sent it, you know, whatever. So Martin Luther King was a
little impatient. So he says, why don't you just come on down to Atlanta and write your own job
description. So, wow, write my own job description. So, and by the way, the service committee in the
Quakers, they had a really established organization. In fact, they, you know, had a pretty nice salary.
Yeah. So you're not going to have any of that with Dr. King, in other words.
No, they hadn't made it. It's kind of awful like that.
But you said yes, and you moved there. Do you remember what year we're talking about?
Oh, boy. Let's see what year that was.
After Selma or before Selma, 65?
Yeah, it was in, I think it was back in like 65, yeah, something like that. Yeah. But what happened is that
I ended up going to Selma because we had already gone on the freedom rides and that kind of thing,
et cetera. And John Lewis, for example, started working with the scope or something like that,
that scope. But it was an organization in Atlanta, and it was working on voter registration. Now,
direct action, as opposed to voter registration, was two separate things at that time. And it was
a little more conservative voter registration, because you're just getting people out to register
to vote. But see, when you're trained in nonviolence and direct action, even voter registration
becomes a nonviolent direct action approach, making that kind of thing.
Mm-hmm. Making that kind of thing happen. So I decided that I was going to work on voter registration.
So I went down to talk to James Foreman, because he was, you know, it was SNCC,
the Student Nonviolent Courting Committee, and I wanted to get an assignment to one of the voter
registration projects. Charles Sherrod was in Albany, Georgia, and Bob Moses was in Mississippi.
And so they didn't have anybody in Alabama. So I told James Foreman, and by the way, some people
don't know this, I helped to recruit Foreman to be head of SNCC, because he was a professor,
okay? And so he related to students. And we needed somebody who was mature and someone who was,
you know, also felt comfortable with students, but not try to run them and be in charge of them,
that kind of thing, but to be supportive of them and to help them. That's the kind of person he was.
So he was the, you know, executive director of SNCC.
So you went to Selma then, huh? That's what brought you…
Uh-huh.
That led you to Selma?
Yeah. What happened is that I went to get an assignment in Atlanta, and James Foreman told me
there were no more assignments, no more places, because they had already assigned people to
different states and everything, directors. And I looked on the blackboard, the wall there in the
office, and I said, wait a minute, you got an X here through Alabama. He said, yeah, we already
sent two different groups there. And they came back and said that, you know, you can't accomplish
anything there because the blacks are too scared and the whites are too mean. And there were two
different groups they had sent already, about four people in each of the groups. They came back and
they agreed that nothing could happen in Selma or Alabama. And I said to myself quietly, what do you
mean? Alabama? You had Montgomery? I mean, that's where, you know, you had the local boycott,
and then you already had Birmingham. But then you tell me that you can't accomplish anything in
Alabama? That doesn't make sense to me. So they didn't expect anything. And so he said, well, if
you want to go take a look at it, you know, I said, take a look at it. No, I don't want to take a look
at it. I'll take it. You know? So I felt real comfortable because I was going to be the one
real comfortable because I was going to make something happen where nothing was expected to
happen. So I, you know, I've been involved in the Birmingham movement a little bit, you know,
and that kind of thing. And I felt comfortable as I finished the freedom rights and all that kind of
thing. And we'd go on through, you know, Alabama. And so I said, okay. So I felt really comfortable
because here nothing was expected to happen. So my approach was academic.
And I felt comfortable because I had no pressure on me so I could take my time and nobody expected
anything to happen. And we have some students around, not students, but some people around now
who own those original teams that was assigned to Alabama. And they're the ones who came back and
said nothing could happen there. And I don't call their names because, you know, it isn't necessary.
But I took it. And so the first thing I did was to say, I'm going to do some research
so I can understand why that attitude was about the people in South Alabama.
So that's my approach to even studying nonviolence. It's an academic thing as well
that is studying the history and all the things that becomes a mystery. That's the thing that you
approach. So it's a matter of having a deep appreciation for the history so it won't be a
mystery. And so what I did was start right there in Atlanta and start studying Alabama. That's where
the first research started in Atlanta. And I could not find a lot of information about the segregation
and all that kind of stuff in Alabama. But I found there was a publication that the, I think it was
the White Citizen Council had a monthly publication about that. So I wanted to, I went to the
library and I could not go to any of the White libraries there. So they didn't have very much
information on the White Citizen Council and White people and that kind of thing in the libraries in
Atlanta. So there was only one place I found that where I could go and study and they had a monthly
publication on the White Citizen Council. And you know what that was? Where? That was in
what was it? Tuskegee. Tuskegee Institute. That's what it was called, Tuskegee Institute. That's
what it was called now. The library. So I went to the library there and I shouldn't say there, here.
I'm in Alabama now. That's where you live now in Tuskegee. Yeah. Tuskegee, right there, right around
the corner. Let me ask you, because we don't have too much time, but so you were there throughout
the whole Selma movement and the bridge crossing because I thought, where were you?
Yes. So what do you want people to know about Selma and all that happened? The first bridge
crossing the police charged and John Lewis and so many were hurt. And the second one, Dr. King came
in and then stopped the march. And the third, he called people to come from all over the country,
especially church leaders. And there was this massive march from Selma to Montgomery for voting
rights. What do you want people to know about the power of nonviolence from the whole Selma campaign,
which you can, by the way, folks, see the movie Selma if you haven't. But what do you want people
to know about that? Well, number one, you don't label people and then behave towards them based on
what your perception is of them. Like for example, when I went in, I felt that if Selma was going to
change, the people in Selma had to make the decision that they were going to change, not me.
So I had to get them motivated and organized to do their own recruiting and their own
organizing and their own training. So Mrs. Boynton, Amelia Boynton, she was so, she was very much
committed to the voter registration movement and stuff like that. So I set up my office in her office.
Okay. And then JL Chestnut's office was in that office. So all three of us had the same office.
And the office was located across the street from the county jail. Okay. Yeah. And next door to our
office was the funeral home. Okay. All right. There's a jail, there's a funeral home, and around
the corner was a bumper shop with black barbers in the back, in the shop. And they only cut white hair.
I went to the barbershop, you know, black barbershop, sat down, and nobody else was in there but the
barbers, and they were cleaning their instruments and everything, ignored me. So I was, what was
going on here? And I was thinking maybe because they knew I was involved in the movement. No,
they didn't cut black hair, only white hair. So I thought that was pretty interesting. So there
were some interesting things happen. Like one interesting thing I want to point out is that
one of the white men came to me, he was from the rural areas there in Dallas County,
and he said, I understand that you help black folks get ready to devote. And of course I did,
and I said yes. He said, well, I got a bunch of them who work for me, and he was one of those
tenant farmers. And he said, they need some help in getting registered to vote. I was shocked.
Wow.
And then we kept talking. I told him yes, well, you know, I'd be happy to help, you know,
black folks get registered to vote. And we had our voting thing on the top floor of the
funeral home on the corner of my office in Selma. And we had people there teaching folks how to fill
out the forms, because it was about 30 questions they had to answer. Okay. So I helped him, and I
talked to the black folks who I was helping, and they said, yeah, he has a son who's getting,
the white man, had a son who was getting ready to graduate from college, and he wanted to come back
home to Dallas County, and he wanted to run for political office. So they wanted to get all these
black folks who were tenant farmers registered to vote. That was his motive. Okay. No problem.
We'd be glad to get him registered to vote, all these black folks. So, and you have to have a
person to sign your voter registration test when you take it. And this white man signed for everybody.
Wow, that's a rare story. I urge people to watch the movie Selma if they haven't to see
all what Bernard is talking about. We don't have too much time, and there's so much to
discuss Bernard, and I urge people to watch the movie. I think it's a great movie. I think it's
Bernard, and I urge people to read Bernard's memoir and the other civil rights books.
Let me jump ahead a little bit to that famous moment in Memphis where Dr. King said one of
his last words to you. I've never, I don't think ever had the chance to ask you about it, and I
would like you to tell us the story about it and what it means. So now we jump ahead to 1968.
You're Martin King's assistant. You're on the staff. He's planning the Poor People's Campaign.
He's come out against the Vietnam War. Jim Lawson says we got to go to Memphis to help with the
garbage strikers and workers there on strike. And it's April 4th, 1968, that Thursday,
and he's killed that night. And as you're leaving to go to DC to fly off to work on the Poor People's
Campaign, which is just two months away, Dr. King turns to you and says, here's the next thing we
got to do. Tell us that story Bernard and what it means for you and how we can live out Dr. King's
last vision.
Well, Martin Luther King was always very responsive when it came to poor people.
I would be remiss if I didn't tell you because it has an impact on me. And that was when in Atlanta,
Georgia, Martin Luther King's house was not too far, like a walking distance to the office where
we had our SCLC office. So he would walk rather than drive to the office only two or three blocks.
And the poor people used to line up. They used to line up because Martin Luther King
would pass out a dollar bills to them. So he always had a pocket full of dollar bills,
one dollar bills. And as he walked to the office, okay, on his way to work, he would pass out the
one dollar bills.
I never knew that about him.
I know a lot of people didn't know that. And that's what caused me to do this. I can't ignore
people when they're begging for money. And I was always very, very, very, very, very, very
happy. Yeah, even they're begging on television, it's a big problem for me. Okay. But anyway,
that was one of the characteristics of Martin Luther King, even though, you know, everything
else. Well, he was called to Memphis, as you say, by Jim Lawson and some of the other garbage
workers and leaders, because they were on strike. And one of the people that got injured, that's
what happened. Okay. Yeah. And so it was going to affect the garbage workers, because they
couldn't continue to work, but they wanted to inspire them. So we left our meeting, we were in
a staff meeting in Atlanta, at the office when we got the call. Okay. So we said, okay. So Martin
Luther King and Bernard Lee went up there. And when they were having a march, some gang leaders,
black gang leaders, they got downtown, and they started breaking out windows and, you know,
getting a violent situation. And Martin Luther King didn't want that to be the image that was left.
So he sent for us. And all of us went on a plane, except Bennett. Bennett didn't fly. He always
drove. Okay. That was one of our staff people. But Darcy Cotton and Bernard Lee was with Martin
Luther King when he went up there to Memphis. And all of us went up and did the march with Martin
Luther King, because the other one was kind of violent. But he spoke at the church that night,
and he was so excited. He got people riled up and everything, et cetera. I was there with him.
And Martin Luther King had already decided that he was going to have a Poor People's Campaign.
Right.
And he wanted, so he wanted me to go ahead and do the press release of the Poor People's Campaign.
So at night, I was working on press release. That's why I didn't go to the mass meeting
when Martin Luther King spoke.
Oh, you didn't hear him say, I've been to the mountaintop. You probably heard that before.
No. Yeah, I heard it before.
Yeah.
Yes.
So you're there in the hotel working on the press release, and the next day is April 4th.
Yes. And he couldn't read it that night because he was so excited when he came back
from the speech, you know. And so I got up the next morning, and I wanted to read the press
statement to Martin Luther King. Okay. And so I read the, because he was going to go to,
you know, to Washington, DC, so we could have a press conference, a press statement. Okay.
Yeah. So anyway, Martin Luther King, prior to that, had told people that I was going to be the,
you know, the staff person in charge of the campaign. And that's why, picture on the book,
on my book, that's why I'm looking so confused. Just, I was like, why would he make me the,
you know, but that's what he did. I never did get a chance to talk to him, and that's why he
chose me among all of the other people. They were older than I was, okay. And I was older than Jesse,
I was older than Jesse, but the rest of them, darned the cotton. So anyway.
So yeah, he says to you.
Yeah. So he says to me, after I read the statement, the press statement, he said, yeah,
he said, you go ahead and get started, and I'll do that. So I was not there. I was on my way to
the airport, headed on down to get things ready for the campaign, set up the office we were going
to have there at 1410U. And I called, well, DeFontre was supposed to pick me up at the airport,
okay, in DC, but nobody was there. So I called the office to find out, and they said that Martin
Luther King had been shot. Well, I didn't think that he was fatal. So I called another
radio station at the airport that had these stations, radio stations, and you could get two
radio stations at the same time, because he had a lot of telephone booths around a circle in the
airport in DC. So I called another one, and they read the press release on the phone. And I really
didn't think that he was going to be fatal, because he'd been stabbed in Washington,
where was it, Washington, DC.
In Harlem, in Harlem in 1960.
Harlem, yeah. Yeah, in the park. Yeah, he'd been...
Yeah, that's so tragic. Hey, but Bernard, just before you left there, that's when he turned to
you and said, make a note for the next movement where we're going to have to institutionalize and
internationalize nonviolence. You remember that?
Yes, I do.
That's an incredible thing he said to you.
Yes.
And one of his last words is like, oh, and by the way, when we get justice for all the poor
of the United States, and then we're going to march across the street and shut down the Pentagon
and end the Vietnam War, then Bernard, remind me, we're going to take nonviolence to the whole
world, and we're going to institutionalize it so it's the norm. How are we going to do that, Bernard?
Yes.
That's like a last vision of Dr. King. No one talks about that.
We've forgotten so much about his passion and vision of nonviolence.
But you know what?
What?
I'm glad that you called me because I'm going to tell you our next major move
to bring harmony and unity and peace and nonviolence to the world.
Tell me.
What we're going to do is this. We're going to do it through music.
Okay.
And we're going to start with the children, and they're going to learn like, we shall overcome
in different languages. Like, for example, they're going to learn, we shall overcome in Spanish.
And then they're going to learn in Chinese.
Then they're going to learn in different African languages.
And that's what the young people are going to do in their schools and in their churches and in
other places.
That's great.
Okay.
That's great. So, we have to end, Bernard. We have to end. And when folks who are listening,
Bernard Lafayette has spent his whole life giving thousands of workshops and talks on
Kingian nonviolence, especially in Africa. He knows what he's talking about.
For the last question, because we do have to go, what would be one or two things you want people
to know about Dr. King's way of nonviolence?
Well, the first thing I would want them to know about Martin Luther King is that you never give
up and you never give in.
That's great. That's great, Bernard. That's very helpful. Tell me more.
And when you look at the sky, okay, that's why you look at it from the mountaintop.
That's what you're doing. You're looking at a larger vision of what the world could be.
So, you don't just stop with what you see today, but when you go to the mountaintop, you can see,
okay, the promised land.
And that's what we're talking about.
We're having a larger vision of what we can see and what we are working towards,
working towards a world that will be able to be one world of people.
That's a great note to end on and a great story, Bernard. And
with you and Martin Luther King, you made nonviolence contagious, and that's our hope.
And here you are, you're marking the 100th birthday of Martin Luther King, and
you're reminding us and urging us all not to give up and not to give in,
but to take the big view from the mountaintop and become universal people of universal love.
I really thank you for that.
I'm sorry we don't have hours to hear all your great stories.
Thank you.
And thank you, friends, for listening to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast.
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Join me next week when my guest will be my friend's sister, Helen Brejohn,
author of Dead Man Walking. May the God of Peace bless everyone.
Keep on following the Nonviolent Jesus. See you next time.